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2.8 I have a motion from uh board member Dolby and a second by Dr Kaiser any further discussion board okay thank you we call for a vote all those in favor I I we're a little disjointed but we got them all in thank you board that was unanimous okay um we um uh yeah I I know from the it's a different a different human I'm sorry I'm we have we have one um issue still remaining we have tried several times to reach um Jessica Montgomery let's try one more time uh Mr Shephard okay I'll be calling Jessica Montgomery no response mailbox is still full all right well we have now tried three times so I I think we've really tried to reach out thank you Mr Shephard okay um under uh Human Resources uh discussion action Declaration of a need for fully qualified teacher Mr hanin okay thank you so um each year I bring to you a declaration of need um that we need to submit to CTC which is the commission on teacher credentialing um when we have a teacher that's not fully credential um this year we have a larger number than normal typically I bring them forward to you for internships when we have a um a new teacher um typically in special education that is working on their credential and we can't find another replacement but we have hired over three times the number of teachers this year that we normally do in a typical year um because of the Esser dollars um reduction in class sizes and the a period day at um Chico High School school and we're not the only ones um every District um in the state is hiring extra teachers for the same reasons so there's a limited number of folks out there so we're kind of kind of stretching it here this year we have 13 staff members that um we we need to file emergency emergency credentials or limited assignment permits um on and we need board approval in order to do that before we can um submit the Declaration in need to the CTC thank you um any uh clarification from board members any public comment indicated no public comment thank you board um do we have a motion associated with this agenda item I will move oh you want to move in I'd like to if you don't mind yeah I'd like to move this item please second thank you motion from Mr tennis and a second from Dr Kaiser um I see no other indication of Need for discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I I I thank you Mr Lando we do recognize your vote okay discussion action uh resolution number 1540-nm ordering layoffs Mr hanlin okay and this is a um this is something we bring to you um intermittently um we have a number of positions that we're eliminating um for different reasons um they just could be not needed um by the school site um for example instructional pair professionals are often assigned to specific students and if they move out of the school or something like that they're they're no longer needed none of these positions are currently um have people in them so we're not actually laying off anyone so U we try to always time it where um uh folks are no longer in that position and and there's no harm to individuals so um and and we have had conversations with the Union on these as always um so um they're in agreement and um again no lay off thank you Mr Hanan has there been any public comment request there is no public comment no comment um board do we have uh any motions associated with this agenda item I'd like to move this item second thank you I have a a motion from Mr tennis the second from Dr Kaiser I see no indications and requests for additional discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I thank you board it's unanimous um Mr landow I did not hear you are did you vote in the affirmative thank you okay um discussion action again on resolution 1541-ii classified service Mr hanin so this is similar to the previous item only that these positions are not csca CA positions so they're not um they're not part of the um Association uh these are parent restricted AIDS um parent restricted AIDS are a parent can only occupy that position while they have a child in that school again none of these positions are occupied as a matter of fact um I think nearly all of our parent AIDS resigned during covid because they weren't needed so um this is clean up thank you um board do I have any motions associated with this agenda item I'd like to move this item second I have a motion from Mr tennis uh second from Dr Kaiser see no further discussion uh requests indicated all those in favor I thank you I did hear you Mr um landow thank you just to confirm uh I did not ask for public comment but there were no public com okay thank you okay request to move the August regular Board of Education meeting from August 18th to 25th this is a request from staff to move the um August 18th meeting which is the first Wednesday of the school year to the following week in a typical year um we would be able to give an update as to student enrollment and Staffing but with the addition of so many new uh staff members and the key key point is we really want to be able to be firm in our enrollment number um we saw a decline in enrollment last year we are hopeful that that decline was due to the cover environment and the impact it had on our TK K and early grades enrollment um so in order to really track down and make sure that we can confirm and drop students that don't show make sure that we have our enrollment at each School site confirmed we're requesting to move that to the 20 thank you um any questions board members do we have any public comment there is no public comment thank you do I have a motion associated with this agenda item I'll move I'll second thank you um member Doby uh moves approval uh Dr Kaiser seconded um see no requests for additional disc discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I I thank you Mr landow that is unanimous okay the next item is a Community member request from n State shelter team to um and they presented a proposal for a safe spot community at the Henshaw Farm site um in a way of introducing um this discussion it is an informational only item because it uh was submitted and is within the scope of um responsibility of the district it is properly brought to us tonight um I believe that the um person submitting this Charles there you are if you could step forward and introduce yourself thank you thank you very much board members for this opportunity my name is Charles withun I have worked in Chico since 1972 established and operated a business for businesses in Chico for over 40 years that employs several people in Chico to this day I am the parent of a chico High valedictorian and a former Chico High Sports booster I would not be here tonight but one estimate there is well over 100 homeless students in the Chico Unified School District another estimate is around 200 students homeless in Chico Unified School District in all of the 90s of the 80s and the 70s in my history of working in Chico reading the newspaper and trying to pay attention I never heard of hundreds of Chico Unified School Districts being students homeless this is a relatively new phenomenon chronic absenteeism among homeless students is about double that of the students in general the director of California Coalition for youth said that the actual count of homeless students is irrelevant all the numbers are far too high just a couple of months ago in April in Hayward a nonprofit confirmed plans working with the Hayward Unified School District to install n n portable Youth Shelter buildings on a portion of Hayward Unified School District property if you saw the nation magazine January of this year Pitzer prize-winning journalist Dale maharidge had the cover story article and according to his research between four to 5 million California residents are at risk of eviction this year that's 12% of the entire California population at risk of eviction this year there is a likelihood that our shelter crisis will get worse we may not be at the end of this we may be at the beginning and if the board is not ready tonight to move forward with our proposal to follow the successful examples in Oregon to agendize declaring a shelter crisis and start a safe spot Community then alternatively our group requests that we at least continue this conversation the but County Supervisors say that we have a shelter crisis and it could get worse alternatively Northstate shelter team requests tonight that a report on Chico Unified School District homeless students be on every Board of Education agenda until some action is taken or the issue is resolved and further we request that the board direct staff to meet with North State shelter team representatives to review options and plans to see if one is appropriate to our circumstances at some point in the future thank you thank you Charles and Charles just as as an aside thank you for the work you're doing to getting the um everheart village project um about halfway done you're welcome thank you um Mr Baltimore um I did ask for some um legal advice on on what this kind of an action would um mean for us could you give just a brief uh overview of the response from our Council uh yes we were just provided kind of an outline of of challenges or concerns that the board would want to consider if you were to go down this road uh first one is the impact to the California Department of Education approval of the of the site for a school we actually have to have soil sampling and there's a process that we have to go through through California Department of Education any deviation of use from what currently is being done or through educational programs would may be challenging um the program uh our a program at Chico High School currently uses the site I actually drove by there this evening before coming here and it's actually fully being used um so there's nothing really on that location currently that's not part of the a program as we know right now uh squa may be generated um we would may have to go through a few additional steps if we were to use that site for something other than an educational facility related to squa uh there would we still think costs I think Mr withun in his proposal has talked about providing quite a few Services um related to it but we still believe the district would have additional costs to monitor maintain review that School site itself or that location itself uh one concern would be the ability to remove any occupants that once they are there maybe some challenge of getting them to move off the site when that time came it is noted that um there are other public Partners in the community versus The District's focus on education and then the last one is related to liability insurance although um through a lease we could possibly transfer liability to an outside organization the the requirement that we would place on that liability insurance would be pretty substantial about just the amount of coverage and the ability to get it so that's again some challenges that that we would have to work through um and for the board to consider if this was to be agenda is going forward if I if I may our request is to continue the conversation and to look at all possible sites and plans for example the Chico Unified St District owns a large service yard where so many buses are parked they they could they could be parked elsewhere and that would be land could be liberated I I um and it's it's not a school our Focus tonight is this one request and one issue and so I'm going to limit our comments and discussion to that one item but uh Pard thank you I do understand we have um five requests for input on this item yes we do comments from the public we do we have Tangi Johnson uh is indicated to be an inperson Tangi Johnson she couldn't make it thank you next one is JoJo Smith in person she could not make thank you and the last inperson is Angie Taylor and then we have a phone call Angie Taylor in person she's not here thank you so I will call Dr Robert Bowman good evening Dr is John Shepard attempting to reach you from Chico Unified School District thank you voicemail uh I would like to mention that I believe all board members received a lake the communication from um Dr Balman regarding this issue and I know that I I did read it I would assume that the other board members have also seen it um on on this issue uh Miss sty uh I know that we have um a program fully funded to keep very close track on our unhoused students at the end of the year last year um can you give us a count on what we were able to verify as unhoused for chica unified yeah as of June 3 uh we had three unhoused um homeless students and we we don't know now because we haven't been back in session so our targeted case managers are the ones as long u that usually handle us and we do have a another staff person that um is our liaison with our our homeless yes we have a full-time homeless liaison that is working with our school sites as well as the targeted case managers doe Outreach to identify and support any students and um that was just for the Public's sake as well as everyone else the this is a problem that we do recognize the statistics on the impact of homelessness on our students um we're all very aware of and we are making a considerate effort to um do what we can within our educational Frameworks to um to help with the problem president did I ask a question or ask CL clarification questions um so I saw in email um to us to answer that question earlier um that it was specified that that the those numbers that you just shared were of the unsheltered houseless or homeless students and so we have um different Cate categories right of of our of our homeless population um and so those were the shelterless students um which is a particular distinction from students who are living in situations that aren't necessarily a permanent home type uh situation and so do you have do we have the number on hand of students who are in an um an unstable housing situation that's not that's not unsheltered but is still categorized as homeless I think uh Ted Sullivan can help us out that students that fall under mckenny vento that are we we call doubled up kind of like you said in unstable living situations there's about 500 students give or take that kind of fell into that category okay thank you for clarifying that and um a follow-up question um that I had also is um when we're discussing those particular numbers those are only students in our district that are are enrolled in our district correct it's not counting um minor children who might not be enrolled in our schools but maybe um living unsheltered or homeless within our School District boundaries correct correct okay so we don't know those numbers I think I asked about that a few months ago and we didn't really know if there was even a way to obtain those numbers have we attempted to obtain those numbers yes um we did call the county office and who tracks that number for us and the last numbers I believe that had was 2018 and 19 um at the beginning of the fire and um they do not have the numbers for each individual school they have numbers for each they we can get our district but we cannot get the county numbers from them okay I think that it's um probably important to somehow figure out how to source that information because as a governing board we we do have you know a duty to our District boundary and the Stu and the potential students that would possibly BCD students whether or not they're enrolled in our schools um just to be able to track that particular issue and if there is a service that we might be able to provide to um a to be able to support minor children who are living in an unstable housing situation if there's any way that we can provide um services or or partner with service providers um in order to um allow those children even if they're under school age because those are possibly our future students um the stability of of home or or um a stable shelter situation um so I guess that my questions are just kind of to highlight the fact that when we say two or three that's two or three too many for one you know we have two two or three shelterless students at this time that are cusd enrolled students however that number could be bigger if we were to capture the actual number of of minor children living within School District boundaries which goes all the way up to Forest Ranch and all the way out to Nord and you know is a quite a quite large range it it reaches beyond the city of Chico city limits so um just I think for this conversation and and with the anticipation of there probably being some evictions with some instability with um um economy and you know what's happening with uh backlogging of of being able to pay rent and those types of things the housing situation where we don't have enough um uh low-income housing um on on deck for you know young families um who maybe not be uh a high enough income for what housing is available just it's a compounding issue that um maybe we should consider being prepared in intervening to to become a a um a source for uh that support for for students or for children who would be potential CD students um so anyway those those were my thoughts um on on those numbers Mr Soloman are are you still available I I am and I would say you know when our Target case managers I'm sorry when our Target case managers are working with our currently enrolled CSD families often is the case that there's other younger siblings that are involved that may be following into what bby's talking about and when they're working with them they're working with the whole family to try to make sure services are are are flowing towards and kind of meeting their needs as well thanks for clarifying that and um there was one last question that I had that kind of got brought up with the words um providing services and we we have our Outreach but what is the extent of the services that we do currently provide I mean I know that there's Outreach but how far does that go for for our students and providing support for them I I would say it's really on a case-by casee basis I I've seen everything from helping transport you know personally in cars providing Transportation gas cards food clothing um helping with Section 8 housing applications um kind of a range really it really is very nuanced and personalized as far as what the family is looking for or needing help with but but it hasn't gone as far as um as making that last step connection to actually providing a a source of housing which isn't necessarily our charge I'm just I'm just clarifying that I I mean sort of helping with like Section 8 applications are actually we've had families that have helped we've had TCMS and other staff that have helped them get um a secure housing not necess Section 8 before and actually helped with movein processes and those kinds of things as well okay so this type of service is within the realm or within the scope of what we would maybe consider to to help these children have more secure housing yeah I wouldn't say that's typical with the movein kind of help but it does happen I mean our TCMS and our school staff are very responsive trying to make sure things are working well for these families thank you uh Mr Sullivan uh we still have uh relationship with School Ties through but County Office of Education are that's the arm that deals with our our um unhoused uh students and is there still a position with bu County Office of Education that we're working with Megan Malloy does it a lot and I was actually just at a meeting over at the espet house last Friday with Megan Malloy so Megan's very active and participating with lots of different support structures throughout the right now do you know if um if our targeted case managers um are uh schooled on using the 211 and the hmis um program to get them on the the lists for housing is that part of our our processes we yeah we have Megan come over at least once a year and meet and check in at during one our Target Ace manager staff meeting time and kind of talk about different things that are happening happening absolutely thank you do we know the wait time on those lists I mean how long are those lists for housing that that some of these families are are on waiting I I can share just be having being at the espan house last week they talked about a six-month to a 12month wait list to get into the initial phase of asinate house housing yeah it's uh it's there isn't anything out there there's no housing um and one of the one of the good things is through 211 and the hmis system there's priorities um when you when you call and get ranked um if you are um you know unhoused and and as minor or someone in ill health you you get a score that moves you to the top of the list or closer to the top so if housing becomes available they target you know the most critical needs but it's not a good situation it it's just it's yeah okay um Mr Lando yes sir yes thank you I'm not sure question those 5 students who are mostly dou up unable hous notel do we have any of dat ability how they move do they same place these if we need like safety numbers what kind of numers would be looking at terms of how many might as I'm not sure I exactly understand your question but um you know we they they I'm sorry they change residences like how many during a year change residence yeah something like that uh you know I I don't know that number off the top of my head that's a good question we can certainly look at that though we can they're they're in Aries so we you um data system we can certainly track that and kind of come up with those numbers though for you Mr Caris you have yeah just to add on to um Ted's answer we we currently house only current status data in Aries and we have programs started and end dates for homeless overall homeless status but we could not tell you at this point and I'm not even sure if it's a possibility given the area uh data structure to in to for us to track how how long a kid is doubled up and then maybe unsheltered and then back to doubled up I think that's what Mr Lando is asking we do not have that ability however I will say that um we just hired a new homeless coordinator who will have this as an emphasis working with our targeted case managers and our targeted case managers are ones that are working directly with our families and know the kids in the families best so you know if there is data that um such as what you're asking doubled up can we know how often they're changing I mean that can be information that we ask them to track through their input system it probably isn't going to work in areas it may have to be a different method of tracking yeah she'll be doing a spreadsheet on when we're tracking the families and what we're doing just like we did with with the hotpots this year when we handed over the four 400 hotspots we were able to figure out what families needed them also want let you know it's not just doubled up if a family's living in a trailer in a in a park in a removable trailer that is also considered homeless and so again or ones that are living in shelters are doubled up um but we again we one of the few districts that have Target case managers on every one of our campuses plus a a homeless and Foster leaz on I I'm really proud of the work that they do and to continue to detract with him our new person we've had um had a lot of experience of this in Orland but she'll be working with all the different agencies and working with these families to make sure that they know what's out there and what what's available for them for their support so we're pretty excited and the work that we've done in the past uh with our Target case manager has been pretty amazing and again um we want to continue to do everything we can for these families um I just I want to say that we do have things in place and we'll continue to work on um improving that we do have some possibility of some rent subsidy increases from the state that might help some of our families too any further discussion Mr landow anyone okay thank you board uh next items from the floor um president Robinson we were able to secure another phone number for Jessica Montgomery she got she's able to get that to us so oh shall I give her a call okay let's give it a try this is a Jessica Montgomery hello Jessica yeah we got a hold of you okay I'm gonna put you on speaker uh if you hear a bell it means you have about 30 seconds left okay all right go ahead Jessica okay thank you first of all for letting me speak and being very gracious with your time I'll get right into it on March 18th 2021 the California School Board of Education not the state not the feds and certainly not the parents voted to adopt critical race Theory curriculum into our public education system I'd like to first start out by saying it was very clearly stated that the passing of this curriculum meant it was passing the Baton to local districts this means you all sitting on the board currently have the power to opt in or out and it is not mandatory that it be implemented the public should have time to vote on whether or not this is what we want in cusd rather than a board currently facing a recall making those decisions for us only recently was information regarding the equity program shared at a meeting and it would have been helpful to know which schools and which teachers opted to participate in such curriculum when were these students being interviewed did they have permission from the parents why are they being encouraged to look at other students for racial narratives of a specific desired outcome after speaking with principal McKay today I can deduce he's a very reasonable man with good intentions unfortunately that cannot be said for everyone in the position of authority at California public education system in the past year our children have been kept out of schools forced to mask been drugg into the political activism of other parents and to no fault of their own struggled academically to achieve what other states accomplished and that was an equal opportunity to education that this board seeks to limit under no court jurisdiction would this curriculum survive as it hinges on active racial discrimination group-based rights race-based redistribution of wealth and omnipotent bureaucratic Authority it can be assured this will end up in court if it has not already already as it infringes on the rights of other students and it is discriminatory in practice this is a public education system not a hot B to train angry activists and mold the minds of our children to those parents that want to scream at parents like myself about why you feel your ideology is somehow superior to the Constitution I ask you this what if the rules were reversed what if we were starting to train our children to be more vocal on campus about our ideologies what if we brought heterosexual Pride date to your schools What If instead of encouraging our children to wear rainbows to school to approve their tolerance we encouraged our children to put on the full armor of God and tell their fellow students there's a distinct difference between boys and girls that marriage and family does matter and had them Dawn red make schools great again hats what then it has to be equal for everyone or it's fair to no one I'd like to go on record and say I do not support CRT efficiency and effectiveness of said curriculum matters when we're discussing problem solving here will it be efficient will it be effective at solving said racial issues the answer is no and the last thing I have to say to this board is to unmask our children thank you hey item number 11 um board member requests to agendize items Mr tennis we received uh an email from a board member of Durham unified named David louder milk a few days ago um relating to the guidelines that are out there for masking he thinks that we should um write a letter to the powers that be on the state level um I guess or and or the county level um advocating that kids not have to wear masks come fall which I agree with that um should I read his letter into the record right now or just summarize yeah okay um anyway so I i' I'd like to propos that we maybe have staff um maybe predict based on any comments that people might have what our opinion is about whether kids should be wearing masks in the fall um or even this summer for the remaining summer programs um I would like to see masks gone actually for the for the kids uh during summer school my kids are in summer school um but maybe we can have a brief discussion here and then and then staff can can read those tea leaves and draft something for us maybe to vote on I guess maybe as early as our next meeting so what is your proposal specifically my proposal is that staff draft a um letter from this board um asking the state to allow students to unmask you know unvaccinated um uh students I mean let's say under the age of so so it would be a letter um similar to the one that we receiv received from thank you thank you um louder milk David Loudermilk which I love that last name is been signed by the board and sent to our state government yes so we would agendize whether or if we drafted it we would agendize whether or not the board would choose to send that letter yes now maybe you know I would add this caveat if anybody has anything to say about it you know maybe go ahead and say it and and then staff could could maybe tweak the draft based on that would be out of order what we're voting on right now is whether or not to put the issue of dealing with this on a future board agenda we can't act to give direction um to draft a draft could not direct that yeah no I get that okay well I'll take whatever I can can get in this regard so I would ask for you know uh support in this motion to put this item on the agenda for our next meeting I'm gonna I'm going to Second this um because I think that it it's it's worth a conversation or a discussion um and I don't know that next week is our next meting meeting I don't know that that's fast enough um turnaround time seems pretty tight um but I I I'll second I'll second your motion to to agendize this as a as an item so you're seconding the motion to put it on a future agenda to consider it okay any further discussion um let me think about what I want to the report report from superintendent Staley that we were expecting in about a week and a half the decision from the state on this issue am I correct that that's where we are are hoping to have further guidance within the next seven to 10 days okay regarding um masking for K12 schools okay our our next board meeting is the July 21st if the context of next week um isn't able to be completed by staff that's that's what I thought well if the expectation is to take the existing letter and put it into Chico Unified terms we can do that if the expectation is to draft our own then it's okay let me why don't I run that up the flag poll with my colleagues um I move no you you made the motion it got seconded so all we're talking about is Is it feasible to happen in that one week time it is not because the agenda gets posted tomorrow for that's what I meant I was like okay but I was getting you know hit upside the head right behind me but you were saying if I phrase it such that we could just uh I propose we discuss replicating or or utilizing the draft that has already been provided um I would I mean I I tell me how the uh you know the the the rosenberg's rules would work here but you know can I bring another item I'll bring that one and then I'll bring another one in a minute um saying jesting we just use the draft that already we have so the issue is going to be is that the items for this agenda were due on Tuesday oh okay so that okay and you know if we could just hand it over right now now which obviously we can't we have to put our own data into it um Erica could probably make it work but it has to be Rewritten if it's going to follow the Durham format um using our own data but we certainly can do that in time for the July meeting okay okay July 21st any further discussion um are we all clear on what we're voting on Miss Doby I do have just a point of clarification um that if guidance comes out in the next seven to 10 days that we can unmask our kids we're certainly going to follow continue following the California Department of Health guidelines right because that's what we've been that's what we've been doing um so we don't have to wait till the July meeting to unmask our kids if you know California says let them out right and just making sure that we're clear on that okay yeah it's it's easy to take something off of an agenda and just to clarify this is not this letter is not saying that she unified would do anything the letter from Durham was encouraging our state legislature yeah okay uh if are we ready for a vote we have a motion in a second um let's call for uh uh all those in favor I I I Mr Lando I did not hear your response said I okay um I'm going to vote no and um the reason for my no vote is again it the um the substance of the letter from Durham and otherwise is we have no actual weight other than to encourage legislative action which because of the way the legislature is um is in you know in the process of acting it it couldn't happen happened before school started anyway so I'm voting no um it could encourage regulatory action I'm sorry could it could encourage regulatory action which this is a a regul regulations we're waiting for not legislation and I think we'll be able to discuss it when it comes up in thei item we'll discuss it when it comes up because I'm I'm a one no vote we got four yes votes so it will be back to be discussed and I may have more information that changes my mind by then okay uh the um the motion carried at a 4 to one vote with one no and mine was the no vote okay thank you board do I have a motion to adjourn yes or yeah a second do we have any other let's go back to do we have any other requests to agendize items um I do um I'd like to uh move to direct staff to continue the conversation with shelter support organizations and connected with our um homeless leison to um explore the need for CD to possibly intervene further on our um uh minor homeless uh uh minor children shelterless and homeless situation here in in Chico Unified can you read that back to us Erica I have no idea how I just worded that I know what I said but I don't think I could repeat it okay uh Erica did you get the motion I'd like to hear it again actually yeah I have board member D de moved to direct staff to continue the conversation with the homeless liaison to explore the need for COC to further intercede in the minor unsheltered homeless people and how to help them I did include um service local service providers in that as well so to yeah to continue the conversation with local service providers and our homeless L on to explore the need for um further intervention from cusd with our shelter unsheltered minor children as as part of the discussion I'm I'm going to ask our are you not aware that this is already going on in in in what I'm aware of and in what Mr Sullivan and our I'm talking about housing children and and being more active in making sure that our our kids in this community not just cusd students have a a um have a place to lay their head that is more stable than what they're experiencing now I don't think we're currently doing that and all I'm asking is that we um we probe that a little bit more utilizing our homeless liaison and um Outreach to various various service providers in the community I'm not saying to use a certain property or anything like that and you could everybody could just not second it but I'm sorry I'm having a hard time hearing your dialogue if you could is can you speak up I I'm still not clear on exactly what it is you're asking that we're not already doing we're not talking about how to provide shelter for students or or minor kids who are not necessarily cusd students so our we stop short at who's enrolled in our district and we stop short at helping them apply but not taking that next step with them and and and getting them actually into housing what would you do Beyond helping apply I don't I go ahead right thank you Tom thank you Mr Lando is there a second he just seconded oh I'm sorry Tom I uh okay so we have a motion and a second um all those in favor I the motion fails okay any further requests to agenda do we have a we've had a a a pre preemptive motion to adjourn any any objections a second we're adjourned all right I'll I'll just going to declare it good night Kathy good night

so one of the things that we have outlined is that notification of cases just like happened last year anytime there is a positive case on campus a confirmed positive case on campus a notification of there has been a case in your child's classroom or or on your child's schedule will go home now one of the things that went away and that went away toward the end of school is we don't have a primary designation or a secondary designation it's just that your child has had expo potential exposure to somebody who has had coveted you'll have the same notification letters the communication is still the same so it will go if it's an elementary school it'll go to a grade level if it's a secondary school it'll go to everyone on those the class schedule that that student had so our communication protocol has not changed and will continue um what will happen and and what will also stay the same is our kovid dashboard will stay the same we will continue to track and record and report confirmed cases that will mirror and align to the numbers of communication that go home in other words if we had four positive cases happening at a school that with 404 notifications went out the next day on the dashboard those four at that wherever those schools were would pop up on the dashboard we'll continue to monitor that and we'll do that daily dr foley yes it will be done our dashboard will continue to be done daily our communication processes and structures will not change um what will happen though is quarantining will happen on a case-by-case basis i want to share with you that um this will be a case-by-case basis and it will be in consultation with the part we're not going to arbitrarily sit if there is one or two cases in the classroom or if this is connect we are not going to predetermine what that would be what we're going to do is every case is unique we're in a different space than we were even when we were in january prior i mean we have students now some who have been vaccinated we are we are in a different place in a different space and one size does not fit all um and so we are not arbitrarily going to for instance last year higley did not do this some other districts did if a positive case happened remember we were primary secondary if you were a primary you might have been um quarantined secondary you were notified in some some districts there was an abundance of caution they would also quarantine anybody who was around that student we're not arbitrarily going to start quarantining uh students around because we cannot control or or you know you may have you may have had exposure lunch you may have had exposure at recess you may have had potential exposure on the bus so we will notify you that there has been potential exposure as far as quarantining if we have a concentration number of cases and the health department is noticing that these are linked or that there are common patterns and trends and they inform us that we will after quarantine we will quarantine and all of the quarantine guidance and documentation will be put to place but it will mat it will be different for every individual for instance if it's a secondary student and you happen to be vaccinated what it could look like for you would be different than someone else and so truly every scenario will be a case by case in consultation with the health department on on who and how so we will be working with them and working with families as it needs to happen i will tell you i think we've had an interesting run this summer as you can see patterns and trends i am hopeful they are projecting to what next year will look like every day you receive a text on the number of cases that we've had we have had students on campus in elementary summer schools and in on our kids club cases most who are not wearing masks who have been around each other and you have seen that the pattern and trend has been zero cases per day this is a very positive sign one of the things that continues to be really important is that that we still need people to help us if you do not feel well you do not come to school helping us stay healthy at school is going to still be a if you don't feel well you must and you have to stay home and you have to work with us on that so again you'll see in our mitigation plan that notifications stay the same our dashboard will stay the same and we will we will deal with every scenario on a case-by-case basis and in consultation with our the health department you'll notice that one of the things we adopted and we worked really hard on this this was back in november um we created at that time a scenario that you approved as a governing board we talked about a mitigation strategy that we discussed that if we had a rising number of cases on a campus that after a certain point if it was sustained that we would look at school closure for the next week well it was very interesting because where we were in november was very different than where we were in january very different from where we were at the end of school in may when we ended school in may we were without masks we had a particular school that had an outbreak of in one grade level had we kept had we hit a certain threshold i would have been sending home an entire school based on that mitigation plan of which it wouldn't have been necessary to do so so one of the things that our cabinet team is recommending is we are suspending the the school closure dashboard that that part of our mitigation plan is suspended because we will not just arbitrarily choose a number if and only if there is direction from the state department based on the the collection of cases how the cases are happening the timing of the cases the number of the cases we wouldn't arbitrarily close that without the guidance hence really one of the important things about our mitigation plan now being in consultation with the health department and with me needing to be responsive on a case-by-case as needed basis our hope is is that that we go into next year similarly how we've had success this summer with with healthy healthy schools and staying without any need for quarantining that will be our hope and our goal of course we will be responsive as necessary next slide so again um when and if there's a case and and and there will be cases um and when there are what we will do is very similar to what we've done before classrooms with a confirmed case will continue to be additionally sanitized as you know um clean and sanitized environments are help reduce disease all kinds of disease flu cold coven and so if we have a case in a classroom it will continue to be sanitized and and stickers will be placed on the door for teachers to know that their room has been sanitized parents have to parents and employees have to help us keep schools safe and and that stays so if your kids not feeling well please keep them home one of the things you'll notice is that on our website the exclusion guidelines are looking a little more normal-ish they have been updated as of june 11.

do i okay um do we hear any discussion on the motion hearing none all in favor great okay our second motion reads that the cheshire board of education approved the participation of cheshire high school students in the educational field trip to puerto rico from april 18th 2022 through april 24th 2022 with the understanding that there is no cost to the cheshire board of education do i hear a second okay uh any discussion hearing none all in favor and it's unanimous and that is the end of my report thank you faith uh up next is uh personnel uh tim or jeff i'm not sure which one to start with i know on b1 so um tonight i have a really special honor of presenting to the board of education our selected candidate for the role of assistant principal at norton and chapman elementary school it's a split position if you recall we sat in this room i don't know two months ago maybe and discussed our plan to bounce forward is the school system you just heard faith talk about the fact that our assessment data throughout this year is actually as good as it's historically been in language arts and in many cases historically we've beaten historical averages in math and that's really a testament to a lot of the talented people on our administrative team and so for us to be able to add to that cache of talented individuals is really really exciting for us the person that i'm putting forward before you this evening has a tremendous track record of excellence working for the greenwich public schools eastern reading cheshire high school and most recently at dodd middle school is an english teacher and more much much more than that she has co-facilitated or co-coordinated the washington dc trip for many years and pretty much wherever she's been she's demonstrated herself to be a leader amongst her peers and that's no different at dodd middle school where she was a team leader for the last six years if or so so um you know that kind of gives you a sense of not only the the knowledge that this candidate has but also the commitment and the fact that she is a a consummate team player and it was incredibly easy selection with all due respect to other candidates for uh for this position so it's my honor to welcome miss kathy carlucci as our newest assistant principal my name is kathy carley she's in the audience this evening so if you if we want to if somebody's comfortable putting forward a motion and volunteers enthusiastically i would love to put this motion forward i move that the cheshire board of education approved the part appoint catherine carlucci to the position of assistant principal effective june 24 2021 oh that's tomorrow further that catherine carlucci be compensated in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement between the board and the cheshire administrative personnel faith seconds the motion uh any discussion any comments from the board members not tim yeah just the only point to make here is that this is the wording of this i i don't exactly agree with i'm going to support this motion but just to point out for the public that these disappointments administrative appointments all of them are made by the superintendent and it's not the board actually doing this but the way this is worded it sounds like that we appoint the superintendent that's it nobody else so thank you the motion does talk about pointing not approving so thank you any other comments from the board members yes yeah i'd just like to say kathy congratulations and i'm so pleased that you are coming on board in this capacity for cheshire public schools worked with you spoken with you for a few times over the past years in my role on the board of ed and i'm delighted with dr solon's choice so congratulations seeing his own comments i'll just say uh i've actually not only been fortunate to to have kat uh kathy here for warnings in the past but both of my daughters i believe had you in dad when they were going through there just a few years ago and it was a great experience for them so i'm very happy that you're moving into this role and i'm even more uh excited that we're able to you know that dr song is able to grow people from within and and have those positions available so it's a very positive thing for cheshire and i know our community is going to support this whole harley so thank you and and congratulations that being said unless there's only for discussions the motion is that the cheshire board of education uh appoint catherine carlucci to the position of assistant principal effective june 24th 2021 further than catherine carlucci be compensated in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement between the board and the cheshire administrative personnel all those in favor it is unanimous congratulations [Applause] we have more tim so uh we have a review and approval of a teacher sabbatical request you want to yeah i'll make the question uh the cheshire board of ed grant and unpaid sabbatical leave to tara corcoran in accordance with article 12 section 12.5 of the agreement between the cheshire board of education and the education association of cheshire beginning august 26th 2021 through the remainder of the 2021-2022 school year second catherine seconds any discussion yeah yeah i'm just curious if jeff had anything to say if you want to give a little detail i would say that for us a sabbatical leave is very rarely granted and i think in the unique circumstances here john redford and the union and in tara presented a plan that made sense she'll be pursuing further education and social emotional learning which is obviously one of our core goals uh and that we were able to do so at a cost that actually was saving us money in the long run so we did uh you know decide to endorse this and that's why i put it before you this evening thank you seeing as there are no other comments or discussion top discussion items uh that the cheshire boy education grant unpaid sabbatical leave to tara corcoran in accordance with article 12 section 12-5 of the agreement between the cheshire board of education and the education association of cheshire beginning august 26 2021 through the remainder of the 21-22 school year all those in favor is unanimous thank you tim i think you have two motions coming out of personnel on this but i'll let you talk about that i do uh yeah so two motions uh in relation to the superintendent's contract i will start with the first one right now which is simply extending the contract and then a second one has to do is with his compensation so the first motion i move that the cheshire board of education extend the contract of jeffrey f solin superintendent of schools for the period of july 1 2021 through june 30th 2024.

