Um and so, you know, kudos to you guys. You know, we we kind of did that short-term geo bond in 24. You know, that pays off this year. That capacity goes up a little bit in 26. Um you know, our AV went up just a couple percent. Um so, capitalize on that. um now and then you know I would suggest again kind of doing another couple year short term again to provide some more flexibility here in a couple years again. So, um, but yeah, there there it's it's it's it's kind of there's some different moving parts there and different ways you can look at it and different strategies. And I think if anybody had a crystal ball and could project out three, five years, you'd say, well, let's def this is definitely the best way to do it now, right? Um, but you know, I think maintaining flexibility is going to be critical.
Uh it would be inappropriate to conduct any school business there and often times when we do it could make staff uncomfortable. We want to make sure that that is not the case. Nobody likes a micromanager. uh follow up uh following the next policy BHE electronic communications. So this covers all sorts of different electronic communications when and how to respond. School related communications that we receive individually as members per this policy should be shared with the superintendent and the committee chair. Why? Because individual members don't have authority to act on any complaints or any communications. And this ensures that the correct channels are informed and if it needs to go on an agenda for a meeting, it can go on an agenda for a meeting. Or if it needs to be handled by the superintendent, it can be handled by the superintendent. Members of the committee should avoid speculation, discussion, commentary regarding staff attendance, pay, employment status, or any other employees future plans to resign.
Strands word game competition. The JTS um library held a schoolwide game um using the word search game Strands on New York Times. The contest ran from Monday, January 5th through Friday, January 23rd. A total of about 300 students played um with one winner being chosen every 3 weeks. Students played the game and submitted their scores online to be entered to win prizes. Uh, the three winners are were Amber Solomon, Cole Jackson, and Deborah Santiago. The library will be hosting an AfricanAmerican poetry readin on Tuesday, February 24th and Wednesday, February 25th during windblock in the library. SATs. It's nearing the time of year where most juniors begin to sign up for the SAT. Although it is not required, a good score on the SAT can increase a student's score uh a student's chance of getting to into their college of of choice. All 11th and 12th grade students get two free SAT vouchers.
Hearing none, we'll go online. >> Sure. So, if you're joining us online tonight, you can go ahead and use that raise hand feature of Zoom. I will call on you by your Zoom name and you can make your comment. >> No raised. >> Okay. Hearing not, I'm going to close public comment. Thank you very much. All right. We're going to move right along. Chairman's Corner. Uh there's two things I have tonight for Chairman's Corner. I attended the legislative breakfast this morning, hit the capital. It was very enlightening and um what what we pulled out of that was uh some of the priorities by by both CRE and Kade is to see and you heard it from our representatives a couple weeks ago. Uh the priority is to get um some to improve the ECS funding and to put it on a yearly index. That's one goal.
just say we're going to resume the meeting. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you everyone for attending. We're going to resume our meeting. Um and we're going to go into public participation. Lauren, >> the board of education.
So, thank you very much for that. Uh uh the the kids are putting to good use. Uh both both of ourmies are are moving up. Uh we have a distinguished academy and we're about to go with a with hopefully another distinguished academy as well with computer science and um and these guys have have played a major role there both with the computer science and engineering teams. So again, thank you for your support and um till next time. Thank you. Don't go anywhere. We have certificates for you. Board member Greer, will you please read the certificate? >> Sure. And so I have uh in presenting to you a certificate uh which reads the ISUsa Unified School District certificate of recognition is proudly presented to Isuza High School Robotics in recognition of outstanding achievement and competitive excellence in the C2 Monrovia League where dedication and teamwork carried the season through three qualifying matches toward the inter league tournament with both AHS robotics teams finishing in the upper half of the league standings.
And Miss Rollins, our junior high special ed teacher, says she's one and I and by the way, she doesn't just say this, I know too, but uh she wrote a really nice email though. She said that uh she's one of the most professional, competent, responsible, dedicated, student centered, and team oriented colleagues she has ever worked with. Um, and that says a lot. She's got several decades of experience all across the state. Um, so she knows what she's talking about, and I certainly agree. Um, we anticipate that, uh, Avery will be one of our newest special ed teachers soon when she receives her degree and her certification. So, we look forward to you advancing your career and doing even more great work in bigger ways. and um you really are an asset to the district and we appreciate you. >> You know, when you get um high praise from Miss Rollins, you're you're doing a good job.
really appreciate his helping me out here. And if you average those tax rates all the way down at the bottom, the additional tax rate of the 30 million would be about 48 cents. Okay, not bad. Now, ironically, that's about where your tax rate is right now, isn't it? 47 cents right now. Okay. So, hang on to the 48 cents for a moment because voters are going to look at that and we're going to plug that into what it costs our taxpayers in a moment to keep it simple. But go on over. Go on uh go back up just a tad. And if you go over to column the second column from the right, column 13, this is your combined tax rate existing. And what I just shared with you to get to a combined tax rate. We're at 47 cents now. We're going to be working with you on your 2627 levy here soon.