jillian has worked to be more flexible a little bit although there is guidance so if your child has coveted like symptoms how how and when can you return them to school without keeping them out for multiple days it is looking more normal one of the things we want parents and families to know is that your job is to help us help keep your kids safe and healthy so when they're not feeling well keep them home employees when you are not feeling well you still have to stay home but then you can come back to school when you're feeling well and you don't have to stay out as long and so again working with us to help provide guidance on health decisions is going to continue to be important we as we've shared with you that makes all the difference in the world so that is one of the things that stays in place dr foley um will we be giving out like a printout like we did last year about that first day of school exactly what to do we're gonna do that same thing okay great because i know we'll get some new students some new faces and i think it's a good reminder to put that thing right on your fridge parents and yes always remember to check your kiddo in the morning and all those things well the beautiful thing is is that we will also be able to provide these things that meet your teacher and so these events will be happening and they'll be happening in person this year and so information will continue to be provided and that's one of the reasons why we're working on getting it updated early and ready to go so people understand and know uh visitors are going to be we're going to return to more normal we're going to return to visitors on campus we're going to return to to pre-covered kind of again we are very cautious we want people to come only when they're feeling well we want you to to exercise all good sanitation things as our mitigation plan uh all good practices that we would want you to do no matter what um and and again if we had a situation and this being one of the reasons why why would we say uh if we perhaps had a number of cases rising on a campus what we may do is need to modify at a campus because of this we're not we're not going to have this event this event or this event and those are the kind of things that we would need to modify if needed and we will be responsive as as you know you know one of my favorite mentors used to say bless those who are flexible for they shall not be bent out of shape one of the things we learned last year is we had to be kind of flexible and i think that we're going to provide guidance but we're going to be ready to to amend as and where needed you know minimally at best um again all of our mitigation plans have every component that is expected to be in that escrow plan and we meet and far exceed those expectations in fact haley's been very very thorough to think through what if what about now what and and have kind of worked with each other to kind of update our forms our processes um and we now have backup plans that we hadn't even imagined at this point last year we would have possibly needed but we now have and if we need to roll them out we are ready to do so so let's talk about our communication protocols this is richard i'm sorry dr fuller before you begin yeah um will there still be temperature checks and expectations of teachers to do cleaning um whenever they can very good question so one of the things that that we have is that materials those materials are going to be provided and we have uh we have a checklist of what are the daily high-touch areas that we had identified as cleaning protocols that will be part of the training platform and sites will do those materials will be available for teachers the wipes will be available there will not be the um the expectation to do anything different than we had done last year or how we ended the year okay this the the safety the families are still responsible for if your child's not feeling well or if they have a fever please keep them at home but we are not doing temperature checks at school we're doing it very similar we're doing exactly like last year um and again i know that one of the things the updated exclusion guidelines help parents feel better about also if your kid has a cough a sniffle or a sore throat look at those guidelines because it doesn't necessarily mean you're keeping them home for a week it may be a couple days until we're out with that symptoms so again it's really going to be important for the way we keep our classrooms healthy is by by not sending people to school or coming to work if you're not feeling well thank you and as you close with talking about students staying home if they don't feel well or even if they're forced to quarantine is there going is the school year gonna look similar to last year with the um exceptions for due dates is that gonna you know for homework class work everything is that gonna be consistent school and district-wide as well yes one of the things you're going to talk about here in just a minute but because you're asking the question i want to hit on it um attendance is going to be really important one of the things that one of the things that adm and attendance are going to be the ade is saying we're back to normal here folks and we're going to be monitoring this so they're going to be tracking and funding as per attendance goes if we have let's say students who need to be out we of course will be flexible with those students but they do have to to you know let us know that their students are out letters the letters for attendance will sort of return although they are not they are not um they are not worded in a way that are threatening they are just tracking your child has been they're not threatening truancy or anything that the law requires that would like this that's legalese it's just a monitoring of we're monitoring and tracking attendance this is just part of adm is back to normal the state is tracking this as they have before even how we take attendance in higley virtual looks more like online academy has looked that being said we will be flexible with our families and our students and you need to communicate with us so that we can help determine the best way to support your student the nice thing about what happened last year is that we have canvas as a management system it's not gone away it's a tool that still stays in the classroom students who are not in the classroom can access their work via canvas and that's something that's really important so there's going to be communication and ongoing discussion and awareness with your health and wellness and school needs needs to continue to be something that families have direct communication with their school about so that we can work with them on how to help them and options are we have more options now than we would have prior to covet and that's one of the nice things about the true launching of an on a virtual academy which is really a good thing for haley um you brought up sorry you brought up canvas and um that canvas was a struggle in our household we just didn't quite understand the dates of postings and when things were due and when they were assigned so it caused a lot of strife being a parent not understanding how to utilize it is there are there going to be tools or are there tools out there for parents to unders to work better with that system to get their students caught up and stay on track and how are teachers when when are teachers trained on it because when i worked here it was a teacher trained a teacher and that that didn't go so well um because that's a lot of work for the the teacher that's training and that in canvas is is quite a beast so it's a very shift in how you think and going from edmodo or where we were at to begin with or google so is there solid training this year professional development for our new teachers even current teachers and for parents president board member anderson those are very very good questions a couple of great things have happened this year because necessity became the mother of invention and sometimes when you're building the plane you don't have everything you need when you need it how you need it but having gone through it you now have some resources two wonderful things la we have two two we now have two instructional coaches who are in the area of technology we also have lori collins who is in the assessment department who have been working and creating resources manuals and handbooks as well as additional professional development and are willing to help and support at all time the other thing that's really helpful too is because you could have need um as from an online parent from canvas or you could have need as a in-person um teacher we're all continuing to learn and develop in professional development with with canvas we're really fortunate this year that we've added chris treat as a professional development coordinator who can help with working with providing additional professional development and we now have resources that we have online that are manuals and how to's and videos for families and for teachers that wouldn't and didn't exist before so one of the things that we are doing is we're continuing to get better and we have you and we're writing things down and we're putting them in places people can use them and so i think that i would encourage anybody who is having difficulty not to to to not to feel feel free to reach out to your administration so i need help because we have more resources now and we have uh things that we could send to them or people who could organize it coordinated and provide it and support it so i think one of the things we're proud of is that this isn't going away and we're sustaining the professional evolution of how we use these tools and and creating resources that teachers actually can get um on their own when they want it at their when it's convenient and organizing in a way if you only need to know this part that takes five minutes how do i get that thing i need now rather than sitting through an hour and a half so we're trying to be very thoughtful about how we put those resources together the good news is we have more people than ever and more resources have been formalized um so my thought is is we won't we we know that there are still challenges this is unique we're all evolving we actually what i find fun is that some of our teachers who were some of our canvas ambassadors last year look at what they created last year in scoff because they've you know they themselves having to use it have only gotten better um and are up doing you know improving what they even created last year so um i think what's important is people reach out and say they have a need and want help and we will find resources or individuals to help them and dr foley excuse me i don't know if a lot of parents know excuse me um canvas has a parent login so you can there's a parent piece of it that you can log in to your own canvas to see your kids stuff so you don't have to rely on your kids logging in and things like that so um maybe we can make sure that that information is also available to parents so that um because i i i don't think parents really like they would go over to their kids okay log in they don't know what they're looking at they're like well show me your assignments and and so they're relying on their students and their kids kind of looking over their shoulder but canvas has a it's like a parent view of canvas so you can log in as the parent you can see your your students information so i have to say i personally never used that but it was it was offered to me four years ago from having a student in our initial blend class so i know it's there and so perhaps we can try and make sure that that information can be available on how parents can get their own login linked to their kids canvas and then there's all kinds of help stuff on there as well i do know that so okay i used it it's there's an app you can do both your kids under it and then you can see all the kids that i only have two kids sorry so amy you're four kids i'm sorry but i'm sure you can see them all so you can see them all and you can color coordinate like each kid to a different color and kind of help that way um yeah so there is a system and there's an app and it works um in canvas will it continue k6 i'm assuming yes this is again one of the things we have as a tool that and again i think the important thing is is that if you're learning online and tonight we have a presentation about higley virtual academy and we'll talk about the fact that that john and his team are going to be really helping to support because that's your full that's how you're learning full-time time and that's how you're using that might look different than if i am in an in-person learning except the fact that if i'm an in-person learning that tool still exists and we're still utilizing that because if i have to stay home this is where i will go now again you're not going to get a live t if you're an in-person student and you're out for a couple days you're not going to get the teacher on uh in the in canvas but she's going to have he she or he will have the resources the tasks or activity that you might have missed there that's going to be kind of like the extended web page if you will for the classroom so the expectation is that canvas continues to be and again to what extent and to how we're utilizing that is something we're continuing to evolve but it's not going away and one of the things we have our goals teachers had to literally learn how to use this tool if you think back a year ago in may of last year we only had secondary teachers who had ever used canvas so in may of last year we were working with our teachers elementary teachers to create ambassadors to learn a program virtually that they had never seen or used in person and we started school online with a tool that we had never trained teachers or students or parents in person to use so we've come a long way and i think that again it was immediate implementation necessity was the mother of invention and now this is a tool that we have as a resource that will continue to evolve and use and then was available that teachers had all year long their need to rely on it if they were in person learning wasn't the same as when they were in remote learning status but it is something that's continued and sustained and will continue to be professional development and resources that we use this is important because again we now have and again we've ordered the devices as soon as they can get here we'll have them but we will eventually when they show up we are one-to-one we have the ability for students to use devices and classrooms this is a plan a learning management platform in which in ways students can access and turn in and engage with their content in their classrooms so this is ongoing professional development work and our coaches and chris treat and our and our administrators are all aware of the importance of the ongoing professional development to support teachers and our evolution and an understanding of this but canvas has not gone away so dr foley i don't mean to get off track here um but back to well still canvas have we thought about maybe i know when we've had like a college and career night or something like that we've had in the media centers or um thinking ahead even with our elementary schools in the computer labs on back to school nights you know fast fafsa help i mean fafsa the first fafsa every time um you know it's that is also quite you know extensive so maybe thinking kingdom days and black hawk night or black hawk days having the media center open for a how to quick parent i don't want to add to what's already going on on those days i know that's a lot but even back to school nights having somebody in the computer labs with our elementary parents hey if you want to pop in and learn a little canvas maybe this is a night that we could offer something like that even if it's not this year moving forward putting that out there because it is a big learning curve for a lot of parents and so just thinking ahead we did the same about parent view we did we we did a how-to parent view and a how-to fafsa so maybe we can do a how-to for parents canvas just a thought not trying to add to anybody's already workload but thank you for that suggestion and we'll work with our teams to figure out the best way to provide meaningful support and help and ways to access um how to know where to go and and you're right sometimes there's nothing like um in person um although we've learned how to do an awful lot online sometimes it's just really nice to do that in person so dr foley i just had a question and this is more like a question that's out there and something to think about not an answer question um one to one we're going to be one to one this year elementary kiddos do not take those computers home when they're sick if there's a way for them to get if they do not have access at home to be able to get that computer or um just and that's just a thought you don't have to have an answer today just something to think about how are we going to get maybe you do have an answer sorry i see sherry so go ahead i'm sorry but that was just the thought i had that might be something good president reese board member wilson one of the things we're excited about is that a few weeks ago um we were happy to share that we have a technology director who has sort of hit the ground running and one of the things we are looking at is there is some potential funding out there in which we could figure out how to have borrowing computers for those students who don't have those at home that we're kind of looking into and exploring we're just in the beginning phases of that but ways that we could have you know like streams or something that could be checked out to home for for families who don't have computers at home so that in the event that you don't have one at home that we could have something again that is potential exploratory we're looking at the funding we're in fact doing all the background work but there are some federal funding and programs that are out there that are looking at and that we're exploring the potential of so we're really grateful to have new resources and thoughts on our team helping kind of to explore that but in the immediate in the immediate future if we have a student who has who will be out for multiple times we would work to figure out how to how to check out a device for the students so that they could they could have it while they are home our hope would be eventually for students who don't have one at home would be that at the beginning of the year there'd be a way to check out so that you did have a device at all times that's awesome thank you for thinking ahead on that thank you both and our technology director as well dr polly can i on something about canvas a new teacher orientation the coaches have of course planned the whole week and one of the things is those teachers will leave with their home page built they will be well versed as as you can be in a few days in canvas and what was fun is those ambassadors are coming to help do the training as well so it's not something we started and we left that you know we're going to continue and i think we've gotten really good feedback and now our administrators have to use it too because we're putting our handbook in there and so it just keeps growing and growing so you're welcome dr foley excuse me getting back to the execute exclusion guidelines on the mitigation plan how often are we intending to review this and the reason i say that and i get it and we're still in a pandemic when we had our discussion about masks you know we had some very concerned parents kids are afraid to go to the nurse's office because they have a headache this last year the nurse in the past as parents we signed saying yes you may give my child acetaminophen or ibuprofen or things like that kids get headaches it happens and last year we didn't do that a child went to the nurse because they had a headache they got a call home and they got sent home and especially in our elementary kiddos that can be the first sign of an eye problem i mean we you know that they may have a sight issue as we're coming out of the pandemic um like you mentioned everything still happens and i'm actually anticipating to see more illness this next year because everyone's been wearing masks everyone's been inside every i mean we're starting to get there and we started getting there a little bit towards the end of the school year but we didn't see a normal course of flu last year we didn't see all the strep throat last year we didn't all that stuff that normally happens we didn't see because kobe just overshadowed everything so these kids are going to start to be exposed again to normal kid things normal illnesses and so we're going to start to see that and reading our exclusion guidelines there is still a potential that a child could have to be out for 10 days i don't want to say for no good reason but for no good reason given our excuse exclusion guidelines and i get that and i appreciate that we are very we're we're going more normal-like so we're going to have a new word normal like and um we prefer it to pivot yes yes and but um i i hate to see that we are rushing our kids to get coveted tests um i'm actually anticipating here fairly shortly that they won't be as readily available to get done i mean you'll be able to go to urgent cares and things mrs reese you can buy them at walmart now well but will we accept a one that's been done at home i mean will we accept the lab results of one that there are test results of one that's been done at home i don't know i mean we've not talked about that but they're not it it's not going to be like it was last year we know that so kind of the long way around back to my initial question is how often are we going to be looking at updating this because a headache is still listed as a symptom um and you know if you have if you have a negative test result and it says fever-free for 24 hours without a reducer and symptoms have resolved again headaches headaches aren't in children while they're normal they're not normal they're usually a sinus headaches could be strep throat headaches could be an issue with vision um yeah i mean it could be stress it could be anxiety it could be several things so i'm just trying to picture as a parent my child sent home with a headache has to be kept home that as long as it's gone within 24 hours and there's no other symptoms then after that they can go back to school so here they would have to miss school for a day for a headache or you would have to take them or get a walmart test or whatever do uh get a negative coveood test but then say the next week they have another headache are they gonna be sent home i mean so it i get the no taste the no smell those are clear identifiers of covid um but sore throat a child can be congested allergies are horrible here sleep with their mouth open and can have a sore throat so i'm just concerned we have updated some exclusion guidelines and and i appreciate all the work that's done in that and i get going into the school year being cautious and everything but i am concerned if we're going to be looking at this all year long if we're going to kind of keep it this way and our anticipation is looking at that how do we do through the first quarter and we'll reevaluate it at fall break because we could be excluding kids that don't need to be excluded so president reese members of the board very good questions and all questions and conversations that we've had very deep dialogue about so one of the things you notice is at the bottom of those exclusion guidelines it talks about it was updated on june 11th and when you you take a look at that you also see in consultation with maricopa county department of health department one of the things is that guidance and multiple times our exclusion guidelines evolved last year yeah they will continue to this year this is our guidance right now in consultation with the health department which it tends to run on more conservative side on cautious so that we can minimize and minimize and protect the spread of all kinds of illnesses on campus so i can guarantee you that this is something we're going to continue to evolve and update and look and and update right now what you see is the guidance that we have updated this time in consultation um as you know we'll even formally be bringing this mitigation plan to you as required by sr3 minimally we will be publicly discussing these again when we talk about those exclusion guidelines which are requirements that we have to have that align with the health department so i i hear you and i understand your concerns and i think that this is something just like everything else that will continue to evolve this year and this right now is the document that was been developed with in consultation with the health department that pretty much all districts are following very similar plans this is truly not higly going uh rogue um if you will and so we will continue to review modify stay updated and communicate as things are are updated but i hear your concern and i know that you speak for several parents um and and and and sound like the many of many calls that jillian has jillian and the other health assistants have navigated throughout i think one of the important things that we've learned is that communicating with the child's doctor and providing additional documentation helps them make appropriate decisions for students when we have a particularly health conditions that have been documented we are able to easily accommodate and support um with those additional pieces so i going back to again this will continue to be a it depends and there's a lot of individualized circumstances that will influence so going back to it's so important for us to continue communication on individual situations so that we can accommodate and respond appropriately thank you good good questions so we're going to go back to and some of this is going to feel repetitive but we wanted to kind of highlight again some communication protocols mrs richards would you talk a little bit about that yes president reece members of the board you're going to hear themes and patterns here and if we learned anything last year it was communication is key and protocol systems procedures will help us succeed or trip us up so we keep talking about communication and how important it is and our website is really a place that the community parents employees go to get information so keeping that active case dashboard going is important because i had several employees tell me that just made them feel better to be able to go there and see what was going on so we're going to keep doing that we've also updated the coven 19 guidelines and that's where you can link to the mitigation plan you can see our family health screening tool the quarantine the quarantine expectations are there should we have to go into that hopefully not and then also some more information about our communication protocols so i think you know as a school district one of the most important things we do is communicate some kind of one benefit of going through this rough year is i think we've all gotten better at communicating with one another and communicating out so that should serve us well no matter what's going on can you go back thanks site level communication we've already talked about those letters and how in elementary it'll go to the whole entire grade level and at secondary it will be based on the kids schedule so it's good that we're not shifting everything away from what we found was helpful and beneficial so if there is a quarantine decision that needs to be made parents will get a phone call and written outlined instructions all right curtis all right now we get to talk about the fun stuff and that's instruction so we're excited we're going back um again this year full time in person on all campuses and when i listened to dr foley at the beginning you know we were sitting in a rough seat last year trying to figure out what to do how to do it and this is much better um we're also excited about higley virtual academy opening up and it's been exciting to watch mr dolan because he's so excited about it and he's doing a great job of communicating our elementary and middle school kids will be full time online there won't be a combination however high school students can have a combination of some classes in person and some online and mr lottenhauser is going to talk about that in detail in a few minutes that the numbers are going up we've hired the teachers they're getting training we're getting them the supplies they need so we're ready to go we're also recommending transitions between models of being an hva or on site in person like we would prefer go all year but if something has to change we want to wait till a semester break president ruiz vice president wilson members of the board we've already talked about attendance a little bit but remember we are encouraging our families that if you're feeling sick please have your children stay home that is helpful for everyone else but you know the attendance is year with ade last year they suspended some different things they made it easier to track attendance but this year the adm is going to drive our funding and it is going to be counted and so it's going to be very important for us to keep and track the attendance we talked about the letters uh that are going to go home we really need to keep parents informed uh especially you know if they're not missing or excuse me if their students are missing significant amount of times and we need that for them to call in and excuse their children when they're keeping them at home and those are reminders to do that so we can track it for our tracking of our adm and attendance with hva will talk about a little bit more uh in my next presentation but how it works it's not the same as distance learning from last year just this learning from last year basically we had to have an indication that they were online anytime during the day and we got to count them now we have to track hours and that's going to be a process that's going to be involved where parents can have to help hold their children accountable to the hours that they're doing and submit those sheets to us on a weekly basis and that's a process that we will be doing through hva and mr dolan president reese vice president wilson members of the board that is that is just a a requirement for being an online institution that's not something that we're instituting as a above and beyond it is just a requirement for online attendance and as you'll learn about a little bit later there are being that we are an approved uh online institution there are requirements that and the components that you have to ensure um are are happening um to maintain your ability to stay in online institution now we'll talk about athletics and activities and basically i think if there was a theme it is returned to the pre-pandemic plans about what's happening and so what does that mean you know we talked a lot about how many people could attend events aia had rules about who could attend high school sporting events different things like that those rules are no longer in place and we will look at when we go to our events unlimited spectators that means student sections get to return and we get to have the support from that aspect especially at our high school and our middle school events there is not expectation of physical distancing we are not going to limit the tickets that we are going to sell one thing that worked out really well was go fan that's the paperless ticketing program and we will continue to use that in meeting with the east valley athletic directors that's going to be very consistent with almost every single east valley district will continue to use go fan and be ticketless or paperless in their tickets additionally we're looking at social activities field trips those kind of activities will resume following our district guidelines and our district policies and so when we look at school dances different events concerts those things will approve we'll continue to approve and they will happen following our guidelines you know a question was about live streaming because we were able to live stream last year uh at our high schools we have with the pixlr cameras and we will continue to live stream that through the nfhs network which is a subscription based and that's what happened last year you get a monthly subscription ten dollars and you can watch anything any school that you would want to uh that has those events we also live stream for other things where we just did it in-house and perhaps posted it on facebook live or anything like that we'll continue to do those but we are encouraging that we are back to normal and we will be having those events we will encourage people to come and join us for those events thank you i know that for just thank you for addressing the live streaming because i know i heard from several parents and grandparents and people who live out of state who would have never i mean i guess there are some silver linings and some good things that have come out over this last year that they live out of state and they would have never been able to see their grandkids playing a sport or anything like that and because we did stream last year that they were able to enjoy that so i'm glad to see that that's going to continue so that family and members can can choose to to continue to support their their family here and i will say we are going to start with a bang because our higley williams field football game is on september 3rd the first week of the season so we will anticipate a nice crowd for that one on the first game we nice and hot good evening president vice president wilson members of the board so human resources you may remember back in january the district came to you with a recommendation to create and extend what we call the covid19 husd benefits plan the federal government requirement in terms of the covid relief plan had expired on december 31st and at the time we felt as though based on our numbers and the environment it warranted extending it we were one of a handful of districts that had decided to do that and continue that benefit that modeled the same federal program that was there as we assessed and looked into next year and i'm following the theme i'm going to use the term normal like also in discussion with looking at the vaccinations that were available to our employees as well as the fact that numbers have been going down in our community and where we're at we have decided that we would not make the recommendation to continue that beyond june 30th and there's no federal requirement in regards to that too and as i said it ended on december 31st in addition to that what we want to overall say is that as employees if something were to happen whether it's for themselves or maybe a young dependent that they have to care for you know to really work with their administration and supervisors in helping them understand what's going on and we'll try and work with them they do have general leave available and because for the last year they haven't had to use their general leave hopefully a majority of them still have that bank so if something were to occur they can use that time in addition to that what we have done we think will be helpful is the fact that we have continued those site-based substitutes so last year esi who you approved earlier in the consent agenda had termed this this language of rescue subs they're actually going away from that term rescue subs but kind of for lack of a better word saying permanent subs we've continued those same numbers both at the secondary level as well as the elementary level in those areas and a lot of them are returning permanent subs from last year so which is great so if we have availability and need those individuals can can go in and you can see that the numbers that we've had for esi models similar to what we had in terms of budget for last year it's a little bit higher just the nature of if you recall we also back in april um upped our substitute rates to be more competitive within the area in addition to that we always have our employee assistance program and there's other resources within our community as well as our east valley so you know there's two on one there's non-profits if employees need assistance in other ways we'll make sure that they have the resources and we'll work with them and we'll expand and make sure to have conversations with our administrators during the administrator retreat to see how this might play out and if something comes up or if we see as we start the new school year there's a dynamic and culture that we have to readdress then we'll gather as a cabinet talk with one another and decide if there's other recommendations that have to be made because i do know that employees have asked if there was a possibility of this extending and we've communicated that this time we're not making that recommendation transportation is another important piece that we want to make sure that we talk with individuals about their some of the plans some of the mitigation strategies that were utilized as we ended school are going to continue um just as they did at the end of school being that there are strategic obviously our buses have air conditioning but one of the things that they do is they do partially uh leave those open a little bit to keep the air flow going on those buses they're also sanitizing between each and every one of those routes high-touch surfaces and cleaning so maintaining the clean cleaning protocols that are in place as well as again the scanning of we have the app the here here comes the bus app and one of the things that we work with is when there are cases uh josh works with jillian so that there's continued notification so that if there was the potential of exposure on a bus route that you are also notified as well so again all the communication protocols and awareness of um are continuing just like they did last year and that way parents can be aware and can make decisions for themselves um on what is best for them and they're informed when there's potential exposure for their student next slide in addition one of the things you'll see is that food service is also looking pretty similar again one of the things that has happened again is that for this year the federal government has expanded the free meals for student a student age for students of school age up to the age of 18 and they'll continue for this year so chartwells will continue to continue to provide free breakfast and lunch at all of our schools and we will continue to provide out of um higley traditional academy they have a kitchen there for any online students or others who are eligible for that who want their meals to go will continue just like it did last year so our food services and uh and transportation are looking very similar just like they did at the end of the school year as we begin this next school year i'm happy to share that that there are there are pieces that are familiar from last year that will continue there are pieces that are evolving we will continue to keep you apprised of any and all necessary changes or if executive orders happen or things need to be modified based on on on being responsive we are we kind of our mitigation plan allows us to be responsive to unique situations that evolve because we now have very different circumstances than we did initially when we created this um so that's a good thing and we are are sure to know that we'll continue to learn this year as we go and and evolve through this process as well are there any additional questions that we can answer for you at this time i do i'm sorry um i just wanted to clarify with miss mom arms martens so if a teacher who has a child and the child has to be quarantined or stay home for 10 days two weeks that would come out of that teacher's general leave they would have to do the two weeks i generally that wouldn't as of this time board member anderson that is correct um you know like i said we're going to try and work with them to see if there's potential alternatives i know last year we had opportunities um to where they could help in other areas to support classrooms instructors other components and they logged that so we'll kind of have to see how that that plays out but that certainly could be an option okay thank you and then i just wanted to touch base again on the question i'd sent regarding i'm using the sr3 money for um possible training or educating on mental health or just um things that are going on with students as they um start back in the new school year and you had mentioned you know there's going to be the s-e-s-e-l workshop um i looked into that i don't know if that's truly what i'm what i was requesting or looking into i'm looking more for like therapy based counseling based assistance or training or educating as i've talked to therapists and seeing friends and students that are increased in anxiety the numbers have increased i don't have a percentage but that stated a lot depression is up and i imagine as they walk into the next school year there will be it will be better for some but anxiety will increase for others it was a tough school year and they're going to be remembering and recalling and so there will be students that will just not do work out of anxiety you know this i know i'm saying we already know but um and i think some of it sometimes it can be perceived as laziness um you start changing your lessons to interact more and get them to be more involved and that's not going to do it it's going to take more and so that's what i was recommending is there any way that we can use funds to be able to see these changes in the students to recognize and maybe identify that there's more to it than um than just not wanting to be at school um and and then if it if we are able to properly identify what do we do to help these kids get through the school year because some of these kids a school year like last year as normal as it was or was not it can't it just can't continue this way we need to address it and help them and teachers especially educators administrators in the same boat it was very tough and i think a lot of it if we can just educate ourselves on how to be able to help each other the school year will go better um be proactive about it instead of reactive about it so um is there a potential for that i know you mentioned earlier no more no more on our plate says edmunds no more but is it something that we can look into because doing it now makes it easier later so president reece board member anderson you're talking about lots of levels of support so one of the things that i think is important is when we talk about um social and emotional learning is one you know when i think about the pyramid of interventions when we talk about the levels and types of support one of the things that you have is a as a strategic initiative for social and emotional learning and that is that is a broad category you're also talking about additional resources that are expertise that are individuals who hire that have also training in counseling which are resources that some districts are looking at doing um going back to remember how we said that as a requirement that you sit on the panel to talk about how you spend it very interesting that you brought this up as i sit on that panel and one of the things that they're talking about right now is that in arizona just we we didn't have in arizona particularly in education um systemic resources across the board even being categorized for social emotional learning counselors psychologists therapists who are the resources that exist out there and what's frustrating and it's a great thing and a challenging thing is that this is one-time money that's being provided and we're trying to figure out what is the best way and as a state to systemically support these things because what's interesting and and as you know because there is this money every vendor who potentially could sell you something is is seeking my inbox of would you like to buy do you want to know about is hitting every superintendent in this state and what they're saying is buyer beware not all not all uh programs are high quality programs and how do we help districts with this additional funding choose the right resources to support so what i think you're talking about are are probably things that are going to be long-term conversations because the addition of some of these resources will be things that we need to sustain beyond they would be part of budgetary decisions that hiring additional resources yes are important but i think we're going to need to look at almost a pyramid of support and how are we going to fund that so it's sustainable and how are we going to choose the right things to talk about this because social emotional learning mental health and well-being caring for the whole individual child or employee are only more important now than they've ever been before and what what i think this this pandemic exposed is a real need systemically in our state for emphasis and support on these resources at all tiers from from from the classroom to to to to to intervention so i think all of these things are we are going to consider and honestly at the state level right now they're trying to organize who are or what are the appropriate resources in each of these categories so as these committees are looking at what are the priorities that we spend wisely and choose the right resources so i believe that this is a conversation that we will be talking more about and i think what we're wanting to do is make sure we spend wisely and that we spend and can sustain what we add because it's levels of support and types of support and i think the the what we put in your your response is is the state's initial response to try and do a common social emotional learning because one of the things that we're finding in all of our trainings across the state is people use these terms um as though they uh and they all mean different things and they all have different levels of understanding so i think that this is something we only are beginning to go deeper in and we'll continue to do so because it is truly a priority and a need that we need to address so the answer is yes and there's a whole lot of work to be done and i think it will be we'll be beginning to start on that but we're going to need a long-term sustainable plan and we're going to need to be able to continue to support those resources after the one-time money has gone and that's the biggest challenge the training i wasn't even this morning is we're trying to build this infrastructure to help support districts who are trying to make these decisions and creating resources that the state didn't have as a system to support districts yet either so we will we are continuing to build the plane as we fly it this is a very important topic and it's more than it's not just a single curriculum it's levels of resources that we need to build and our tool box for the higley school district and as a state to be honest i appreciate that um it's like we use the term normal like it'll look normal like on the outside it just it won't be normal like on the inside for some no there's an awful lot there's an awful lot and i think um that's one of the realities that all of us are are cautiously optimistic about is um there are some things that are returning to normal and yet we've we've gone through a life-altering experience that has long-term ramifications that we will be we will be working through for years to come and and hopefully there are some silver linings like we have found that have caused us to look at and think about and prioritize differently than we have before and this is one of those areas um dr foley um as to mrs anderson's question i sent that article to you this past week and i don't know if you all have seen it but tempe union high adopted their school board adopted the first i want to get the curriculum correctly adopted a comprehensive mental health and social emotional policy for students and staff so if you can google that you can look it up and read more about it but even dr foley was already telling me that she's looking at this and many school districts across the valley are going to start looking at this and kudos to the kiddo on the school board that's the youngest school board member that actually put this into motion and so he's living he's living this i think a lot too so he's was instrumental but anyways i i had asked her to share and look at to it more so knowing it might come to us eventually but maybe this speeds things along a little bit more and dr foley how i saw on the one of the requirements is that we have a committee how does somebody indicate they're interested in sitting on this committee because it showed we're going to have students through staff through administrators through community members how would someone say they would be interested in sitting on this committee okay very good so one thing we're going to have representing representatives representation from large groups the one thing is this committee won't be very very large what we may do is have like a steering comm this is more like a steering committee and and tyler will be leading this effort and there's like representation you need to have on there so obviously if someone is interested in being on this committee they need to let us know that they're interested but we will be we will be in we will be intentionally seeking representation for individuals to be part of being a part of a dialogue and we can put additional information in your status report about about our our committee size and our representation so that you have an idea of how it'll look the one thing is is that this committee will be moving will be moving quick and we'll need to meet often and we'll need to have a deep understanding of what we there is um flexibility but within categories and funds so we have to spend the rules the rules kind of govern what you can and there's some flexibility within obviously there will be representation across perfect thank you and mrs anderson to your point too i think and but i think it's also important that for our staff i mean i think everyone has different anxiety levels um you know i mean my my whole thing on the masks was can we just get through the end of the year it's not living in fear of covid it was can we just get through the end of the year was my whole thing regarding the masks but there are people who are very fearful and whether it be students staff any staff members teachers or anyone that have to figure out how to how to try and deal with that and i can't even say get over it because that it's not like that so um but so many things are returning to normal and um that it's it's not as there's not as many accommodations there's not as many options so but for our staff it was mentioned earlier we do have an employee assistance program and so it's very important that any of our staff members who are who are having anxiety with returning to work or being at work or anything like that that they do reach out either to hr to get the information for our employee assistance program or go through benefits and and everything because there is there is assistance there and um it gives them resources to reach out to somebody for that level of support now it may be limited to a few times and you know things like that but um but it is a start and we just need to make sure that all of our employees know this is available to them so from at least from that standpoint i agree there's stuff we need to work on and just like in our retreat social emotional whether it be staff student mental illness has been something we've talked about for years this made it worse it definitely made it worse for some but it has been the focus of of our district and our board for a long time it shifted a little bit it has definitely amplified where a couple years ago we were working with trying to work on the mental health piece and the social emotional in general of kid and teenage life now this has definitely made it much larger so we you know i appreciate dr foley continuing to work on that we made that one of our initiatives and our board retreat even outside of covet it this has been an ongoing theme it's just now it needs to broaden a little bit but i definitely want any of our staff to know that they do have an employee assistance program to reach out to so as we work on what these resources are going to be what they look like sustainable for the future all of our staff needs to know that there is an employee assistance program that they can access so i think that's important is that i'm sorry go ahead president reese um is there like some sort of poster or something that we have that is near you know how in our work rooms there is different posters is there some sort of poster regarding the employee assistance okay there is okay good i just want to make sure i don't always look at that when we're at the schools but i do think that would be a good thing to maybe make more light of and maybe make it a refresh program that it's a bright poster that people might need to because i do think this year was hard on a lot of our staff we've heard it from our emails and it just might be a nice if it is the same poster over and over maybe we need to refresh it just so people get fresh eyes on it sort of put poster and mention it you know make it make it normal normal to talk about it i think that's a lot of it's just the hesitation the resistance to it maybe i don't need it or maybe won't help or whatever but the posters they should be there it wouldn't hurt to do like a walk through and just have people check the walls and make sure everything's updated but also say it in your staff meetings i'd say put in emails but we get enough people enough emails um but that's a good idea to an easy way an easy way for access yes i think that's good and especially bringing light to you know if you're feeling anxiety maybe people have never thought about i can't remember the statistic and so don't quote me on it but i i know a lot of companies end up indicating only like five percent of their staff end up utilizing their employee assistance programs that there are so many and again i can't yeah i can't say that specific that that's exactly what it is but it is it's a low percentage that people actually utilize their employee assistance programs and so um just make mention you know like you said in their staff meetings you know if any of you are feeling anxious if any of you are having concerns don't forget we have this available to you check into it it may be something that you can utilize but so many people it is a very low percentage of how many people actually use employee assistance programs so um the reminder um the okay you know this is what it's here for it's okay if even if you only talk to somebody once if that's what it took then then do what you need to so for sure dr foley could we maybe put it in um the email you send out that is our wrap up for the week the email not the status in the email that you send out of what we've talked about during our board meeting for staff maybe you could send that out in that as a bullet point that would be a great idea we will have to highlight that we have this and maybe even we will happily put that in there yeah something that we'll put it in the board summary with the the board summary thank you i could not think of the words that's that's a great suggestion thank you any other questions regarding our back-to-school mitigation plan update oh and i want to thank you for having in there that the superintendent can just make changes that way we don't if something needs to happen you don't need to worry about trying to get at least three of us together that you have the ability um and as always with your board if anyone has concerns about any of the decisions that you made you're gonna hear um and i say that politely i mean we we have great communication um as board members with you as our superintendent so um anyone would express any concerns um and then if there was something that at one point later needed to come to the board it could but that way you could make immediate decisions um to take care of business do what we need to do so thank you thank you and we will continue to keep you updated one of the things with we've also received updates from you know again we've we're transitioning to the trust they have some additional resources that are available that we're also incorporating into this you know similar to last year when you do an acknowledgement when you when we have students log on and acknowledgement um all of these things will be part of the information we put together we will keep you posted on all of our pieces our highlights to our website as well so we are we are we are further we are coming along and we will keep you posted on everything but we wanted you to generally see the direction that we're going and and preparing for thank you thank you and i know it took time but i'm glad it didn't take as much time as it did last year we feel the same way i guess all right well we will go on to our higley virtual academy update our new school president ruiz vice president wilson members of the board i'm very excited today to give you an update on the progress that we've made with hva the higley virtual academy so today in our presentation we're going to talk about current enrollment numbers we're going to look at marketing and what we've done in that aspect talk about the physical location of hvac because we are in person for at least the teachers and the principal uh we'll talk about the curriculum the staffing and then i want to go into kind of a deep dive with the duties and responsibilities of the administrative team that's leading the higley virtual academy so current enrollment this was about as of 10 days ago now it fluctuates continues to fluctuate up and down and different people as people make choices in them and they're moving about what do they want to do we've separated the elementaries into k2 because there's a k2 classroom there's a third and fourth grade classroom and then there's a fifth and sixth grade classroom and so when you take a look at that those are the numbers of the students that have already enrolled i know that we're continuing to have parents reach out and we'll continue to enroll them within synergy to make sure that they're in there and ready to go for the start of the school year our 7th and 8th graders once again full-time online students we have 14 of them and then when we get into our 9th through 12th graders this is where there's a little bit more flexibility and traditionally this is where online academies have housed most of their kids it's in 9 12.

i saw anne first catherine that's all and seconds okay i got a uh discussion no and seconded so and second is there any discussion adam thank you um honestly it's been so long that i forgot how i voted last year i voted no i i don't remember what i how i voted last year but this year i will say that i will uh vote for uh dr solon's extension i think he's done a fantastic job he's performed incredibly well during this this time of pandemic you were asked to do things that you probably were never trained to do or if you did never thought would ever happen so i will vote for your extension thank you adam any other comments of faith i also voted against the contract last year and will vote in favor of the extension this year um as adam i won't repeat adam's words but um yet as a vote of confidence in the performance this year thank you faith andrew um i'll also be voting in favor of this uh your the contract extension um consistently when we asked of you for to keep the schools open to do what was right for the kids based on health and based on the right things you did that so i'll definitely be voting in favor of this as well thank you thank you tim yeah i'm going to be supporting this um but i'm going to hold my comments for the second vote i don't because it'll really be basically the same thing so that's it thank you it seems no one else i i was that i will absolutely support this and like tim i have further uh commentary on next on the next item but i do want to say um certainly dr sullin's been doing a fantastic job at almost every objectional measure but given the past year in general i don't think we as board members were privy to a little more i guess day-to-day things that jeff deals with and i i can't even begin to explain the immense pressure i think that dr solomon faced not just from uh you know the pandemic but you know stemming from uh union leadership in hartford if folks remember was a lot of animosity or unknowns at the time last year when school started everything's going to be safe and you know the amount of inquiries that he was receiving into among our groups who were responding to and coordinating um and communicating effectively on that was uh was impressive for me to see so uh for that alone i would approve a contract extension but overall i think just dr stone's performance warns it and it is up to the board to have an optional on your extension that will fully support that so uh unless there's any other comments the motion is that the cheshire board of education extend the contract of jeffrey f solin superintendent of schools for the period of july 1st 2021 through june 30th 2024.

and so we have the opportunity for students to be either full-time online meaning they're taking all six of their classes online through hva or part-time online let me kind of explain the difference with the part-time what we're allowing students to do is take one or two classes online while the same time they're enrolled in four or five classes at the brick and mortar school and this allows them some flexibility with their schedules in terms of what they want to do for example someone might not want to take a zero hour and instead they can take an online course and that would be okay vice versa if we have students that take maybe four classes online and maybe only two in person those would be considered a full-time online student for hva because that's where they're going to be housed they will be considered an hva student and yet there might be some elective choices that they want to take back at the brick and mortar campus they'd be allowed to do that as well and and this hva gives us that flexibility to meet their kids needs especially when we're talking about elective choices and some of the extra programs they want to be so to kind of sum that up if you're taking four classes at the brick and mortar you're going to be that brick-and-mortar person if you're going to take four at hva you'd be an hva student but would still be allowed to take some courses at the brick and mortar campuses and so you'll see that we have more part-time honestly anticipate this going up more and more as people come back from somewhere and learn more about it especially when we go through kingdom days and blackhawk days and they have some questions about what some other flexible options that they can have they can work with their counselors there so you'll see our total is up to 126 which is about one percent of our population will mr dolan be present for kingdom days and blackhawk days or will someone be present maybe to answer the case we're working through the counselors and so when counselor questions counselors will know about the hva options and be able to maybe market it that way as well and they've already been working very closely together okay and so mr dolan has been communicating with the counselors uh talking about specific kids as well as once they've been funneled to mr dolan he's been working very well with the families and so when john and i talked the week before he left on vacation he made 180 phone calls that day that week just in that week to reach out to the families to talk about here's where we're at we want to keep you informed what questions do you have to try to meet their needs we're not going to be able to meet everybody's needs they're going to be some classes we can't offer online that's why we want to work with our brick and mortar schools to be able to do that great thank you now i also on the part-time and from a marketing standpoint i know just in the past we've run into um scheduling issues for those kids that want to do evit um is this something that we would be looking at marketing the majority of our eva kids tend to go in the afternoon but i know that there are some that are only offered in the morning which creates an issue especially with some of the classes that the kids are in so could this be marketed as an alternative that they can pretty much do eve it and then they can do their classes online and that thank you for bringing that up because that is the conversation that we've had looking through to make sure uh we'd still like them with evit they can do the full-time online or they can do two and two perhaps that morning one is the hard one because they miss so much of the morning chunk and they don't have enough time to fill in four classes after the morning and so we would say you could take two and continue to be on that brick and mortar you'd be that brick and mortar uh student and then take two with us and even at hva as well and so yes that is one and that's another one where sometimes even kids like to take a zero hour even if they're in the afternoon to try to fit in for before they go over there well they could take one of those online as well as take their in person and then do their even that's the nice part about having it because it does gives us some flexibility in that standpoint right and i know that we've every year we've run into issues and scheduling conflicts with those kids that um want to do evit and so um this may be a really good alternative for them primarily eve it's you know your juniors and seniors so it's not like you have a freshman doing that so um so that may be i thank you because that every year we i know we get contacted by parents because they're scheduling conflicts and and ebit and so this is a really good alternative yeah so thank you and our principals are excited about that too to allow that other option to be able to help them with the evit okay next slide please so our marketing department we've put together social media ads that have been running through june as well as that we did an email blast through the east valley tribune how we started the process though is we took every kid that was online this year and mr dolan reached out to him and said hey do you want to you want to stay online or do you or do you want to go back in person and we continue to talk with them throughout the spring that kind of led our first bubble of kids that were interested in it and now we're pushing through social media different opportunities like i said we are anticipating a lot more questions when those high schoolers come back on those days after summer now it's real right we're about to start the school year what are my other options available how can i work with my counselor to work with hva to see what flexibility i might have if i want to be a part-time student so hva physically is going to be located at power ranch there's going to be four classrooms they're going to have there one will be the quote unquote school office with mr dolan and his administrative assistant mrs marklink and then there's three classrooms for the elementary teachers because the elementary teachers are full full-time online this is where they will report and this is where they will teach out of and so they will have the cameras and the technology available to stream and that's what they will be doing uh right there at the school and those are the three classrooms so they will have their own classroom they will have the manipulatives and necessary things that they need to instruct online with the high school and the middle school most of those teachers matter of fact all of those teachers will be part-time teachers for us so they will have the ability to teach outside of the school day and they will have the ability to teach either within their classroom for instance let's say they were a high school chemistry teacher and they're picking up a chemistry class they could stay in their own classroom after school and that's where they could be responding remember with the curriculum on high school it's not direct instruction it's the kids going through the modules through florida virtual so they will be communicating and responding and then have office hours available but they are going to have the flexibility to do that either at their home campus that they are or let's be honest sometimes because of timings they'll do it from home too and provide that support from there at a different time so the classes once again will be through the florida virtual curriculum through canvas and we've talked about canvas earlier and so they will go through the canvas as our learning management system using the florida virtual curriculum the high school electives and i remember last year that was a big issue as we talked about remote learning and different things like that because of the number of students in it they are going to be much more limited that's why we need to work with the home campuses if there's a student that wanted to participate in a program that we couldn't offer online they could be part-time and go into their campus so staffing uh these are these are the mr dolemans the principal andrew markling is his administrative citizen and registrar originally when we started looking at this in december we said we need to hire a counselor we want to be a counselor to manage the enrollments of the students especially to track the ecap and different things and the the credits credit checks for our high school students because of the numbers we've had mr dolan is assuming those roles and so i'll talk about that's why i want to talk a little bit more about his roles and the expectation about looking at because we feel it's appropriate he will be communicating with the high schools and with the high school counseling departments to make sure that we have the continuity of what's needed for kids but for our full-time kids especially at the high school level he'll be responsible for making sure that we are doing our graduation checks on our credit checks and following through with those pieces we do have our three elementary teachers as you can see up there k2 3 4 and our 5 6 teachers and our secondary teachers we're still working to make sure that we have the right and appropriate ones that we've chosen quick question um i know attendance is going to be a little struggle at this place i know it talks about it a little later will that be what our registrar is working on as well with the administrative assistant and the registrar and like because she's going to be enrolling kids unenrolling kids correct and and the variety of what other duties yes i feel like that's a lot for her and mr dolan as well okay i'm like i think that's what sounds like a lot because i feel like this attendance may be a bigger piece a bigger chunk than what we might think so working with brian campbell in our student information system the ability for the parents to um check and do attendance can be virtually and done online and so that's how we're trying to streamline that process as much as possible so it's not physically signing off but electronically signing off and verifying okay because i feel like when i read about it i felt like that might be a bigger chunk of time especially seeing what our attendance clerks this year had to go through to try to you know check in with the kids at school and check in with the kids at home and so i just that might just be a bigger chunk of time that you may see mr dolan and mrs yes be doing so i'm concerned about the time um so if there is something that we need to do to help them maybe people think about that the nice part is with the elementary they have their teachers right we're not worried about that and they have their set schedules and their set times when they'll be going just like what happened this year and so they'll that's a lot more structured and so it's more of those middle school and secondary you know high school students tracking the attendance okay great thank you and so talk about the admin team and i'm just going to say it's admin team john and angie how they work together and these are all the different things that they're going to have to do obviously we've been hiring they've hired the elementary teachers and they're hiring the secondary teachers to fill the roles that they need and onboarding them because we're going to have to talk about training as we go forward especially to make sure that our teachers know what to do using florida virtual the nice part is we have a large group of teachers who taught last year online and we have a pool that is available and you know we're marketing this as hey would you like to pick up extra sections to teach for us because this is extra compensation that you can have kind of like do you want to coach a team or do you want to teach an online class those are different ways that you can receive compensation above and beyond your contract i think a huge piece that's going to jump this year that people don't understand is we have to ensure compliance with our higley accredited online institution it's called our aoi it's our aoy plan that we submitted last year we were approved and so but now we have a year where we have to go through and demonstrate what we put in the plan is what we're doing in person and so we're going to have to collect artifacts we're going to have to make sure each of these pieces with the aoi we're doing what we said they do and at the end of the year we're going to have to present to the ade and so that we can continue on with our accreditation and that's a very very important piece that mr dolan will be leading to go throughout so besides all of the regular managing the instructional side of things there's this compliance aspect of it that he will be leading as well and then we talked about the attendance it is going to look different than it was last year and yes that is that is a huge leap and i know that we've talked with other districts that have had existing uh aois already about best practices that you they're using to track attendance and honestly what we're finding is a lot of it is contact how can we contact them which is you know why mr dolan is already setting up that he'll make calls and do things like that so we're touching base with parents to remind them we've got to sign off on that attendance piece for us as well as that's gonna allow us to have the conversations about tracking let's make sure your kids advancing in the course right we can't just say hey you're online and then go do what you do we need to have weekly check-ins to see and make sure they're on pace quick question regarding the attendance piece so since the parents are responsible for essentially signing off how many hours the kids are spending um is there a separate parent agreement that the parents have to like it lays out this is part of being a virtual student this is the parent's responsibility and so do we have a parent agreement or can we create one that says that the parents are responsible for tracking these hours and that there there is a process if they don't so we we have a specific handbook that we've put together that mr dolan has put together that includes that information i'll be honest i don't know if i have a sign-off sheet on it or not so we have a signature from them but i know that as part of the presentation that we're providing to the parents so that is a suggestion we'll go back thank you so much already so they know the expectation we already we sign every year yes but being different that they will monitor and track and report the hours i mean yes we have a parent handbook and an agreement but something specifically stating that they know that they are responsible and that it's its own thing i kind of think about even some of the charter schools things like that um they have like a parent volunteer requirement that the parents have to acknowledge that they're required to volunteer so many hours at the school and so i'm thinking something kind of like that that this is such a huge piece it is so important this i mean this is funding um and that the parents truly need to understand what their expectation is like you said this is not oh my kid's doing an online school we'll get to it i'll do this hey you know susie did you log in today did you get your homework done that it it's not that this is actual you know the it's a it is it's a public school that the parents are responsible for tracking the hours so if we don't have something like that i would recommend that we do have a separate understanding and acknowledgement from the parents that they do understand that they will monitor track and report just so that it's very clear okay um mr lotzenheiser you said that this is a requirement for all online academies is that correct for the public ones that we've talked to and everything yes but the tracking of it is through they have to have a sign off and verification i just find it kind of um ironic because right now i have daughters taking um through chandler online academy summer school and there's been no tracking i think with summer school might fall a little bit differently i know that during the school year there's definitely because summer schools are paid i pay for them to go to that summer yes and so you're not there's not going to be any ade funding that's going to come back to it because you're already doing that somewhere i'm the funding okay okay that makes sense i was trying to kind of piece that together but thank you for talking me through it yeah no okay next slide once again we have to you know the administrative team monitoring evaluate the teacher effectiveness and this is the communication that mr dolan is having with those teachers he's directly responsible for the three teachers that elementary teachers are that as well as monitoring the progress and checking on the teachers who are teaching our secondary schools using our evaluation tool now their formal evaluation if they're a part-time teacher will still come from their brick and mortar teacher but we will look for effectiveness as we track throughout the year and that's mr dolan's responsibility this professional development for online teachers we have multi-age classrooms and so we want to make sure that our elementary teachers are prepared for the multi-age classroom as well and and also when we start looking at monitoring canvas like we've already talked about and making sure we're up to date how to use florida virtual and how to use canvas um the communication and and i do want to give a shout out to all the schools and and mr dolan about communicating back and forth about the needs of the kids and what they need to do and who's enrolled and who's not has been very ongoing this summer and that will continue to happen to make sure that we're communicating appropriately about which kid is where and what they're taking how can we best support them develop i said develop communication protocols with parents and students this goes back to the attendance piece i know that one of the plans we're looking on is taking a specific day maybe monday might be higgly high day and we contact all the higley high people tuesdays williamsfield wednesday sussman thursday's coulee you know and and kind of go on fridays who's ever we've missed but it's that weekly check-in because what we've learned from our peers that already had this that you can't just turn them on and turn them loose you have to progress monitor you have to check in you have to communicate with parents to make sure that the kids are successful and that goes into the monitoring student progress with weekly check-ins we talked about the counseling duties that is picked up by the administrative team we do have some people who are transferring in coming directly to it so to make sure the transcripts are appropriate just like a counselor would to make sure that they're placed in the appropriate classes and have met the necessary prereqs the ecap administration for our full-time students were required to do that and so he will lead the ecamp process for them and making sure that we're following the course of study and the credit checks so that they're graduating and we're putting them in a situation that they will be graduating i think something that's neat when we looked at the elementary duties with power ranch we don't want these three teachers just to be on an island all by themselves and so in working with the administration at power ranch allowing them to come in and it might not match up perfectly the curriculum is not going to follow the same pattern but allowing them to be in the plc of the grade level that they're in you know honestly going back to social emotional teachers it's nice to have a group of teachers you can bounce ideas off of and work together and i think the three of them will naturally form that plc but allow them to get out and talk to other people and be included in what's happening at power range and then once again this professional development for the multi-age classrooms to make sure that we're what we're doing is appropriate with those students for the secondary um so we're looking at in-person finals for sure midterms i know it's what we want to do as well one thing that we don't accept credit from an online school that doesn't have a proctored final and so we need to follow that exact thing we need to have a proctored final to make sure that they're coming in and i know this is an area that some of our brick and mortar departments have reached out and said hey i know they're going to take algebra online but how are we guaranteeing that they're passing the same final and doing the same things and for us as to making sure that they're doing this proctored final and so he will be coordinating that and bringing the students in to make sure that they're taking their finals and their midterms in person uh we talked about the ncaa clearinghouse for student athletes let me talk about athletics for a little bit in terms of hva i want to publicly say that we're not looking to hva is not necessarily a location for athletes to come in to go to an online school and then play sports someplace else that is not our goal in this at all what we would like if there is a situation that needs to happen we will work with the athletic directors at the high schools the system that's in place is if let's say i've been at williamsfield for three years now i've switched to online and want to continue to play athletics you would be allowed and you would be available to play for williamsfield but it wouldn't be hey i want to switch to hva and now i want to go play at higgley that wouldn't be allowed that would be a transfer through the aia and that would not be an appropriate thing to do for ninth graders coming in if they're choosing to go full-time online they would be eligible to participate in the boundary school so if i live in williamsfield boundaries i could go to hva and play for williamsfield that's okay otherwise we would have to be switching over there and we'd have to make sure that we're following all of the aia policies about switching schools and looking with online schools thank you mr lotzenheiser for bringing this to our attention it was is definitely one of my concerns also speaking though of athletes so are our elementary students what they would still be invited to events of their home school or is it going to be more a power ranch housing for like the carnival or the pto events that go on how how does that look for our elementary students so the initial conversations we have that would be kind of included with the power ranch people and looking at that and so they would have that same communication and have those same opportunities to looking at the power ranch also if they were full-time let's say high school or middle school student they wanted to go to a dance they would go to their home school and have those same opportunities they wanted to go to you know attend any kind of events that they would have it would be at their home school because we you know i think what we're learning is that people are making the choice to go online for a variety of reasons it's not necessarily coveted related and so sometimes the scheduling might work out but yet they will still want to be involved with social situations and because of the size of the school they're not going to hold their own dance or anything like that so they can go back and go to the homeschool dances do you not want 14 kids having a little dance together um i will leave that up to mr dolan actually and let him run that and with the elementaries like you said your initial discussions being part of participating with power ranch perhaps something that could be recommended as well is that um again through parent view that they can sign up for newsletters that perhaps they sign up for the newsletter for their home school it doesn't mean that they wouldn't be allowed to do that but for those who like you said it's a variety of reasons that may have nothing to do with covid but they may want to be involved in their neighborhood so you know maybe having them sign up for those newsletters and communication from their home school could be helpful as well but you did mention and i hadn't thought about this before about um sports and stuff are we allowing people out of our higley boundary to sign up they are we are accepting open enrollments for hva okay but this is this is where that's why i'd like to make it clear this is not used as a tool to have someone who lives somewhere else take the classes there and then participate in our sports on our campuses really that would be a transfer anything through the aia we'd have to follow those processes and procedures i think when you have an athlete that's in an online online class we also have to make sure that they're passing their classes and they're doing everything appropriate to make sure that they're eligible to participate as well and so working through that process is another thing so what about a ninth grader coming in because there is no transfer at that point they would be determined so would a a ninth grader who would be potentially signing up for online would they at that point have to choose like okay so your home school isn't either of our high schools you choose which one and that's that is what it is and then from there if it would be considered a transfer if they said oh i want to come over here versus over there correct and and we do not want to put in a situation where they just get to pick because they don't necessarily have a homeowner it would they would have to establish um with the aia there are some rules about that as well we would encourage anyone who's coming to that we would rather that they enroll at a semester first semester at the home school and then if they needed to transfer to the hva because they haven't established that situation the aia rules for eligibility with the online schools there's a specific section with online charter schools that is much more specific about those rules and i can update you in status about the more specificity but it's a lot harder to become eligible doing that situation well and i know it's not not necessarily the athletes that we see but the athletes that we do see that the online would be beneficial to or i guess swimming would fall in here are your swimmers your gymnasts you know things like that um where the online is attractive to them because of their training schedules um and so i guess that that would that would be some athletics because that could have something to do with the ncaa too so it would and so the reason i had clearinghouse up there mr dolan is going to have to work work to make sure that all of our courses are clearing house approved as well so if they're taking it an online course it will still count the same way for the 16 core classes for the ncaa um another responsibility for the admin team is to coordinate the special with the special education department for the ieps and i know mrs miller has already been working and mr dolan with all the students who are interested in going online right now that are on an iep and what specific things needs to happen for them when we look at the iep situation [Music] standardized testing we know it's here and it's just making sure as they go through this year that we develop our appropriate standardized testing procedures and policy working with our assessment department and then finally we've restructured the higley learning center hlc where that person is in an assistant principal in charge of that alternative program which has a maximum cap of 60 people in person and mr dolan will be the administrator overseeing that assistant principal that's still housed at higley high but he will be that direct conduit for that person as well okay so we did a whole bunch but are there any additional questions as we look through with hva i'm really excited about the progress we've made and honestly we'll continue to adapt to make sure that we meet the needs of our kids and we can provide a comprehensive program for for the students who want to take advantage of that i know you've mentioned that mr dolan's been making phone calls and talking to parents and it sounds like he's doing an excellent job at that i'm going to echo what president reece said about having some expectations for the parents and maybe doing like a q a or maybe some sort of youtube i know he does well with the youtube i've seen him um maybe some sort of youtube q a on what we're expecting parents to do that it isn't just put your kid in front of the computer and walk away um so i would echo that sentiment that president reece had as well that i would like to see something like that just so our parents aren't thinking oh this is going to be easy i'm just going to put my kid there and it's going to be good um i think most of our parents are pretty aware of that you do too but i do think having something in writing or in video form for them um especially when they're being asked to record the hours and checking off on that that would be really beneficial and possibly doing some sort of q a even live where he's able to answer questions for people i'm sure he's doing that on the phone in an individual basis but it might be good to be able to do a community forum where if anybody wants to you know find out more about our hva they can come even though they might not be interested in it this year they might be thinking about it down the road for their gymnast or their swimmer um it might be a good idea so that would be my thoughts on this because wow that's a lot of information but thank you all right this is thanks for stepping up i know mr dolan's on a well-deserved vacation so i you know but we needed this update as well um i think our biggest challenge this year because a virtual academy has been talked about for several years we ran into covid forced to go into the online distance remote type environment so i think our biggest challenge with launching this year is one understanding it's a separate school like it's its own school so it's very different than anything we've done it's very different than the last part of 2019 2020 the last part of the 2020 school year as well as very different than what was offered this last year as opportunities although we still use florida virtual or their their curriculum it's not the same so it is a separate school this is whole brand new and so i think that's where our biggest challenge right now is to make sure that there's that clear understanding because we are rolling from kind of one thing into this other thing um and so that it it is very different it's its own school we're launching a brand new school not just a new program a brand new school um that mr dolan is excited about on figuring out the mascot and so essentially we are launching a brand new school and so i think that's going to be the biggest challenge from a community understanding as well as our parents is everything stopped with what they knew and what was offered it's not remote it's not distance learning it it's none of that and like you said um i think the other hard part would be is we we ended up being very flexible and accommodating to families although we said that there were certain times that they could move in and out of an online environment we were accommodating and flexible to families and didn't necessarily stay the line with that this is changing schools it and so i think again it's making that clear distinction this is not like last year it's not like you're going to be home for two months because family members have gotten coveted and it's a long recovery whatever it's not the remote distance um thing this is separate so i think um i think you guys are doing an amazing job thank you for the update and stepping in for mr dolan we appreciate that um but i think that that's that's going to be our biggest challenge in launching this this year it needs to happen and i'm so excited because i've been asking for it like mrs kaler one of my kids i ended up doing a california-based online class for her because of the schedule that she needed which then required a proctor exam so williamsfield the ap government teacher was very kind and offered to proctor her exam for um california virtual academy and so um so we needed this because we have students who need options so i'm excited and i can't wait to see where this goes so thank you for all the the time and effort in trying to get this some of it was forced and some of it happened to go hand in hand but i definitely appreciate that mrs anderson i'm sorry i have a couple questions uh can you refresh my memory um so state tests go into pay for performance still in this district like the scores yes board member anderson it's been several years since we had letter grades so we were going back to i believe it was 2019 and basically the way it's been set up is because we were all a's and one b everybody got effective so okay does it does it add into part of that yes but everybody got the same okay you know writing so with these with this new school in the students that how does that work for paper performance does that apply to the rating of the school that they live in these are really good questions um president reece board member anderson so it's its own ctds number so again these students are registered to that school so again there is still the requirement on the amount of students who have to be tested and obviously that's one of the things that's continuing the whole accountability formula is a whole interesting thing that the state is going to be tackling but it has its own number so if you will okay question i was just wondering do online schools when we do letter grades do online academies get letter grades the requirement for testing will be there i don't know whether or not they get letter grades because of the number of students that it impacts usually they don't and again the whole accountability formula is one of those things that is also being revisited this year you know what's really interesting is schools we're getting letter grades but you know what's in this is so interesting because when we look at things like that are legislatively required like move on when reading the requirement of plans being turned in it alternates every year legislatively but it alternates legislatively back to 2014 when they gave district letter grades which they haven't in a long time so this is one of those things where sometimes the legislation and the accountability are not always in line with each other and yet we still have the requirement for ourselves this is one of this is our school it's a district sponsored online academy um part of our aoa requirements aoi requirements is assessment the percent a tested uh will we get a specific letter grade for higley online i don't know that right off hand right now um i know that nobody got one for this year so pay for performance for this school may look different than teachers in other schools potentially just out of curiosity i don't know if it's based off of any of this testing or anything board member anderson i think these are all things we're going to be working through because i mean be honest i don't know the answers to i'm sorry questions but i'm glad you're bringing it up because i don't think that we've gotten that far down the road yet and we're going to have a brand new test this year as well so it's not azm2 so we're learning about that in the process but so to to speak to that one of the things we'll do is we'll provide an update for you on our pay for performance we'll talk about assessment actually we're kind of excited because um in july we'll be bringing us you assessment updated assessment information um on on how our students did this year on test even though they won't be receiving uh a getting the accountability formula again we're not taught there we won't be worried about that but we're looking at our results of how our students are doing and we'll provide additional updates my second question was please refresh my memory and i'm sorry i wasn't paying attention but so the salaries for the elementary online school that will be like they go through the salary scale but high school middle school teachers will it'll be stipend like they'll have like their salary plus like six or six correct it's a purpose it's per pupil depending on the number of kids on the class and so one thing we're looking at for instance in math let's say i only have 10 kids in one class and five in the other if the teacher's willing to teach both of those then it's they're up to 15 students and they'll be paid per pupil okay and then so with this part-time enrollment so that means um there will be students enrolled in multiple schools in our district is that correct so though is that how that works am i saying it wrong correct they would be concurrently enrolled yes in the hva for a period and then five periods of williamsfield or higley and if they do eve it potentially three differences because because of the event wow okay so as far as transcripts and all that they'd have to pull transcripts from all schools for their needs okay thank you now back to oh sorry board member anderson obviously our transcript will be tracking that so their transcript would show how we're tracking their their credit for instance when they when they do their um if you're going to college you are your giggly transcript would track your your where you were from and where you got your credit from so it was hva was it williamsfield was it even it would all be on our transcript um maybe this is a school board 101 question but i thought that pay for performance was based on was paid unless that particular teacher was on an improvement plan is that not correct that is correct i was just drawing the correlation to how it was related to letter grade school letter grades in the past and so so they all they all do get an effective unless there's formal discipline or put on an improvement plan so that's correct okay so if the letter grade drops or it's different than an a b or c that oops that does not affect how much what percentage or how much they get it all right well your results based funding remember the results-based funding is a different funding yeah results-based funding i think you're talking about yeah talking about talking about this yeah it's a totally different funding totally different thing so there's different funds that are used to compensate so i think that's results-based funding in which depending upon the letter grade there is an allocation for that and that's one of the things we talked about that we would be looking at next year with a committee so that we make sure that we approve that correctly because as you know just about the time you think you get it figured out legislation changes on how you can and can't use the money or who it is or isn't for and so you use a committee to to comprise that so you just approve results-based funding i think what we're talking about is is going back to the compensation where we're talking about buckets the classroom site fun that's that's what we were talking about yep different funds that all contribute to this which is easy for con for confusion and and mrs anderson when we approved that that was for 2018 so results-based funding if it's i mean it's we're going to be a couple years in uh before hva is even part of that conversation does that make sense because it was it was retro to what the grade level was from 2018 and we're voting on that in 2021.

all those in favor it is unanimous thank you board thank you tony and thank you to the whole board for unanimous vote on that i appreciate that next motion i move that the cheshire board of education amend the contract of jeffrey f solin superintendent of schools to provide a total compensation increase of 13.6 percent effective july 1st 2021.

so we have a few years to figure this out i do believe sorry or unless they change it this year and it goes to 2019 or 2020 to 2020 if they don't do anything well said so yeah yeah well said yeah yep thank you for any other questions thank you all right so all right so we are gonna go on to uh information item it's 9.3 it's our first read of policy jliff which is a sex offender notification policy um everyone should have had a chance to review it i don't know that there's anything that needs to be presented on this this is an asba policy that we have also had um reviewed by our our attorneys as well so this pretty much is following the ars law we just we didn't have one before so as our policies update as we are in our first read does anyone have any questions to our policy all right so then we're going to go on to our action items and 10.1 is that i move that we wave our second read on policy jlif and approve the policy second and like we just said we had not had one in place um we've worked with legal counsel to amend and the aba asba's recommended policy any other questions regarding the policy or waiving the second read for it all right all those in favor aye aye that motion carries 4-0 so we will go on to 10.2 and i move that we approve the sorry i'm trying to read two different things i move that we approve the food program permanent service agreement renewal with the arizona department of education fiscal year to 2021-2022 check it is that you okay any questions regarding this agreement all right all those in favor all right that motion carries 4-0 all right thank you for staying in case there were questions appreciate you [Laughter] um future agenda items i know that we had some questions and dr foley would review whether we were putting them on a future agenda item or if there was some answers we can get in our status reports is everyone okay with that yes however either in the status report president reece i have um something for the future and this could definitely be in your status report is i would like to know there was um a few teachers have come to me asking about the start of the day at their elementary schools and that we give some autonomy on how those schools start if there's a slow start um if there is recess before school or not i guess there's just there's differences in all of our elementary schools this is not a board decision that those are made that is a site decision and and cabinet decisions um i would just like to see which schools do what and just kind of know for the information because i know they're different so just an information item in your status would be awesome thank you happy to do that any other future agenda items all right well with that i move that we adjourn second all in favor aye aye have a good evening and the rest of your summer we'll see you right before school starts you

is there a second in seconds discussion ian goes first um i will be fully supporting uh this compensation increase and i fully support extending the contract i feel that dr solon has done an incredible job not just this past year during all of the everything that cove threw at us but for the past five years that dr solon has been superintendent of cheshire public schools we have seen extraordinary rates of of increase in our student performance that kind of says it all i truly believe that we need to bring uh cheshire public school superintendent compensation up to par with other high achieving school districts and uh this compensation package starts to do that and so i enthusiastically will be supporting um this uh contract increase and and i'd like to just say thank you dr silva thank you man kathleen please thank you mr chair um i also will enthusiastically and strongly support um this increase to dr solon's compensation um as ann said the performance certainly over the last year but also just generally as you know over the course of uh dr solon's tenure has been really impressive not to mention all the many other years he spent in the district getting really good results with our kids no matter which way you look at the performance of the superintendent you know whether it is uh test scores or just um our position in in the state as a compared to other districts uh his leadership skills his ability to hire you know amazing people including kathy carlicci for his team i mean it's just the focus on social emotional learning and complex thinking which has he has successfully had it infiltrate throughout our uh school system for the benefit of our kids um you know it it's just so impressive that i'm really really glad that we're able to do this for you dr solon and um i fully support it and as ann said thank you so much for everything you do for our kids thank you katherine mr martelly so you know we all sit up here because we were elected um by the people and uh i did a little when we got the initial request for the compensation increase it was a little bit high i thought but i also thought that i wanted to reach out to others and kind of do an unofficial survey and so that's what i did so i'd like to share i have a couple quotes here from a random selection of people that i met either at coffee shop dropping my daughter off at school or maybe at byron rondo after a couple drinks but here we go highland school fourth grade teacher when we asked for additional preparation time as a result of the pandemic he listened and made it happen he came to highland and asked how central office can support the team now we're the only school with air conditioning and staff appreciate so much the help central office provided to us during the pandemic we aren't even complaining that we're the only ones here for a full day parent of a dad 8th grader i was at a family picnic this weekend in wolcott my sister-in-law was talking about my nephew and niece and how all their school trips were canceled and graduation was going to be a drive-by i felt like i was bragging saying that my daughter was going to dc on wednesday and graduating in person with a full guest at cheshire high school on june 14th parent of a norton third grader we had an issue with our daughter in her reading i was contact directed by marlene and the superintendent felt that i was not one of several thousand parents in the district but that my daughter and my concerns were their top priority darcy schoolteacher he's awesome he came to our school and talked to us directly about the potential that darcy might close as part of school modernization he let us know up front before we saw it in the paper or on social media it means a lot to us and i hope we get to be a part of the design wherever our program may end up iaf sir ia was 25 years of service at dodd middle school jeff was our principal here he knew every student's name and every teacher's name my quiz is a different approach and well we missed jeff especially in the cafeteria he would keep those lunch waves under control like no one else was able to i worked under florio and while his suits might have been better tailored jeff connects and cares about these kids he really cares about this district so those are just a sampling of about 13 others but those were some of my favorite um but then kind of in closing you know the town council did approve a pretty substantial compensation package for um kind of your predecessor or your counterpart for the tower manager so sylvia nichols said this her reason for voting in favor of the increase was under sean stewardship we've grown our grand list maintain our tax rate and our credit rating while supporting the services that we all expect here in cheshire we're embarking on school modernization updating technology town wide and town is growing he has by a guiding sale to us during the pandemic so in comparison i'd just like to say under jeff stewardship we've exceeded expectations about special education and general education rankings maintain outstanding quality of education and value to cheshire taxpayer kept the budget in line while supporting the services that we and all parents expect and embarking on school modernization updating technology and the school population is growing and he has been a guiding style during the pandemic so with that i'm happy to grant you um whatever it is you know whatever the contract is tell people in favor of this motion thank you thank you andrew any other board members uh yeah tim so my first uh so i have a couple questions so this is really going to uh tony and catherine you were on the board when jeff was hired oh you were two in okay sorry i wasn't sure all right so any of the three of you when he was hired uh so part of what's going on here is making his the the idea here is to make his salary more competitive within his peer group and when he was hired five years ago was there any understanding that he was lower than the peer group and was there public discussion about it too like recognizing it at that moment in time so the public understood that at that moment in time yeah i'll try being then certainly anna catherine uh so the answer is yes so i for a little history here um i'm sure most folks know dr flores presses her predecessors i'm sorry dr solon's predecessor was dr fluros we have 20 doctors uh but it's a good thing to have right um and this about five years ago uh actually over five years ago we performed a superintendent search uh when dr florio uh wanted to retire and uh it was a slightly actually pretty different board back then but the katherine and myself and ann are still left over from that iteration i think we had approximately 32 candidates apply for their role we use the facilitator from cave to help do the search it's very comprehensive and um you know it was very thorough i won't get into what we actually did in the search but uh it was very involved data and objectively to get to a you know three or four finalists and um i do recall that dr sullins compensation dr solin uh was literally at the bottom of the list in terms of compensation of those candidates now that that wasn't the only factor in fact that wasn't a factor at all um but also remember that you know at the time jeffrey stalin wasn't yet a phd was high school principal didn't have uh superintendent experience quite yet so but um coming into the role the salary in total compensation was based on the fact of his experience here and you know as tenure as new superintendent so you know we knew um and quite frankly it was on par more or less with dr sullin's salary so uh so yeah we knew that going in there but uh i know in conversations publicly when we made that decision we also had talked about you know um again that was the then board but you know certainly if people are performing over time you know we bring folks up to par and includes dr solon so yeah it's definitely out there i don't know if those are recorded but you know i'm happy to go dig them up but we definitely talked about this publicly i know if anna can't disagree but you can certainly add some more texture to that if you want oh yes okay thank you um question for jeff so we're talking right now the motions on the table is a 13 increase for you and you have several unions that are not getting a 13 increase the most notable being the teachers at what two percent about um why is it different in your in your opinion why is it different for you than it is for the teachers i mean rather than just saying two percent is good enough for the teachers it's good enough for me because first of all you know i i would start by saying i don't care what bargaining unit that you're in or even if you're not in a bargaining unit for the cheshire public schools the work that those individuals do is tremendous and is incredibly valuable i am the leader of that team and therefore responsible for a lot substantially more than pretty much any individual who works in our school system that i'm responsible for a 75 million dollar budget for the academic health and welfare of four thousand two hundred plus students uh for the safety welfare and success of 800 staff members the scope of what i do is dramatically different than the scope of what other people in the organization have to do tony just mentioned as well that you know when i was hired i came to this position with no experience but 12 years of commitment to the cheshire public schools i have 16 years of commitment now to the cheshire public schools uh over the course of the last many years i've proven i think that um my guidance and the you know probably more so to hiring people like kathy and marlene i i was only on vin's interview team i'd love to take credit for hiring him but i can't i recognize that you know the decisions that i've ultimately been responsible for i think have led to tremendous success for the students and our for our community you know our adam mentioned our academic progress andrew others have mentioned we've made tremendous growth and success this um this raise is i think um commensurate uh in some way with what my peers make uh i think that it's a commitment to me i don't have a collective bargaining agreement and you know like other you know teachers would have um and i think you know it helps me to continue this commitment and this you know relationship it's very much i very much want to be here and um you know i appreciate you know the board considering you know making this commitment to me and and even longer relationship thank you um yeah so uh one more question and then i'll have some comments could you uh detail for the record this 13 increase that we're discussing sure the majority of that is in my base pay which is uh 215 520 at this point there's a two thousand dollar retirement increase to actually it's more of a uh let's see two thousand dollar retirement increase and um i'm entitled to a two hundred dollar or two thousand dollar doctoral stipend with an additional increase of uh four thousand dollars in retirement roughly so the the total comp was 212 uh and goes to 248.49 849.240.84 thanks for clarifying that okay um all right so thank you for that uh yeah so you've done a great job this year hands down thank you uh you know back the beginning of the year my request was keeping the kids in school and by and large you did that uh when most schools were not uh when most when most districts were not in school and this was despite widespread and understandable teacher opposition to remaining in school particularly during the holidays there were also some difficulties at the high school uh but progress was made throughout the year and it even really kicked off in the beginning of the year in early january which was you look at the peak i mean it was right about january but based on the discussions you had with many people including public health officials you were making decisions on what was best for the kids overall [Music] in collaboration with public health officials you at one point i was saying i really want to reduce sports in last fall i was really really concerned about what was going to happen worried about it you said no and you were proven right i was proven wrong and when i say that it was it's just based on you know there was no community spread in any significant way at least um with the kids playing sports even though they were in my opinion like something like soccer is a contact sport even if you don't call it a contact sport there is contact so i was concerned about that but you were proven right on that so i appreciate that um also about the keeping the kids in school uh you know one of the things why it was so important to me i just want people to understand this this is actually it's going to be a little difficult for me to even say this so for me personally with my with uh my daughter who was in kindergarten at the time it was really tough last spring when they were not in school there was a lot of regressive behavior um at one point i called up the superintendent but not because of my person not because of my own daughter but when i got some feedback from other parents and i really i came to a conclusion that there was you know more to this than just my own self-interest the regressive behavior was widespread widespread among the kids and i was basically you know i was probably crying on the phone it was just so sad when you have a little kid like that um fast forward to september and we were in school and we were in school for the most part most kids throughout the year and i just feel like that is that was so incredibly important um for the kids to be there even with the masks that drove everybody nuts still drives people nuts um but it was just such a huge huge accomplishment and i really sincerely appreciated so much what you did this past year in a measured and deliberative way with other people other you know public health officials and probably other superintendents and stuff you're talking to um so uh yeah as i was alluding to before you were hired five years ago and relative to your peers you started very low so that's part of why i'm going to support this motion tonight um one thing that i'm looking forward to uh in the upcoming year not to get too far into it but um i do want to uh have better i've gotten your commitment to work on more of what i'll call smart goals looking forward smart being an acronym for specific measurable actionable relevant and timely or time-bound to have more detailed goals so that we can measure things better we couldn't really do it this year i don't think we could other than keep the kids in school and that's it we nobody knew you know nine months ago 12 months ago what was going to be happening my last point of hesitation that really does go through my mind a lot on this is sort of the you know the bigger questions about uh you know the superintendent gets a significant a large raise compared to anybody else in the school system um and it raises the questions of wealth inequality income inequality for me and it's really difficult for me but i do think that this uh i do think they think that you just did a fantastic job this year absolutely absolutely fantastic i appreciate that and with that i'm i'm going to support this motion tonight thank you thank you tim uh faith i just want to start this by saying um echoing much of what my colleagues said in terms of your accomplishments this year they are truly um laudable and so thank you for everything you've done having said that i cannot support such a large increase for many reasons and it is not in any way a reflection of my opinion of you or the performance um you know there are a number of points that have been raised starting with what's going on relative to other salaries in the districts and i i fully support a raise i fully supported generous race but i would like to see a raise that is more in keeping with what our teachers are seeing and what our key administrators are seeing um i i um everybody under your leadership worked incredibly incredibly hard and so um i just have a i can't accept such a a wide disparity and and yes i understand wanting to be um to be in a at a level with your peers and um i kind of wish these increases were coming you know more regularly through the earlier years so this wouldn't have to be such a huge leap um we're i'm committed to getting you to that level but just not all at once um and you know i do want to see some we are doing incredibly well in the you know in the s back area but we're still in the middle of the pack in our peers with sats and i'm i'm encouraged with the progress i'm seeing in high school but i'd like to see some more and um so for that reason again thank you for everything but i am going to have to vote no thank you faith mr grippo i'll be quiet i believe i'm the only one who hasn't sent anything yet i think um so i'm going to start with take us a trip back to march 2018 when i sat a little further down on the dais and i looked you in the eye and said that the buck stops with you it is is your responsibility to look over this school system um since that day things have improved right uh month by month year by year a lot of the things that we've put out uh in front of you have um gotten better it's not perfect there's always uh things to to that need to get better and hopefully as we go back into a normal year we can you know continue to work on those things um and uh at the beginning of this i think it's this year right september right um we all you know even me personally i felt like it's a matter of uh uh life and death and in time uh time that cannot be replaced that the kids needed to go back to school and we didn't know how long it was going to be and some of us had to personally excuse me risk risk their lives to see their children go back to school and stay there sorry and you made it happen um through all the things that you know you kept us up to date um on all the things you had to go through all the people that you had to fight to keep the schools open and there's so many people who appreciate that um and so and and so here i am standing with this massive raise i mean it's really huge um and and i keep asking myself what what what's the price of having our schools remain open um where our elementary schools and our middle schools were full open the entire year and the high school was as open as they could be until we got past january and then they're open even more than they could um and you you work with the health department sometimes even battle with the health department and sometimes even the governor's office and the teachers unions so that we could be uh one of the most successful districts in the entire state as far as remaining open and and have maintaining our academic rigor and then being prepared as we move forward to be probably one of the most prepared districts in the state um and so even though it it kills me to to vote for this massive race um that i don't think there's any other way uh to for for me to as i represent parents and and uh and the children to say thank you thank you adam some last one to go i so my i will definitely support this and uh i actually been struggling with this probably going back to dr solon's last review because even then we were discussing you know above normal pay raises and i knew that at some point you know we'd be talking about it again so i'm not going to really get into whatever else talked about i do want to say this though uh my support for this is not just for the past school year and cove it's largely larger because of that but this is to put in perspective i i like so many of our colleagues here we hear from everybody and i will tell you this past year it's been actually a lot of great feedback no one out there has really complained they asked a lot of great questions concerns so we hear from parents educators you name it and uh but along the way i i don't think i could ever fully do this justice i i said earlier i folks don't realize um and and again it's not that's not just dr solomon's entire staff but the pressure that this leadership team has seen definitely going back to last march by the start of school year um whether it was politicians whether it was the governor's office the state of our education health districts other areas dr sullen had to navigate a lot of different groups some of which had the best intentions some of which i don't know what they were thinking um but largely the it was all around because people didn't know what's going to happen with the school and covet um i i think perhaps the biggest um uh accomplished i've seen jeff perform this past year is working with our local educators our teachers our administrators our support staff our family here at cps and because many of those folks were also in that vocal majority about hey are we going to be safe in schools hey how are we going to be protected hey and uh i'm really happy that our our folks here uh were willing to work with us uh and if i call correct there are at least three or four uh tie three schools where the board got letters last year about hey let's make sure we're safe uh so dr song was able to navigate that and and bring our own team um to feel comfortable and come back to school and handling protocols not to mention anything else around them so i again i wish i could get in more detail but do know it is not just the board uh that that someone was working with this past year was a number of different groups also you know i know folks are thinking well you know dr sullins one person is true he's but he is the head of our school system he has 800 plus people to work with to motivate to coach to manage to make sure concerns are being dealt with and opportunities are being addressed and uh you know to navigate that ship through this past year was you know is challenging in the best of times so you know that of itself i think is well warranted for folks that may be wondering well you know those are talking about 28 000 increase uh when it's all said and done i'm certainly not doing this to put dr sone number one on our drg district resource group b le b uh group um but the point of perspective the you know out of 19 districts that we're grouped in for relative school size and other attributes dr solon has current salaries uh third from the bottom more or less so he's you know 17th on 19th and mostly there are school districts that are above us in terms of total compensation there's almost a gap of almost a hundred thousand dollars some cases you know some don't perform as well as we do and it's not all about test scores it's about social emotional learning uh moving things forward and not all of them were able to have school as much as we did this past year whether it was hybrid or other in fact i think it was uh your own children dr stone that i don't think even saw a day of school a full day of school at uh where they were but so many other districts weren't as lucky as we were um so when you look at that you look at the leadership i i think he definitely deserves a pay increase now i'm can't say i'm never going to do this again uh these are a fairly large increase but if i also look back you know the last four years i was talking about earlier i was on the board when we did a superintendent search and you know a lot of great candidates um but you know the board at a time felt that dr sullivan bought the best mix of um social emotional learning where he wanted to go with actual achievement and you know being a figure in the community and other attributes was right fit for a job but obviously we could not you know pay him these drg salaries without the experience so we we knew that down the road we would address this so i think it's well deserved but it's not something i can do every year unless there's some extraordinary other achievements so um so dr sullin i just want to say you know thank you uh besides those curveballs that kovit threw at you i know um and i have thrown a few curveballs at you the board has thrown a few things at you you've uh you've tackled some interesting situations over the last few years you've ever seen his last last year uh there's always room for improvement but uh i and we'll be working on that going into this fall for the next school year uh but uh by and large it's it's much deserved i think uh you know are we're so not trying to keep up with the joneses with the town council and you know obviously both bodies feel that we need to reward our performers and make an investment in them so i so i fully support this and i just want to say thank you on behalf of all members of community parents especially and our students and staff that trusted in you this past school year and also trusting in you to open up uh and your team to open up this fall and uh you know i certainly look forward to working with you and and we have some other challenges coming but i hope this is uh is taken as a commitment from the board that uh we support you we recognize great performance and by almost every uh objective measure uh that we have before us you're you're definitely knocking those out of the park and you know we'll improve upon that so uh this year i'm willing to do it uh last year we couldn't really do a meaningful increase for a number of reasons we didn't know what the fiscal situation was going to be at that time if you remember we had to cut back our budget fortunate town is in great shape right now thanks to the leadership in the town council we're looking in decent shape i'm pretty confident we could absorb this increase in our next budget for next year uh so it is physically responsible in that regard so that being said uh that's all we have to say so again uh dr sone congratulations on this i soon will support it and if there's any other questions or if you have any other comments from the public i don't have any public input on this so unless there's any other feedback the motion is that the cheshire board of education increased the salary of dr sullen a salary increase of 13.6 effective july 1st 2021 all those in favor all those opposed motion passes six to one thank you congratulations dr salt if i could just uh quickly express my incredible gratitude to the board um you know i i've been a member of the cheshire public schools community for the last almost 16 years now and for you to demonstrate this commitment to me at this time is is really humbling i represent uh hundreds of people in our school system and i just want to be very clear that you know at no time was the board like saying you know if it will only give you a raise if you if you keep kids in school um and i would it would be shameful if anybody walked away with that you know perception we focused from day one our default position was kids are best served academically and emotionally by being in school with their peers frankly i think our staff is probably best served emotionally by being around our kids in person too how do we safely do that and of course that took a lot of work and a lot of energy on the part of all 800 people i tell our our people every day nobody had their job just go on business as usual during this year everybody's job was different everybody's job was significantly harder and i would be remiss if i didn't you know indicate to that our teachers union was incredibly supportive they were a partner from day one you know to whether it was us working creatively to trade teachers with meridian it's the first time i think that's ever been done in order to have teachers be able to provide remote teaching safely in meridian we got an in-person teacher back and other services and or them just expressing you know what are my needs realistically whether they be through ppe and vin would swoop in and and solve a problem or you know through curriculum and and how do we pare down what we're doing this acceleration model and marlene's team would would swoop in you know my job was just to try and help coordinate all that and i work with a lot of really talented and dedicated teachers and administrators and ias and caf people it's those 800 people who kept it open and you know certainly my role was to help coordinate that but those all of those people deserve i guess a high five now that you can do that without covid and uh the the community their their eternal gratitude for doing what they did for our kids so i just want to thank all of them for their incredible effort and commitment throughout the year and and they made it happen at the end of the day so thank you to the board again for demonstrating this faith in me i look forward to our continued partnership to to support our kids our staff our community and uh thank you again for all of our cheshire public schools employees and and families for putting faith in our our our system in having a great school year for our kids at least as great as it could have been under the condition so thank you all very much thank you dr sullin that's it tim right on personnel i think this last agenda item yep moving on to policy uh mr grippo thank you um i promise not to cry during this one yes it was it was uh i believe four minutes long which occurred i don't know about was that six six o'clock or something tonight um so uh tonight uh we only had one thing um and uh it was to uh move a policy to a final reading to the third and final rating so mr chairman i have a motion um move that the cheshire board of education give a third and final reading to uh policy number 5141 student health services and direct the superintendent puts said policy into immediate effects thank you uh catherine seconds is there uh any discussion on the motion right yes thank you okay that concludes my policy report i i think that is the shortest policy committee meeting we've had the entire school year which is great and i i and i say that in jess but i do want to thank the policy committee as most folks don't realize there's a tremendous amount of uh policy and procedure that comes our way and that kennedy spends a lot of time working with with the staff to to work these things so again i want to thank you for that um up next is correspondence doctor slim do you have any further correspondence thank you um superintendent's report i'm just going to keep this super short today concluded the second day of our in service uh we need to again credit marlene for working with our leadership group the committee that put together our professional development we're focused a lot on acceleration how do we support the needs of our students and acceleration you can get the idea that you know we're trying to move kids ahead we're basically just trying to make sure our students have access to rigorous a grade level material i think a lot of places you know they've talked about going back how do we fill in all the gaps that were lost over time and you're perpetually behind if you're constantly working in the past and so we've tried to stay on grade level and make sure that our students get what they need and our data really illustrates that that that process has been fruitful for our students and so our administrative team was looking at how do we continue this into the future so um i want to commend them for their long days uh working with us and and continuing to move that forward for the kids in our community that's it for me thank you dr sullin any uh any questions on dr silland's report as soon as there is none uh there is no old business new business i really don't have a chairperson's update other than uh as a board we're working with dr sullin and team to find a date this summer that works for um a board of ed retreat which is it's not a lake compounds trip but it is actually a yeah as a is a working session where uh and we've done this a couple years ago but uh [Music] figure out you know what it is that we want to try to accomplish upcoming school year a little bit of board member development you know get some feedback of dr sone as he prepares for opening schools but uh you know there's a number of topics we'll go through there and of course we'll report on that if we have that meeting uh before this school opening once we determine that we'll certainly post it and announce it so folks are aware of it uh beyond that we have some we have uh at least two upcoming well two upcoming meetings um and there'll probably be more i just want to give the board a heads up i know andrew asked me earlier tonight yeah coming on school modernization on tonight's report um we can we'll definitely have that at our next meeting which will be uh wednesday june 30th at 7 30 a.m nice and early in the morning which is our annual board of ed fiscal meeting where we close out the school year uh financially and give some summary updates on some topics we'll we'll cover school modernization there but the reason i bring up school modernization is uh the town council uh also began its journey on uh the school modernization plan uh a few weeks ago i know they met last week meeting a few times um and they spoke with uh town council chairman rob boris a few days ago uh we're planning to get both bodies together board of ed and town council might get some time after the fourth of july uh talk about next steps see whatever their analysis uh i i do know that uh a couple weeks ago they approved to uh fund additional money for uh call years yeah colliers for any additional test site so there's there's more to come on that so i expect an active summer on school modernization as we solidify what is available for first for the buildings and make that available to the public some more comments so more work to be done there and i know andrew have more details to share on june 30th uh other than that the next official board of ed business meeting will be thursday august 19th 202 uh 2021 at 7 30pm town council chambers and uh if there are any additional meetings we'll certainly announce those and post them but uh rest assured it will not be uh that quite of a summer for us as we ramp up for the fall but that being said i have no other updates from a chair perspective yeah mr white i'm wondering if you might entertain depending on what the superintendent says entertain a motion to add an item to the agenda but personnel i and i may have gotten this wrong but under the personnel committee uh he had wanted to discuss the family family and community engagement coordinator position but because we were at 7 30 i just said let's end the personnel meeting and bring it up under the regular board agenda so i apologize if i mess stuff up okay without it yes okay okay but yeah oh yeah well i didn't know if you wanted to thank you though talk to the public about it that's all i appreciate the yeah and uh we can certainly if jeffy you want to talk about it on june 30 if you can there's really no action but i know we wanted to talk about just for point of order you know for for foyer and other reasons you know if we have a motion to adjust an agenda item we do at the beginning of the meeting and requires a three-quarter board approval so do this late i okay i don't want to do it however it's not needed right now so i think yeah but thanks for pointing that out and you were kind of felt a little empty here so i now know what it was yeah i i just just so the public knows we were at 7 30. i just wanted to start the full board meeting at 7 30 and end the personnel meeting figuring that it would be on the agenda and i didn't bring it up under it so sorry about that well the good news is there was no action on it but we'll definitely information covered next meeting uh that being said uh there's nothing else in agenda so i call for a motion to adjourn tim makes the motion adam seconds fake thirds all in favor unanimous thank you thank everyone thank you carol van kathy and mike for sticking around for so long as well as marlene you

i'm going to declare i'm going to call this meeting to order at uh 702 pm um welcome to the june 24th 2020 electronic meeting of the environmental commission this meeting is in accordance with executive orders from the governor to affect social distancing and mitigate the spread of the program 19 virus we intend to conduct this meeting similarly to an in-person meeting however please be patient if there are technical issues public comment will be via telephone only to speak during any of the public comment opportunities please call 877 or 888-788-0099 and enter meeting id three 935 two nine seven zero five seven zero zero again this meeting id is nine three five two nine seven zero five seven zero this information is also available on the published agenda in the public notices section of the city website and on the broadcast of this meeting on ctn channel 16 at t channel 99 and online at www.a2gov.org watch ctn so um so josh josh mcdonald this step has stepped in for galen hardy um as our staff representative so josh would you please do the land heritage statement and then the roll call of course i acknowledge that the land the city of ann arbor occupies is the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the anishinabe including adawa ojibwa and bottawatomi and wyandot peoples i further acknowledge that our city stands like almost all property in the united states on lands obtained generally in unconscionable ways from indigenous peoples the taking of this land was formalized for the treaty of detroit in 1807.

[Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] i like to call this meeting of the eastern township board of education to order pursuant to the open public meetings act adequate public notice has been given by the secretary of the eastern township board of education in the following manner one posting written notice on the official bulletin board at the board of education office two emailing written notice of the berlin county times and the courier post and three filing written notice municipal clerk of epshin township may have a roll call please this is cappella here mrs everhart here mr fizzycarrow here ms fleming mr canton here mrs knoll mr lanzalata here mr meegan here mrs ryan here we have a forum thank you at this point i need a motion to go into executive session whereas an njsa 104-12 allows for a public body to go into closed session during a public meeting and whereas the board of education of eastern township has deemed it necessary to go into closed session to discuss certain matters which are exempted from the public and whereas the regular meeting of the board of education will reconvene following the end of the closed session at approximately 7 pm now therefore be it resolved that the board of education will go into closed session for the following reasons as outlined in njsa 10 4-12 items 2.2 through 2.4 do i have a motion motion by miss ryan second by uh mr lanzalotta any questions or comments let's go to a roll call please mrs capalo yes this is everhart yes mr fizzy cara yes miss fleming mr canton yes mr lancelata yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes motion carries awesome see you everybody at seven o'clock approximately [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] my [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] do [Music] so [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] down [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hmm [Music] so [Music] do [Music] do [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] i'd like to reconvene this meeting of the eastern township board of education if everyone please rise for the pledge i pledge allegiance to the crime of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with the created judgment this point at this point i'll be reading the mission statement of the eastern township school district the mission of the april township school district is to promote excellence in an environment that engages students in meaningful learning experiences in partnership with students dedicated staff families and community the district provides a strong educational foundation that will empower our students to achieve their unique potential embrace self-directed lifelong learning develop the skills necessary to appropriate risk taking and responsible decision making respect themselves and others problem solve individually and collaboratively and become contributing members of a diverse global society at this point in time we're going to be heading into presentations and dr smith i leave the floor to you know what all right so like we did last month we are going to recognize students tonight feels fantastic and we're going to first recognize the winners of the marlton elks essay contest so we may have mr and mrs machias with us oh fantastic if you could come on down please if you'd like we'd like you to stand with us while we recognize the um the winners of this essay contest mr mrs mayas are officers within the marlton elks just down here with us to be great yeah thank you and if you don't while they're coming down if you don't know where the martin elks is at the corner of trough and he's brought medford road so it's very prominent and we thank you so much for being with us tonight so uh yeah i was going to go i was going to go number three is this all it's so our first we're going to start with division one that's grades five to six and the first winner is midori johns uh the essay that you so greatly wrote and hmm here it is there it is thank you and i knew you didn't remember congratulations thank you so much all right our next winner is alexander lamarca and then we have gabrielle lippo m congratulations great job congratulations very good you've done a wonderful job and thank you so much for all your achievements we have a copy of your essay because i know you don't remember and your parents would love to say it here you are and you have a certificate from the school district and also your turn around so your parents can see you there you go and boone did such a great job although all of our students did a wonderful job 243 participated in this essay contest just from this school district and boone did such a good job that her essay not only did well in our district of nine lodges that's from all the way up in heights town all the way down to deptford that we sent her essay to the state and from there it was sent on to our national didn't make it in the national but you still receive a state award so so not only do you do you have that in your hand but i can't help this thank you i'm juggling i would like to present you with this let me hold this thank you this is a certificate of excellence this from the elks grand lodge americanism program this is our 2020-2021 essay contest and the theme of this essay was how can patriotism be demonstrated the new jersey elks americanism committee states that our state contest winner in division one with his fifth and sixth graders eboon has placed third place in the state and this award is presented to you today congratulations to boone you're very welcome also as a state winner she also receives a gift card and enjoy spend it wisely and well thank you our next winner is lola rotenovich [Applause] catherine ceriano thank you so much you did a great job and this is for you a copy of your essay save it and come back again next year all of you over there awesome and then our last winner from division one is lucy [Applause] wilkulesky thank you sir and then division two this is grade seven and eight our first winner is sean montier [Applause] monterroyo congratulations sean job well done you placed very well you play second in division two of seventh and eighth graders congratulations and then our other winner from division two grade seven and eight is soha kanjali very nice and congratulations you have won first place in division two of the seventh and eighth graders who participated so thank you very much and congrats the children um their elk certificates and gift cards were sent with the rest of the 243 certificates we printed for the district we do this every year normally we have a citizens and youth award banquet but because of covid uh we weren't able to have it last year and we're working on maybe a picnic this year uh we'll see but um just like to let you know that's how they received their gift cards from the elks lodge and their certificates uh they all did such a wonderful job we had four runners up this year at division one that's how great and competitive esa's were um and it's fantastic that we have a state winner it's only the second time in history of um me being on the committee for 12 years that we've had a state winner congratulations it's really tough to do thank you sir let me go thank you sir very much thank you so much congratulations all students you can return to your seats thanks again to the moral knowledge for all the wonderful support for our students all right so we have another award mr donaio's joining us up here this is this is cool this is really cool so there's a holiday card design contest that cooper levinson which is the law firm that works at many school districts including ours facilitates and students can submit designs for the holiday card and if i'm correct there are 2 000 submissions approximately so if we do a little math 2 000 submissions 5 are selected as the winners that's out of all two thousand and out of those five two are from our district okay and this is not the first time we've had winners from this district in fact we get to see each and winners pretty regularly okay so that tells you you're dealing with something you have great writers and you have great artists in the school district but if i could just take a second it's a really meaningful thing because our holiday art contest is really to promote a charity that was developed by our founder jim cooper and it's called legacy please and it's about addressing food insecurity for students throughout the south jersey area a lot of kids go to bed at night hungry i can say this year was unlike many years because of covert 19 and the rules and regulations schools were providing meals to anybody and everybody who wanted them and in several districts i hear about the number of meals i was at a board meeting just recently school district produced 700 000 meals for the children of its community and it's really interesting because schools get a big wrap about doing things but it's always the schools that are asked to do the most meaningful things when it comes to children and there's a reason why because you do it well so kudos to the school districts thank you for letting us get this message out um and we're going to call it the winners right now and and uh before we do if um so that both winners are from martin middle school we have mr hoffman sitting right there see mr hoffman if you or you can stay there if you want or come down if you want okay we we put middle school put on an amazing eighth grade graduation last night that went quite late so uh and we all if kate gormley who is the art teacher is here she can come on down oh fantastic yeah and and repeat winners are not an accident and that really is from the staff of miss gwinley thank you and thank you for always having your submissions as well thank you amazing amazing i'm so glad you could be here fantastic so all right our first winner anthony abrams that's yours as well i usually haven't described what's going on in the car oh yeah so you want to tell us a little bit of what's going on in your card right here okay so it's um what's it called so it's a car this cardinal couple it's a male and a female they are at their home and it's a tree house like a birdhouse they have a little wreath a sun that says home sweet home as you can see there's a little plant there and there's a bunch of snow everywhere and yeah that's good it's great and and our theme is home for the holidays so even the birds have to come home for the holidays as well so great job and our second winner two out of i'm just gonna say it again two winners same school same teacher same district out of five total overall in the state vanessa vittorio tell us what's happening in your card here um it's a family in their living room on a meet with their uh like a google meet with the rest of their family on christmas eve so even during coven looking for the holidays can also mean a google meet how awesome is that right the kids each got a 50 gift card teacher got two gift cards to spend for art supplies and what have you it's our privilege and our pleasure and congratulations to you if we can all squeeze in congratulations again there we go so i'll just say at this point um families who came for the presentation part we are going to move on next to the board part which just english is a funny language but that that's a sounds like boring part but um the board part so if you want to stay you're welcome to stay if you want to head out enjoy the sunshine you're welcome to do that but thank you so much for the students and the families that came for coming tonight and we look forward to just all the ways you find to express your talents in the future so thanks again [Music] we are reconvening once again okay at this point thank you dr smith for the presentations it's nice to get back into that now we're moving into public comment for agenda items only this meeting will now be open to the public referencing agenda items only however your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or personnel items or negotiations we'd ask you to see the superintendent after the meeting since you do not discuss these matters in public please limit your comments to three minutes per person remember again this is for agenda items only public for any items of interest will come near the end okay anybody seeing none we'll close that portion of i the meeting all right at this point i need to go to item number six approval of the minutes i need a motion to prove items six one and six two motion by ms capello second it by mr kantham any questions or comments on approval of minutes seeing none let's go to a roll call please mrs cappello yes this is everhart yes mr fizzicaro yes miss fleming yes mr canton yes mr lanzalotta yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes motion carries at this point in time we are going to go into what is called a consent agenda consent agenda is where we combine item seven which is superintendent's report administrative items uh number eight curriculum and instruction number nine finance and operations number ten personnel and number eleven uh policy uh into a singular motion all right so i will need a motion to approve items seven one through seven seven eight one through eight seven nine one through nine twenty two ten one through ten eleven and eleven one through eleven four do i have a motion motion by mr lanzalata do i have a second second by ms capello uh before we go into any questions or comments i will give the floor to dr smith for his superintendent's report thank you mr pizzacaro so um the last my last comments of 2020 2021 school year hard enough to stop by saying we made it only possible school in a pandemic due to the teamwork of so many people i just want to take this opportunity to say thank you to every single person who's been integral along the way to supporting our students this year and that means from our staff who've gone above and beyond all year in their roles each day to our families who've worked to support the learning each day in person remotely to a board of education and i'm flashing back to the summer and all the work that went in and all the work that went in every month as we went through the school year multiple meetings through committees board meetings special meetings our ptas and pto who work so hard to keep a sense of trying to provide what we would normally do for kids the ed foundation our township leadership local community organizations who provided resources and more it took we know it takes a village our village is called eve sham and it's with great pride i think that everyone can look back at what we accomplish for kids this year and we wish everyone on that basis also a wonderful and well deserved summer our staff and our families it may seem uh premature to pivot from that to talk already about next year since the school district just ended yesterday but i do want to talk about next year a little bit and that's basically because of uh there's a federal deadline this week in fact today for all districts nationwide to submit what's called their uh return to school plans okay their safe return plans for this coming school year so we are going to talk a little bit about the next school year and uh the purpose for that deadline and for the submission of those plans is so that districts can get access to the american rescue plan money which is otherwise known as sr3 money um and the purpose behind that money is to get all districts to open up for in-person school in september and we might scratch our heads and say haven't districts been doing that like we've been doing it since september full day et cetera but not everywhere has been doing that so in fact some of the biggest districts in the country didn't do it at all so that's part of the urgency behind the timeline and the money is to make sure that all districts nationwide open for in-person learning in september so that's why we're talking about next year right now a day after the prior school year just ended so in that sense it's important to keep in mind that all these plans are drafts right so it's june 24th we have over two months until school opens and we we know we saw last year where our plan was constantly updated as changes went along and guidance changed because we were always looking to stay on the front foot and do right by kids so the guidance for this coming year the 2021-2022 school year hasn't been released yet so the only guidance that school districts have to base their plans for next year on is based on the current guidance from the school year that just ended we really look forward to the guidance for next year when it comes out we anticipate july that it'll come out um and we will absolutely be pouring over that and looking for ways that we can um improve change adjust our plan according with the new guidance the plan is agenda item 7.4 it's been on our homepage since last week i did email it to all families and staff twice along with a google form for collecting feedback and i want to dive a little bit not into the weeds but just into a just like an overview of some highlights from the plan so i'm going to talk about sections one and three miss mcghulik who's going to our curriculum instruction director is going to go over section two and section one as we look through it first and most importantly it states that we will use this coming year a traditional five day per week full day schedule which is just what we ended the year with okay so for us i mean everything we did this year is a tremendous resource for how to do school next year um we will be having basically all the traditional attributes of school traditional movement between the school day mixing of cohorts lunch and recess just like we've been doing and something we're going to bring back which didn't exist this year is extracurricular activities in sports so that's exciting next in section one is masks okay this is probably i would say the most current topic right now the current state guidance is that masks are acquired in schools that there are some exceptions which you can go on the doe website and see and then the exceptions that have been there all year thus our plan requires mass in schools i along with the superintendents of the nine lenape region districts recently sent a letter to governor murphy asking for basically immediate re-examination of that mask mandate um and so we sent that on our friday and i don't want to say that that caused a change but the very next monday after that letter was submitted governor murphy did announce an additional exception to the mask mandate which was that mass are not required indoors in conditions of extreme heat okay which was i know for the districts in our region that don't have ac in their classrooms was very very welcomed right because it becomes a health risk for kids if they're in on air conditioned spaces in june wearing masks for us the immediate benefit was that we made masks optional on our in in all of our on air conditioned spaces right so for us fortunately we have ac we have air conditioning just about everywhere where we don't have is on buses so our buses became masks optional and that helped us continue to be able to get kids into school safely so we're glad for that and do thank the governor for that exception we do anticipate and hope that the state guidance when it comes out probably in july for the next school year is going to have even more avenues and pathways for school districts to um you know mat other mask options basically you know beyond just the basic requirement and the exceptions that currently exist we would we really hope that that re-examination continues [Music] and the districts get more more tools and more pathways with regards to masks other things in section one social distancing we'll continue to do that to a greater extent possible um we did go below six feet this year but we did not see any problems come out of that so um you know again we'll be great as we can in terms of social distancing but we will be below six feet for sure um because we'll have all our kids back buses same thing next year windows open we will allow volunteers and outside guests this coming year we did not do that this year so we're very excited about that that'll let us bring things back like for example the fire education program that we that the our great fire department provides um field trips we didn't do those this year and at this point we're kind of on a tb determined status for field trips just until we see what the protocols are in place in the places that we typically go on field trips in terms of sanitation continue to do all the cleaning that we've been doing continue to use our ionizers which we've had in place for months now which give us that merv 13 equivalent filter protection against coveted and other airborne illnesses contract tracing will be continue to be done just as we did this year which is in close coordination with the county health department just like last year we'll use a health statement of assurance which we did through genesis parent portal last august we'll do that again that families and staff will complete before the school year starts and we will continue to share and communicate information about vaccination with families i've pushed out um and a number of my updates information about where people can go to get vaccinated and um you know so we'll continue to do that and that brings me to the end of basically of section one so i'm going to toss the all over to mrs magulek for section two thank you um so section two is ensuring continuity of services so that section really talks about professional development and how we provide that to staff and different opportunities and plcs we talked about in there which is professional learning communities and using that as a vehicle to deliver interventions and extensions by our teachers talking to each other um analyzing data and it really talks about um you're starting this school year out as dr smith had said you know that consistent daily full-day schedule building those fall routines and structures that were hard to establish in a hybrid model building on those and do going back to some of the additional we still did baseline data this past year but being able to do some additional baseline data plus there will be the state is going to be doing some fall testing as well with the start strong so using baseline data to make decisions in terms of instructional and responsive planning for our kids and where they're at focusing on social emotional competencies so for us in our district we use responsive classroom we use responsive teaching in middle school so establishing those social emotional that mental health and and wellness kind of initiatives and then in terms of academic competencies those academic behaviors growth mindset and then looking for places where we would deliver our tiered interventions so for us that's differentiating within the classroom but we also have what's an irs program in place at each school there's a team so they deliver what are called classroom interventions or recommendations they have what's called supplemental supplemental interventions and then there's more intensive interventions that are done by a specialist and that team makes decisions about where kids are it might be something where there's a you know either a learning identified need it might be something that's behavior it might be something that's social emotional and then the last part of that really in that tiered place would also be looking at our specialized program so if a student would need to be evaluated for child study team or esl and and just kind of again looking at what's most important every year is student growth so where kids are starting and that they're grow making growth and progressing and again that whole social emotional and academic piece being a focus and i'll turn it back to dr smith thank you ms moolik so uh section three is is the public comment section just talks about sort of what districts have done to to listen uh and share so uh like i said earlier we posted the plan on our homepage last week on june 15th emailed it communicated it to staff and families last week we have the google form which is also on our website to collect feedback from any and all stakeholders community members parents staff anyone can communicate with me directly as well we have the board meeting tonight we have july we have august continued communication we'll leave that google form feedback open so you know because again this is a living process um and we without the guidance that that came out yet um we know there's probably going to be changes ahead um so we want to keep listening and have people keep sharing uh so far just uh you know um in terms of that feedback form this is useful info so when i checked last check which is about 5 pm today we had 71 comments total so out of the and just come back to the mask because i know that's a the main topic right so 71 comments total out of those 71 58 addressed masks in some way and 13 did not and and the way the form is set up it doesn't ask specifically it has one really general question which is basically like share your feedback with us right so um people weren't forced to talk about any one topic out of the 58 comments that addressed masks 43 were against masks think math should be optional and 15 were four masks think masks would be required so if you do a percentage on that that's 74 percent i think math should be optional 26 are four masks um i would say you know it's one of those things like um [Music] the little voice in my head i guess my dissertation voice my that's the doctor part the doctor voice goes off in my head saying okay it's not scientific in this way in that way in this way right because someone can submit multiple times to the form um and uh often if you have like you know since the plan says since the plan is adhering to the current guidelines and says master required that's sort of the default so it's more likely that people are gonna you know people who agree with that aren't gonna submit right um if it said mass or optional it probably would increase the percentage of people who were saying mass should be required um another stat just for our thinking um as of the last day of school we still had 20 of students remote which is interesting you know so we started off the year around 72 percent we dip down around 69 percent during the height of covid in the wintertime and then we kept climbing back uh slowly towards more kids coming in and where we topped out was 80 so that was our 80 in person as of the last day of school that was our highest number highest percentage in person all school year it didn't mean that you know there's still 20 percent of families who basically aren't going to have the option that they had all year because governor murphy said there's going to be no remote learning so you know that's a that's a pretty big shift potentially there um like i said so we'll cons we'll definitely uh continue to solicit listen appreciate feedback throughout the summer and uh that's my that those are our comments about the the return plan so thank you dr smith any questions or comments from the board on not just dr smith's comments but for everything that is up in the motion miss everhart i just wanted to give a shout out to those retirees that are leaving the district specifically to mrs nasal i know that there was a shout out to her last night at graduation so good luck to you very passionate dynamic individual that's leaving the district but going on to that second chapter so wishing you best of luck and also to laura lutz who um was uh senor lutz she was our spanish connection here at mes and at rice i remember back in the day when she was traveling on a cart and uh i had personal experience with her with my daughter and so i just want to wish her a lot of luck i know she has a lot of grandbabies and again congratulations to everyone who's retiring but specifically to those two good luck on your second chapter uh switching gears though while i have the mic can i just go to finance for a minute um i just it's not on the agenda but i did bring up these two questions at the finance meeting and i had said to mr rashinti and dr smith that i would bring it up ask the same questions here for the benefit of the board just so that everybody else on the board could hear the answers that were given to the finance committee regarding these two topics so i had a question regarding where were we or how are we doing with bus advertising so if we could have someone from the committee or dr smith or mr rashinti to address that that's my first question it's a great question mr heart thank you because uh it's like one of those um topics that we should keep circling back to periodically um i spoke with our mr clawkins he's the gentleman who runs schoolbus advertising.com which is the company that is overseeing the bus advertising for us as of this week we have two companies who are potentially interested and gonna do it um not finalized yet i'd love for that number to be more like eight or ten companies um so since we're talking on the subject i would just say um you know uh worse for anyone looking and it's it's inexpensive and absolutely eye-catching right if you think when there's an advertisement somewhere where there wasn't before when something is somewhere where it wasn't before everyone sees it everyone will see the advertisement you know and to have your company associated with a trusted brand of our school district right which is serving families the same families that businesses serve um is actually like a peanut butter and chocolate combination so i would just encourage all businesses to keep thinking about it reach out to me please if you're interested i will put you in immediate contact with the company that's helping us and in order for you to learn more but it's a service to the community to your business to our families win win win thank you okay thank you very much for your comment i also had a second question which was where were we on the land purchase by the council if we could update the board with the same answers that we discussed at the finance meeting thank you another another great question so um yes so we have two properties that our township we're very glad for is interested in purchasing one of them is in cambridge and one of them is in country farms the cambridge property we have approval from the state already for that the country farms property which is the larger one we are in the process of getting approval and that does take time and i'll use the word months it takes months to get approval for that um it is in the pipeline and progressing um not currently approved but will eventually be and uh you know in terms of sequence the that would be the property that um is most desirable to sell first because of its um immediate use value so um you know we'll have updates in the in the months ahead but um it'll likely be country for the country farm space that sells first once the approval is finalized thank you dr smith any other questions or comments mr ken all right um from well miss miss fleming um mr cantham has a floor and then i'll i'll get to you oh no problem thanks and then mr lane's a lot i saw your hand too so okay um briefly from the curriculum perspective i know we talked about the safe return plan um and we've been talking about grants all all year so i'll save those two updates that are in the agenda uh if you have any questions you could ask me or mr mcgulick after but um the one update i did want to share was about the summer reading um theme be kind for our one district one theme i just wanted to say there's not only a variety of perspective there but also a variety of form we have a graphic-ish novel there which i think is really cool so i just wanted to mention that and then from the finance section 9.5 i wanted to thank the dharma and daniel walker foundation for their extremely generous donation in support of our district libraries um via the dion book drive it was uh very generous so thanks for that i had the opportunity to hear them speak about their foundation um at a community event uh last weekend and that was that was really great it was very inspiring so thanks for that thank you mr ken mr mr back in just a second that um what you said about the donation because i i uh at the uh yeah no like we both got to meet with mr mrs walker at the juneteenth event that the township organized in the dn organized last saturday and um very thankful for that generous donation of books a thousand dollars that's that's uh quite quite a um a gift so thank you again to the walker foundation and i would i'd add too if the books are ordered and we're excited they're on the way i i was like the voice of god i had no idea where you were coming from i looked over here and i'm like like marianne's not moving um all right uh miss fleming the floor is yours um thank you miss fleming mr lanzalotta thank you for your patience thanks thank you mr mascara um i'd like to piggyback on what miss everhart and what miss fleming said about our retirees but i'd also like to congratulate the new hires that were in uh 10 10 agenda items 10 10.

for thank you Carlos at this time marel can you help us with roll call today is a regular board meeting of June 24th 2021 at 5:30 pm members of the board in attendance president Corina president vice president Andres kto president Clerk enano member Linda Chavez present member mfam present members of administration superintendent Dr Bower present thank you marel and at this time if you can all join me for the Pledge of Allegiance hi Pledge of Allegiance Pledge of Allegiance Amica United States of America the Na One Nation invisible liberty and justice for all you all right and uh as we open up our meetings I would just like to open up open it up today in honor of all the fathers and father figures out in our community um thank you for being there for your children and sometimes Children of the community um raising uh Village right it takes a village to raise our children and I'm grateful for all the fathers and father figures um thank you for all you do um and with that we'll go on to 102 um any uh modification to the agenda um trusty fam I see your hand up yes uh Madam president I'd like to move to table item 5.01 indefinitely you know given that it's redundant we uh this body has taken up the that issue uh on the at the special board meeting of April 29th and I believe it is in the interest of uh of the Alam Rock Community and of this District to ensure uh the stability of the offering of schools for the for for the for this upcoming school year and the next school year thank you trusty fam I did get an email from trusty Chavez um requesting to put it on the agenda so uh trusty Chavez um just wondering how you feel about that or if there's information to report today uh yes uh first of all one of the things that we had to do before the governor said that he was going to do this influx of money one we still don't have the money in the cers yet and two um what was recommended was to cut out 4 million so with the two closures of the schools that was only $700,000 when I asked Mr cbera how much more was chavz I don't want to talk about the item right now because I would be out of um you know terms of the agenda so just to hear hearing what you have to say you want to keep it on the agenda is that what I'm hearing correct yes please and I I have a feeling you'll update us about all this at that time right I I will turn it over okay so um trusty fam I mean I just want to honor um trusty Chavez who was requesting this item today um it's on for information only um so she'll be some well should we not at least let more I mean uh if that's the case shouldn't at least I mean uh I would think that it we should seek you know seek the the the opinions of our fellow colleagues to see if we we need to have this item on the board in the first place um colleagues tryano uh Board of Vice President GTO any thoughts I do see your hand up uh trusty Chavez I just uh want to open it up to Mr I I um agree that we've dealt with the issue um but I would like to honor the ability for board members to place items on the agenda furthermore I'd like the public to know the perspective of us as board members on this issue and I think that would be valuable um so that the public can be very clear on who stands on issues such as closing down our schools and that's that's why I would support listening to thank you uh Board of Vice President trusty wano I was sorry having some problems here but I agree with what trusty keep said as well pretty much worth for work okay um yeah I I agree I'll we will leave it on the agenda trusty Chavez anything to add before um before we move on okay perfect so we're GNA leave on the agenda any other changes or modifications to the agenda before we move forward okay seeing none uh we'll go ahead and go to item um so basically a welcome an explanation to the audience this is a brand new item for me so Dr Bower anything in particular on here um other than letting our uh public know that um anyone wishing to speak on items will have the opportunity to do so on that item just a reminder that if the board president decides to monitor the time of the meeting the board president has the priority to let the public know that the the time will be controlled in a different manner that's it thank you so much for the reminder don't want to take too much time on reminders I want to give the public time to speak on items so we'll go ahead and move forward um item 2011 racial and Equity committee presentation um and I'm not sure Dr bar who who is here too that's I'll turn that over to yes and I think uh Miss Anna nen um marivi she is in the audience she has a presentation for the board and I see her name so she will be uh bringing an update to the board thank you Anna how are you you're welcome Miss n hi welcome or not welcome hello everybody I just feel as though I feel welcomed to the space so I'm really excited to be a part of the group today um thank you Trustees for having me and thank you Dr Bower for um providing the space for the district's racial Equity committee to provide an update I'm going to take a moment to um just make sure I pull up my presentation and share my screen so if you can excuse me for just one minute as I setting up that would be very helpful okay right here we go all right so um a good evening everyone alen Rock Community board trustees uh Dr Bower Mr Sanchez thank you so much for having me I am going to be representing our racial Equity committee this evening and the purpose of this report is to one be able to highlight our progress in areas of need as identified by the spring 2021 Panorama education survey as well as celebrate our team's uh achievements this year it's been um you know I I feel like we can never say this enough it's been a long 16 months and for us to be able to um start up our inaugural racial Equity committee has been a blessing um just being able to utilize the time that we are being able to support our students through to not just support them through distance learning but to also support them by building the foundation that we believe is necessary to achieve our vision which ultimately is to be able to provide the um opportunity for us to grow as leaders in our anti-racist work and work that overall is aimed to affirm and honor our students individual and cultural identities I want to begin with our um with a land acknowledgement uh we are on the land of the MMA and alone people and in honoring the land that we are on we are also acknowledging that we're on our way to reconciling with the history of colonialization and being able to be better citizens and be better um be better uh people to each other to support and honor the land that we're on so to take steps forward with our first school um I want to first propose these guiding questions in in us uh as a racial Equity committee um in US providing this data we want to be able to provide some opportunities to celebrate some of our bright spots in in celebrating our progress since our fall 2020 survey and we also want to provide some reflection prompts for us to consider as a district as what we should consider moving forward if we are to look at our data with the lens of racial Equity this is a quote that was um provided Ed for us um by our Panorama education consultants and I feel like it's perfect to describe the data that we're about to look at it says here change is a journey for everyone we need to understand where people are learn to meet people where they are and keep them moving the purpose of me introducing the data today is to support us in deepening our understanding I know sometimes when we look at data we can approach we can approach with the lens of judgment whether it be self judgment or Judgment of programs organizations and individual actions and what I want to say first before I introduce this data is that this data is are includes the um perspectives of our students our staff and we also understand that the data itself might be limited based on who we're able to outreach without being able to have our students in the classroom to remind them to take the survey but being able to um introduce this information introduce this data can support us with understanding at minimum and by understanding we can be in a place to reflect and by reflecting we can be able to make progress and take actions moving forward so in the fall we um we surveyed approximately 29 schools with six topics um and uh we 2,900 students took the survey across grades three to8 with the spring survey which was delivered in March um and again part of it in May and I'll explain a little bit um about why we were able to actually increase our response rate by 10% and I want to thank um everybody here for making that happen I think in uh in US making um very public and prevalent the importance of this data and how it highlights students and staff members and families voices it increased the um the feeling of accountability and responsibility for folks to want to provide their U perspective and with those perspective we are able to attain more uh solidified perspectives and opinions the six topics that Panorama education survey um provides data around are the following um so there's knowledge and fair of discipline rules and Norms second is climate of support for academic learning third is sense of belonging and School connectedness fourth is safety and the two final topics that we added this year um uh as a requests from the racial Equity committee and in partnership with with our um with our state and federal department and overall district is diversity and inclusion and cultural awareness and action and these last two topics were um surveyed of only our secondary students knowing that our elementary school students um are navigating topics that are more responsive to their age group so again uh we were able to collect 60% of our responses across the district from our students which is a significant increase so I just want to highlight two bright spots um one of one of the bright spots that I wanted to present to um our trustees and our community this evening is that overall um staff perception of school climate is outstanding and we've seen so much growth um across especially the fields of safety and cultural awareness and action now um I'll dive a little bit deeper into that last category because I know that we see that with cultural awareness and action there's a a lower set of favorable responses and a large increase so we can talk about about that but I want to first start by celebrating and honoring that over the past couple of months since folks took the survey in November there seems to be um you know uh just more positive perceptions that are being reported to our um to Panorama education from our school staff and our school staff includes not just teaching staff but our office staff and and a number of folks who um you know who have more direct interactions with the students the second bright spot is that our our families continue to provide positive perceptions and responses around the actions of our district and the actions of our school sites what I really love here is that um sense of belonging is one of the data points that the racial Equity committee focuses on and we see here that that that is our highest uh rated category as a district and I feel like this has been fairly consistent among the years but it's always nice to be able to see that even during a pandemic we're able to maintain um those favorable responses about our school climate now to dive deeper into what areas of focus the racial Equity committee is looking at um I'm going to share some data around sense of belonging um the topic of diversity inclusion which are both student based in in our um in our analysis today and cultural awareness in action in which we'll look at the student and staff perspectives so um as you might see um the the questions that are provided for elementary school students is a little bit different from the ones with middle school students which I'll show in a little bit but what's really awesome to see is that our elementary school students feel still feel connected um and it there seems to be a slight increase since the beginning of the of the Fall which which also feels like again um a success when we're thinking about how many more students are responding this this round um the two outstanding responses um are that are highlighted here is one do you feel close to people at school even though it's 5 57% favorable there's this two two point increase but if you notice the the questions in relations to adults do teachers treat students fairly at school there's a 90% U favorable response which which is a onepoint increase when we look at our middle school students um there's actually um it it's flipped but you know bear with me here I'll explain so we do see increased favorable responses as well for middle school students where there where students report that teachers at the school treat students fairly but we do see a decline with our midle middle school students and them feeling close to people at the school as a middle school administrator myself I can kind of make some inferences around why this might be um however just being in a position to only um dedicate myself to a first read of this data with you as a community um you know I just would like to observe and point out that you know perhaps this is important for us to consider as school leaders and Educators that you know this this drop between connectedness from Fall to Spring is is something that we can be cognizant of for our middle schoolers especially when we're considering how how important that connection is for our eth graders who are about to depart for high school the second set of Sur results that we're looking at here is the diversity inclusion data and again because these uh questions are a little bit more advanced in content this is only provided for our um Middle School students um and we see uh for the majority of it that our students are responding quite favorably where we see these top two uh questions that are being asked how fairly do adults at your school treat people from different races ethnicities and cultures fairly um and and we see the same question being repeated for students uh we see um a two two point in two point increase across two questions um the drop that we do see that's a bit concerning is um the last question here how often do you spend time at school with students from different races ethnicities and cultures it's a fiveo decrease and I I guess again if we reflect on and we can make inferences on um what what the context of this question is I wonder if it looks different with distance learning versus what it looks like in person so another thing to um to keep in mind RI uh the last uh category of questions that we're going to look at for students and for staff is cultural awareness in action this is probably the most um key set of data that the racial Equity committee looks at because this is about the actions that we take as a school to support our students with feeling um you know they have the structures and systems available to help them process information that is potentially connected to um their identity and things that that um you know that could either affirm who they are or help them help other people understand um the diversity of of our students and other people um so the first question that's highlighted here has experienced the most growth where it says when there are major news events related to race how often do adults at your school talk about them with students we see a fivepoint increase and then when uh looking at the last last question here or last two questions perhaps where we see a twoo decline um it says here how often do teachers encourage you to learn about people from different races ethnicities or culture or how comfortable are you sharing your thoughts about race related topics with other students at your school um again we see lower favorable responses and also a decline there now on the contrast we see um perhaps the greatest growth in cultural awareness and action amongst our adult team um as you can see on the right hand side there's um a significant Point increase uh for all questions that are included here and typically you know when Panorama education sets goals with District Partners they off especially when we start off with um percentages of low favorable responses U they they aim for 5 increments and i' say in this in this respect we do see above Five Point fiveo increments and above in terms of growth across all these questions that are that our adults were asked about cultural awareness and action um perhaps the the most the most interesting set of data that we see here um at the bottom where it says how often do adults at your school have important conversations about race even when they might be uncomfortable no um you know we might notice here that the I mean even though it's a 5% or yeah 5.5% increase that there still was a pretty low bar to clear um and what's interesting perhaps the as a difference between the this question the other five questions is the idea of broaching uh discomfort so that might be something that we can reflect upon as a district as well um when we're thinking about the demographics of who responded and how and the level of favorable responses um you might remember this graph from our previous presentations or something that looked like this but just for me to uh review um because sometimes I have to say it out loud in my head for it to make sense to um is in above here in these gray boxes that's essentially the average um the average uh number of fa or average percentage of favorable responses so we see the most favorable responses across climate of support for academic learning and the and second most would be knowledge and fairness of discipline rules and norms for our staff members the lowest is cultural awareness and action and again it was a low bar to clear because our our district average was eight points lower before um but again thinking on behalf of the racial Equity committee we think it's important to disaggregate data by um ethnic identification and and so in here when we're looking specifically at cultural awareness and action for the adult Focus we see here that um our African-American um or black um Educators um had essentially um you know felt very differently um or felt essentially let's see it's um minus 29 Points from 43% um so they provided the least favorable responses about our work towards cultural awareness in action in comparison to the rest of the the demographics provided here as well as our multiethnic groups I think something that's really interesting too is if we if we um disaggregate by a number of years with the district we see favorable responses amongst folks who just joined the district this year which is amazing we're setting a really good impression as a team um and and we also see less favorable responses for folks who have been in the district uh for three to five years or over 10 years uh which is really interesting to me because this six to 10 year Sweet Spot um demonstrates this great set of positive responses so something for us to look into there when we're looking at our students back at our students um and and at the with the categories in which they were um served surveyed um again we we do see that our when we're looking at the category that we're focusing on for elementary school which is sense of belonging um our black or African-American students are responding um less favorably and um our native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders even more so significantly across the board and I know that in our previous conversation um at the board meeting maybe two months ago I remember that the possibility could have been that um yes there there is a lower number of students on behalf of this ethnic subgroup responding at the same time you know any any focus and attention to a marginalized subgroup and a small subgroup is is important to us to still consider to ensure that we create an inclusive environment uh oh sorry that all right and then with our Middle School group um again we have more survey data uh based on the equity and inclusion survey uh questions um we do see um something interesting here that pops up here rather than in the um previous survey for me is we do see a lowered sense of sense of belonging for a the Asian subgroup and the native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander subgroup and then along the side of along the lines of diversity inclusion and cultural awareness in action uh we do see less favorable resp responses for that from our African-American students in the Middle School level and interestingly enough also with diversity inclusion uh we see uh lower favorable responses from our native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander students and our white students so um this being said again this this data is for us to um be able to share what we understand and what we understand is what the data provides for us and of course it's it's part of the picture but we understand that U the whole picture um can be better understood perhaps when we see our students in person and when we talk to them um you know as as uh a racial Equity uh committee co-lead as well as as a principal I've been doing my best to um create structured opportunities to hear students and how they react to the data and it's my hope that we as a district team will continue to focus on highlighting our student voices and hearing them speak on how they interpret this data because sometimes I've learned so much from the students just being able to have those one-on-one or small group conversations with them about how they interpret what uh their peers are saying that being said um I I'd like to take a moment to highlight just the work of this team um again I am lucky to be a representative of the team tonight um however um you know I I want to make sure that I honor just the the multitude of ways that each team member has been able to um to support us with solidifying a foundation for this vision and solidifying the work that we're that we're going to take moving forward because racial Equity work doesn't happen overnight um you know racial um marginalization and and all the ways that uh folks have been oppressed that that has been solidified and and that's been solidified over decades and centuries and and we just got to acknowledge that um this work takes conscientious and intentional effort so we as a racial Equity committee um I understand that we were created um as as a result of the board resolution that uh that was passed 11 to 12 months ago at our July board meeting and as a racial Equity committee that it partners with the district and consists of uh you know a number of internal and external stakeholders that are all within the educational realm um I want to be able to clarify how we as a racial Equity committee Define equity um so the the way that we Define equity is probably most aligned with what the national Equity project says which is educational Equity means that each child receives what what they need to develop their full academic and social potential so I feel like um one of the visuals I like to think about is the visual of of the the family of four riding a bike right so instead of each of them riding the same exact bike they all they each have a bike that fits their different needs including fitting the needs of you know the size of the the person the gender orientation of the person as well as the disability of the person and in this case as a racial Equity committee we believe that we should focus on the efforts that include um developing our own leadership as educational stakeholders as well as our educational team at alumrock to be able to transform the way that we have per perhaps unintentionally um perpetuated inequity and and be able to take steps towards Equity whether that includes um engaging our staff members or team members in culturally and linguistically responsive teaching and pedagogy or um starting grading for Equity uh work at the middle schools um with those Equity based actions we hope that eventually that we're able to break down the barriers that have been created for our students based on their racial cultural and economic identities and social factors to overall help them again become affirmed and honored for their ident identities and their individual contributions you know and this is this is a a brief summary of of the tangibles that the team has been able to achieve this year and um overall you know I just want to give a big thank you to Veronica Talton who's enjoying her summer break and um is possibly passively watching out there um she and I met on a weekly to by weekly basis um around being able to identify key strategies and ideas and data points that we understand are really important to support our district team with honing in on we also were able to enlist a number of folks from within and outside the district to help us um create a process as inclusively as possible but also with with the spirit of being able to um achieve this by the by the winter um selecting a number of team members who can support us in in growing our perspective and learning of what it means to engage with racial equity and as a as a as a group we met three times this year to build community and and engage in shared learning within what we hope to have been a psychologically safe space where what we did was you know we prioritized the opportunity to be vulnerable so that way we can um engage in those courageous conversations so that way eventually we can open up the space and hopefully model how to engage in those courageous conversations and and you know invite other folks to to engage in them as well um we um you know we make our intention to um update the AA UCD community at least on a bimonthly basis we've been able to support a number of inclusion-based initiatives including supporting the Black History Month Expressions contest and pushing out the Panorama education survey uh which we as the racial equity committe team um well I myself um made sure to email every individual principal to remind them about it and I'm I'm sure they they loved me for that and um lastly we were able to celebrate and honor our students resilience at a student panel um last month in which we worked with the city peace project and City year to recruit and um support students during the event and this is um our family photo at the end of the event uh we had a great turnout and we had um just amazing support in the chat um Dr Bower was there Mr Sanchez was there um and I'm sorry if I missed any other names that were there but I just want to thank and honor you all for being there um just seeing these faces just H just brings such um just just such joy to my heart um just understanding that all these students and adults that are pictured here um were committed to ensuring that this Panorama Education data is not the only voice and not the only perspective but there is a narrative behind it and our students were committed to Bringing these perspectives or essentially putting a face behind face and voice behind these perspectives that were provided in the Panorama Education data so some of our next steps we're going to take a summer break and and as I hope the rest of you will as well um and um and you know coming back in August we're going to continue working with our um our district team to take action on the data and support with inclusion based initiatives some of that includes you know continuing to meet with Miss Garcia from state and federal um as well as incorporating data analyses in our um leadership meetings um as supported by with um Jason sor who's one of our racial Equity committee leaders and team members as well um we hope to also engage in more intentional study um around the equity work that we know is already happening so for example I named earlier the culturally um and linguistically responsive teaching and learning um series that was led by Miss uh curri Basu and Mr nativ dad and we'd love to learn more about the impact of those um professional development series on the school I also understand as you know Renaissance Academy we've been um uh engaging in work around grading for Equity as I understand Miss Bickford from Joseph George has been as well and so what we're hoping to do is to identify those uh key initiatives that um that are being taken by leaders and School staff across the district and do a deep dive and engage in that qualitative analysis with the with the schools to get a better understanding of you know the impact on the team and we can make this a wider effort across the district and lastly uh we will continue to apply for Grants we've uh We've you know made our efforts and miss tton and I are super new to grant writing so we've invested a lot of our partners in supporting us with that work but as as we know this work isn't easy and it's also hard to do without um some experts or Consultants being able to support us from the outside and so we're going to continue um you know asking for help um whether that's financial help or expertise-based help uh within our committee but also outside of our committee to ensure that our knowledge is always based on our most Uh current research and research that is well U well backed by a number of anti-racist Educators and leaders around us and that is that is my presentation for this evening again thank you alen Rock Community for your uh for your active listening um thank you board Trustees for this time and thank you Dr Bower for your unconditional support around this initiative thank you Miss NN uh we appreciate all the information uh Dr bow any um thing you want to add before I open it up for us trustees I just wanted to thank Anna for her the great work that she and Veronica and the team have done I just want to let the public know that this is the kind of data we utilize to bring programs that are solid for our students remember academic uh performance cannot happen if students don't feel safe and don't feel part of the school so this is integral part to our effort to really provide the best possible education to our kids so that's the connection I just want to make for our audience and also that the the kinds of programs that be we have been bringing to the board the last especially during covid including the department of socio emotional learning it's connected to the need that we had in the previous data from last year in Panorama and Anna was able to provide you the contrast of how we're moving forward in some areas but there's a lot of work to be done so Anna Veronica team this is fantastic thank you so much huge shout out to miss nen um thank you Anna for everything you did Anna transitioning to to a new role uh and moving to a new home and we're GNA miss her dearly and I wanted to thank her publicly for everything she contributed to Alam Rock Anna the best of luck and we love you yeah we'll miss you that's a great work that we're doing here at alumrock doing amazing that I'm sure there were many knocking on the door to have Miss win working for them so good luck to your next steps there um I know we have public comments so I'll go ahead and open it up to the trustees and then um to the public uh trustees anything you want to ask or comment before moving on uh trusty fam okay uh you know thank you uh thank you principal n and uh Mrs tton wherever wherever she's watching uh or we work in in coordinating this we're certainly going to uh take this information and you know and you know uh us as a board and the superintendent and her administrative team will will certainly use this to to uh plan how we you know Implement uh the best possible Ed ucation for the kids at Allen so uh I wanted to express my appreciation uh my thanks for your services to alen rock and I wish you all the best in your future endeavors thank you trusty fam trusty yes I also wanted to thank um the team for for this report and the work I continue to be impressed by the the professionalism which is what obviously we expect and and really this the Strategic nature of of how we're moving forward with this it's very obvious this is not a committee um that has been established just as a check box or you know to to you know to look a certain way but this is a really meaningful um effort by the district and and that's not possible without the hard work of the team so thank you obviously for that and I also just wanted to say that I appreciate the definition that you provided in the presentation um I think that's helpful to make sure that we're all using similar have a similar understanding of terms and we're all on the same playing field and you know it just makes me think of the approach that we're taking there's always a lot of conversation about you know equality or Equity of outcome versus equality or Equity of opportunity and so I just like the way that definition kind of frames the approach that we're taking and then the last thing I have to say is just that I think it'll be interesting and you kind of alluded it alluded to it Miss l in your presentation as we look at kind of number one timing you know as we move from distance learning to kids back in in schools and teachers back in schools like what does that end up showing the numbers as they look I think are a testament to the great work that has been done by staff during distance learning but it'll be interesting to see any shifts moving forward as we transition and then the other thing is just also I think about like as we zoom out the broader perspective of of this kind of work and and this topic in in the greater Society you know we have our our students in our schools for a certain amount of time every day but then they're exposed to society and the world and so whatever th that climate is and and whatever that you know um news or information that our students are exposed to it'll be I think interesting to see how that fits with their experience in the school so so again thank you for your work and good luck to you we really appreciate your efforts and I'm sure we would love to have you back when whenever you're ready so thank you thank you tryano board vice president Kimo yes I also want to thank uh you and the team I think the leadership was essential uh to get us the the information that uh that we received and I really uh very much appreciated the the solid data that we that that we got back from the from the work that you've done um it's always good to we recognize that there's issues but when we back it up with actual um numbers and information that uh We've derived from the hard work that you've done um it's going to be that much more better when we go out there you know start moving towards addressing uh those issues so thank you very much for the work and yeah uh best best of luck it's a bitter sweet news for for us but uh I'm glad that you're doing you're moving to something you're interested in so thank you thank you trusty Chavez thank you Mrs N Miss N I wish you well thank you um and just you know what a perfect timing um I mean I guess you know we're kind of behind we should have started this work way back when and we're here and we're doing the work now so uh just very uh proud to be a part of this District in this time of really pushing things and changing things um in the way that they need to going right it's kind of like shifting that that uh boat in the right direction so we've shifted we're moving I'm very excited to be a part of the boat um and to ensure that you know the truth comes out regardless of how our children feel regardless of how our community feels I love how you highlighted the plus and I love how you highlighted the negatives and all that is important in order to make decisions as we move move forward uh to ensure that you know we get to the 100% where we want them to be of course um and so just very proud of the work you're all doing every day you know meeting weekly by weekly and you know with the students and um organizing and coordinating and presenting to us um and then being able to support that you know um as a mother as a board member um and so I know also in our community right there's no accidents um we have a pain in di right and uh those numbers recently came out and so really taking the time to look at what is the numbers what is the truth that is happening not just in our schools but in our communities and organizations in order to shift some of those and bring light to um some of the things that were hidden right under the table um that were allowed to be for whatever reasons and so she's really happy to be a part of um the change you know in a positive direction um so that our future Generations um have a much better place that when we leave here it's a much better world for them so thank you so much for being a part of that and um I'm going to go ahead and open it up to public comment Jose if you can help us at this time do we have anyone from the public wishing address the board hello board president at the moment we have no uh public speakers okay I'll wait a couple seconds do we now uh yes we have uh one speaker okay uh first speaker is or only speaker is delsa Gonzalez uh Miss DSA Gonzalez you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin Gonzalez I am a parent of two students in D school district and a community organizer um I just want to say thank you for the presentation I know it took a lot of time a lot of work and to other people that represents the equity racial Equity um I just want to say thank you for bringing this to our schools um and for actually acknowledging and showing data I do agree with Miss um president era loera where you um presented the good the bad but with a lens of let's let's work together let's continue pushing for this work and let's acknowledge what we have here so we could work on it so thank you and that's good evening thank you Miss Gonzalez board President we have no more speakers okay thank you so much and with that thank you again M wi and looking forward to seeing you out in the community in one way shape or form good luck thank you thank you it's been an honor take care everybody okay now we'll move on to item 202 recognition of elmrock Union School District distinguished alumni and I I think uh vice president kto was this um your item I'll go ahead and turn it over yes thank you um so the distinguished alumni uh is a product of the work of the small schools Innovation committee um and the idea here is to go ahead and uh um raise awareness about uh what's going on with our students after they leave um and we have alumni out there that are doing work in different fields different places and uh it's about time that we begin to start showcasing them um I'm not sure if it has been done in the past but um the idea is to go ahead and and do that and so this is the purpose of this item today and um the small schools Innovation committee which is comprised of me and or member of harano met up uh we uh went ahead and discussed and came up with an idea of of not just simply having one distinguished alumni but also looking at different sectors of our of our community different of our society and bringing for forward some names from different parts and so um Dr Bower whoever is managing if you can bring over uh the person identified as art as well and then we'll call them afterwards once we're ready um we went ahead and selected different people from different parts and so uh we will go ahead and begin uh by uh recognizing uh an individual who is an alumni of alam Rock and came to find this out when there was a ribbon cutting for an F fr at um adante dual Emer school when she informed us that she was an Alam alumni I was like wow this amazing we have people everywhere uh Jolie Smith happens to be at the Forefront of a massive organization that has a humongous impact manages a Ser significant amount of assets to go ahead and deal with um the most precious uh thing out there for for us all which is our future our children first five first five s Clair county is a a a an amazing organization that has done amazing work and uh rather than have me talk about that I'll go ahead and uh pass the floor the floor over to uh Jolene Smith and she can go ahead and get tell us a little bit about more about herself her experience in alrock and what what what has she been doing since uh she uh left elmrock welcome Jolene well thank you so much and thank thank you uh trusty KERO I want to say that um I am touched I'm honored but I'm humbled um you know this hearkens me back I was taking notes on that great presentation because there was so much Rich information and and and and I agree with every one of you it's the opportunity and it's also the challenge um that I know that om Rock can stand up to to uh with alongside the community and the families we serve so I was born and raised um this is very difficult for me um trustees I was born and raised in San Jose and lived in Eastside San Jose all my life I my family all lived in Eastside San Jose I lived on Gan Avenue my grand parents lived on Pickford my aunts lived on Claremont and I used to ride the Ride walk the bridal paths all my life that are all along om Rock Avenue and very much a part of the alrock community through my church at St John viani but as I was growing up what I mostly um felt all my life was a sense of belonging and that sense of belonging has not left the East Side Community it's the thing I cherish the most when I go there is that overwhelming energy around a sense of belonging and wherever I went and whatever I did in my life and I'll be 76 years old next month whatever I did and whatever I want I did and whatever I felt I always had alrock in my heart so seriously I went to Palace school at Palace School everything that she listed the sense of belonging the teachers engaged in my life they knew no matter where I went if I was in the first grade or in the eth grade the teachers knew my name hi Jolene how you doing today Jolene and it's the same thing it's the same thing it's so rich in that overwhelming connection and so om Rock Unified School District has never left my heart or where I feel the most comfortable I've told superintendent B this many times I am most comfortable when I'm at The District in those neighborhoods that's where I feel most at home so alrock for me is going to be my forever home and when I started as no matter where I live U or what state or County or wherever I live it will always be my forever home when I started at first five well actually I started at Social Services Agency and really began to look at child care and coworks issues and what the challenges we're facing the community especially Eastside San and um Blanc Alvarado was our first chair and we all know where Blanca's heart lies right so when Blanca Alvarado as our first chair of first five said what are we going to really do to bring the resources that first five generation generates out of the prop 10 Revenue what are we going to do to build the capacity of support for the alrock school district but most the alrock community so when we started our place-based initiatives it was really easy for me in our strategic plan to utilize the data again going back to the report before to utilize the data the pro the really really rich da data that we not only glean from our our Public Health Department our Social Services Agency but what we glean from the community that lived there the people in the neighborhoods and to say what is it that we need to bring to the OM Rock Community in order for your children to grow and Thrive and by the way in our strategic plan to this day there's over 5,000 voices in that plan of the community mostly in the uh alrock beresa and frankco McKinley School District the voices were resounding and spoke up what they wanted and needed for us to bring to them the Family Resource Centers that trustee keral talked about was the number one identified support that families in the district of alrock identified and you know what it's still to this day because it becomes the source in the neighborhood but they wanted it designed in a very different way they wanted the communitybased organizations in the neighborhood operate the F frc's and they wanted the staff of the F frc's to be from the neighborhoods employees from the neighborhoods not someone from the outside brought in but rather neighbors serving neighbors neighbors neighbors collecting each other supporting each other collecting them in groups and in the ability to work together with problems that um surfaced or strengths that surfaced in the neighborhood so it became a um the ounce of prevention fund came out and looked at it and so did the growing up and poverty project and looked at the Family Resource Centers as a resiliency strategy a self-sufficiency strategy because it was neighbors caring for neighbors our volunteer programs that we pay to stipend to volunteers is the largest number of Volunteers in the county work in the F frc's within om Rock and then and it wasn't with without challenges because before we had the leadership that you have now I'll be very upfront and honest we couldn't get in I at one time brought to the alrock school district a $4 million Grant to launch this was 15 years ago to launch The First Family Resource Centers and to launch the work we want to do in partnership with th Rock and classrooms and they turned it down but we never gave up I never gave up I kept knocking on the door until the leadership of the board and the leadership of the superintendent's office opened it up and allowed us to come in and partner that was in 2008 and we've been building ever since my hats off to everything that you do every single day for the kids and family that are my kids and my families they're your kids and your families they're our kids and our families I celebrate you you might be celebrating me uh tonight as someone who's come back to pay it forward but it's really me that celebrates you me that celebrates the families every day that walk the neighborhoods just like I used to every day that walk the neighborhoods just like my kids used to my grandparents all my ancestors walk those neighborhoods I'm proud of it I am so proud of it and I'm really proud of you so thank you tonight from the bottom of my heart but never forget and I'm retiring next week and so that's why it's so emotional but I will tell you I will never ever stop loving pal Rock unified school districts and those neighborhoods ever ever ever so thank you thank you very much for um those comments I think that Dr Bower has uh the plaque that will be U provided to you uh to go ahead and thank you so much there was a momento I will drive to pick it up because it brings me back to the neighborhood um and Madam president at this point if would you uh want to open it up for comments from the board or how do you want to proceed absolutely yes uh let's open it up um if anybody W wishes to share sh a few words at this time uh please raise your hand and I'll call you as I see you uh trusty Chavis I see your hand first thank you Miss Jolie for all the work you've done for all rock and for all of the families thank you thank you thank you trusty fam uh you know uh to Jolene I I want to express my my thank you uh my utmost admiration for your uh continuing dedication to the Improvement of lives in alen rock and um very touched that that after you know what is it you know you you mentioned that you were retiring next week so I I'm I'm guessing that you you were probably the you were probably the class of 1958 or 1959 oh oh much earlier than that oh my good I wish I wish you know Steer clear from that yeah thank you for the compliment but but you know uh I graduated from Pala in 199 basically gradu 40 so 40 years apart basically and and you know it's a h a testament to uh the in the the power of a community organized public School District absolutely uh you know it you know and also as you mentioned you know the Deep family Roots you know this is uh this may be Silicon Valley but you know here we are nine nine decades later yes still educating the the working class of yes Silicon Valley you know and just like back then we were educating the the working class of the valley of Hearts Del life Delight yes so uh you know cting CS right on M on m road yeah and you know and you know I mean and also your perseverance you know I you know now that you know one would think that you know four a $4 million Grant we we should be you know so uh it's not easy having the door you know locked and slammed in the face but it's sort of like your your perseverance is you know in getting the board to to act on this it's a a a testament to the to the type you know to the good people that that come out of our school district so I I want to again thank you for for your contributions then and now and ALS wish you a a you know um a happy retire enironment and uh please keep in touch with us I will because I've become very close to your superintendent you've got the greatest superintendent I've ever experienced Bar None and I've been around school districts all my life that I will never ever ever lose sight of alrock never so much thank you thank you I see trusty Beano's hand up yes thank you board president and thank you Jolene for I mean everything I can't even begin to say what we're thanking you for because it's just everything um and you know I think as as vice president ketto and I did our committee work and talked about this um moving forward in this direction we talked about the importance of of recognizing we use the word pillar the pillars in our community and and the pillars from alen rock that we know there's so many out there um and it's going to be hard as we go through the years if we continue this to continue to recognize because there's so many to choose from but very clearly with you you know I think when I think of the word pillar I kind of think of like a tree a tree trunk and and a tree you know you can't be a pillar as a tree without you know very a a root system that is solid and firm and your your description of your your life and your upbringing very clearly demonstrates the the roots that you have here in Allen Rock which makes you the pillar that you are for our community so I I want to thank you for that and I think that the words that you shared I you know I too have some commonality I didn't go to Pala um I went to Joseph George but oh but you know I I started in Social Services and I continue there to this day and my wife her entire professional career has been in Early Education so I think a lot of the issues that you've always been passionate about um I've always appreciated you know seeing you out there doing what you do and and being at the Forefront of those efforts here in this in this County but again it all ties back um particularly for tonight to Alam Rock and and there really are not enough words to describe you know what you've meant and hopefully we'll continue to mean to alamro in this District as we go forward and continue to identify others that are also pillar so so thank you very much and also I wish you the best in your retirement as well thank semi retirement we're gonna be knocking on your I want to say before I sign off because I don't want to take too much time on your agenda I know it's full I've been I've been in your board room many times till 1: am in the morning so I know your agendas are full um I want to say that yesterday my commission approve my commission approved uh the budget for next year and even though I'm not there I want you to know that the funding it the they approved it the funding is in there for all of the Family Resource Centers and as well as the expansion in hararia the also our our painter school that funding is they approved yesterday so it's not I want I I want to make sure you know that it's not going away just because this person's going away um the partnership is cemented and it all all it's going to do is continue to grow and grow deeper and and the design team by the communities every one of the F frc's will continue to be the practice of what we do in alrock so thank you so much all of you I'm very touched thank you Jolene and we all and we still have words for you so please be patient and take it in soak it in I'm just like oh my God and it's okay you know because you you've done so much in our community so yes thank you um a few few more of us want to sing okay we have Dr honor I'm honored I just feel so like humble yes enjoy enjoy and um take it in Dr Bower I'll pass it over to you thank you board president because I'm a woman of numbers and I want to say that uh because I Jolene has not said something very important that just happened in this past um in this past 14 months Jolene and the four family centers that you guys approved and have with the help of this partnership and so many other people um we the lifeline to our community during Co I'm just gonna say that I have to say it I have to call it um and Jolene owes me the um the numbers of the extra funding that she was able to raise to sustain our community from diapers to feminine hygiene products to formula to help for rent help our Family Resource Centers issue checks for people to stay in their places that's the kind of work she has done we have been able to accomplish in Partnership for this community and I want to thank you for that Jolene you owe me that disaggregation of those dollars because she called me the the other day and I and she's like I can't believe we did this she knocked every door until she was able to raise those funds and thank you so much for being the guardian angel in so many ways for so many families in our community um a lot of our kids would would have gone without um if you had not done that so thank you so much thank you B thank you Dr Bower and I'll close up by thanking you um I can I haven't had the pleasure to sit and have coffee with you or I know we've met in the community but I look forward to now that you'll have maybe some time yes thank you thank you know you because I want to honor the years of service and your wisdom that you've gathered um and I can only imagine you know if I as a woman leader at this time de deal with you know some things here and there I can only imagine the stories and the doors that you've had to continue to walk through and knock and stay at and not give up so I really want to thank you for all of your advocacy for your presence um for those roots that Dr um dror that trusty viaro um talks about you know those roots that allow you to just stay consistent you know I can only imagine the storms that came through you know the everything that you went through and so I look forward to sharing stories and learning from you um and you know allowing that wisdom to hopefully you know um help us youngers you know a little younger um learn from so that we don't have to go through the same you know learning experiences and that um you know you can even help us say hey board president when you said this or when you did that you know this is what I would suggest I'm here to you know learn and so um I look forward to you know maybe I can catch you when you come pick up the plaque I can just say hey let's go to have coffee I love that I would love that I would love that thank you so much I would love that board president before we move on uh Jolene I really want to thank you for um be because a lot of people would have just blasted over and said it's a good it's a you know it's time for good feelings and just remembering the positive but including those things like such as the the time that the difficulties that we've had in the past it's very important that we remember that because we have to acknowledge that there has been progress been made that's right and the term new Alam Rock had come up had been used and that was part of the deal of making sure that we're no longer the board that was closing the doors on people and saying we don't need your resources um God I don't know what they were thinking but I'm glad that we we're moving forward and I really appreciate you for being very honest even in this time where you know it's supposed to be it's intended to be a good a good time but um but you know be remembering those things appr because you never can never cannot recognize how much you grow when you're see this is the thing when you're gathered with people this is how how you really feel and that's why I said thank you to all of you because when you gather people with the same sense of purpose when you gather them around you it's Unstoppable and that's what happened in om that's why I never left because the people were coming you guys with that same sense of purpose focused on the community focused on the children focused on the well-being of some place you love that same sense of purpose was in alignment with my sense of purpose around om Rock so why would I leave I want to be around you people that's why I have that sense of belonging every time I'm there doesn't matter because it's like sense of purpose joining together it's a strong energy force and it becomes Unstoppable thank you very much can we give a round of applause thank you I care deeply about you guys thank you so much thank you this is a great honor thank you so much I'll let you get back to your board thank all of you and H are tomorrow tell you all right oh my God the the next uh phase of our distinguished alumni recognition is we've recognized nonprofit World nonprofit sector and very distinguished alumni in that area uh in the next uh area um whoever is handling the meeting if you can bring on or unmute uh phone number the phone number that's listed in the attendees area that's them and in this case we have two individuals uh who represent the the well they themselves are alumni of alam Rock and that's why they are distinguished alumni um but they're part of a very well recognized family the Kon family that many of us know because they why they gone there to look for tires or you know uh put some gasoline or whatever it may be at their place of business um these individuals represent the engine the economic engine of our country the entrepreneurs the small business people that you know through sheer grit have uh gone out there and uh you know made a a a a a business under the guidance of obviously their patriarch mron you know pillar in our community and uh but they uh represent um our alumni who are out there doing great things uh running businesses uh through their work and through their taxes supporting our our district so they not only did they get their education here at alrock but now through their work they're supporting are uh the ability for alrock schools to continue to provide education the future generations and for that uh we go ahead and we want to recognize uh Ario Calderon and Jose Jose Alonso Kon as distinguished Alam Rock alumni uh so um art I don't know if you can see it but Dr Bower is uh showing the plaque that uh you will be receiving in recognition uh as distinguished alumni and at this point the floor is yours for uh the comments that you may want to make okay um is this for me this is arton yep you're on Art uh go for it you can go give your REM thanks for having me uh me and my brother standing close to the the phone uh we really appreciate it uh I want to tell you that uh um I provide my goods and services to the community um I am very happy uh where that everything has given to where we're at um I attended hover Elementary School I attended Fisher Middle School and attended overfell High School G Royals um and this is a family business we have uh uh build and everybody in the family has contributed um and I'm just happy to to be here in San Jose um I you know I am in this from San Jose I was born in San Jose so I live play and work in San Jose I want to say that education is very important uh being that I attended um the alen Brock School dist District I find it that uh it's building you uh giving you the tools to be competitive out in the in any industry oh Alum rth school district is uh something that I'm most proud of and um you know it very much it speaks for itself this is uh the San Jose area where a lot of working people they're backbone of sose Santa Clara County and we have a lot to say so I thank you everyone uh I want to say uh thank you to all the board members that are there um we feel that uh you guys are doing a good job in getting the point across and doing good things for our schools and it's keep up the good work thank you all so art uh please stay on the line uh uh I I'll pass it on to the board president and then she'll go ahead and uh open it up for remarks from the board yes well welcome I'm going to go ahead and open it up we'll start with trusty fam at this time okay uh you know to to to the mis's calar room uh I think you exemplify what it means to be made in now unlock I mean you you you guys were born here you went through our our schools uh you you received a a good education and you've been able to turn it around and build build a build a business serving you know not only the not only the those who live in Allen Rock but you also turn around and also uh employ many of of our fellow community members and and that uh you know you exemplify what it means to to be a real constructive member of One community and in the process you've been able to make make Alan Rock a better place to uh live work and play for all of us so uh congratulations on on your award tonight uh thank you again for your for many many good works for our community and you know my best wishes for um much more in the future thank you so much thank you trusty fam trusty yes thank you um I also want to um say congratulations and thank you to the Kon family uh for their well-deserved recognition by our this committee tonight um I first became aware of the Kon family because I'm pretty sure I grew up down the street from from the family and and I remember my dad when we needed tires or whatever would head down the Street or or you know have a conversation and we would get our tire work done and I've always done the same thing as well since I've been here and I think the important thing that I always think about about the gon family and all of you that have Through The Years um been a part of this business is that you know some of us in Alam Rock we may leave and do our things but we always come back but there are those of you and those of us or those of you particularly who stay who are who are here who are really like a foundation of the community of the business community and of the community as a whole and I think it's those you know there's a number of businesses that we could talk about in alumrock that have that are Mainstay Staples here that are part part of the the backbone of this community and I think you know it's I'm happy to say that that your family is one of those and that is important as trusty fam said for a number of different reasons employing our community and and you know a number of other reasons but I think that what you demonstrated and I think why we wanted to recognize you tonight is just that consistent Foundation of of the Eastside Family of the alumrock family and how we you know we set our roots and we stay here and like I said we may leave but we always come back and are part of this community so thank you congratulations and please send our congratulations to the entire family thank you trusty trusty Chavez H you're on mute trusty Chavez graas gracias gracias thank you gracias trusty Chavez uh and um I just want to say uh congratulations I've had the pleasure of meeting um of meeting you at one of the larasa Round Table meetings like years ago maybe like five years ago so I don't know that you would remember me but um I wasn't in you know to into politics at the time or even thought um that I would ever be sitting here uh and it is an honor to sit here and recognize you and your family um I'm not sure if you're on still is the but um I just want to say thank you for um pushing through also um like I mentioned to Jolene I'm sure you pushed through many things to have your um your business um open and cemented and now you know when you say the name of your business everybody knows about it and um it makes me proud to know that you came from alen rock that the roots are from here um you know that all those uh two plus two and you know um the things you learned that Foundation um of of your education turned out to be um you know the founders of of kalon and and um this business that you know is not going anywhere um and is here to stay um and I look forward to continuing to uh support you know in in the little you know when I need my tires that's where we go um and you know I know you've also supported me even in you know putting up a sign here and there and saying of course um really working with your community and not just um you know focusing on on the business aspect which is a part you know and making money and ensuring that you have your shops open but also giving back to your community and connecting with your community so I really want to thank you for that and I look forward to continuing to uh build a relationship with not just um our district but also personally um and I look forward to getting to know you all better thank you all right Madame President um before we close off I'd like to also include that um you know the art and Jose and the whole family uh it's it's always like uh there's some community meeting let's let's go ahead and and help out by bringing out some bandul or other stuff or um truck people along to uh to a a a a different event or something that's going on and so this is Grassroots folks that are helping build community and helping the community speak for for itself so that's I I think that's why it's um it's a very well-deserved because aside from being business it's also they are also very Community focused uh and committed to the community uh family so at this point um if you will indulge me I'd like to go ahead and make a motion to go ahead and uh have the board uh accept uh the um the recommendations from the small schools and Innovation committee for the uh distinguish alumni that have been mentioned tonight second so okay thank you trano um so at this time I'm going to go ahead and open it up for public comment and then um we'll go ahead and take the vote uh Jose anybody from the uh Community wishing to address a board yes board President we have one speaker first speaker is daa Gonzalez Miss Gonzalez you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin uh good evening members of the board my name is Ela Gonzalez I just want to congratulate um our our two um recognitions of tonight um Miss Angie um or jie sorry um thank you very much for all the work that you have done I am a parent that have benefited from the first five services and I understand how critical all of that support is and also I am also part of that person that not only benefit uh personally my my kids but also as as a job opportunity to work on the different FES that we have in our alra school areas thank you for that enormous work but especially thank you for the love and the commitment to our kids to our communities and to our alen Brock and you are a role model for my daughters and for for our kids that anything is possible right even if even if we are constantly forgotten or marginalized because we live in that East Side um for Mr kadon thank you for also being a role model for sh our kids that we could build we can own our own businesses in the future and um and for being um that representative of that Community that's it thank you andreo and um trusty hero for bringing this to that table I wish this continues we have a lot of leaders like you said that we have to recognize and and thank you for starting this this is something that it has long been um deserved not only to this recognitions tonight but to other people um later on so thank you very much and have a really good evening thank you I think you said the uh was that it J yes for President we have no more speakers okay thank you so much at this time I will call for the vote um I'll start as I see you on my screen trusty fam hi trusty Beano hi vice president quo hi trusty Chavez hi and myself I thank you so much passes unanimously congratulations now we'll go ahead and move on to item three uh public members who wish to address a board um on any matters that are not on the agenda tonight um Jose you can help us with um our community are there any hands up um of members wishing to address the board on items that are not on the agenda uh board president at the moment we have no speakers okay I'll give a couple seconds and allow people time do we now still no speakers okay thank you so much moving on to item 401 uh do we have anybody here from Teamsters wishing to um address the board or make any comments I believe that we were going to have somebody from trans Transportation her name is Dolores do we have Dolores here I see does kto thank you welcome does uh the floor is yours lores oh can't hear her Lotus are you there I wonder if she's in the maybe if she clicked on um English on the bottom maybe could be a re reason the L is uh if you can try on the bottom and highlight the icon that looks like a world and click on English that may work hopefully oh the audio okay maybe it's an internet connection are you there no um you want to unmute again and try after you've highlighted the English on the bottom uh huh I wonder maybe uh does um we can try back at the end of uh 404 uh if you see there on the screen there's a icon on the bottom that looks like that it says interpretation and then it'll come up you click on English and hopefully that will take care of the audio issue um if you want to try it one more time before we move on to um 402 um and then we can always come back to you I'm assuming you're talking I don't hear anything no are you there are you there no thees okay so um hopefully we take care of this audio issue maybe Dr bar I don't know if you have a phone number that somebody that might be able to help her um and then we can come back to her after our 404 okay um item 402 California School Employees Association anybody here wishing to address the board from CSA we have Sharon welcome Sharon the floor is yours hi good evening I'm Dr Bower board president members of the board first of all I'd like to congratulate the alumni for their um Awards tonight sound welld deserved I know the Calderon I don't know Jolene but um congratulations to her and then to Anna Newan for presentation it was a really excellent presentation so clear to understand and and so meaningful definitely can tell a lot of work was put into that so thank you Anna and congratulations and good luck in your in your next uh Adventure now on the ca side um we've been in negotiate as you probably know our contract has been up since June of 2020 um we were starting our negotiations of course when the pandemic hit and they kind of got put on hold as we were dealing with the safety Theus and all of that according to go along with the the pandemic that everybody was under that being said after that kind of leveled out and smoothed out we jumped right back into negotiations and happy to report that we've concluded our contract um we've have just a little minor things of dotting all the eyes and Crossing all the te's and um but it it's basically finished now so I do want to thank um Miss uh Teresa Smith and her team Sandra Garcia CA changen and a special thank you to Christine McNatt who did all of our typing and put up with all of our Corrections and and um listened to all of our um changes and made them more than one time we can't thank her enough she was an intrical part and then also our team Miss Carol adamac our chief negotiator Tracy Lofton Mel Todd R lrr Robin igard and um it was a long journey but we completed it and it's great we worked well together and we so appreciate it and of course now it's almost time to jump into 2122 but that's a little bit further down the road so for now um we're we're good and and everything's moving smoothly and I just want to thank you everybody have a great summer and take some time off and enjoy your vacations and I will see you on I think July 8th so have a good evening thank you thank you Sharon uh we'll go ahead and move on to alumrock Educators Association area do we have anybody from area here we can help me look at the members and see if we have anybody from area and attendees no I I know that Joseline is out of town but I don't know if she left anybody okay so if we don't see if you're here for area please raise your hand otherwise we will go on to 404 do we see any hands um Jose if you can help me look at the list for president uh there is no hands okay thank you so much moving on to 404 alumrock administrators Association um if you're here from AA please raise your hand say if anybody raises their hand we can okay welcome Dr Ian Rosalez good good evening president herrer laera superintendent Bower trustees and members of the community my name is Ivan Rosales Mones and I proudly serve as principal of San Antonio elementary school I also have the honor and privilege of serving my administrator colleagues as an incoming president for ARA alongside a dynamic group of educators on the leadership team I want to congratulate our Viber and alumni for their contributions and recognitions tonight also thank you principal WN and the arusd racial Equity committee for bringing forth important data for us to sit with and reflect on as ARA we recognize that there is lots to reflect on in the month of June June marks the 100th year anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre where a prosperous black community in tuls s Greenwood District was burned and looted we also recognize that June is pride month an opportunity to celebrate our lgbtqia plus community and bear witness to the experiences and work together to foster a collective Consciousness we want to recognize the board and superintendent bower for your Swift observation of juneth which became a Federal holiday on June 17th of this year to commemorate the emancipation of black slaves we are particularly appreciative of board action and Leadership for allocating approximately uh $2 million of the ELO Grant specifically for accelerating progress to close learning gaps through the implementation expansion or and enhancement of learning supports we are eager to work with our community to put these dollars to use in the coming months ahead as we continue to prioritize meeting the needs of our young people our alumrock administrators continue to step up to serve on the front lines during summer school where many of our students are not only getting core academic supports in math reading and English but also in Steam Visual and Performing Arts and other enrichment programs I specifically want to highlight the work of our ARA members in the CNS Department director Denise a Mendes and the larger team in the CNS Department who during the summer continued to provide approximately 30,000 meals a week including weekend and holiday meals this is in addition to the feminine hygiene products they make available to our young people in our community once a week this is a team of extraordin extremely motivated caring individuals who serve G corason we wish everyone a safe and pleasant July and we look forward to seeing you all back in August thank you president Herrera Laura thank you so much um now moving on to for um actually let's try the Lotus one more time we'll be able to maybe help PR let's see if it's working now the Lord is welcome botes are you there we see a hand and we saw that you muted yourself but I don't know why we cannot hear you um do you know Dr Bower right now I I was trying to connect with Tom to see if I can get the lus phone number but I I wasn't able to we will if you don't mind I can go and and then she can try again yeah yeah maybe if we're able to connect with her um sorry about that does so we'll go ahead and move on to your uh report so before uh um before Jose is gonna help me put a little video that I have for you and for the audience to see we're very proud hold on Jose one second one second let me let me just say before the video before the video I need to highlight three wonderful for people that um help all all of our students in a Non-Stop basis and those are our schooling Services coordinators um last month the board approved the job description these are individuals who will become part of the alumrock family because that's the way we're supposed to do it but they have received a commendation from the Santa Clara County um Board of Supervisors and they are Anna Gonzalez Dana pulo and Lorena Torres H supervisor supervisor Oto Lee sent this beautiful certificates with all of the supervisor signatures for these wonderful ladies and I just wanted to make sure that we highlight you know the work that they have been doing this is Jun is a it's also a a month of celebration around alrock we celebrate the great thank you Dr Rosales for Dr Mones for saying what you said about our CNS team we have great people working in alumrock and Anna Dana Lorena thank you so much for the service you've done as schooling Services coordinators in alra now now we have um a little video courtesy of adante dual immersion Academy and I I think that um one picture speaks a lot more than words so here it [Music] goes Miguel I am proud to be in the of Language Academy I recently graduated from Santa CLA University with a degree in finance and a minor real estate the EXP through my educational career I dedicated my energy to serving the community by promoting higher education while supporting other social activist of efforts as a real estate agent I aspire to be able to dismantle any barriers preventing individuals from acquiring or selling property we the Comm meas [Music] see thank you board members we are collecting stories from our recent graduates in alumrock um more to come thank you thank you so much loved seeing that um now I'm going to go ahead and open it up to our trustees um any reports Communications comments please raise your hand if you have any otherwise we'll move on I see two hands we'll go ahead and start with trusty famam oh boy okay uh quickly first of all uh again thank you to Jolene Smith and Calderone Brothers for their many contributions to Alam Rock uh the exemplify what it means to you know to be made in Alam Roth uh been a packed month I I do want to wish all the fathers out there uh you know that hope that they all had a happy Father's day since we're meeting after Father's day as well as uh uh you know take the opportunity to uh Remember The Importance of juneth Being that again we we we are meeting shortly after uh the recent Declaration of uh federal holiday an important date in you know the work in progress that is this country in terms of uh embracing the diversity that makes up this our community our uh locality our state and our nation uh Co coincidentally it also falls uh June 19th is also uh South Vietnamese Armed Forces Day which is the the Old South Vietnamese equivalent of Memorial Day so I'd like to take this opportunity to honor uh you know the veterans of the former South Vietnamese Army who uh fought uh in the defense of freedom in democracy uh and lastly I wanted to to say that in uh as we're as we're making progress and as the same as the pandemic lifts I am uh happy to report that uh I am as a trustee making my first uh visit to one of our school sites the Lindale uh special education uh summer program I look forward to uh meeting the kids the parents and the staff tomorrow and to you know basically see you know see the good work that our district is doing and also getting a better understanding of uh what it means to teach and provide for the well-being of the you know neediest of our students so uh you know that's it for me thank you very much Madam president you're on mute you're on mute thank you there it is uh Jano yes thank you will in the interest of time I'll keep my comments brief uh first of all I just want to uh congratulate our schooling Services team um I know as a as a Shepherd family member I was exposed to the work of Miss buo and and I know that the entire I I saw what she did at that time and I know that it's no different for any of the schooling Services team so that recognition I know is welld deserved and and look forward to continue work from them um I also want to thank um whoever put together the video that's excellent excellent I think that's the kind of thing that we need more of as we continue to put out there the Su recognizing the work that we have to do but also acknowledging all of the success all of the the positives of this District that's the kind of stuff that we need to continue to get out there so that people understand all the good things that are going on in alamro in spite of what you may see elsewhere and then the last thing that I want to just um confirm um just for clarity to the public I think there's a member of the community or several members in the past that have had questions about or or stated that we either don't haven't done our Brown act training or we don't do it so for those who aren't aware we um that is something that we do annually and we did um complete that earlier before this meeting so um just for the Public's awareness we are as a board we do take our Brown act responsibilities very seriously and and you know in case you may hear in the future that we have not taken that um indeed we have for um the years that I've been here at least and I'm sure prior to that so if that's inaccurate please let me know but I just want to make sure the community is aware that we are in compliance with that um important piece of work that we do so that's all and thank you very much thank you trusty wakano um any other trustees trusty Chavez vice president trusty Chavez go ahead yeah I was going to mention the same thing on the brown act training that we just took it um I actually took it in February but when I heard that the whole board was taking it I wanted to make sure that you know everything is done as a team so I took it twice um so I want to thank uh ran and Roberts and Mr roio for bringing it again and thank you again Dr B for bringing it thank you trusty Chavez uh vice president nothing in the interest of moving the meeting forward no comments okay thank you uh Dr B I know you had something to add just wanted to uh thank uh principal Maria Martinez who produced the video thank you um and then I just wanted to remind our community that although you know things are phasing back into normality quote unquote um it doesn't mean that our community is safe or out out of the green light um as much as we want to just hear and that you know we as a county have 80% of us vaccinated in our community um especially the Hispanic Latino Community we're only six uh 59.1% vaccinated at this time um and if we break down the numbers as we know data is very important but when we break break down the numbers we see that the younger uh generation the younger the younger um ages are even less than 59% vaccinated so just keeping those things in mind um it's important to you know stay healthy um I know you know we don't have to wear our masks in certain places but I personally will continue to wear them when I'm at the public store um and locations indoors uh because I want to make sure and ensure that I do my part to stay safe um and healthy and ensure that my community is healthy and safe until we're at a place where we can then um maybe be around without our masks plenty of opportunities to get vaccinated if you don't know where to go um you can go to SEC free.org or you can call 211 um I know that the county is also collaborating with a lot of the schools to open up so if you haven't done it please do so our schools will open up soon our children will be back in school um and you know we're hoping I know right now it's only 12 and old older but um you know hoping that our younger children are able to to get that vacine um as well and um also in regards to the pain index that I mentioned earlier just important to know these numbers right I mean there's so much right um pain so much pain that our community goes through um but it's important to know that so that those of us that are in positions where we're making decisions um you know are able to do it with a with a wide lens open lens and understand what our community is going through um some of these things that we don't even think about or even know um I know for me before I heard these numbers I was like oh I never thought about that but um that makes sense unfortunately at this time but we get to shift those so for example an upsetting truth is that there is a 5.2 degrees difference in Fahrenheit of the average temperature between the Rose Garden and the east side of San Jose specifically alen Rock um one of the corners is where they they took this number things we don't think about right until somebody else does this research um and so just think about that that means that also means and it's um there's evidence that um although they're only six miles apart the former has 3.5 times more tree covering and 27% less pavement so just think about some of those things right when we um start looking that buildings going up U pavement being put down why the East Side Community is different than some of these other communities that maybe are more affluent um and so just wanted to share some of this information you know as I hear it um I think it's important to just be conscious as we continue to move forward and and make decisions on behalf of those we represent um so thank you so much for your kind attention um and we'll go ahead and move on unless Dr Bower we got word back from does at this time no okay if she comes back later in the meeting please let me know wave me down and then um I'm happy to go back to the Lotus all right um moving on to uh 501 school closures um trusty Chavez I know you uh requested to put this on the agenda so I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to you at this time okay um well one of the things is that uh it's actually a strategy for a prevention because a few months ago we were in the situation of uh the 7-Eleven committee and the reason that it was formed is because we have all of these um facilities that need a repair and the one that is most critical is the lowering student enrollment and we were looking at all those figures and we the district formed the 7-Eleven committee and even though they didn't want school closures they knew and they were recommending as each meeting went on that we could lease out the properties I'm not saying sell properties I've never said that I'm saying lease amount to get a steady uh stream of income um and that's something that had this money not have come up uh that the governor says that is going to be given to Alam Rock we were in really a tough situation financially and so it's better to be proactive and not do it last minute because over and over I heard on the 7-Eleven committee why are you rushing it how come we didn't get more time this is just a plan B I'm not saying this is a plan a this is Plan B to have something in place should we have to revisit it so yes we did close two schools um but you have to remember the numbers of enrollment are still dwindling so right now there is money but once that this is one time money that's coming to us once that's spent then we still have the same problem we had months ago so I just wanted to put that out there and and say that and and I'm not just saying it so on the on the fmat report that they said all of the things the fmat is a financial health risk analysis that was done by a team from skoy and each time it says deficit spending on page you all got the the report so on page 10 you know it it clearly states that that's what was being done and then on the page 11 budget development and adoption and the questions that they were asking we had a lot of NOS we had a lot of yeses but we had a lot of Nos and I'm just saying that we should be proactive in fixing that on the number two budget development an adoption does a district development use written budget assumptions and multi-year projections that the that are reasonable and aligned with the County Office of Education instructions and have been clearly calculated the response from pmat is no on the other page on page 23 item 15.5 does a district review and work to clear prior year approvals throughout the year the response is no fiscal records indicate acrs are not all cleared by first interim for the current year the majority of clearing activity had been completed by December 2019 but one resource showed a balance that had not yet been cleared as of June 2020 well beyond the first interim reporting period item number 1509 does a district have an internal audit process no it doesn't according to them the district lacks an internal audit process there's a lot of things that that could help in reducing uh waste uh and mismanagement item on page 25 19.6 under position control does managers and staff reasonable for their District's human resources payroll and budget functions meet regularly to discuss issues and improve processes no I'm just saying that these processes need to be improved I'm not sorry real quick um because you're mentioning a lot of things and I know this is on for school closures so I'm not connecting the two um and then also want to want to ensure that when we talk about mismanagement that we're very clear because those words you know can really hurt us and so so there's no mismanagement at the time um and I just I'm not saying that right I'm I'm not looking at that trusty Travis I want to refocus on school closures because you brought this on at school closures so um you all you said this is Plan B and I think it's important to also say this is your plan B because we as a district are not having that conversation right now um as trusty fam mentioned earlier so bring closur there can be 10 Plan B I'm not saying that there's only one Plan B this is I just want to bring it back are you done with the school closures piece because I know you were bringing a lot of other things up am I done with it yeah are you done right now so I can move on on the agenda well this is information that I asked for the district to bring but since the district brought none I'm just giving my reasons why I brought it thank you and I just want to allow you enough time for the school closures piece do you have anything else to add about school closures at this time uh not at this time thank you thank you uh trusty Fam I'm going to go ahead and open it up for comments okay am I on you are on welcome okay very good okay first of all uh you know uh what I read you know in the fmat that trusty shavez mentioned I I'm sorry but there that that's not been evidenced in in the last audit of our uh financial statements that we handle earlier in the spring and also uh secondly I too did not see the relationship between that and the the topic of school closures uh you know I I want to reiterate to this community as I mentioned earlier if uh members of the audience in here uh this board has taken a very strong action on the 29th of April in regards to consolidation of uh Clyde fiser and Lee Matson middle schools into their respective Renaissance academies uh We've achieved some we've achieved savings from that I understand that you know we've still got some distance to go but we are heading in the right direction but as we enter the 2021 2022 school year uh we need to ensure assure the community that the educational Arrangements that our children will be having next year is secure we are not moving on with any school closures in the 2021 22 school year and hopefully you know and most likely in the 2022 and the 2023 school year now uh I understand that there is you know as per the budget presentation last week yes there is a fiscal cliff in 2023 2024 but that is something we can deal with and to that extent uh I would like to request the administration of two things a uh first uh let uh you know to research and Report you know by no by December uh the possible arrange Arrangements that our district can do to maximize to increase our revenues coming in uh and two uh to complete an evaluation and audit of all the charter schools chartered by our district with a targeted completion date uh by December uh to get a better assessment of you know the the the students of our district how best we can serve them and also to uh to make you know uh you know let some of these Charters who have been taking advantage of us know that the the free trips to the HomeTown Buffet is over uh we uh you know I certainly mentioned my my disagreement regarding Alpha at the previous board meeting and you know we you know uh I you know I concur in part with trusty Chavez but uh that we we have yes we have some fiscal issues we need to work with but we can you know we have we have the ability of some time to deal with it but also an opportunity to increase our you know to uh maximize our revenues through other sources without unnecessarily uh creating any unfounded rumors about school closers uh you know so on that note you know I certainly hope that uh this puts to rest uh the issue of school closers you know right now you know we you know for as far as I'm concerned we have put the vampire we have driven the state through the vampire lined the coffin with garlic and buried at 12 feet deep thank you very much Madam president thank you trusty fam uh vice president kto yes um I I um I'm concerned about continuing to bring up this issue School closure I we're in declin enrollment but uh my interest is not to go and close schools I think that we have the opportunity to partner with organizations that have a Synergy that that allow us to go ahead and meet the needs of the children that we all serve and we need to explore that uh before we continue to go out there and continue to beat this drum about closing schools that the leasing of alam Rock land is not an answer uh to resolve our our our financial issues uh by attempting to put a couple of drops on top of the bucket and then rip a hole at the bottom by sending by opening up a a charter school in our community um that's essentially what we'd be doing you bring in a couple hundred thousand and then you open up a space that takes away about two or three million away from you in the form of 88 and that's a that's a very real truth um and so therefore I'm not interested in having this conversation I'm more interested in moving and going out there and figuring out how we can go ahead and U strategically partner with organizations that can uh help us meet the needs of our community uh first and foremost our children um you whether it's a we we have a a massive need for child care and so that's one of the opportunities and I would love to explore it and move in move on that really quick any sort of counseling services or other support uh that our community needs and if we have space why not partner to bring in those services at the same time generate Revenue um that's my priority secondly um I am very concerned over the continued um I I get it we need to bring up issues when they're there and but to continue to bring up a fmat report randomly and start pulling out things here and there um I if I I I could do that about any individual you know we can go ahead and pull up all kinds of stuff and try to go ahead and um um and um and tear down an individual or an organization and I find it very concerning because a couple meetings ago we found out that an individual on our board kept on citing all kinds of stuff and various pages when when uh many of us on the board asked this colleague of ours to go ahead and point out the particular page um they weren't able to do so and so this Behavior needs to be addressed right now I know it'd be easy just to let it go but it needs to be addressed because it's continually it's it seems like there's a strategy here to go ahead and continue to beat up on alen Rock in public right here I'm not sure exactly who you're serving uh by attempting to continue to denigrate and take down Allen rock this whole deal of putting down school closures on the agenda is exactly what the charter schools will use we put it on flyers and they're going to send it out to families and saying don't go down the rock because they're going to shut down schools you've given them the tools that they need uh to go ahead and attempt to go ahead and remove children from our schools they're already doing it we've already heard about Flyers being passed around rious neighborhoods they use our transparency against us and they're going out there and reaching out to our community telling them don't go to Alan Rockets if they're going to shut down they're going to shut down they're using the 7eleven committee items pulling pulling uh language directly out of what we put out on our website because we're transparent because we don't operate like them where they uh they tend to not operate in in a very transparent manner so I just needed to make sure that I got that out there I it's it's very concerning thank you madam president thank you U vice president GTO um and I'm in agreement I see your hand up trano but I do want to uh bring up um there was already one item that I had uh talked to Rio um I had sent you an email you probably know what I'm talking about um that I I wanted to bring up with this trustee at the time we didn't um but this is the third item since so U Mr if you're there um I just want to I know uh vice president brought it up right now I look forward to um having more discussion about this moving forward um and this type of of of behavior and just you know how we can address it um you know I know trusty Chavez is here and spends a lot of time and has left for our district so I know it's not that she you know intentionally wants to you know hurt our district um and I just want to move forward in a positive and constructive way so I look forward to following up um regarding the matter um obviously not here but we will and we'll come back um trusty M you had your hand up and then I saw trusty Chavez's hand up after that yeah um I kind of one thing I want to say that just resonates with me that I'll um you know I will put definitely some more thought in that I think trusty kto said is that they use their transp our transparency against us um you know that I think that's a very significant statement and when we as a board the things that we say and the things that we do in our efforts to be transparent um need to be very astute and aware about what those comments not only mean in this meeting but in the in the bigger the bigger view of things um so I think that's a key statement and I I'll continue to um think about that and and see how it applies to what we do with regards to this item I mean I I agree with a lot of what has already been said and I just I still I'm unclear as to why this is here other than you know some I don't even want to speculate but I don't know what this item is doing here I don't understand what the connection is it's from information only and I just don't want to even give it any more oxygen to to to Pro proliferate any ideas so I'm I'm um recommending that we move forward in our agenda and take care of some real business that we have um and then when the issue of of you know our budget and potential school consolidations or whatever comes up in a real way then we deal with it at that time I just don't see the connection right now so that's it so can I respond since everybody was directec hold on hold on I did I did say that I would call on you one second um uh and I know it's just on for information only so go ahead trusty Chavez and then we still get to open it up for public comments so let's remember that I want to give the public time to speak on this item as well go ahead sure so I'm not bringing up something that they don't that the public doesn't already know as far as Charters go because they already know the fact that I want to get ahead of it because the one of the things is is if you do have extra money because this money that we're going to be getting in this time frame it's going to be it's onetime money it's going to be spent so to bring a better quality programming you know everybody knows you need money so if we can maybe lease a few things and I'm saying partnering up with you know daycare partnering up with other businesses because those businesses will bring more students and enrollment to our schools why not why not do it you know full Kinder that's another option and that's you know that would bring more enrollment there's so many different things that we can do to bring in more things because I'm thinking about the quality of the education of the students and just because um I'm the only one saying it doesn't mean that everybody doesn't already know what's happening you know I'm bringing it out there and I'm asking us to change things for the better not to put the district down that's not what this is for this is to hey let's be more Pro proactive because if we're just going to be responding like we were a few months ago with with the 7-Eleven committee then that's where we'll that's where alen Rock will be in a couple more years once this onetime money is gone why not put things in place doesn't have to be this plan B it could be any Plan B you guys want it'll improve the finances of the district that's all that's all I want thank you and I think we're all in agreement and I think we're all doing that I know trustees have brought on different ideas and some you know we agree on and some we don't and that's why it's a beauty that there's five of us and so I think it's pretty clear you know you put this on closures it's pretty clear where you stand um and it's pretty clear where the rest of us are at right now and um we'll move forward to public comment at this time Jose can you help us um do we have anybody from the public wishing to address the board on this item uh board President we have one speaker our speaker is Dolores Quintero yay does is back so I think um Theus is here to give her report um on 401 let's see if we're able to get her so either way she's able to speak welcome the welcome can you guys hear me yes oh very good well welcome for members welcome our I did sit in Just for information the last meeting and I was really impressed because I haveed more meetings the lot is you're kind of low so we can't really hear you I don't know if you can maybe scream or yell to your phone or I'll shut off the fan can you hear me louder now is it better better okay so um I'm doares kto and I am the shop stward for transportation um Tom Fu I believe is on vacation so he's gonna have a nice three-day weekend um he had asked me to sit in so no problem and um I did sit in the last board meeting I did like what I seen um I would like to continue to sit in as the shop steart for teamsters for transportation um but I was really intrigued with the direction that the district seems to be going in for the community um you know I I just I love the presentation by an win I believe that was her name um with the racial equity and um you know I am just really excited with the schools opening up Co going away hopefully right um welcoming our students back um it's like a whole new day right we get a whole fresh start so really glad for that and really glad to be part of the team uh you guys make me feel very welcome which I really appreciate um and yeah let's bring bring it bring it on in August the new school year exciting nice thank you so much lordes I appreciate you uh trying hard to get on so we we're happy to have have you um and we look forward to seeing you in our meetings more so yeah you are welcome to come and um participate in our meetings um thank you so much Jose I believe you said uh there was only one speaker that that's correct uh no more speakers Madam president great uh with that we'll go ahead and move on to item 502 approv board policy 5141 2.21 uh administering medication and monitoring health conditions second reading um move to approve move to approve by Mr fam second second by trust Viano uh we'll go ahead and open it up for let's open it up for a public comment at this time first and then we'll go to the trustees uh Jose can you help us with that yes uh at this time board President we have no speakers okay I'll wait a couple seconds do we now uh still no speakers okay moving on to trustees any questions comments concerns seeing none uh go ahead and call for the vote uh trusty pamp hi trusty Beano did you say I sorry K hi trusty Chavez hi vice president Kinto hi and myself I passes unanimously 503 approve renewal of contract for Legal Services with rean and Roberts APC any move move approval uh by vice president GTO second by fam um I'll go ahead and open it up for public comment at this time I no public comment at this time no public comment I'll wait a couple seconds and any now Jose still no public comment okay I see trusty Chavez's hand went up and down uh did you have something to say trusty Chavez or ask yes yes um I had a question uh last month for Dr Bower on the prepaid legal and also three times I've mentioned it in 2019 uh and another one in in 2020 about um the cost of prepaid legal and um the last response that I got was that sometimes um Mr ree isn't available for the questions and so uh the superintendent will check with another um she's shaking her head and this is exactly what she told me so trusty I'm sorry trusty Travis and I just want to understand your question so you're asking about prepaid legal yes prepaid legal because what is your question because that question I brought up because I thought that roel reee and the firm of rean and Roberts uh was sufficient and I said why are we paying prepaid legal this money if we already have two lawyers one is loano Smith uh loano Smith and the other rean Roberts so quick question I just want to clarify so you're wondering why there's money going into prepaid legal and money going there and money going there if we have Roberts is supposed to take care of all of our questions when and I just I want to I want to clarify before we move forward Dr Bower is it true prepaid legal is for uh staff assistance employment employees and I just know because I have that in my job and I know many that do so that's separate um trusty very separate may I explain yes please so I wrote it I sent an email to trusty Chavez explaining that this is something that employees pay in in case they have specific questions for themselves has nothing to do with Ron and Roberts or loano Smith or anything like that I sent it in writing thank you thank you so it's it's like a insurance that you have like Kaiser so prepaid legal is another type of insurance within a organization and employees um so I just want to clarify that Chavez that you understand that this is very separate ran Roberts does one thing uh and the other one you mentioned um but go ahead I see you have more questions or com that was not articulated to me in 2019 or 20 or till this moment right now so as far as it being if I would have been told that from the beginning I would never have brought the question up again but thank you for explaining that Bina perfect okay I'm glad we clarified that now um I know it's in writing somewhere and I'm sure we could forward that email as well um and I just bringing it back to ran and Roberts what we're here to discuss um any questions comments around this contract otherwise I'll call for the vote forwarding the email isn't necessary okay so I I got the response thank you very much thank you trust Chavez calling the vote now trusty fam hi trusty Beano hi trusty Chavez hi vice president kto hi and myself I uh moving on 504 approved process to select PR marketing firm um Dr Bower uh Madame President we have come to a a Crux in terms of the pr we need to some support in helping us with enrollment campaigns and such um the previous firm um was a a little bit over our price because we're also looking at different contracts so I'm asking the board very respectfully to help us um with the process and if you uh so choose tonight to help us with that kind of service uh that we need um to be able to select send an RFB kind of the same thing that we have done with other contractors for the board to look around and see what would be the best fit for Alam rock this is at a less cost than we that we used to pay thank you thank you um I'm going to go ahead and open it up for public comment and then I'll bring it to uh trustees questions comments concerns Jose can you help us that board president at the moment there are no public comments okay I'll wait a couple of seconds do we know uh still no raise hands okay thank you I'm bringing it back to trustees trusty Chavez I see your hand uh yes I would like to uh do a motion to request to start um the process please okay motion to request uh to start the process I think Dr Bower you outlined that process very well um I see trusty Bano with your hand up uh so I have a motion on the floor I don't know if you want to depending on how you feel second the motion or uh you have a question comment I had a different comment it's not a second okay um I second I second that I'm in agreement um to move the process forward um with that I'll go ahead and uh bring it back to trano any questions comments concerns okay um yeah so I uh I guess at this point what I um wanted to say I guess would be an uh proposed amendment to the motion um because I think that the the direction that we're being asked to provide is not just should we start or not but what process should we use so I um I'm going to propose that we or I'll just throw this out there as an idea and see what my colleagues think that each one of us similar to processes that we've used in the past for our legal council and even appointing um trustees each trustee submits one question that they think is important or relevant um to the hiring of a firm and um a PR firm and then maybe we have one or two questions from HR or or some other department um in the district and we use those questions we bring in all of the applicants that are pre-screened by the HR department to meet the minimum qualifications those that meet the minimum qualifications they come in in public at a special board meeting we ask our questions that each one of us has and then in public we um we make a decision as to who we would um vote for and I I just want to also thank Dr Bower for and the team for bringing this to us I you know as as some of you may recall um with the last I guess it's been a year ago now I was interested in um the you know getting some some deliverables very clear defined deliverables provided to us so that we would know what we were paying for um and we did approve it I think in the absence of that and and I think I look forward to this new um possible new um PR firm being able to provide us with a very clear set of defined deliverable so that we get what we're paying for and we um you know we're able to message out the things like the other length of video and all the awesome stuff that's happening so so thank you for bringing this and that would be my amendment I guess to to the motion on the floor as far as the process for selection thank you trusty and I think um it's an addition to I think we were just talking about the beginning so I think it's perfect you know it's kind of in addition to the next steps then would be exactly as you outlined and I love the way you outlined that um so yeah I I I I'm in agreement um which kind of you know I think will also help the way you outlined it other processes that we've already begun I think to make sure that you know we follow through with with those two um a lot of work to do but you know we we get to do it looking forward to it um I do see you trusty Chavez don't worry I won't continue without uh going um so we have a motion we have a second um again I know I'm in agreement with adding that trusty Chavez first of excuse me hold on hold on one second ask a question if you're in agreement with his Amendment or addition and then uh we'll go ahead and go back to your comment I'm okay so the district he said that they could ask one or two questions I'm fine with what he's proposing but I think because the district knows what deliverables were done and not done and they would be uh probably more knowledgeable questions I believe that they should ask the majority of the questions I mean we can all wrap more questions around that but because they know better what was done what is needed because they're the ones that are seeing the work that they do on a daily basis if I'm fine with what uh trusty veano says but I'm just saying let's not limit the district to one or two questions thank you trust Chavis uh Dr Brower thank you Madame President thank you uh trusty Chavez um we are just asking you know the process starts with an RFP and we're going to we have already um gathered information from the National Association of public relations firms for public schools we are very deliberate to really focus on that and so once we go through the RFP process we get the firms to apply because that's what they're going to do then you're going to interview them that's where your questions come in right so the RFP is drafted according to this criteria and then we send it out we'll see who responds to the to the RFB and then when you are ready to interview them um then you can use the questions as a stated by trusty bearan I just wanted to make the clarification because the RFP we need to draft it very specifically to the to the guidelines okay thank you um I'm going to go ahead and turn it back to trust Chavez and then uh vice president kto if you can close it up and then we'll go to vote trusty Chavez so the motion that I made in also includes theano statement and can we vote on that is everybody in agreement yes I think I think we're gonna figure that out in a little bit with a vote uh vice president GTO that was be talking he had his hand up I justed his up sorry wanted to clarify I thinko um I I think the process will come back to us and I think you know we'll be building on that next steps um are you in disagreement with the RFP process and opening that up at this time I I actually wanted to just clarify to make sure I understand what Dr Bower said very briefly Dr bow are you are you saying that the questions that the that the district has would be addressed in that initial RFP and then the questions that we would ask in public would be our questions but the district specific questions based on your knowledge and expertise are outlined in the RFP okay that's all I wanted to clarify thank you trust all right vice president kto and then we'll go for the vote that was it that I'm assuming that the RFP will be developed by staff they'll get all the questions they want answered there then we get our shot at the questions in the integre thank you for explaining that Dr B thank you all right calling the vote trusty fam hi trusty veano hi trusty Chavez hi vice president kto Hi and myself I passes unanimously moving on to 601 approve the 2124 uh local con control accountability plan um 2019 2021 um 21 2022 budget overview for parents second move to approve by vice president kto second by trusty Chavez um any questions comments additions before we move forward no okay um I see trusty Chavez hand up is this for whoops okay no that was for my second sorry no worries Jose is there anybody from the public mission to address the Bo on this item yes for President we have one speaker our speaker is Miss DSA Gonzalez Miss Gonzalez you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin good evening members of the board I just um want to say thank you ssandra for the amazing work that she's been doing the past years with the um cap as well as um to answering our parents and communities um questions when we have one however I did miss ask one question and I don't know if we can um answer it here if not in a later time it's it's okay by me um there is a significant increase and we talk about what and I and I asked that to miss Garcia of um $5 um ,000 for foster youth when it used to be 45,000 um I understand that services are crucial especially during this times for our students I was just wondering if we also had an increase of foster youth in our school district and that is why we also increasing that um the amount that we're that um is used is allocated for for these students and that will be just my question but thank you very much Sandra you are doing an amazing work and collaboration with parents community staff and everybody um have a good evening thank you m Gonzalez were present at this time we have no more speakers thank you um so at this time uh I W to um open it up I don't know I know s does here um any presentation or any words um Dr Bower no I was I was gonna turn I don't think so it's kind of what you already uh and and I wanna if I may I want to thank sand up Andra publicly because she is here um to make sure that she closes the loop uh she's going her family is going through a very challenging moment right now and Sandra we love you uh and we thank you for the amazing job that you've you've done thank you yes thank you Sandra for um showing up um and uh this work the we it shows how important you know it is um for all of our students and um our community be here so thank you for showing up um actions speak louder than words so you being here means a lot um and know that uh you know we're here to support you and your family as well with anything you need um all right uh we'll go ahead and call the vote uh trusty fam hi trusty Beano hi trusty Chavez hi vice president GTO hi and myself I passes unanimously thank you 602 inform only progress of local performance indicators uh who do we have on for that Dr Bower I'm GNA turn it over to Miss Campbell welcome Miss Campbell see just share my screen good evening board president board members Dr Bower and Community as part of the new uh as part of the new requirements in as we adopt our lcap each year we are also to present our local indicators that will go on the California dashboard the requirements around the local indicators for the dashboard is that in Spring we do a measurement of our progress and then in June with the adoption of the lcap we present our local indicators and in November when the portal opens we we upload this information to the California dashboard which will become public in December so just kind of to give you an idea the local indicators fall under priority 1 two 3 five and seven and 9 and it's what it's one of the indicators that the local education AG agency pulls together and gathers the information themselves sorry so this kind of breaks it down state indicators are the indicators that the state fills in and populates on the dashboard and the local indicators on the right are the ones that we're presenting and the majority of them are done through different portals uh different surveys self-reflection tool that we do with our community and as you can see on the right hand side these are the the areas that we will present on today just to get just a reminder that when this is just a sample of a dashboard it isn't ours it's just a sample the local indicators are the ones on the bottom and as you will see you we get as if we do the work and up up upload it we get indicator met so there's you get three there's three ratings indicator met not met or not met for two years so as we upload them we'll get an indicator met so some of the changes that have happened this year is with the approval of that the US Department of Ved um requested a waiver to around the state accountability and the reporting requirements in March and with that approval um they they waved that accountability requirement for last year when sb98 was adopted um also that it it um sorry it prohibited the California Department of Ed from publishing any state or local indicators on the 2020 dashboard they were only allowed to populate general information about the school district the student population and any link data that comes directly from calpads that um around attendance rate and general just general information the the waiver also removed the requirements to identify any school as a com a CSI a comprehensive support Improvement any targeted support Improvement or any differentiated assistant schools the schools within the waiver the schools that were already eligible in 1920 will remain and continue their eligibility through 2021 and there will be no new identifications so some of the local indicator District performance and all of these are done through a self-review so the first one is the basic the state priority on basic Services a lot of this this indicator has to do with the Williams settlement and the data is what what's uploaded to the the the county office with our William settlement State priority two is around the implementation of State academic standards and com and Common Core State Standards and the support for that as you can see this one is completed through a self-reflection tool and what we did for this one is we we surveyed our teachers and they they rate how we do and the rate is around if they felt that we were still in a exploration and research phase a beginning development initial implementation full implementation or full implementation and sustainability so here's some of the pieces of State priority the first one is around the professional learning that that for the teachers around the Common Core State Standards and as you can see we talk about the English language arts the English language development math and GS s which are the new science standards and history and social science the second one is around do we provide the instructional materials around Common Core State Standards and the last one is identifying areas that they can improve and delivering instruction so again implementing policy and programs to support them and as you can see have a bit of a mix rating but there's again a lot of this is is for us to reflect on and use as plan forward another part of the state priorities on academic standards is around implementation of others other other state board adopted Frameworks and then on the bottom around engaging our teachers and school administrators and letting us know what are their needs and I would say number five even though it came out threes we it was a very high it was a high need need this year and we we surveyed the teachers quite a bit to find out their need around professional learning and around groups and having collaboration time and also one-on-one coaching which we I think we presented at one of the previous meetings State priority three is around parent engagement we the data for this came from our Panorama survey and I know you did um get quite a bit of that through the presentation this morning uh earlier today from Anna newn so again around our how our parents felt and our families felt around parent engagement that they felt that the degree in which families become involved they said 95% felt you know responsible uh that responded favorably there was that s safe School environment they felt connected they felt belong that they had that sense of belonging they were treated with respect and they felt welcomed and again this was from our Panorama survey next one is our school climate and that's from the Panorama survey that our parents our students and the staff take and that's around feeling that the school the perception of the school is safe and there's that connectedness so around school climate we have parents believe the school is safe we have the parents believe their child feels welcome and the students feel the school is safe all of these showed some increase from previous years of Po more positive rating from previous years and then discri this is student survey around school CL uh the students feeling connected and that strong relationship with their teacher feeling a strong sense of belonging and here you can see the difference in the ratings between our elementary and our middle schools [Music] priority seven has to do with course access around providing all the instruction in common core areas that are out there and this is more of a reflected narrative so this kind of is a lot of verbage what you want to really focus on is this here these are the com this is the general pieces uh common subjects that are offered in our 1 through sixth grade and here in our middle school areas so as you can see the ideas to provide to make sure that all students have access to those General Core Curriculum after we do that analysis we did talk about some of the barriers that we still think we need to kind of address is again the availability of electives at at all our sites um really the adoption of health and CTE um then also just around the under representation of el students in some of our electives at some of our sites what Revis revisions and decisions are we making based on what we've learned well one is creating our master schedule to really providing more access to all our students with disability and our English Learners to have more access to electives and extra courses uh continue to we've brought in a mod some modules in our near pod platform that addresses College and Career and Career Technical education we are we've increased the number of Visual and Performing Arts offerings in our elementary schools and continuing to do that and then we are enhancing our training significantly to support our teachers to learn strategies around English language arts uh English language development so those kind of the general General piece of it the next steps again is that in November member we will be off we will be uploading all this information in the dashboard and it will become public release in December for everybody to access on the California dashboard portal and thank you thank you Miss Campbell um I'm going to go ahead and open it up for public comment at this time and then we'll bring it back to the trustees uh Jose if you can help us out do we have anybody wishing to address a board on this it it we president at this time we have no public comment okay I'll give it a few seconds just in case of we're running to the button to press it do we now still no public comment okay um I'll go ahead and bring it back to the trustees truste Bano yes thank you um thank you for the report I just had a quick clarifying question hopefully um so on the of the data that you presented there towards the end um where it's categorized as responded favorably um I'm just wondering I'm assuming that's some sort of Liker scale maybe a one to five scale and so I'm just wondering how you define responded favor favorably was that like the top if it's a scale of five maybe the top two choices top three how does the respon responded favor favorably get defined that verbiage comes straight from the Panorama data we get okay so they operationalize it yes or yeah okay and do you know how they arrive at that or that's just how it comes to if you don't have it Sandra's gonna Sandra's gonna answer that yeah okay I Justa had on so yes it is a it is a one to five scale so it is the top two um levels of the of the scale okay I responded favorably yes okay awesome thank you thank you uh anybody else have any questions or comments on this presentation um seeing none I I'm just going to mention you know uh I'm I I'm always excited to get information and to see where we're at um and then you know when at the end we're we provided some of the barriers right some of those realities that we face um but then also look to see in some of those Solutions right basically is how we see them um and I look forward you know and I'm happy that we've started the implementation or at least the in the direction of ethnic studies which I know will help you know a part of that uh piece there in regards to the availability of um electives you know and and and growing what we have to offer our children because you know that that's the thing of um any District any school right we get get to look and see what we're not offering yet and how do we offer more and so offering our children um continuing to grow with times continuing to grow with you know maybe computers and all the things that um maybe even now we can't even imagine five years from now the new things that we will be um showing and having to offer our children so um thank you so much staff you know for continuing to do that and see how we can push ourselves to the next level and continue to move on with time so that our children have the best of the best um and you know not to mention um leadership superintendent thank you for pushing our staff and in our district so that our children can be well-rounded um adults as we've seen right that come back and give back to their communities so thank you for that um and I believe it was on for information only um so thank you so much Miss Campbell we'll go ahead and move on to 603 approval of the elcap federal agendum um and I don't know if there's uh I see trusty fam rais motion to approve motion to approve by Dr Dr Dr Fam you have future for you know all you out there I I can see your future um I am motioned by trusty fam I see trusty Chavez's hand up second is that a second I see her nodding her head so can you say second just to make sure I'm not okay thank you I just don't want anybody to say you not put words in her thank you truste Chavez okay um so we'll go ahead and bring it to um I don't know if there's any presentation on this B I'm assuming not or there is yes I see I do have a short presentation yeah awesome I will share I'll be okay you got it Sandra I'll to you yep okay good evening uh presidenta and um superintendent Dr Bower trustees and Community um thank you again again for your kind words earlier and I'm very happy that um the alap was um now passed so that we can move forward and Implement that as part of the lcap process approval process um we are now annually required to approve the elcap federal addendum and I'm going to share just some very brief information on what that Federal addendum is um so here's a little chart on um the requirement um around this Federal agendum it is a federal requirement as part of the elap development process and um the reason we have to share it at the same time is because the elap Federal addendum um supports the lcap actions and services through Federal funding and as part of the annual um Consolidated application we have to prove that we have um approved our federal agendum um just some here's some very brief information on what the elcap federal addendum is um it's like I said it's supplemental to the lcap plan to ensure that the Lea meets the Lea plan provisions of the Essa um the initial plan was approved um and submitted July of 2019 but it does require annual um board approval um oops oop sorry about that uh it provides an opportunity for alignment of goals um so that we are and funding so that we are supplementing um the lcap actions and services with Federal funding and then the federal funds allow us to like I said supplement the actions and services the Nar there are four narratives that are included in this plan and they are narrative for title one one for title two funding one for title three and title four just a little bit on what you will see in the narrative for Title One um title one is around improving the academic achievement for disadvantaged students and the topics that are addressed are the five following that you see here um under the title one uh narrative in the plan so educator Equity uh parent family engagement schoolwide programs homeless children and student transitions for title two it's around um preparing training and recruiting high quality teachers principles and other school leaders and this is all around the professional growth and Improvement for our um staff our teachers and our principles um in the areas that support the um lcap actions and services title three is language instruction and support for English Learners and the topics addressed in the plan are all around how we provide additional support for our English Learners through professional development programs and activities and then English proficiency and academic achievement title four is a student support and academic enrichment and that is broken up into three areas um in the plan and that's uh activities related to supporting well-rounded education uh to support the safe and healthy Health to support safe and healthy students and then supporting the effective use of technology and schools so that is what you'll find in the alcap plan and and if you um you can look back at the uh booklet that I provided for you you will notice that um the there are federal funds included um in actions and services um where we are spending federal dollars to supplement the actions and services in the lcap so it's kind of all tied together and that's the reason why we have to have this approved at the same time as part of the process thank you thank you Sandra um at this time if uh there are um any questions from the board I think I already opened it up for public comment and if I didn't please remind me or we can go ahead and open it up again um I don't see any hands from the trustees I'll come back uh Jose can you help us out I just want to make sure that I uh gave the public time to um ask any questions or address a board on this item yes president at this time we have uh no raised hands okay thank you Jose I'll bring it back to the trustees any questions comments concerns okay seeing none we'll go ahead and uh bring it to the vote trusty fam hi trusty Bano hi JY Chavez hi vice president kto Hi and myself I passes unanimously uh thank you so much um item four are we on 604 yes uh local control accountability plan 2124 attitude Community Academy information only Dr Bower this is um required because aptitude it's a district dependent Charter as we brought to you in the previous board meeting this is just in case the board has any more questions regarding that I believe the principal is here in case there are specific questions about that thank okay no no questions um okay we'll go ahead it's information only I'll go ahead and open it up for the public for any questions comments or concerns um Jose if you can help us out yes Madam president at this time we have no questions from the public okay I'm having no questions bringing it back to trustees any questions comments concerns for staff none see none okay uh Madam president ask that we take 6.05 through 6.07 as one it doesn't involve money so I would assume that it would be okay if you want to check in with Council can you repeat the numbers uh the the following three items 6.05 through 6.07 okay I thought you were gonna ask something about 604 all right we're done with that one is roio on so yes uh are we good to do that I I believe that's fine I get a little concerned when our attorney says I believe you're not cover they all deal with obsolete materials so they're all the same subject matter so yes I believe it's fine okay so we'll take 605 606 and 607 together um bations Sandra I thought Sandra was Sandra on to give presentation or no no okay um so Dr B any presentation on any one of these no okay we'll go ahead and um information only I'm taking oh no I'm sorry they all for approval so to approve all three items move to approve by second by vice president kto I'll go ahead and open it up for uh any comments from the public Jose can you help us out no comments from the public at this time board president no comments um I'll give him a couple seconds just in case they're running to press the button do we have any now still no comments okay go ahead and bring it back to the trustees I see truste Chavez's hand up any I have a question um what exactly made these books Obsolete and especially since they can be resold to another District or given it seems like they would be in good condition what is why did they determine these obsolete may I answer yes please yes so we have cycles of curriculum truste Chavez and uh we will be bringing new materials for you and for the for our students next month uh every seven to five to seven years the state changes curriculum and they uh encourage us to get new curriculum especially in science everything is changing so this is an updated version this what you are approving is to declare obsolete these are the old books and we need to get new books no curriculum for our kids thank you uh any other questions go ahead trusty chis other than just changing it because like the for example um on the elementary science like the um the table hasn't changed for chemistry or anything like that so is it just the wording that they're changing that they say is obsolete or or just um the way they're going to structure the way uh a lot of this CRT stuff is coming in is that worded like that have you seen the curriculum and and read it and and if so can I look at it so if are you talking about the obsolete books yes you want to see the solete books yeah and the and the newer one okay we have is that possible yes it is possible for you to see the books but I just want to ask the board that this is a timely issue for our students science is always increasing in knowledge I understand about the periodic table but there's a lot more than the periodic table that needs to be addressed so uh we will be glad to show you some of the samples trusty Chavis I just ask the board to respectfully declare obsolete this old material so that we can move forward thank you thank you tryano yeah I just wanted to quickly state for myself you know I'm I'm not as much of an educational expert as as our staff on hand who brings us these recommendations so I kind of defer to them in these situations but just as an example in the past few years there actually have been four new elements added to the periodic table so um you know we never myself I never know what are these things that are changing but if this if staff's bringing it to us as educational experts then you know it's good to ask questions but um you know I trust that we are doing what's in the best interest of our students thank you trusty Beano uh trusty fam yes I I doo concur with trusty Beano and I say so with a graduate degree in education I mean we've just had a a federal holiday uh enacted in very quick time so you know and not just science but also social studies curricula is updated to reflect the latest findings in history and I also wanted them because uh crusty shavez didn't mention it the the staff analysis for all three items does allow for the sale of obsolete materials in addition to donations so you know either way I there is an opportunity for the district to to recoup the Lo to recoup the cost uh of these obsolete materials as needed so I I I uh I recommend a yes F thank you uh vice president kto uh yes you know in my limited experience I'm an educator myself at the higher education level and um however I've I've observed how you try to keep uh textbooks around and the world keeps on moving and there are things that are happening and so you do have to eventually you know as much as you want to make it less expensive for your students you do have to move on because then you're always having to you know try to play catch up and and keep people from making reference to things that have already passed there was a an acronym that was mentioned right now by one of our colleagues CRT and if I can understand what that makes what is that reference to what does that mean Madam president oh sorry you're asking me what does CRT mean no I'm asking through you uh okay one of our colleagues CRT no trusty Chavez mentioned made reference can you please uh verify what that means look it up on Google it uh trusty Chavez you're not willing to inform us here at this time oh so can somebody Google it for us please Google will okay can somebody for us no no because that's hold on trusty Chavez critical race Theory that's what I said never mentioned it you just said CRT okay CRT is critical race Theory please explain what you're referring to thank you thank you um okay trusty Verano yeah just um before we take the vot I I want to take the opportunity to kind of bring us way back to you know our strategic planning and when we did the work on our mission and vision statement and I I need to have um you know probably memorized those things I don't have them memorized but I do know that one of the things that we talked about was in the vision statement I believe is preparing our students for a 21st century education um something along those lines and so you know we mentioned at the time when we were doing our mission and vision that these are the statements that we should defer to when we make decisions and so it's for me I think it's a good opportunity to reflect on how our actions if we are to approve this and other things like this in the future should reflect the vision and the mission that we have developed for the district so I just wanted to kind of provide that um reflection that I had on on that thank you thank you trust Viano uh okay seeing uh Justus Chavez I see your hand up go for it yeah but everybody's vision is different because we're all individuals so what might look like to you 21st century may not look the same to all of us or to me or to Dr Bower we're all individuals thank you um thank you um as somebody obviously that um continues to speak up on behalf of all those I represent um you know we are a board of five you know and even though each every one of us represents uh World in ourselves and we all think differently and that's the beauty you know I would hate for all of us to think the same um and to see just you know reflections of me and everybody um so yes we all think differently and um you know it's just very important to to uh continue to speak up for those that sometimes don't have the ability to do so um and when we use yeah terms like um are we accommodating you know CRT or something um you know those things just really uh bring up um questions for me as an individual um especially pushing for ethnic studies and we'll continue to to ensure that the truth about where we live and those we represent is continuing continue to uh be brought up and that our children know exactly who they are and that the roots are strong and that they're proud of all those they represent um so um just want to ensure that um and with that I'm going to go ahead and call the vote for 605 606 and 607 uh start off with trusty fam hi trusty Beano I didn't hear you sorry hi thank you uh trusty Chavez no uh vice president kto I I think he said I I know it's cutting off uh and myself I um four eyes and one no Chavez um moving on to 701 yes there was no motion and no second TR said was if they can bring it all together the items no I I motion to approve yeah there was men motioned it I didn't um men motioned it um and I believe GTO you did you second it I believe so yeah I know there was for sure I just don't remember exactly who seconded it I know M motion yeah I second it okay and I'm sure when you review back on the minutes we'll confirm but I do believe in that will second that um and you got the votes marel yes I did capture that okay thank you perfect thank you moving on to 701 adoption of the district's proposed 2122 budget um assuming Mr CA moveed to approve by vice president K I'll second okay I'm moving forward I I'll go ahead and second that thank you um any specific presentation Mr Chang no board president um similar to the outc cap the presentation was done at the last board meeting perfect thank you so much much um with that I'll go ahead and open it up for public comment at this time say uh yes Bo President we have one speaker our speaker is Miss Sandra Riva Miss rera please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin sorry this was for the last one I don't think she called for public comment on that and my hand was up for that I called it early on as soon as the um I had my hand up but it was I guess it didn't register go ahead and speak uh yeah your thoughts on that I was just going to state that as a teacher in the classroom I feel very um strongly for getting material in for my students um in the last few years ngss has changed the science standards and curriculum immensely and we currently have very outdated science and social studies material and so the recycling of the old and bringing in the new is highly looked for um sorry highly um desired by your teachers that are in the classroom and as far as um CRT for critical race Theory I've never heard critical race Theory um as an educator I know CRT to be cultural responsive teaching and I can tell you that some of the textbooks and materials that we have in the classroom do not align with the CRT that the district has adopted and so getting that material in so that we can make sure to fully represent and teach the students in our community about their Heritage and everything is what we are looking for and asking for so thank you thank you Sandra Jose you mentioned that we only had one yes po president at this time we have no more speakers okay thank you um bringing it back I just reminding U we're on the budget so do we have any questions comments concerns from the trustees before we move forward um and call the vote at this time seeing none we'll go ahead and call the vote Trust fam hio I try Chavez trusty Chavez no did you say no okay nding all right uh vice president GTO hi and myself I um passes for and one no J Chavez uh moving on to 702 approval of Education from project account uh spending plan for 2021 move to approve to approve by trusty fam second second byano I'm going to go ahead and open it up for public comment at this time Jose do we have anybody wishing to address the board well president at this time we have no speakers for 7.2 okay uh go ahead and wait a few seconds do we know still none okay thank you uh bringing it back to trustees any questions comments concerns before we vote okay seeing none we'll go ahead and call the vote trusty fam hi trusty Beano hi trusty Chavez hi vice president kimto Hi and myself I passes uh moving on to 703 approve mini pitch soccer field project at Renaissance Academy Clyde fiser move approval move to approve by vice president second by trano uh Jose can you um let us know if we have anybody from the community wishing to address address the board uh no public comment at this time for this item board president none I'll wait a couple seconds any now still none okay uh bringing it back to the uh trustees comments questions concerns uh just uh Madame President if we can uh confirm with Dr Bower that the source of funds for this mini pitches through a grant and it's not coming from the district that's correct all right thank you thank you for that just just let everybody know it's a $100,000 value added to the to our district thank you Dr Bower uh trusty fam I just wanted to uh con thank the thank the administration you know and for working with uh you know working with that organization to get that uh you know this is a great addition for our kids at no cost to the district I I urge a yes vote and let's get this soccer field up and running thank you trusty barano likewise I also would like to thank the um the district the for bringing us this this and other ones that we have now I believe we have several in the district at this point and I look forward hopefully if if the opportunities arise to continue uh partnership with this organization and others like it you know this these are opportunities for our our kids our neighborhoods we know what the situation is like um in East San Jose with open space and the ability for for our families to recreate so any opportunity that we have to provide space for that I I certainly welcome and look forward to um additional opportunities in the future so thank you thank you um and same just want to reiterate um I love having positive options for our children in our community to keep busy um and be active and move uh physically as well um so thank you so much and I look forward to you know having many more of these uh places and spaces our children can be healthy and happy and moving um so thank you for bringing that and I look forward to supporting that as well seeing no other hands I'm gonna go ahead and call the vote trusty fam hi trusty Beano hi trusty Chavez hi uh vice president kto I and myself I passes unanimously um moving on to 704 approve a delegation of authority to approve bids and a morg move to approve Mo to approve byano second by trusty fam um I'm going to go ahead and open it up for public comment first um Jose do we have anybody we have not no public comment correct okay I'm gonna wait a couple seconds any now still none okay I'll I'll go ahead and bring it back to the trustees any questions comments concerns before we call the vote seeing none I'm going to goad didn't call the vote trusty fam hi trusty Beano hi trusty Chavez no h vice president GTO I and myself I passes I'm sorry four against one um Chavez uh 705 approve adoption of piggyback contracts for items such as equipment Material supplies and services move to approve second by trusty fam and second by uh trusty Chavez um we'll go ahead and open it up for public comment at this time Jose do we have anybody no public comment at this time none okay we'll wait a couple seconds any now uh still none okay uh we'll go ahead and bring it back to the trustees any questions comments or concerns seeing none we'll go ahead and move on to the vote trusty fam hi trusty Beano hi trusty Chavez hi vice president GTO hi and myself I passes unanimously 706 uh discuss and approve the data and format to interview firms for program management PM Services um I see and hand up justo yes uh I'd like to put a motion forth that for this process we utilize basically The Identical process that we identified ear earlier in tonight's meeting for our PR firm in which the district would initially put out a RFP that outlines the requirements needed by by the district and those things that they understand with their expertise and then we those that meet the minimum qualifications come to a special board meeting ideally probably separate from the one we talked about earlier because it's a fair can be a fairly long process we ask our questions as trustees that evening and select that evening and and um so that would be the motion I think I would want to have discussion that I didn't think about in the past one but with regards to the actual selection and voting process I don't know if we might do that at a later date or if we need to cover that now um just with regards to like scoring and that process and we do have something set up from our appointment process that we might utilize but the motion is just the process up into um the interview and the public meeting um doesn't include a scoring system second is that clear I'm not sure if that's clear it's basically the same as the last one I'm just throwing in the question of if and when we will address the scoring of those interviews it may or may not be in this uh motion but it could be at a later time okay so you um trusty Chavez second that so I'm assuming you're motioning to approve that process I hear trusty Chavez second um and then you had a question in there was that to us as a board if that's something we want to do later or who's that question to yeah well theot the motion that I have on the floor right now is just that process it doesn't include the scoring but if we want to cover that um in this motion if anybody wants put something forth I would be open to including it if not maybe when we get closer we can Define the scoring process some months ahead it's up to everyone else I think I like the latter just because I like to think a little bit more about that scoring process which we still have a little bit of time um if that's okay with everybody unless anybody has something that they want to present right now uh uh vice president GTO I just want to add that I'm comfortable with the process as outlined by uh um byard member of H and um I would suggest that because the item says that to set a date and stuff that so that we delegate that to the superintendent who can um go ahead and pull for a a date that works well for all of us um okay do we look for the date and hour do we vote on this and then I think truste kto is right I I neglected that piece to include it into my um okay because I think we did discuss this partially a month or so ago or I don't remember when but I think Chang if you can remind us where we're at in the process the is that I think you were G to come back and see if they were still interested yes and we had yes so we did the board did have discussion at the uh last board meeting on June 10th and um the board at that time directed staff to um contact the um six firm that had submit proposal to see if they were still interested uh we did reach out to all six firms and they're still interested um and so we're at the next step now in terms of determining a date to conduct the interview and then as trusty Beano stated um you know the process that she proposing perfect I do see trusty fam uh hands up and trusty I mean I I concur with trusty Beano and trusty quo's proposal I just want to make comment and you know this I I'm excited about this this is sort of a a culmination of I think three years work of the citizens Bond oversight committee to uh uh uh hold the previous Bond program management firm uh accountable and to to rectify to to help the district rectify the the issues of fiscal controls and internal financial reporting requirements this is a this is something that represents a a huge huge leap of progress for Alam rock as it pertains to uh the the moving forward with uh the sale of bonds to to get our facilities up to date for the 21st century you know one of the uh to put it in perspective back in 2018 one of the uh it was very humiliating to to see our our our children to be puted in the Mercury News saying that you know with the lack of air central air conditioning in some some of our schools uh it got so hot that F we you know we were melting like cheese and uh for you know I'm very excited for this to go forward to uh make progress on the you know it it may sound corny but yes environmental conditions are learning conditions too and this is a vital vital piece of the puzzle to to get our district to where it needs to be uh for our children so I I just wanted to say that for us to to get this far is is a culmination of the hard work of the bond of recite committee board members the administration and the staff so thank so uh I wholeheartedly and looking forward to moving ahead with this thank you thank you trusty fam uh trusty Chavez you had your hand up you don't have anything to add okay we'll go to Beano and then we'll call for the vote uh trusty or unless I think we have to look for the date before we call the vote trust that's what I was gonna say I would I don't know if this is helpful to the district but my addition to my proposal or my motion would be that the date be as soon as is feasibly POS um makes sense for the district and District staff I do think this is a priority um to piggyback on trust fam's comments I um you know in addition to what he said I I look forward to to this position being able to help us with potentially bringing in some things that can increase Revenue like the the solar energy program that we had talked about in in the past and the possibilities of that so I would want that to um us to move forward as soon as possible so my date would be as as soon as it's feasibly possible for District staff I don't know if you need that something more specific than that but that would be Dr B uh I do see Dr ban uh trusty Chavez is it in relation to this date can we make it in two weeks no we we can't sorry I think we have a board meeting in correct yeah I just want so Dr Bower I'm sorry no it's okay go ahead I just wanted to recommend uh July 22nd and it's just to allow the staff to get enough time to let these firms know number one number two we do have a regular board meeting July 8th and that's the weekend of you know uh holiday there's a lot of staff that has hopefully are going to take some a break so I'm just trying to be very mindful also that uh it is I know that it sounds like far away but it's really not for us in terms of of getting all of us stuff together so uh if July 22nd works it it allows us to prepare enough you know for two meetings and then we have the other potential special board meeting with the pr firm so for us it's a lot of turnaround in terms of getting uh everything together is July 22nd a good date for the board yes that works for me yes I would make that part of my motion if it needs to be that date we're all good with 22 yep works for me okay so yeah I would include it Umano if you're okay with that uh marel I'm sure you're listening got that down for uh meeting um interview on July 22nd okay so we'll go ahead and call the vote uh trusty fam I trusty Bano I trusty Chavez I vice president kto I and myself I passes unanimously all right um we have the consent Madam president move approval of the consent uh consent uh contracts over 100,000 second approved by uh vice president kto and second by Vice I'm sorry trusty veano um all right we'll go ahead and um call for public comment at this time um at this time there is uh no one raising their hand okay I'll give a couple seconds any now still no public comment board president thank you Jose uh bringing it back to the trustees any questions comments concerns seeing none we'll go ahead and call for the vote trusty fam hi trusty Beano hi trusty Chavez hi vice president kto Hi and myself I passes unanimous ly item 901 um information only resignations um there's uh any is open it up for public comment H Jose if you can help us out no public comments for this item for president okay um thank you trusty Chavez I see your hand up um you have any questions comments or concerns on this item uh actually it was for the previous one in my little hand would go up on the thing um I just wanted to ask how many shade structures was that in that contract I'm sorry shade structures on what item are you um it was under the consent contracts but I is it 806 yeah yes yes 806 how many was that for how many Dr bar I see 10 is that five six six yes okay thank you thank you thank you okay um seeing no questions comments we're move on to item 902 approve the revision of the supervisory salary c Schedule move to approve approve by trusty fam trusty chav I see your hand up are you still you want a second um sure second nice thank you um moving on to public comment uh Mr Chavez do we have anybody from the public wishing to address the board no public comment on this side of board president okay we'll wait a couple seconds do we have any now still none okay coming back to trustees any questions comments concerns seeing none I'm going to go ahead and call for the vote trusty fam I trusty Bano I trusty Chavez hi vice president kimto I and myself I passes unanimously all right item 10 consent calendar uh okay move to approve the entire consent calendar move to approve by trusty fam I see a hand trusty Chavez I just wanted to make a few edits on want to make sure that marel uh Second by vice president GTO and then um trusty Chavez go yeah I I uh sent one edit to Mel and I needed to send the second one and I'll do that later on U is this on item here uh 10:01 and 12 something let me let me look up the number hold on so is this something that we need to pull um marel already got the edit so it's not necessary to P it yeah it's just the wording on what I said okay so thank you um all right I'm seeing no others that will be pulled we'll go ahead and uh go to public comment at this time for these items 101 through 105 Jose can you help yes Bo president no public comment at this time no public comment I'll a couple seconds do we now still none okay thank you um bringing it back to the trustees trusty Chavez I see your hand up anything else so that's that's approving it with the edit correct that's approving it with the edits that you sent in yeah that the other one hasn't been sent yet but it'll be sent in a minute well my only question is that one because I don't want to approve something that hasn't been sent in so I don't know if you have that um I feel Dr bar I see your hand oh okay let me uh make the edit now the the one that I asked for on the minutes it only mentioned lows but I also wanted it what I had mentioned was Home Depot and lows and if they can add Home Depot and low and I didn't get any of the information and if uh I can get that information I didn't get no text email uh because I requested the um the information and I can take that offline thank you thank you so much perfect so Dr B we got that the Home Depot and L's and then the other one was perfect thank you I just want to make sure that when we vote we vote on what we know um is and then trusty Bean is see your hand up yeah so kind of along the lines of what you stated um Madame President so we my understanding that we're not pulling this item and the edits have already been made so we will be approving the finalized edited version is that accurate to say Dr barar can you help us out because I think she mentioned something about emailed so does that reflect on what's here or do you want to let us know what were the changes if there are any my understanding there was a one word change that's the text that she that trusty Chavez sent uh right now she's asking to add to the minutes and I that I I don't know exactly where because I don't know the item number right now U I'll give that to you um so go ahead I'm sorry that we're supposed to add lows in addition to Home Depot no the other way around at Home Depot in addition to L Los okay so that was one and then the one she emailed the other one word what was that the other I believe it was instead of for uh the preposition was the wrong one that's what I received in my it was the wrong preposition it was just a it was a grammatical err that changed the wording on it what was meant okay you want me to read it sure or Dr B's got it so that could be read by her as well actually edit 10:1 page six of 13 thank the families for helping the students okay that's it perfect thank you I just want to make sure we're transparent With The Changes um trusty M yeah I kind of I was gonna suggest just pulling this item because in that way we have an opportunity to um vote it up or down because my understanding is that we are um intentionally trying to take minutes that reflect a very general understanding of what happened during the meeting and not get into the granular specifics and I don't want to I think Mel has been doing good work in moving in that direction and I kind of don't want us to go back and and trying to report every minute detail that is stated during the meeting so I um would like to pull the item and then see where my colleagu stand in terms of voting it up or down um just because again I want to make sure that we're staying true to what we're trying to do in documenting the general um occurrences that happened during the meeting and not getting stuck in specifics yeah I'm in agreement if there was more but I think because there was only two we identified them I'm okay with getting it done today um but moving forward um you know I think it's important for each and every one of us right to remember that it's uh a it's a umbrella right it's the a general idea as trust canano mentioned we not to get into the uh details specific details um and it's just going to be a general I agree with Mariel doing a great job I mean we you know know six seven hours of a meeting um is too hard to get into the details and we don't need to get into the details that's why we have board books to reflect on or you know we need to go back on that um yeah I agree but in in regards to today I think if there were any additional I would say pull it but I think because there were only two one word and we figured that out I'm good with getting um passing it here and approving it if my peers are okay with that well I mean my motion is still on the floor correct you asked us our thoughts so I'm just giving you my thoughts okay I I would I as the maker of the motion correct I'm [Music] forgetting um I'll be comfortable with it with pulling it as a separate item and then having us vote separately on it and then uh approving the balance of the consent calendar it's just a vote so that you can vote however you feeling any other thoughts okay yeah um like I said earlier I sent it to marel uh that it was just that and then the other one just to add the Home Depot because I did want to see that information um and so I'm just requesting that information again but just the edit so it will reflect that that's what I requested that's all thank you TR Chavez um for like I said I think we've already kind of turned it over and talked about it so I'd be okay with the voting on it but I'm okay with you know the rest of my peers sounds like both kto and Beano want to pull that item and recall it in a little bit so we'll pull that item and we'll just go with 10 um the other four um 10:2 through 10:05 um so we'll go ahead and call the vote for that one and then we'll call 10:1 again and we'll discuss that again and then we'll go through that Pro so at this time uh trusty Fam I'm gonna trusty Beano hi Chavez hi vice president GTO hi and myself I pass unanimously coming back to item okay flip to the page so um but can we call I mean uh motion to approve just for for purposes of discussion motion to approve thank you second by so uh trusty fam motion myself second uh trusty Chavez did you want to say something about it yeah do you want me to just read it again one more time sure please I just asked for the edit on page six of 13 thank the families for helping the students that's it just like Dr bow said that it was and the home and the home one right and the other one was that only Lowe's was put and that I asked for lows and Home Depot because that's what it said on the board agenda and I'm asking for Home Depot to be put on there and I'm asking for a separate thing later if I can get that information that I first requested then thank you thank you um and uh I'll call for public comment a little bit I do see trustee Pano's hand up um and before I go there just for purposes of saving um energy and time um I think we all made it pretty clear and that you know we keep in mind that it's a a umbrella you know keeping the general idea and not to get into the weeds and um specific details and Mariel is doing a great job so I just wanted to make sure that we acknowledge that and put in the minutes Mariel is doing an amazing job keeping track of our minutes with our long meetings um trusty Beano yeah I just wanted to reiterate um that I won't be supporting this not because I don't think that we should um have accurate information because I think that's reflected in the recordings the YouTube and everything else um and not that I don't think um that trusty Chavis should receive that information it just goes back to the as you stated the um the point of how we take our minutes so if this is just more of a procedural thing and trying to set a um or trying to maintain a a manner of doing things that's consistent with where we're trying to go with the transformation of how we take minutes so I won't be supporting this motion thank you trust know any other questions comments concerns from the board yeah uh yeah me either I won't be able to support it because I don't want to uh have anybody think that we have a court reporter or something like that that we're getting verbatim everything everybody's saying or for the record and that type of stuff so thank you I'm not sure I don't think I called the public comments if you can help me no no you have yes open it up to public can you help us out for with public comment at this time yes no public comment for this item board president thank you I'll wait a couple seconds any now still none thank you all right uh we'll go ahead and call for the vote uh trusty fam no uh trusty Beano no trusty Chavez yes vice president GTO no and myself yes um so the minutes don't pass um I know we got move approval of the minutes excuse me move approval of the minutes as they have been submitted second okay uh move to approve the minutes as submitted um Jose I'm GNA go ahead and open it up for public comment just so I don't forget do we have any anybody from the public wishing to address a board uh none okay I'm going to wait a couple seconds do we now still none Madame President thank you uh trustees any questions comments concerns at this time okay I'm see none I'm going to go ahead and call for the approval uh the vote on the minutes uh trusty fam Hi D Beano hi Dy Chavez no vice president kto Hi um myself I I'm okay with a couple words off or on um moving on Oh yay I was on a roll here I wanted to hear more in public so all right going um into close session at 9:10 uh Dr bow with the items that we have how much time do you think an hour a half hour 45 minutes I think maybe 45 45 minutes be safe okay so we'll come back here at 10:55 1056 now um well hold on um before could we um before we we go in the CL session sorry trusty fam go ahead okay before we go in the close session could we uh recess for 10 minutes so that some of us could use the gentleman's room good good point um so 45 minutes and then some time to use a restroom um we'll come back here at 10 pm we'll see you then you you need to uh call for public comment first thank you uh Council I'm gonna go ahead and open it up for public comment on any items in close session uh Jose no public comment man comment we'll go ahead and H count a few seconds see if people are rushing to the button do we have any now still none okay all right um so let's at 105 back here so before we we go to close session should we use the gentleman's room first absolutely you have about seven minutes to use the uh restroom and take a breather get some air if you'd like enjoy the full moon I'm going to go out there in a little bit seven minutes we'll see you we'll see the public back here at 10:05 all right see you all thank you for all right thank you um see if I can put myself on there it is welcome back 10:05 yay um I'm gonna go ahead and have uh Dr Bower report the actions taken in close session Dr bow yes uh uh I am very happy to report that Mr Joseph manuco has been approved by the board to become the next principal at painter Elementary congratulations Mr manuco and uh Dr Amy almasan um has been approved to become the director of soci emotional learning and that's item 1109 and the previous one that I mentioned was item 1108 thank you um with that we'll go ahead and uh move on to future board agenda requests uh any request for new agenda items you can submit them um in writing to the superintendent um uh yeah from the trustees or the public so feel free to send them our way um it's 10:06 and I'd like to to adjourn this meeting at this time thank you so much have a good night we'll see you on July 8th good night everyone good night good night

thank you carlos thank you uh carly calling the meeting to order at 401 um so we'll go ahead and start uh maribel can you please um call uh roll call sorry thank you today is a regular i mean today is a special board meeting study session of june 24th 2021 at 4 pm members of of the board in attendance president corinna president vice president vice president on this i don't know if there's others in the room with you um that might be causing some feedback if they can put themselves on mute that might work better [Music] you can um put them on here perfect vice president ernesto i mean andres quintero can you hear me yes member mempham president administration superintendent dr bauer present thank you maribel now if you can all join me in uh the pledge of allegiance i pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the fight of the united states thank you now i'll go ahead and turn over to uh rogelio audrey for our brown act trainings thank you good afternoon early evening board members thank you so much for uh for having this meeting and inviting me to um to discuss these issues with you um you know in putting together the materials which have been posted in which you all have received uh it really occurred to me that your timing almost couldn't be more perfect for this update on the brown act because there have been so many you know aside from the pandemic issues themselves there have been so many developments in the law both related and unrelated uh to the pandemic and so now really is a is a good time to talk about it um and also because and this is going to be a spoiler alert for something that's really designed more for the middle of this session but in the materials i noted that on june 11th the governor governor newsom issued a new executive order which extends the suspensions of some of the brown of portions of the brown act which allow for these types of virtual sessions only through september 30th and so um the end or the expectation is that after september 30th all public meetings will be returning to a fully public fully in person format for people who uh for members of the public who want to be able to attend in public there will and in person there will still be the telephonic option available but it will be in accordance with the old brown what i call the pre-pandemic or the old brown act provisions and i'll be talking about those tonight so there are some changes coming and you know we can keep our our fingers crossed that uh the progress in battling the pandemic continues uh and so that in october we can in fact return to public but we shall see so um what are we doing today and then dr bauer shall i call up the share the screen with the powerpoint or will staff be able to do that uh you can call the share screen i don't know if maribel has your presentation ready i have it okay so here we go um so this is uh as i said it's an update uh on the brown act um you know i you know lawyers like disclaimers so my only disclaimer here is that just please keep in mind that this is a gen this is intended to be a general guide and should not be considered specific legal advice in the area of brown act many times the issues can be very complex and very fact specific but i think what i've done here will give you enough of uh put some tools in your toolbox to to help dissect the issues and uh in case you have any brown act concerns or questions that will really help you to start analyzing those issues so what are the objectives for today is to review the brown act uh to consider the recent developments in the law to review the impact of covet 19 pandemic and the governor's executive orders and and what the coming return to normal will be like for purposes of the brown act and then of course to ensure and increase transparency in board meetings and board member communications and then also fundamentally to limit potential liabilities that may come from board member communications that that can skirt or run afoul of the brown act so this is sort of really to give you the guideposts uh you know in your path in your journey in terms of your communications not just with staff and your board colleagues but also with members of the public as well so what is the brown act the brown act was passed in 1953 it's a it's a part of the government code it's been around for a long time and it basically guarantees and protects the public's right to attend and participate in public meetings and in the decision and decision-making process of local legislative bodies including school districts this board is a local legislative body for the for the school district there are other related laws in 2004 the voters passed prop 59 which uh added an amendment to the constitution which guarantees the right of open meetings and access to public records and then there are also provisions in the brown act that weigh upon uh the right of access uh to public meetings that supplement uh the brown act in relation to the conduct of school board meetings so the brown act and this is coming straight from the statute all meetings of the legislative body of a local agency shall be open and public and all persons shall be permitted to attend any meeting of the legislative body of a local agency except as otherwise provided in this chapter so as i mentioned this board constitutes a legislative body of the school district the alum rock union elementary school district the district is the local agency for purposes of this statute and as and as we walk through these materials i want you to just if you could keep in mind that most of the issues and analysis that real that revolve around brown act issues revolve revolve around the question of what is a meeting what is a meeting and we're going to go through the we're going to go through the definition in the statute right now but but that's really where the crux of the issues arise there are a lot of technical requirements in the brown act surrounding posting of agendas what has to be included in agendas what the pro what the public has a right to do at a public meeting what they have a right to know the conduct of closed sessions but most of the issues that we deal with from a legal standpoint revolve around the issue of what is or isn't or might be a meeting within the meaning of the brown act so the next slide so one of the questions that has arisen in the past is are board subcommittees subject to the brown act so board advisory committees composed solely of board members but less than a quorum of the board so that would be two or less are not subject to the meeting requirements of the brown act unless it's a board standing committee or it's a i'm sorry a standing committee that has continuing subject matter jurisdiction or it's an advisory committee that has a meeting schedule fixed by formal action of the board if it doesn't meet those requirements and you the board appoints an ad hoc temporary advisory committee on a certain subject does not fix a meeting schedule for that committee then that that board committee is not a brown act committee for purposes of of the law and what that means is that members of that subcommittee can communicate that they can hold meetings they can set meetings without having to go through the public agenda and posting and noticing requirements in my experience with this district and other school districts when boards create subcommittees and again with this district the intent has always been to uh to solicit and encourage public engagement and so even though the brown act creates an exception for certain subcommittees in my experience this board has always said let's let's have this board or this subcommittee meet according to uh or comply with the brown act for purposes of setting these meetings and publishing notice of the agendas and and soliciting public comment so you don't have to do it but you can the the brown act doesn't doesn't prohibit you from making the subcommittee applicable uh or subject to the laws of the brown act okay so who does it apply to overall the board of trustees of course board subcommittees composed of a quorum of the board so if you create a committee that has three or more members uh then that's a brown act committee that's a board majority as well subcommittees standing subcommittee that has continuing subject matter jurisdiction even if there's only one board member on that subcommittee but it has but the board delegates to it continuing subject matter jurisdiction so for example a board budget committee or subcommittee that would be a brown act committee and then also a board standing board standing committee that has a meeting schedule fixed by formal action of the board so if you create a standing committee on facilities and you provide that the schedule or the the subcommittee has to meet once a month then that's a brown act committee as well there are other there are other district committees that are subject to open meeting requirements even though they may not be subject specifically to the brown act and a couple of slides ago i mentioned that some you know the the education code contains provisions that are intended to supplement the brown act and so this slide lists some of those committees that by statute have open meeting requirements and also agenda notice and posting requirements um that that would apply so the the one that uh you uh probably deal with most often is your bond uh oversight committee which is required by the california constitution and by the education code that the statute the enabling statute creating that committee specifies that the bond oversight committee is subject to the brown act just like the board for purposes of conducting its meetings the alcap parent advisory committee english learner parent advisory committees the district advisory committee on compensatory ed programs migrant ed parent advisory committee school site councils those are all subject to open meeting requirements not exactly like the brown act but they are specified in the ed code including agenda posting requirements opportunity for the public to comment things along that nature okay so i said uh earlier that um you know really the issues arise around um the meaning of of a meeting within the brown act so how does the brown act define a meeting and what the what the law tells us is that a meeting includes any congregation of a majority of members of a legislative body at the same time and location including teleconference locations as permitted by section 54953 to hear discuss deliberate or take action on any item that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the legislative body so let me let me re-read that but with substituting words in there that will make it more applicable to to this board so a meeting includes any congregation of a majority of the board at the same time in location including a teleconference location to hear discuss deliberate or take action on any item that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of this board there are some very key words in there um towards the or the third from the bottom sentence is to hear discuss deliberate or take action on deliberation has a very broad meaning and we'll talk about that in a section it includes the acquisition of information for purposes of helping any board member to make a decision one way or another on an issue but i also want to point out that it says in the second sentence that the legislative body or the members of the board um congregate at the same time and location well what we're going to see in a little bit is that really social media has kind of turned that that card over um because when you're on social media you're not really at the same time and location some of you might all be on social media at the same time but people can post things and then you can comment on them share them like them unlike them dislike them uh later in time you're not necessarily congregating at the same time you may be at the same place in the virtual cyberspace sphere but maybe not at the same time that's okay we'll talk about that in a minute because there are some very specific rules that apply to social media okay and then a meeting includes any use of direct communication personal intermediaries or technological devices which could include telephone email text messages zoom um which are employed by a majority of the members of this body to develop a collective concurrence on action to be taken by members of the of the board or this legislative body so there's another key word in here that i want to highlight for purposes of this discussion which is that the communications are being used by a majority of the members to develop a collective concurrence on action to be taken by members of the board in other words your your majority is developing the same understanding of their positions through these communications through their positions on issues that relate to the jurisdiction of the board and or the district so earlier i said key words were communications or a congregation of a majority to hear discuss deliberate or take action on any item and now we have to throw in there this concept of the communication being used to develop a collective concurrence on an action to be taken all of those things if they're present in any uh specific type of communication they can result in a meeting within the brown act even though you're not in the same room at the same time same place not even in cyberspace it could happen over a period of time so let's dive a little bit into that okay so here it is again restated a majority of the members shall not outside of a meeting authorized by the brown act use a series of communications of any kind directly or through intermediaries to discuss deliberate or take action on any item of business that is within the subject matter of this board so there's the overall concept of the meeting by a majority of members which in this case would be three out of the five members okay so that leads us to my keywords issue which is uh when is a communication a meeting when does a communication between a majority of members become a meeting for the purposes of the brown act and so there are some key concepts that i want you to think about when you're considering your own uh communications but really the four the first four of the the most critical ones that i see so you know if you have an issue or you think there might be a an issue or problem with any communications that you're engaging in or being asked to engage in you should ask these four questions are you hearing with two or two or more board members an item an issue that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board in other words by hearing are you all considering this thing for purposes of making a decision one way or another because it is your power as a board and as board members to take a vote on that are you discussing with tour board members an item that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board are you deliberating with two or more board members on an item that's within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board so deliberating is considering one way or another are you considering the views or maybe even opposing views of your board members your fellow board members that you are having these communications with and then are you developing a collective concurrence with two or more board members on an item that's within the jurisdiction of the board so when i think of developing a collective concurrence i think about communications in which you are either stating your agreement with other people two or more members whether where you're stating your opposition to their viewpoints or you're trying to convince them that your viewpoint on a particular issue is the right one to me that speaks to the the notion of developing a collective concurrence on something you're eliciting everybody's stance and viewpoints on these issues so if you go down this list you're you're having discussions whether in person on the telephone email whatever it is you ask yourself these four four questions and any the answer to any of them is yes you might want to put the brakes on it and then get some advice or direction on whether or not it's uh sensible to continue moving forward in those uh in those communications so those are the four questions i'd like you to think about if and when you know you run into any issues that you think might be a problem okay so this concept of the meeting and those four elements that that i just talked about there are three primary areas in which issues or concerns arise and they are the serial meeting the hub and spoke meeting and then now we have social media posts and communications i believe when i when i talked to this board about about the brown act a year or so ago i called it the potluck at it at the time that you're on social media and if you comment or share on somebody's post and three two or more other board members are on that same thread it could have given rise to a brown act issue at the time the legislature had not really fully wrestled with that issue and figured out whether or not it wanted to make any adjustments in the statute the legislature did act last year and that law is now in effect and we'll walk through that in a second so what i want to do next is talk about what a serial meeting is what a hub-and-spoke meeting is and then really focus on the social media component of this so what is the serial meaning a serial meeting relatively straightforward if member a contacts member b and member b contacts member c and c contacts d and so on until a quorum has been involved and you're discussing something within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board then that could result in a in the violation of a brown act i'll give you a very specific example member a says i calls member b and says member b uh we have something on the agenda next week about whether or not we want to buy more computers uh for our students um i'm gonna vote yes where do you stand and member b says where she stands and then member b calls member c and member c and tells member c you know we got this computer issue on the agenda next week member a's on board member b is on board we really need you to be on board that's that's a problematic communication right there you're you're working you're using a series of communications member a is not communicating with member c it's member b now you're using a series of communications to develop a collective concurrence on an issue that's within the subject matter of the board that you would be voting on at an open and public meeting so that would be a violation of the brown act the next one is the hub and spoke and these really they they are exactly as they sound an intermediary or even a board member contacts a quorum of the members to develop a collective concurrence on action to be taken by the board so in the previous previous example i had member a board member a contact board member b and board member b contact board member c that was a serial communication a hub and spoke would be board member a contacts member b has the communication develops an idea concurrence on where they stand on an issue and then board member a after that communication reaches out to board members c and has the same communication and with the intention of developing a concurrence building a majority on a specific issue outside of a noticed and agendized meeting that in that particular case member a is the hub of that communication and members c and i'm sorry members b and c are the spokes um that also would be a prohibited brown act communication and again the idea being you're discussing something you're deliberating on something and you're developing you're developing a collective concurrence on an issue that's within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board that is whether or not to purchase additional computers for you for your students social media of course raised a whole new set of issues relating to communications and application of the brown act and so last year the state legislature passed a b 992 and the reason for that was the brown act didn't directly or specifically address issues raised by social media you know for example the potluck that i talked about earlier so what ab-992 has done it is it has amended the brown act to clarify what kinds of communications a public official may have via social media and what kind of communications on social media are prohibited so this is really a new part of this uh regime or the brown act landscape that there are now on social media there are now communications that are absolutely prohibited should not be taking place okay so what does ab-992 tell us which went into effect on january 1st of this year so first thing it says is that a board member may communicate on an internet-based social media platform to answer questions to provide information to the public or to solicit information from the public regarding a matter within the board's subject matter jurisdiction provided that a majority of the members so two other members do not use the social media platform to discuss amongst themselves business of a specific nature that is within the board's jurisdiction so first off the brown act or ab992 tells us it is okay for board members to use social media to discuss issues relative to the district and to the board you can use it to provide information to answer questions or to solicit information from the public as long as two other members or or members constituting a quorum are not also using that uh platform that media to discuss these issues amongst yourselves okay the so that is the the granting part of the permissive part of ab-992 the prohibitive part of of ab992 is that a member of the legislative body of this board shall not respond directly to any communication on an internet-based social media platform regarding a matter that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the board that is made posted or shared by any member of the legislative body so that's a huge prohibition it says you cannot respond directly to any communication on a social media platform that's made posted or shared by any other board member at all it's a very bright line and it's very expensive because it includes not just posts that other board members are making writing but also that they may be sharing and i think it's a really common sense rule because uh we all know from uh you know over the last uh of four years uh under the previous uh presidential administration there was great controversy that came that arose whenever the president at that time shared tweets and other social media posts because it was clear that that person was using the share process to affirm his agreement with those positions being being posted on other social media platforms and in other posts so i said that um uh you cannot you can use social media posts as long as a majority or quorum are not using uh the the social media platform to discuss amongst yourselves business of a specific nature of the district so the statute defines for us what discuss amongst yourselves means and this will tell you how broad this really is so just discuss amongst yourselves is defined to mean and include communications made posted or shared on social media between board members including comments or use of digital icons that express reactions to communications made by other members of the board what does that mean that means that if you see a post on social media from one of your fellow board members not only can you not share it or comment on it you cannot like it you cannot put a sad face a thumbs down a heart you can't use or an angry face you can't use any digital icons uh in response to that post internet social media uh internet-based social media is also defined in the statute to mean an online service that is open and accessible to the public you know i view that as meaning twitter snapchat facebook tick tock instagram um i'm not i'm not really a social media person but uh it's a it would encompass a very broad range of social media platforms um and uh social and the social media platform has to be open and accessible to the public which means that uh you typically just sign in and you're not uh prohibited from accessing it unless you uh break the platform's rules so that's why i believe it's very broad to include twitter instagram snapchat etc oh hello we didn't talk about the questions and answers are you okay with questions throughout i do see a hand up from mr abs absolutely go ahead and listen okay thank you first of all i apologize for being a few minutes late i had work conflict but i was able to get here um but my question actually i thought of another question so it's two one of them is uh when you say that we can't respond in any way shape or form to the post of another member but just to be clear can we respond to the public on posts that we make yes okay and then the second question is i i assume i know the answer but i'll ask it anyway does all of this apply whether it is a personal um account or a a trusty kind of branded so if you have like your own account personally and you have one that you represent you as a trustee i'm assuming that it doesn't matter all of this applies with either account is that accurate that that's correct let me answer that question first it would apply to any social media account that you control uh even one where your name is not readily identifiable so let's say that you created a new uh twitter account with the handle eb 2001 but you're posting out there um that you're going to be held responsible for the content that you place and the the way you use that account in responding or reacting to other board members social media posts so it does not have to be an official trustee social media account it can be your personal account this the first question was um do these rules apply to posts uh that you make and the or or would the prohibition apply to post that you make so i i think you know the the best way to think about that is to apply the rule of reason so you let's say you because the statute says clearly you can use your social media posts to to ask questions to solicit information from the public and you do that there is nothing wrong with that under this statute but at some point you notice in the thread or you see in the thread that your fellow board members are responding or reacting to your posts uh your social media posts i think that should you know trigger sort of the the alarm bell a little bit that oh i got two two other members in here who should not have been commenting on my social media posts because that the statute says you just can't do that um and and so i think for you in your case even though you know you were perfectly fine when you put the you know that post out there i think at that point you have to exercise caution or even when you see one other board member uh commenting on a social media post like that and if i uh just to follow up on that um and again i just want to make sure we're very clear so on a post if there's the ability to block a certain anybody from seeing it and if we blocked all of the other board members then um is that permissible being that it's now not accessible to everyone um and then the second question is if we make a post that we notice that another board member is responding and we delete their posts i'm assuming that doesn't matter because it was already there it existed that's right you have you you now have you know knowledge center of what the person's opinion would be so let's say they use that pose to say i you know i disagree 100 percent and i will fight you to the end on this issue well you now you know their position and it's you know it's yeah that doesn't fix the problem in other words okay and i have an additional question um even if we're not friends or we're not connected in any way i'm just thinking it's probably best not to post anything because i think and correct me if i'm wrong so like instagram or twitter or any one of these they're public so even if we're not friends i can read i don't know if i have my daughter's phone oh ernesto believes this you know i'm against him or with them or whatever um it's probably best not to i mean is that correct because you know at some point i mean it could be like in a court of law right gorina did you read that you know were you aware and even though we're not connected or related or i liked yeah um i don't know i guess i'm speaking to myself it's probably best it so it's well so it's a i mean it's it's a really good question it's a great question and it's an interesting dilemma um i mean like it or not for better or for worse social media is now such an important conduit for information a place to acquire information and i think you know elected officials who say i have to have a social media presence because it's how i gather information about my constituents i think the law was recognized that that elected officials needed that source of information and so they were trying to balance you know the goal and intent and policy behind the brown act that you know meetings had to be open in public but also with the concept of the town square and people just expressing opinions and you as board members listening to it so for example um pre-social media days um you went to community meetings and you might show up at a community meeting and you might hear a board member one of your fellow board members express an opinion during that meeting and the next day you could go to a coffee meeting with people and you could hear another board member express those express their opinion or position on things there was nothing wrong with that provided that you were not using and communicating that information to develop a collective concurrence to evade the brown act in other words i think in the the situation that you just uh raised i would apply sort of that rule of reason you know your your daughter your friend is uh friends with one or more board members and you see that post that doesn't mean that you violated the law you you can't unsee that just like when you were at the meeting live you could not you weren't going to stand there and plug your ears or run out of the room so you didn't want to know it's just information that you acquire you have it the key is not to use that information to come in your communications with other board members to develop that collective concurrence that really creates the problems under the brown act so you haven't done anything wrong in that instance you've acquired information um where the problem comes or may arise is how you use that information going forward and and you could certainly you know you could certainly choose if you wanted to to raise that information or the acquisition of that information at your next public meeting you know i was member c i was at that meeting on the 13th and i heard you say this i haven't talked to anybody about it but i heard you say this is that really your position is that what you really you know is that what's really driving your decision-making process there is nothing wrong with doing it in that way any other questions yet and i i apologize i can't see raised hands and my old age it's hard for me to see the faces i'll help you facilitate thank you okay uh so what are the what are the do's and don'ts of this and that this was a great conversation because i think we've talked about the do's and don'ts the do the do is the good news about statute is that you can use your social media to answer questions provide information to the public or to solicit information regarding from the public regarding matters that you know that's within your jurisdiction as a board the the key words in this of course being from the public right to the public and from the public the statute is not saying you can use social media to communicate with your board members that way you can use it to communicate or to provide information to or get information from the public what are the don'ts and these are the really important ones don't use digital icons the thumbs up or other symbols care to respond or react to other board members social media post comments reactions or shares and don't respond or reply directly to another board member's post on social media involving any subject matter on any item within the subject matter jurisdiction of this board you just really have to avoid that i know it's probably tempting to comment uh but you really have to avoid that at all costs and i think i would just add the um you know this the same cautionary note like you know we did we talked about a year ago whenever it was before ab-992 we were talking about this as a potluck but i think that you know if you are on a social media platform and you do see uh two or more board members uh on a thread i think the best thing is just to avoid that thread at all costs and because whatever your intent may or may not be at that time if you engage in that thread even though you may not be responding to their post directly the appearance uh to the outside to the public is that or potentially could be that you all are using your cryptic comments and separate posts and responses to everybody else to signal how you stand on an issue so i would say uh avoid that if and when that issue arises or situation arises i did see ernesto stand up but i also realized that we're on item 20 and i think we're only halfway through and we only have 15 minutes left yes so i don't know if you want to maybe leave q a at the end or yeah um well can we take ernesto's question and then i can jump to the pandemic issues okay i mean mine is really quick and i think you already answered it usually i try to not like thumbs up or anything on things that seem germane to what we do on the board but like if i see a board member a fellow board member at a community clean up or something like that i try to like sometimes i thumbs up those i think that expresses our solidarity as a board to the community but i'm hearing kind of getting the message that just steer clear just to avoid things is that safe to say well you know i i think that's it's easy for somebody like me who doesn't hold elective office to say well that's the safe thing to do but as i said you know you all have a presence in the community and i know it's important for you to be visible and to let your community know that you're listening i think in that your particular situation or example that a community cleanup if it's if it's a community cleanup that's sponsored by the district five city council person and your thumbs up in it and you see other other board members doing the same thing that's okay that's not that's not something with that's within the board's jurisdiction uh anyway and it's just you know it's a good way to express community support okay um so real quick uh what is not a meeting and we this is what we just kind of covered individual contacts or conversations between board members uh and any other private uh individual that that aren't part of a serial or sp spoken hub or a social media communication involving other board members that's okay the brown acts also says that board members can have one-on-one communications with administration and staff that doesn't violate the brown act the proviso being again that the administration the staff member the board member cannot use that information acquired in those one-on-ones to build a collective concurrence uh or to use it as a way of sharing information uh with between and among other board members to develop an understanding of what their position is this slide here 22 it tells you uh what some of the exceptions are under the brown act which we've talked about social or ceremonial occasions a conference that's open to the public a meeting organized to address a topic of local community concern um another open and noticed meeting of another body of the district or another legislative body those are not meetings under the brown act and you're okay going to those again with the understanding that you are not going to be commenting or discussing with the any other majority of board members present any matter that's within the subject matter uh jurisdiction of the board you can go you can listen you can acquire information that's fine um but you you know if you see two other board members at one of those events you should refrain from talking about board business altogether i want to jump to uh where we are or where we're headed with uh kovid um let's see okay here we go um so uh a quick timeline uh it feels like uh march uh 12th was a lifetime ago in many different ways uh but if you all will recall i believe uh that was your last regular uh meeting before the covet emergency but pre-covet pre-march 17 2020 meetings had to be noticed they had to be agendized they had to be open and available to the public to attend in person and to provide public comment members of the board could participate telephonically subject to certain rules there had to be a a quorum that was participating not by telephone and for the person who was participating by telephone the the location from which they were going to be taking the telephonic meeting had to be published in the agenda and in the notice in the notice it had to be the their location had to be open and available to the public and the public had to be able to attend from that telephonic location this is why it's very rare that a board member will ever would pre-pandemic that a board member would ever participate in a public meeting from their home the reason is you had to be able to let you you had to be able to let the public into your home and participate fully in your home during a board meeting board members have used it in the past when they have to go on business out of state or family issues out of state and they participate that way that was pre-pandemic and then on march 13th of last year the governor issued the first of two executive orders relating to the brown act or suspending portions of the brown act the first one on march the 12th suspended the telephonic requirements for participation but specified that the district had to have a physical location where the public could attend and witness the meeting um and so it would have required the district in fact it did require the district to keep its district office open for the purpose of conducting the meeting as we all know the pandemic snowballed very quickly and five days later governor newsom issued executive order n2920 and that suspended all of the telephonic requirements for participation in a board meeting and what it said was that the the public agency could hold board meetings either telephonically or through other electronic means provided that you noticed the agenda you met the notice guidelines of three days for 72 hours for a regular meeting at least for a special meeting and that the the agenda had to specify how the public could access the meeting and how the public would be able to comment during the public meeting and so your agendas have zoom links we also your agendas also inform the public how to comment or to make a comment on an agenda item through zoom or through telephone and that's what we have had since march 17th of 2020.

We're going to start in about two minutes. Thank you for being here. [Music] Hello, good afternoon. On behalf of the board of our school district, we would like to welcome everyone to our parent and community meeting about our school network organization. I am Arturo Ortega, the proud superintendent of our school district. I want to make sure to notify everyone here that tonight's meeting will be recorded for those who wanted to attend but couldn't for whatever reason, so they have the opportunity to watch this meeting later tonight. We will have plenty of time at the end of our presentation to answer your questions live. The best one we'll have today, but just in case, we ask that you please put your question in the box below so we can make sure to capture those questions and create a frequently asked questions document that we can post on our network website.

uh [Music] so rika we ready to go we are ready okay we will be starting here in about 30 seconds thank you for joining us tonight in about 30 seconds we will begin uh so good evening everyone thank you for joining us tonight on behalf of the board of education we would like to welcome everyone to today's school reorganization parent community meeting i'm arturo ortega and i am the proud superintendent of azusa i want to make sure to notify all of you that tonight's meeting is being recorded so that those that wanted to attend but couldn't still have the opportunity to watch at a later time tonight we will probably have enough time at the end of the presentation to take live questions that you may have that you might have but just in case if you can please place your question in the q a box we will make sure to capture those questions and create a free frequently asked questions document that we will then post on our website so that we can make sure to answer all of your questions tonight we will be updating you on our school reorganization process and also we will be letting you know about an upcoming survey that everyone will have an opportunity to participate in before we begin i do want to be super clear that what you will see and hear tonight is not final and it can 100 percent change what you see in here tonight are the ideas that have been created by and voted by the school reorganization team so we want to go back a little bit to the beginning as some of you may know a couple of years ago azusa unified school district closed two elementary schools gladstone street and mountain view as you can imagine with any school closure this was not an easy thing to do and although the closing of those two schools did help it was not enough the board of education at that time directed the then superintendent to create a five-year plan around school reorganization unfortunately before the plan could materialize we were dealt with the pandemic and copen 19 and that placed the five-year plan on hold reason for the five-year plan and the reason for the closing of glaston street in mountain view is because the san gabriel valley is seeing a decline in enrollment across the board depending on the particular city the declining enrollment can vary from an increase in cost of living gentrification low low birth rates and or a migration eastbound depending on the district some have been closing schools for a while some just currently have decided to close schools and some are beginning the process of closing schools the reason that districts have done this are doing this or are beginning to think about this is because of the effects on programs and facilities that small school sites have we are wanting to maximize and boost our programs and our facilities that we currently offer to our students parents and staff and that is what has led us here tonight so to begin in the fall we call together a team of parents and staff to begin to study this and ultimately make a recommendation or recommendations to the board of education the team was comprised or is comprised of 12 parents half of those parents are parents who have elementary students in our district half of the parents are secondary students or have secondary students in our district it also has 12 staff members on the staff member side we have one third of the staff that is from our teachers union one third that is from our classified union and one-third our site principles this team began meeting in november when we met district staff brought forth four potential models for the team to consider as a starting point to the work it was communicated over and over again to the team that these were not the only models that we could have but that these were just starting points the team looked at these had many great questions and conversations and ultimately they landed on their first set of recommendations the first recommendation made by the team was that it only wanted to focus on model 3 and model 4 moving forward for model 3 they had several questions that they still wanted to work through so for example they still wanted to talk they knew they wanted model 3 but they were not sure if the model 3 should have tk-5s or tk6s eventually the team decided that it would be tk-6s they also wanted to have conversations around should model 3 have a tk8 or should it not have a tk8 ultimately the team decided that model 3 would have one tk8 they wanted they also wanted to have conversations around should model three include one middle school or two middle schools ultimately the team decided that model three should have one middle school they also wanted to talk further about model 3 if it should contain one high school or two high schools and the team decided that model 3 should contain one high school for model 4 it was pretty uh quick and easy they liked the model 4 that the district brought forth but unlike the district model which had two schools that went from six sixth grade to twelfth grade they changed it and said that the two schools should be seventh through twelfth grade they also had some recommendations that applied or questions that that apply to both models the district had presented some possible support staff at the at these new models they asked us to reconsider that and so those were modified when the district brought forth these models another thing that the district the initial thinking was that these plans would happen over the course of five years so there would be a phasing in and a phasing out that would take five years uh the team felt that that was too long and so they uh requested an accelerated implementation timeline and so that phase in and phase out timeline was um shortened to a three-year phase in phase-out lastly they wanted to have conversation whether this was going to begin in the 21-22 school year or in the 22-23 school year before we got to that conversation the board of education um uh made a uh gave a direction uh that because we were so late in the year uh we did not wanna disrupt students we did not to disrupt family and we did not want to disrupt staff and so um they uh they made a decision that this would not begin until the 22 23 school year so after all of this conversation and all these and these considerations at the end of the day model three had tk sixes one tka one middle school and one high school model four had tk sixes and two 712 schools we will look at those models more carefully a little bit later once we knew very clearly what these models were going to be um then the district staff took the two models that the team had revised and and and had created and we brought to the team their two models but this time with school sites named for each model we identified the schools that we felt should remain open and the schools that would phase out over time we explained to the team that we had selected schools solely based on capacity meaning that larger schools would remain open and smaller schools would be phased out we also told the team that this was not the only way that this could be looked at maybe for some team members capacity was not impor not as as important as maybe location maybe some team members felt it was more important to make sure and ensure that we had schools in the east in the west and in the south and the north of the city for some team members maybe border schools was something that was important to them or maybe for others it was something else that we had not even considered after we presented our idea to the team each team member then had the opportunity to create their own ideas based on their thoughts and their opinions and so when they were creating these ideas that means that they were creating and suggesting which sites would remain open and which sites they would suggest needed to close and why each member had to present their idea to the rest of the team explain how their idea worked why they chose their idea and they had to answer questions from other members that might have questions to understand where they were coming from after every single team member had the opportunity to present and after every single team member had an opportunity to listen each temp each team member then had the opportunity to go back to their idea and either revise it keep it as it is or delete it and everyone was allowed to create a new idea if they were inspired to do so based on this opportunity another round of presentations happened and so again each team member that had an idea got to present to the rest of the team what their idea was why they chose their idea and be available for questions and answers and again by idea we mean that they took a model like model three for example that has one high school one middle school one tk and tk sixes and actually put names of schools on there like hey this is my idea this school should be the middle school because xyz after this process there were 10 ideas that were built for model 3 and 4 ideas built around model 4 or 5 ideas around middle model 4.

knowing where we live work study and recreate does not change the past but a thorough understanding of the ongoing consequences of this past can empower us in our work to create a future that supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals and with that i'll go ahead and call the role uh commissioner graham here uh commissioner needham here council members excuse me we're supposed to also be indicating where where we're located that's that's the official request so thank you for the reminder john uh commissioner needham is here from ann arbor and aubrey michigan all right council member dish you're from evanston illinois uh commissioner gibb randall council member griswold here from ann arbor commissioner cal work here ann arbor chair brown here in ann arbor uh commissioner overpack commissioner mursky you're from ann arbor uh commissioner mitchell you're from ann arbor uh commissioner buendia commissioner ferris um so both of them are youth commissioners josh and uh cycled out okay for the commission and so we have new commissioners here we have um chris vandenbroeck um we have um lunia oriole and um young john chang should i call them or um yeah if you want me to uh commissioner oriole you're from ann arbor commissioner zhang you're from the number and commissioner vanderbilt you're from ann arbor great okay i believe we have a quorum okay right thank you josh um so the next item on our agenda is approval of the agenda i wish to propose two changes one is that we eliminate the approval of the main minutes um i'd like to postpone that until july 22nd and um the other thing is that i want to add dave uh dave bournemouth's um nap presentation uh during the special presentation session uh dave is on the line here he's going to give a presentation about the city's nap natural area preservation program so um do i have a motion um to accept those changes or do or do i have any other suggested changes to the agenda not here so move second um all who approve say aye or raise your hands i i i all who are any opposed abstentions gave the motion carries unanimously so the next item on the agenda is public commentary um this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes please call 1-888-788-0099 and enter meeting id 935-2970-5700 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and video feed city staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star 9 on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning with your comments and be patient there is a delay there can be a delay of up to 30 seconds before the connection is established so let's see josh do we have anybody on the line yet okay do you want to proceed yes let's go ahead i'm not seeing anyone oh these you don't see anybody no i'm not seeing anyone okay well we'll wait um we'll wait 30 seconds all right uh we do have someone who just raised their hand collar917 caller 917 hello can you hear me yes we can hear you great my name is jared hawking i'm a recent graduate of the university of michigan's master's program in the environment and i live at 536 south south forest avenue which is uh basically on campus and i'm wondering i know that in 2017 there was an anti-or no idling ordinance passed specifically for commercial vehicles and also for passenger vehicles and i still see many especially commercial vehicles that are emitting quite a bit of carbon dioxide and other harmful pollutants into the air and idling for quite a long time close to the university of michigan campus where i live and furthermore i haven't seen any signs posted no idling zones around campus so my question is twofold first can you share some updates on whether the police support department is enforcing the no idling ordinance and any specific uh numbers you can share there and uh and possibility of working with the police department to make sure that they do enforce that that ordinance and secondly if there's any plans to put up the no idling zones around the university of michigan thank you for any response yeah thank you for your comment um i can say that i do not know how how this is being enforced i have personally made comments to several drivers uh commercial drivers and even members of the city's police department but uh i see some hands raised so um john's was first and then lisa dish john you have the floor so i'm not aware that um the law is particularly strenuously enforced maybe someone will contradict that i do know from matanod when i joined the energy commission in 2016 that there was some outreach to contractors asking them to inform their employees about the ordinance um but i'm not aware of any additional outreach or any enforcement or any other signage that's really gone up one one thing we should know though is that um you know university um property is separate from um the city of ann arbor property so we would if if we want to have have this addressed on on campus then my guess is that that would have to be done through the university particularly for those properties and their contractors that's all thanks uh lisa you have a report yeah i would just add that the ordinance is being enforced but but the most effective way to get it enforced is to either speak with your council member or put a note on the aapd website they have a contact form there you tell them the time place and location where you're seeing the idling issues um i am not sure if if we just leave it to the university to enforce that ordinance on its property so i think it's probably worth contacting aapd and typically what they try to do is they'll go and just remind the drivers that there's an ordinance and if there's no response or there's a continued pattern then we start getting active with no idling signs but a no idling zone is really something that then gets it then gets it has to be patrolled and tickets and all this and that and so that may not that is not generally what they want to do but they certainly will patrol if you have specific times and places that you can give them okay um kathy you have the floor um i want to say that i received complaints regarding police vehicles idling and what i've been told is the computer equipment within the police vehicle requires that the vehicle be left on i don't know if that will be true once we start using electric vehicles and the university of michigan follows state law so we would probably either have to get a state law or a university ordinance specific for them but i i share the frustration because it seems like such a simple thing to just turn off your vehicle and in most cases the vehicles that are running are running for 15-20 minutes sometimes so i hope that we can uh better enforce this in the future and next time i talk to the police chief i'll mention it again i know he's he's really um overwhelmed with all the other police citizen issues right now in community policing and non uniformed officer responsing responses that are happening so this seems like a minor issue within all the things he has to do but from an environmental standpoint i think it's very important he's got the uh chris you have the floor oh um something's wrong with that picture uh if you wire your computer in your vehicle to the battery and not through the starting mechanism it doesn't go off when you turn off the ignition i don't and these guys are driving eight hours a day there's no chance there's going to be a low battery problem so i just and it's i've seen those cars idle outside the police station for two hours it's not necessary i share your frustration and i've said the same thing all right thanks chris yeah myself as well usually these vehicles are unoccupied to boot yes so um there's something discordant here all right well um let's see uh does anybody else wish to speak on this topic um rita you have your hand up you're muted sorry my question is the ordinance was initiated prior to my joining this commission and i just wonder which commission initiated that particular ordinance are we are we the right ones island yeah did that come through the environmental commission goes back 10 or 12 or more years and it was the environmental commission okay thank you um yeah and i think i mean i think it's some i think every citizen would have a right to just mention it when they encounter it so i whenever i see this happening i just politely mention to the driver that there's a no you know filing ordinance here in the city so if they you know if they could turn it off that would be appreciated um and i i think that's a right that every citizen could take as long as they're polite nice thing about police vehicles of course is they're not diesel motors all of those vehicles are gas at least until they get their mustangs and so the pollutionist and air quality issues are way less than diesel truck motors idling in a loading zone okay well i think uh i think we can follow up on a few of these things individually um well thanks everybody um if there are no more comments on this uh thank you for your comment mr hawking and let's move on we've stricken the approval of the minutes are postponed until until the july 22nd meeting so the next item on the agenda is special presentations so i think we have um why don't we have mr um bournemouth um discuss the nap first okay and then we will have uh the presentation by mr dick on the deer call great let me get my screen up here i should introduce dave first um back in the day uh when it began to be obviously clear that our parks naturales such as they were then not just them but most of the city were was being overrun by especially two invasive shrubs buckthorn which is native to poland and the caucasus mountains and especially amerur amur honeysuckle which is native to the amer river valley and between china and russia were completely filling the understory of all of our forest lands in the city and some other areas besides [Music] there came a movement led by the sierra club and kim waldo to [Music] ask the taxpayers to support natural areas management in the city on the city's parks and it was very overwhelmingly passed when presented to the voters and has been renewed as part of the parks and recreation village ever since the early 1990s i think and dave bourneman has been the director since then he was the first person hired to do it and he's still here and we're very grateful thank you david thank you chris good to be here um and are we am i sharing my screen or are we looking at the the sustainability offices screen i think so i'm sharing my screen is this the same uh presentation that you were looking for it is so then uh are you going to advance the slides yeah so just let me know when you need me to to move forward all right well that's me next okay and uh i work for the parks um go ahead you're probably all familiar with 160 so parks next we have under a quick little background here 164 parks um 85 of which have some kind of natural areas in them over 2 100 acres and more than two-thirds of those have some kind of natural area as well next i have been around since nap started 93 i have three other permanent staff that that i oversee and a dozen or so temporary staff at any one time and hundreds if not thousands of volunteers helping us throughout the year our offices are located um on east here in river drive that's in the background there it's on the banks of south pond just east of huron hills golf course i'm not there now and most of us aren't there these days i'm working remotely and right now i'm joining you all from our place up north in alcona county so hopefully the connectivity won't be an issue for us next our mission in app is to protect and restore ann arbor's natural areas and to foster environmental ethic among its citizens next and what we do in a nutshell is first try to identify where are the nice areas in the parks we do that through a variety of plant enamel inventories we're also involved not just looking at parkland but whenever new developments come in we're checking those for environmentally significant areas and trying to minimize impacts to any of those we're writing management plans for the sites and the big bread and butter what we do is ecological restoration and then a lot of education and outreach to all of our volunteers into the public next terms of restoration what does that mean what are we trying to restore to you might be familiar with the michigan natural features inventory and their pre-european settlement maps that they're done statewide if you were to look at washington county there you'll see quite a bit of oak hickory and savannah grassland for european settlement time next if we zoom in on the ann arbor area all those black polygons are actually city parks i don't have any roads in there but that shows you where our parks are and this tells us that historically most of our natural areas were some variety of oak hickory forest black oak baron is the orangish color the yellow color is a mixed oak forest all of those have what in common oak black oak mixed oak oak hickory so we know that pre-european settlement time we had lots of oaks around here in one form or another next um another way i like i think it might be maybe more colorful to get a sense of what ann arbor used to be like is going back nearly 200 years shortly after we became a city to some comments made by travelers through the area i will read these to you and the audience the first is carl from carl nighthard riding from ann arbor to pleasant lake in august of 1834 he says the monotonous landscape ceases near ann arbor and here the country becomes more interesting as one approaches the high plateau the dense forests disappear and lakes surrounded by pretty hills and park-like woods which the americans call oak openings meet the traveler's eye next i'm going to share a few of these because i think it's important as we talk about restoration to first get an eye a clear sense of what it is that we're trying to restore to and what our vision is for what our areas could look like and used to look like carl went on to say for the first few miles we passed through the woods soon we reached the so-called oak openings where the trees stand a few paces apart and where the ground is overgrown with luxurious grass passages obstructed neither by bushes nor by fallen trees small knolls alternate with lovely little valleys no park let out by human hands could compare with this natural setting next jw wing talking about scio township just west of town near dexter in june of 1834 says at this season of the year the country was beautiful beyond description the planes recovered at intervals as far as the eye could reach with widespread forest trees which gave the appearance of an immense park and the earth was covered with a rich carpet of beautifully variegated wildflowers and grapes i've italicized oh go back there i've italicized some of these words just for emphasis uh wide spreading forest trees if you go into most of our forests today the trees are not wide spreading they're tall and skinny because there's many trees packed in there they're trying to they're all competing to get sunlight so they're reaching up tall to the sky all right now you know the next slide but historically if you grew up if a tree i think that grew up in a open oak savannah or an oak barrens uh it wouldn't have needed to reach so tall it could stretch its way its branches out wide and get lots of sunlight without having to grow so tall this image of wide open grown oak trees shows up repeatedly around the city from our city logo to the parks and recreation logo to nap's own logo next just a couple more quotes john gordon in october october of 1836 says oaks of the circumference of 9 to 15 feet and a little quick math uh diameter times pi is the circumference so if a tree has a circumference of nine to fifteen feet it's uh sorry circumference its diameter is roughly three to five feet that's how big these oaks were and they bounded in the forests in the country between dicksborough and ann arbor a little rolling for the first few miles and then the oak openings begin white oak and burr oak at intervals of 30 to 40 feet with an undergrowth five to six feet high which has the appearance of being annually burnt down as i am informed it is so these are big trees three to five feet diameter and uh they aren't packed in sight close to each other real tight because they spread the branches out real wide like this beautiful oak tree in barton park in the picture and so they are only every 30 or 40 feet in the around the landscape next i think this is the last one from jw wing again in scio township the scene was beautiful beyond description the timber consisted of large oak trees standing several rods apart a rod is 16 and a half feet so several rods is maybe 30 or 40 feet and the intermediate space between them was covered with bright green grass and beautiful flowers the whole country had been burnt over every fall or spring i presume for centuries and everything had been destroyed except these giants of the forest it did appear as if one half of the vegetation was flowers most of them were about 18 inches high and when moved by the wind the effect was wonderful i have never seen in any of our large cities a park that was its equal but we're trying to change that and to make some of our parks in our cities look like that again next another way to get a sense of what ann arbor used to look like before european settlement or in the early days go back to some old old photos of the city cedar bend was one of our oldest city parks maybe our oldest natural area and so we found some old photos old glass slides from the early 1900s next and a couple of these images give us a real clear picture of what the area looked like just a hundred years ago if you've been in cedar bend before this is near island park here the ground is covered with beautiful wildflowers these are all um i believe blood root and you'll see in this picture lots of there's a couple trees in the background but lots of sunlight getting in and lots of wildflowers there next and just below baitstorm at north campus there is a cedar bend there's a hairpin turn there the road was actually closed a few years ago but there's still a path through there but this hairpin turns real easy place to get back to be able to take some photos so look at this picture from early 1900s still some sunlight coming through there's quite a few trees there it's been 100 years now since those earlier quotes probably more trees than were there before we talked about 30 or big trees three to five feet diameter these aren't that big and they're much closer so this is already looking different than it would have 200 years ago this was all logged i'm sure but you can still see it's still open enough there that sunlight gets down to the forest floor and that sunlight is what those wildflowers need so let's jump forward now um that's the end of the historical ones november 97 shortly after nap started and this is the middle of november everything should be brown by then but all the green in this photo are some of the shrubs that chris talked about earlier that various bush honeysuckles and buckthorn still going strong and they have completely choked out that area so this is what unfortunately too many of our city parks looked like or looked like um and some of those earlier quotes that i had i'd italicized some of the lines passage obstructed neither by bushes nor fallen trees this is uh these are impenetrable areas we can get into all sorts of discussion about you know how bad it is the kids don't spend more time out in woods these days and the forest various books about no child left inside and all of that well these are not very inviting places these are city parks but to wade into a dense ticket like that is not very appealing to anybody so this the sort of thing that nap was was created to do to take care of these areas and to try to restore them now we'll get into a little bit more about the things that nap does so how do you tackle something like that well you recruit lots of volunteers you do lots of cutting of those shrubs hauling them away reintroducing fire into the landscape next and within a few short years we could turn it back to this i think this is a much more attractive scene here we have uh stills december there's a little bit of green there left those are all non-native shrubs still have a few to get rid of and they keep coming back but um this is much closer to what it was historically much more open much more inviting this is the woods that people would like to walk through or snow shoot through in the winter go bird watching that sort of thing next and when we did that work starting in 97 we did our first controlled burns in 97 and this plant popped back up we had done a pretty complete plant inventories of all of our parks and this plant was not known from the parks before then this is the state threatened species next photo and this uh the last record of this in the county was from 60 years prior from an herbarium record and location there very much fits that that in cedar bend so we think we brought back populations of this and many other rare plants with our restoration activities next bird hills is another area that uh if you ask most ann arborites where is a good natural area in ann arbor bird hills certainly has some nice high quality areas here's some more before and after photos nearly 100 years have passed between these photos unfortunately this area is not overgrown with shrubs so this part of bird hills along cascade glen along the east side along here on river drive has always has been a forest in recent last century or so and still remains that way next photo but uh but trees can be can be deceiving another place in bird hills a little further north near the north entrance off of bird road you might pass this big rock called cherry rock and you're in the middle of the forest there lots of trees is this one of those native forest fragments like the other areas well again historical photos can reveal something for us next photo and there's cherry rock that hasn't moved at all but i'm not sure if there's a year on here again probably early 1900s that part of bird hills was a cattle pasture there's actually photos of cows grazing out there [Music] much has changed in that area so when nap is is looking for areas to restore when we're talking about native forest fragments although i'm sure this was forested at one time and it's again forested the quality of that forest is much different than what was there historically uh in this particular particular area there are a lot of pine plantations and some other non-native trees so even though it's green there and it's a great place to walk your dog and go bird watching and commune with nature doesn't offer this part of bird hills doesn't offer the kind of opportunities for ecological restoration as some of the other of the other areas so we would call this not a native forest fragment next i mean i actually want to skip part of this so uh the way that we talk about prioritizing our areas we use a system called floristic quality assessment and you can skip the next couple slides i am happy to talk about it there's other questions but it's a rating system that basically gives us the number you stay there though it go back yep it's a it's a score that helps us identify how natural an area is um based on the plants that live there we use that information and we to get that we've done lots of plant inventories in all of our parks and again i can talk more about that if there are questions but we basically use that forest equality assessment to prioritize our different natural areas how how natural is this park how close to it being a native forest fragment is a and we've given our highest quality sites of priority one on down through four and actually the the lowest quality of them we give a quality uh priority five again they're great parks for lots of reasons but in terms of areas to do ecological restoration where we have the best quality forest fragments those are not those are not the ones um let's show you what this looks like in practice next please here is black pond woods just north of lesley science center and the numbers there the white areas are trails but the black boundaries are different management units for us and you'll see some numbers number one our high priority areas down to numbers three and four and even some fives in the lower center how do we make those determinations next photo current day aerial photo this is the same area and a little bit of lesley science center it doesn't look like there should be that much variation next picture let's go back to an earlier 1940s photo and this gives you the answer those areas that were quality five were uh old either old orchards or ag land or pasture it was all be forested the part of the land of the park that is was forced in 1940 and still is forested is our higher priority one area so where we can go back and look at old photos it helps a lot to identify with where those areas are but even more so looking around doing a plant inventory and seeing what's really there on the ground now helps support our rankings of these things is top priority down to lower quality next so we are in bandamer park and uh remember the quotes passage obstructed neither by bushes nor by fallen trees you know we as much as we are trying to control buckthorn and honeysuckle and things there's areas like this in banimera where it just doesn't make sense for us to tackle that now there's nothing growing there but buckthorn and honeysuckle so when we're looking for places to put frisbee golf courses and do more other perhaps more intensive activities in the parks the natural areas this is a good place to do something like that next ferstenberg is one of our higher quality sites and i've got a couple of fun before and after pictures there it says 95 october 95.

a special shout out goes to dan foursier who is my neighbor i'd like to just say welcome to the family to all of the new hires and also congratulations to all of the eighth grade graduates i'm sure we're going to get to that but i just wanted to make sure i i acknowledge all of you congratulations any other questions or comments miss ryan um i just wanted to thank the walkers for reaching out and i was glad i could point them in the right direction and hook them up with dr smith and the district truly appreciate your generosity and i do want to give a shout out to all our custodial staff i mean the past couple weeks have been hot and they have set up for lead graduations they have set up for graduation itself and they've done an amazing amazing job so shout out to our whole custodial staff thank you for keeping us safe all year and thank you for all your hard work they were they were fantastic last night the graduations they they were absolutely fantastic uh and the graduations the graduations mr hoffman i know um mr menelli's not here but uh seamless and and great transition into the outdoor spectrum it brought me back to uh into 1995 when i was out on there as a middle school student so it was uh yeah it's a little flashback there but nice nice job excellent job by everybody involved any other questions or comments all right seeing none we're gonna go for a roll call again remember it is for items uh seven through eleven not the convenience store mrs cappella yes this is everhart yes mr fizzakaro yes miss fleming yes mr captain uh yes to everything except for 9.4 line item three because that's me is that are you abstaining or now oh abstaining from from 9.4 line item three yes everything else okay thank you mr lanzalata yes mr megan yes mrs ryan yes to everything but 10 uh nine point four board member driver on the state abstain please okay uh motion carries thank you at this point in time we're gonna be moving into committee reports are there any committees that have a report that they have not shared yet all right uh mr lanzalata thank you mr prescher i'd like to just thank uh principals irene romanelli and nick de blasi as well as the dion representatives for meeting with dr smith and the community outreach committee on june 14th discussed was the east the evesham juneteenth celebration the dion book drive as well as their proposal for equality and uh equity for all your students it went very well and it looks like there's a great relationship being formed between the dion group and the eastern school district so thank you thank you mr lanzada anybody else miss everhart i'm not the committee chair for the ed foundation but i just okay well i just wanted to talk about the golf downing i i worked at golf outing and i just wanted to say that it was a successful event i can't remember the last time uh that the ed foundation golf event was sold out so coming off of the heels of a pandemic and having a sold out event of which we get proceeds from that for uh genesis and and uh metamorphosis uh so thank you to everyone who participated in the gotham i also wanted to say that this year they recognized the service of our school nurses which was something different um they recognized other individuals as well but i the fact that they recognized all the hard work and commitment that everyone in the district does but specifically to the nursing staff who helped us have a successful school year so thank you to the ed foundation for that and i'll turn it over to you well i really don't have anything else to add other than thank you to the eastern education foundation and all those who participated in the golf outing the district appreciates your efforts in supplying us with extra funds for some great programs and thank you miss everhart for working and supporting anybody else all right seeing none we're going to move number 13 old business there is no old business so we'll move to item 14 new business surprise surprise there is no new business all right not not the end of june right at this point in time we're going to item 15 open public comment this meeting will now be open to the public referencing any items of interest however your questions or comments pertain to litigation student or personnel items or negotiations we would ask that you see the superintendent after the meeting since we do not discuss these matters in public please let your comments the three minutes per person anybody wish to speak just if you can give me your uh your name and address sure brittany relvis 127 crown prince drive um i usually have three children in tow they are not here because they are out of the country so it is my job to speak on their behalf i want to speak on the mask mandy i think it's disgusting what we're doing to our children i think your answer of following the guidance of governor murphy is an excuse you know there's a lot of moms here that are supporting you know each other and trying to do the best for these kids you know last night was lenape regional you know language was changed there to make mass optional um medford mask optional you know these are our surrounding districts these are our babies you talked about a health risk well let's talk about a mental health risk um you know i work for the state of new jersey i work with parolees it's been a long 16 months for everyone but when my guys coming out of state prison have more rights in state prison than my children do in their classroom i have a big problem with that one thing mentioned in your safety plan it talks about the correct wearing a mass well as i sit here for almost an hour there's multiple board members that with my mass knowledge i would think that they're not correctly wearing those masks so if we're just doing it as a show we could stop now it's time to fight and stand up for our children i pay taxes here my kids go to school here we had a conversation i know i'm not supposed to call anyone out but i asked a very specific question about my children and what the enrollment date was to unenroll my kids so that money wasn't counted for my three children and i was told that's not how it works i know that's how it works you guys have a right to do what's right by these children and what you're doing right now is not right i understand you sent a letter but then you went and you put mass mandatory in your return to school plan that's talking out of two sides of your mouth it's time to stand up and fight for these children my kids are in portugal right now my five-year-old calls me every day the first question she asked me is do we have to wear a mess when we go back to school this is disgusting okay i'm not going to get into all the headaches and migraines my twins have dealt with i finally pulled him two weeks early because one was throwing up in a bag and my five-year-old wasn't allowed to play in free time anymore because her teacher felt that she wasn't wearing her mask correctly but again as i stand here i see that people don't know how to wear masks correctly and the fact that we are going to put that on these poor teachers too because they should be massless as well to teach these kids um i think it's time for you guys to step up as a board and do what's right for our children here in eve shame i'm done thank you thank you same thing uh name and address please lauren golden 137 holes elaine um i want to piggyback off of what she said about the health and welfare of our children what these masks are doing is inhibiting their health the way that they learn my children have been suffering i've gotten numerous phone calls from the nurse headaches chest pains stomach aches nosebleeds never happened before this year my eight-year-old daughter has come home with a different mask on multiple times because while she's sitting there taking a math test her nose starts dripping with blood can i tell you before september that child never had one nosebleed niece would you like to come to walk she would like to tell you how much she does not enjoy wearing a mask how bad she wants to see her teacher's faces and every time almost every day i come home from school i come home telling my mom that i've been to the nurse because of nosebleed nosebleeds headaches chest planes and trouble breathing and um i've been going to the nurse after i come in from lunch and recess because i've been running around on the playground with the mask on because they say i have to wear it while i'm playing and it's making me happy have trouble breathing while i'm running around and it just makes it hard for me to breathe concentrate in school because um the mask is like kind of blocking a little bit of your sight so it's hard to concentrate in school because it's hard for you to breathe good job you want to talk though stage right here you want to say something okay it's okay there i got it what we discussed earlier before what she wanted to tell you about that all she wanted to do all here was see her friends faces her teacher's face and anything else maybe what i'm having trouble learning what [Music] it's okay sorry she's a little shy in front of you guys yeah baby it is it is intimidating i think i totally understand that you did good honey but from what i know murphy has left it up to the board of ed and what you guys need to do is do right by these kids let them get the education that they deserve thank you thank you name and address please nick salford ate wellesley way uh i'm a medical biostatistician i'm a product of the lenape regional high school system i've graduated from lenape and i've recently tested testified at the assembly of the state house to discuss the statistics regarding children in covid19 i have come here today to present to you what i presented to them here is a pie chart of all of the different debt causes of death for school-aged children between the ages of 5 and 18.

on june 11th um governor newsom issued a new executive order n0821 and it wipes out uh the old executive order from march 17th of last year and puts in place the continuation of the ability to hold meetings via zoom electronically and telephonically subject to the same requirements we have been using for the last 15 months but the new executive order specifies that this environment in the zoom environment will remain only through september 30th of this year so borrowing any other emergencies any other circumstances or legislative actions after september 30th the board will have to return fully to public and in-person meetings if board members want to participate by telephone that will still be an option but it will be uh but it would be subject to the strict requirements of telephonic participation that have existed for many many years under the brown act any questions on that so far okay so what are the telephonic requirements after september 30th okay so uh as i said the brown act allows teleconferencing participation by board members um a teleconference under the brown act is defined to include or means a meeting of the board where the members of which are in different locations and they are connected by electronic means through either audio or video or both so even though the brown act refers to teleconferencing which i think we all understand you know uh or we all consider to mean telephones the statute was written broad enough to include include both audio or video so in the future if either if any of you want to participate telephonically that would also mean zoom availability and it's hard to believe that you know before march 12th of last year we really didn't know what zoom was for the most part and now it's pretty much a part of our lives and has become a part of public meetings in the public process okay um it also means it also means post september 30th if the board wants to continue to make its meetings accessible to the public via zoom you can do that it's not prohibited um that would be a board that would be a board decision about whether or not you want to continue that um let's see uh if and when a if and when a member of the board participates by telephone all votes taken during the teleconference have to be by roll call which is what you do in zoom meetings anyway because under the brown act zoom is a teleconference meeting the agenda would have to be posted at all teleconference locations so for example if you are planning a business meeting in hawaii and you uh you would have to and it you want to attend a regular meeting telephonically it would mean that you would have to be there at least 72 hours prior to the public meeting the scheduled meeting and you would have to post the agenda uh the notice and agenda for the meeting on your hotel door uh or in a conference center wherever you're going to take the meeting from at least three days before the meeting if it's a regular meeting or 24 hours if it's a if it's a special meeting and once the meeting begins you would have to allow members of the public to access your room to participate in the public meeting i have never heard of that happening but it would be a requirement under the brown act so again your location where you will be participating telephonically would have to be disclosed in the agenda no matter where it is you're going to be whether it's a family member's house a hotel a resort it would have to and it would have to be publicly accessible we had one situation where a board member wanted to participate in a meeting telephonically from a private resort which was not accept accessible to the public and that could not happen um so uh you would have to keep that in mind whether the place you're going to be is going to be accessible to the public and that that location was actually in hawaii as well um and then during the teleconference at least during the teleconference meeting at least a quorum of the members of the board have to participate from locations within the boundaries of the district any questions so far okay since we've got three minutes left i thought i would cover this this next because this is an issue that arises sometimes as i said or or one of the requirements of the brown act is that for the board to have a meeting it has to be properly noticed and agendized the agenda has to have a brief descript description of what the board will be considering that description can be 20 words or less um this district almost always provides backup memos it provides agenda language and backup memos which is fine too sometimes it occurs that an issue arises on which there wasn't enough time to place it on the agenda but action has to be taken and the brown act does make a it does make allowances for that the first one would be an emergency situation so the board can take an action on items of business not appearing on the posted agenda in the case of an emergency situation involving matters upon which prompt action is necessary due to the disruption or threatened disruption of public facilities the board can hold an emergency public meeting without complying with the notice requirements but you can see that the definition of emergency under the brown act is very narrow very specific and very strict it has to mean both of the following a work stoppage a crippling activity or other activity that severely impairs public health safety or both as determined by a majority of the members of the legislative body or a dire emergency which is in the nature of a crippling disaster a mass destruction or a terrorist act or event and even in those cases the board could would have to meet and first take an action on declaring it emerging an emergency situation this this part of the brown act is very rarely used mostly because there are very few circumstances which would constitute a true emergency under the brown act which would require immediate action by the board but there is another and there's another basis uh in the brown act to hear items that arise late before a board meeting so the board can take action on items of business not appearing on the posted agenda upon a determination by two-thirds of the majority of members of the board present at the meeting so that would be four out of five members if all four of all five are present or if it's less than two-thirds of the members are present it would have to be unanimous and there would have to be an action that there is a need to take immediate action and the need for action came to the attention of the district subsequent to the agenda being posted this district and other districts have used this in the past when issues have arisen which require immediate action by the board and there wasn't enough time to put it on the agenda it is a it is an exception that is used but it's rarely used but it's important to know that if there are true uh urgencies or things that require immediate action there are options and there are available ways for the board to consider it at a meeting even though it may not have appeared on the agenda and i think we're at our time and so uh i wanted to thank you for your attention i apologize for the 40 pages but i i knew that this was going to be a subject that we could spend two hours on easily especially with your great questions on it if any questions arise or if you have any questions on the materials please feel free to contact me separately and i'm happy to walk you through the issues or to provide you any further explanation on this thank you rogelio um and i just want to clarify um we do open it up for a public comment right at this time yes and then um so i'll go ahead and open it up for public comment we'll say can you help us uh to see if anybody has her hand raised to address yes yes good afternoon uh board president we have no speakers at the moment okay um so seeing that we have none and we're on time um i'm going to go ahead and open it up for the board members if they have any um for mr rogelio at this time otherwise i'm sure you'll call him uh mr franklin yeah i just want to say thank you rogelio for doing this you know asking for this for some time so i i i want to express my appreciation for you putting this together and i don't know could you send me a certificate of completion yes i'd be happy to do that thank you thank you so much thank you thank you uh trusty fam um with that i'll go ahead and adjourn this meeting at 5 03 p.m thank you so much thank you all thank you

So please, as soon as you have questions, please put them in that box below. But we will have plenty of time to take questions live, and at the end of our presentation tonight, we have two objectives. The first objective is to We want to inform you about the process of our school reorganization and restructuring so you're aware of where we are in that process. We also want to inform you about an opportunity we have for you in our survey, and we'll talk about that a little later. Before we begin, I want to make it very clear that what you're going to see and hear today is not final and can change 100%. Today you're going to hear and see the ideas that are created and voted on by the school reorganization team. So what you're going to see and hear today is not final and can change.

after several meetings of consideration of these 10 ideas for model 3 and 5 ideas for model 4 that included conversations questions uh comments uh lots of dialogue the team members had the opportunity to rank the ideas in order of preference so here are the 10 ideas for model 3 each team member was able to rank their favorite all the way to their least favorite and they were able to do that for model 3 and for model 4. based on a conversation uh and a decision around the data the 10 ideas for model 3 were narrowed down to only four ideas so four ideas continued forward and six ideas uh were no longer carried for forward for model four it was narrowed down to two ideas for model four and again i just want to reiterate when we talk about ideas we're saying they have put names of schools for to these models the team then requested before they continue to move forward before they continue to narrow down they requested additional information around programs support staff and budget for programs the district staff offered two different ways that we might think about programs one way was to possibly build site specific academies for example [Music] one school might be a stem academy another school might be an arts academy or a dual language academy or an avid academy as examples those are just some examples another option was to build programs that every site would have as their base and that you would find those programs across all schools no matter which school our students attended for support staff uh the committee members made suggestions for increased uh support staff uh and by support staff we mean as an example uh health aides computer technicians instructional support social emotional learning support just to provide some examples for budget we went over some possible budget ramifications again these are only possible for model 3 we estimated that it would it's possible that the cost would be somewhere around 2.5 million dollars and for model 4 that there would be an estimated again possible cost of around 11 million dollars these costs include items like possible rebranding possibly new curriculum modernization of kitchens gym floors athletic equipment locker room upgrades again these are possibilities in addition uh there might be other budget considerations like uh the academies for instance if that's the route we were gonna go uh additional rooms or newer rooms maybe expanded parking lots bond funds that were allocated to schools that might be closing in these models maybe can be relocated to cover the costs of these potential budget ramifications again maybe doesn't mean that it's a for sure but that is a possibility so now let's move on to what model 3 and model 4 look like and how they work so this is model 3 and so here in model 3 you will see on the left hand side the elementary schools so here you will see that valley dale in this model [Music] would be a tk8 school and valleydale currently can house up to 724 students dalton hodge magnolia murray paramount and powell would remain as tk6 schools and there you see the capacity for each of those schools as well you will notice that underneath you have ellington and lee as schools that would eventually be phased out and closed for the elementary schools if you look at the schools that would remain open from valley dale to powell that means that there that those schools have a capacity to hold 4519 students in 2223 we are projecting it's a projection to have 3715 students therefore from valley deal to pal those schools will be running at 82.21 capacity for the middle schools in this particular model uh foothill is the school that would be the one middle school that houses seventh and eighth grade students foothill has a capacity of 1269 students and here you see that center in slauson would be the schools that would be phased out over the course of three years not beginning until 2223 and eventually close again because foothill has a capacity of 1 269 students we are anticipating we are projecting 1033 students in the school year of 22-23 and so that year foothill would be would be running at 81.4 capacity at the high school you will see that it says new high school this does not mean that we are building a new high school the idea here is that instead of having to uh eventually phase out and close one of our high schools that we would actually phase out and close both of our high schools and that one of our high school campus campuses will then create a new high school a new high school on the campus of a current high school in this case it is the campus of azusa high school azuza high school has a capacity for 2 students and again in 2223 we are projecting 2022 so azusa high school would be at 95.2 percent capacity again i want to take the opportunity to remind us all that right now this is only an idea from the school reorganization team this is not final it's not a final recommendation nor does it mean that what you see right now is what's going to happen there's still a lot of work to be done before we get to some sort of decision similar similarly this is model 4 and so here you will see that the elementary schools are dalton ellington hodge magnolia murray paramount and powell those will all be or would be tk6 schools again you see the capacity there on the right hand side here lee and valley dale would be phased out eventually over the course of three years from dalton to powell those schools have a capacity of 4 251 students in 2223 we project 3715 students and so they would be running at 87.39 percent capacity um this model is the model that has two 712 schools and so those two schools would be azusa high school and glaston high school and in this model center foothill and slauson would be phased out and eventually closed azusa high school and glasson high school combined have a max capacity of 4032 students if we look at our 7th through 12th grade students in the year 2223 we are projecting 3055 students and so those schools will be running at 75.77 percent capacity so these are the two models i'm going to go back uh one so this is the model 3 that the school reorganization team uh has narrowed down to so this is the model three the working model three that is uh right now and this is the working model for uh that is right now and so the team has now narrowed it down to one model three and one model four so what happens now these are our next steps okay so tonight uh we are uh bringing you uh up to speed and updating you on the school reorganization team and where we are with that uh this is going to be followed by a parent community survey that we will share across our platforms this survey will be asking you for your opinion on the two models that the school reorganization team uh has has narrowed down to um it will also provide some open uh ended questions um where you can feel free and share uh opinions and suggestions uh as well that survey will also be uh given to our staff and they too will have the opportunity to weigh in on and give their opinion in terms of which model they prefer and they will also have an opportunity for the open-ended to provide additional information suggestions ideas comments uh anything like that after the parent community survey is finalized and after the staff survey is finalized that data will be provided to the school reorganization team meeting and then we will have a final meeting and at that final meeting the school reorganization team will then decide what recommendation they are giving to the board of education we have told the team all along that it doesn't have to be one recommendation it could be recommendations and so therefore we don't know what the school reorganization team will recommend but some possibilities are that they recommend model three another possibility is that they recommend model four another possibility is that they recommend both another possibility is that they want to recommend just one but that we will provide the board of education with all the data so for instance 60 of the team wants model x and 40 percent of the team wants model y at that point in time the board of education process will begin the board of education will have [Music] lots of ample opportunity uh to not only understand the recommendation from the school reorganization team but they too will also have the survey data from our parents and community they will also have the survey data from our staff and they will be able to study this school reorganization process and they will eventually uh get also to some decision uh on what is happening in azusa in terms of school reorganization beginning in 2223 over the course of three years if that is what the board ultimately decides we do want you to know that we have an entire web page dedicated to our school reorganization this webpage has archived videos of all of our school reorganization team meetings it has all of the documents that we have shared with the school reorganization it has summaries of each meeting so if you would like to visit it there is the link there we are also going to post a link to tonight's video that's why you see an empty spot there in bullet number two because we don't have that link just yet both of these links will be included in the survey that goes out so we will provide some information on the survey but we will also have the links to the reorganization web page and we will also have links to tonight's town hall just in case folks want to get more detailed information or get a get a overview before they commit to some kind of opinion or decision we do have this is the end uh so we do have time uh to take live questions uh but before we move to life questions um i want to uh remind us all uh that um if you do have a question to please post it in the q a just in case we run out of it we run out of time we want to make sure that we get your question we capture your question and that we can answer those questions in a frequently asked questions document that we will then post on our website uh so at this point we will move to live questions we will ask you to please raise your hand in the meeting so that we may take your questions and we may take them in order so with that being said i'm going to turn this over to miss lika juarez and miss lika if you can go ahead and begin to help us with this process our our first question is from cecilia you me i mute your mic and ask your question hi good evening um i am a parent of two students and i apologize i'm camping right now so you may hear some music in the background but just real quick i just had a question in regards of some options for the programs i know i've been uh attending the meetings and i noticed that a lot of the programs available to our students for the future in this planning is uh mostly academic and i just had some uh not only concerns because i i've been talking to other parents whether they're middle school high school elementary and they they've also discussed and we've shared ideas uh about integrating or coming up with some trade school possibilities because you know some students just are not you know going to be those doctors and lawyers and scientists and astronauts um but is there an option that we could possibly look at um integrating uh trade school options for our as electives for our middle school and high school students such as something um that could be a possibility to add and integrate along with this you know reorganization um is that a possibility and then also one question i have is um uh i've been thinking because i i know the school sites but something that looking at the sites um i was thinking something along the lines of like connecting foothill middle school to the azusa high school campus i don't know if this may be it's called like a gateway where mount sac has this bridge that connects like one side of the campus to another but that could possibly be uh something that i i'm thinking could be a great possibility to integrate these kids to be able to hop from one campus to another if you know electives are only offered at a high school site or a middle school site just to have that option i mean if we're going to go for the gusto i mean that would be wonderful to integrate those two school sites so that's just an idea that i've kind of had like an epiphany to say hey it might be possibility to integrate those two schools and give these kids the options and sky's the limit right but those are just two concerns that i had but thank you thank you for listening thank you mr silly i appreciate uh your questions i'm gonna go ahead and turn it over to miss dana mitchell uh who can address your questions yeah well thank you so much for the question hello everyone um uh we love ideas and uh when we were kind of exploring some of the options we were really ideating around just some you know some things that are are possible with respect to ideas around uh trade schools um i we think that that is also a really great idea um we have some programs uh right now for example in uh our college and career pathways in stem so one one of the uh one of the classes for example at one of our middle schools um students have an opportunity to do a project lead the way and so uh one of the one of the courses is around electrical engineering uh so uh students learn about circuitry and um you know electric uh you know circuits and things like that and so that's um that could be uh you know considered uh a pathway to um you know a trade in in that aspect um another um area is in the area of um arts and entertainment and so we have studio 26 and uh we've got uh media college and career pathway as well and so i think that there are i think there are some of the things that we do have in place that i think would align to uh you know to trades however um we're always looking for um you know different ideas and options and so we're um we're very open to um you know to hearing what other ideas are out there and what ideas you all have and so um you know if you'd like to you know uh say you can email those to me uh with some things that you have some some ideas and maybe some examples of of some other schools or districts that have some of those things we'd love to be able to take a look at that so thank you for the question i'm miss mitchell again just to kind of build on that dana mitchell shared some of the trades um that would be considered traits but we do have a plethora of others um but yes we can always always appreciative of ideas on how to uh to grow and become better um our next question is from luis soto you may unmute your mic and ask your question i had a question uh regarding the phase out uh appears uh my students well my son's school is going to close in whatever model now granted i did hear um that that uh that everything's preliminary at this point but nevertheless that's a sign off to a further school uh what does the phase out period entail thank you may i ask what grade level they're at right now or not what grade of that right now what grade level they're going into yes okay so um it definitely would not affect uh their elementary because again this begins in the year so it does not begin next year if that's where we land uh thank you for um reminding us that that this is preliminary can and can all change um so they would be in their elementary school for sixth grade uh depending again on the model uh that ultimately gets chosen and it could even it could even be none of the models that we showed tonight could be something completely different but depending on that the way it works is in the year 2223 at the elementary school some grade levels at the younger grades will start to begin their careers at their new elementary schools meanwhile the older students like second third on up something like that uh will will rem can if they wish to can remain at their current schools if they say well um maybe they have a younger sibling or maybe they don't want that much change so they just want to go now and be at a bigger school already those are options too they're not stuck there but we do what we're trying to do as much as possible is grant the older kids the possibility or the option to promote from the site that they are currently at and so in 2223 again it could work like kinder and first will no longer be at the schools that are phasing out the following year uh second and third maybe might not be there anymore and then um and then the third year it would only be fourth fifth and sixth graders or fifth and sixth graders and then in the fourth year then that school would would be empty for for middle school again depending on the model that goes a little quicker because currently if it's a model 3 there will be 178 and because there's only two grade levels we don't see a need to currently to take three years and so for that we see hey if you're a seventh and eighth grader you get to stay there uh and new seventh graders just go to the new school and if you're a seventh grader at a at a middle school and you want to stay there perfect then you can stay there and you can promote from there so again it depends on the model but we do want to honor the older students and as much as possible provide them an opportunity to promote from the school that they are at if they choose to do that thank you for the question very good question lika next question is from christine you may unmute your mic and ask your question good evening everybody i have a couple questions i know it's not permitted um but for like ellington i noticed that at least on one of the models there it's on the clothing but i know the reason that we kept we did ellington as a kate was to keep students within the district how is that those phases going to affect the students travel you know from that point of area not going into covina and also the second question is is what is our savings on some of the models that you have done i saw that you have um put the expenses but is there a savings on the cost of them as well thank you and that's why those are some questions thank you ms wagner um so question number one um with the um in terms of ellington uh that is definitely something that was a conversation and point of conversation i cannot speak exactly for the team but i do know that that was a a point of conversation in terms of you know possibly um students from ellington um might not come to an azusa school if that school is uh eventually closed um so i can tell you that it was a point of conversation but i but i cannot i don't know exactly all the ins and outs and intricacies of where the team i know how they landed but i don't know every like detail of their their thinking um but i do know that it was a a very serious conversation and various very serious consideration uh as they were moving through this process uh in terms of savings uh i'm gonna see if miss latasha jamal is in uh the presentation and she can address that yes sir can you hear me yes all right yes so the savings that we will have will be um consolidating school so we will not have the administrative costs from the schools that will be phasing out um we also will have a savings of utilities we also will have a savings of maximizing our facilities um so it wouldn't i don't know if your question is are we saving any money by keeping for example one of the models validated open um but the savings that we will have will be from the consolidation process mr mall is it safe to uh say that uh the savings are also compounded over time it's not like uh like year one is like it's it's over time that the savings uh benefit as well correct yes sir because we're doing a phase approach okay so there is like so basically like i know when we did close gladstone and sierra vista that saved us like over so many what i think it was like um 1.2 million on one of them or something like that so there is no that savings for the closure because i know like for the l or for the l cap there was that we had to cut budget and that's the way why we had to do the full closure so that's not in the consideration for the week uh the miss wagner yes so i go for it go for him mr tosha so miss maverick i'm gonna i'm gonna agree with you i can't agree that's the savings from the for the previous uh closure um but yes if we were doing this all at once we would realize a more significant savings instant but since we're doing a phase approach even though a school is set to close we will still have a have administrator there we'll still have faculty there we'll still have custodial there because we'll still have students there so until we have the school completely closed that's when we will realize the maximum savings and also to ms wagner just to build on ms latosh's response hundred percent uh we don't wanna deny that um there there is a fiscal uh impact uh but all along uh we have been uh focusing on and talking about the the benefits to our facilities and the benefits to our programs that we are able or we will be able uh to to offer uh to our students to our parents and to our community so that's also a driving factor in this but thank you thank you for your questions ms lika next we have nadine lopez you may unmute your mic and ask your question hi good afternoon um you know i am running home from work just to get on this meeting i'm very concerned about the choices that you guys are making without um the parents in this district i think that you guys are having based on the meetings that i could see that people are actually logging in is probably less than five percent of the people involved um i think that you guys should be having meetings in the different schools offer parents to go people are not connected people or do not know what's going on with the school if you guys are saying that you guys are serious serious discussion is going on i don't even see how a serious conversation could be taking place when you guys are considering having a susa high and foothill be the two schools could you imagine the traffic the situation i don't see how the city council assumes i could even ever agree to something like that i encourage the board to try to reach out to families to have meetings you know i know it's very hard to talk to anybody in the district the phone doesn't the rings forever but now things are better and i think people need to take responsibility for all these great choices that are going to impact a lot of people and later is going to say yeah we posted it we have meetings we document it's there you could have viewed it but when you look at the people that are actually logged in i bet you that it's like three percent of the population of the people that you serve and i don't see how you guys can make this kind of decisions without getting let's say 20 30 of the parents involved yeah it's summer schools are closed but you have to try something you have to involve the parents because this is not going to be fair next year when things are open and you know you're going to be asked very tough questions and your response i know what it's going to be well we posted we we tried to include you you didn't even engage that's being very disrespectful and uh i hope that you guys do something better as far as reaching out to people before you guys even consider going any further um i am very very concerned there's no way that we are going to have one high school in the city of association i know that the bond measure k that passed was for the two high schools i know that it wasn't strictly for that but that's the way you the city got it approved it was strictly for that and the reason why that is is because the parents of asus know that teenagers in asusa have nothing to do in this city you close one high school you're gonna what are you gonna do with that how are the students that are no longer get to play any sports that is just so wrong but i am here i got out of work this is my concern and i would hope that you guys reach out to more people in different ways other than media you guys need to be live in person show your face tell us what you did tell us who you are tell us that you have our best interests you know at heart because this is this is crazy this is really really crazy and i'm really really disappointed thank you thank you miss lopez we appreciate your your comments and your input um miss lika we do not currently have any other hands raised are there any additional live questions at this time okay we have a question from denise lopez you may unmute your mic and ask your question [Music] hi can you hear me yes okay hi thank you so much for um the information um it's a little concerning but um i just have a quick question i know the valley dell is on the list and um so my concern was for the dual emerging kids they've already stopped being they've already closed down mountain view and now if you close down valley though that means that they're going to move twice did the fact that you might lose dual emerging kids come into the play or it was just they're going to move type of attitude thank you for that question ms lopez uh yes that was uh also part of the conversation uh regarding uh dual immersion and that some of them uh had already been at a school site that was that was shut down and moved um so yes that was part of the conversation another part of the conversation again i want to reiterate um here we'll use valley dale as an example because that's what you brought up uh just because we see valley dale tonight on a list as possibly closing um that that is only possible that that is not set in stone it's not a decision um and it could at the end of the day after this process it could be that valley deal does not close uh another thing that has been brought up as conversation again this is not for sure this is not what's going to happen uh this is part of the conversation and consideration uh is that if we went to academies possibly having a dual language academy where the entire school wall to wall would be dual immersion again that's not to say that that's what's going to happen but that has been part of the conversation as well so thank you for your question any other questions miss lika yes our next question is from sarah c you may i mute your mic to ask a question [Music] i um i'm actually i didn't even realize what this meeting was going to be about i thought it was going to be about reopening schools after being closed the last year um so my question is actually in relation to that when are we going to be talking about how the kids are going to be going back to school and if that's going to be happening sure a little off topic but i'm going to go ahead and take the opportunity to answer that right now all the reason we have not heard is because we do not have a firm decision yet around um reopening of school in the fall from the department of public health but i could tell you that right now june 24th 2021 um all arrows are pointing that we will be able to come back fully in person next year uh that's that's that's the way the arrows are pointing um and right now again this is the pandemic has shown us that things change really really quickly but right now it seems as if what will remain will be masking inside uh inside the classroom um these are again this is not a for sure this is the way it seems as if the state is going to go um we they have not announced anything official yet we do have some rumors going around that in exactly four days which would land us on monday that supposedly on monday they will be unveiling uh those protocols uh for the fall as soon as we know that uh we will make sure to use all of our channels to communicate with you in terms of that but again right now all arrows are pointing back in person everyone full time and right now it looks as if the requirement that would still stay would be masking inside the classroom thank you for that question ms lika our next question is from sonia smith you may unmute your mic to ask your question uh yes thank you um i know at the beginning you spoke um about this or you discussed what the purpose of of the reorganization um can you discuss what the implications would be if maybe we chose or the committee or the i'm sorry the school board chose a model that maybe didn't have enough cost savings um and what those what that impact that would have on our students and our community yes i'm gonna i'm gonna if i don't answer it correctly please call me on it and tell me that's not what you were asking but i think what you're asking is let's pretend that at the end of the day the board of education went through a process and they said okay this is this is we've heard as much as we can hear we've studied as much as we can study and this is the route we're gonna go and that route that they go has x number of schools and those x number of schools when you put our projected enrollment against the capacity of the schools that were chosen and that capacity is low let's say in the 70 in the 70 percent then a possible ramification is that in the near future uh we might be back at the table uh having these conversations again if the projected enrollment continues to decline and continues to materialize so that is a possible ramification if if the amount of schools and the projected enrollment if the capacity is low then that is a possibility that we might find ourselves in the same situation um in the distant in the distant future was that your question i'm so sorry nope that was perfect thank you okay thank you our next question is from john connor you may meet your mike to ask your question all right thank you uh quick question just a follow-up to the school opening uh you had said that arrows are pointing to next year is that next year as in the next school year in the fall or are we looking at 2022 thank you good question uh that is for this fall this uh this august coming up 2021.