Is there an expectation that you should have that money in your M? You don't need money. Is there anything? >> So, within I'm I think I understand your question. I'm going to answer it and let me know if this actually is the answer that you were looking for. Within capital within M, they have an expectation that you carry over at least 3% each calendar year. >> Was that was that >> I think okay >> if not we can come back around to it. >> So when you look at the analysis though and they're saying the 5year average is.6%. Mhm. >> So they expecting it to be less than that. >> They want that number to be zero. >> Okay. >> They don't want you. >> The auditor general's office does not want you moving money from capital to M or M into capital. >> That average doesn't mean any >> it's two it's two out of five years.
So we're in the second year of adoption and they still are doing semesterly trainings for our teachers uh to ensure that we're following it with fidelity and to best practice. Okay, we've already switched to sixth grade math, which again, we're not happy with the numbers you're seeing, right? But we are steadily improving. Sixth grade math capacity is an initiative that we've taken on as we've seen that sixth grade math has been an area that we could improve and we targeted specifically 20 teachers across the 20 campuses across the district and we are actually bringing them in for full day planning sessions before they teach the upcoming unit. So we just were getting ready for uh the measures of central tendency. So me, media, mode, things like that. So we brought them in, trained them on that chapter, did the planning with them, gave them hands-on lessons so that they feel more prepared to present it to their students within the coming weeks.
And I met a lot of different people. A lot of the people who are on the committee with me are hostess state officers in other states and are also on the international executive council. And it was overall just a really amazing opportunity to be able to I guess travel outside of the West Coast and see different perspectives. [applause] >> Okay. Since you're just by your And who did you bring with you tonight? >> Oh, I brought my my HOSA adviser with me. Um Mr. Brock. >> Oh, Chris. Sorry. >> All right. Anyone else out there? >> And my and my dad in the [applause] >> [laughter and clears throat] [applause] >> All right, for our points of pride tonight, uh, first from the Little Cougars would Mrs. Coaches and Mrs. Hoffetler, please come up. [applause] >> Thank you so much. We're so excited to be here tonight and celebrate these incredible um individuals in our community.
Uh I appreciate the the opportunity of just diving in, but the legislative um dinner was great. my first time attending and I I really came back with a wealth of knowledge in regards to the bills that uh will be impacting the school district, not only this district but all schools as well. And I just want to reiterate to those of you out there, parents, families within the district, that um you do have an advocate up here. You have five of us up here and that was a great event to host. I look forward to more of them and uh it was a great turnout and a great experience. Thank you. Vice President Lopez. >> Thank you, President Coutree. Um, I missed the legislative meeting I had planned on attending. Um, but I had sick babies, which from my Facebook feed, I guess tons of parents in our district are facing right now.
>> Nice. >> Yeah. So, and our board is the only board that represent that initiative. The only one. Our board. So, kudos to everyone. All right. Up next. >> Wait, one more thing, too. If you guys read the FYI, >> um I know Jason, Mr. Focusi put in there pictures of the update at the middle school. If you notice, it's really good that we're able to do that construction while we're in school, so we're not slamming that and trying to rush it through the summer. So, I appreciate the updates and the pictures, uh, Mr. Okinsi to let everybody know here. At least whether you're in touch with it or not, at least we can you guys can monitor the work because we're progressing pretty quickly, I think. I mean, I think it's going >> everything's on time. >> Yeah. I mean, like I said, at least we're maintaining that schedule and that timeline >> instead of delaying everything.
Are the buses that full full or half full or >> Some are, some aren't. Um, honestly out here we don't necessarily have full buses. It's just our distance traveled from home to home is so far that if you full filled a bus that route might be two or three hours long, you know, instead of a bus run some activity buses in the outline. >> Yeah, we run three. We we run three now. Um, we ran we used to run four in Frankfurt. >> Yeah, we used to run four. we absorbed a route um as a as just a you know a cost reduction measure. Um but also as a personnel situation because we had no full subs at all. Um and so by absorbing a route um you know this this school year we also were able to create a sub position for us that we had somebody to cover routes because otherwise we were pulling some other employees that have CDLs to go drive buses for us.
It's simply not appropriate. The next code of ethics. This governs professionalism, collective responsibility, respect for comm committee decisions. Once a vote is taken by the committee, members are expected to support the will of the body. Even if we disagree personally, all of us have probably been on the side of a losing vote from one time or another. Even if we're on that side, when it comes to the committee decision, we're bound by that oath that we take and by this policy and our code of ethics and the training we take from MASC and a million other reasons why we're to support the decision of the committee, even if personally we're not against it. So any public or private efforts from individual committee members looking to undermine committee decisions after the fact. Uh for example, if we vote on overnight field trips and we vote for that and then are out there publicly trying to undermine that decision, that would be inconsistent with this policy.
Students should contact their guidance counselors for more information. For sophomores, it's also generally recommended to begin studying um for the SATs during the spring of their junior year before their junior year. Guidance FAFSA resources. The guidance department is available to help all juniors and seniors look into their options after high school. Students can contact their counselors if they are interested in applying for FAFSA loans or college. The GTS mobile app. GLTS recently released a one-stop app where students and parents can find the school calendar, upcoming events, the daily bell schedule, bus routes, request transcripts, and more. The app is available on both Google Play and the Apple Store. GLTS driver's ed. Berkeley Auto School is returning to GLTS this February and March for driver's ed. Students who are 15 years and nine months by the time the class starts can attend. Important information, the fee is about $825, which includes license which includes license test sponsorship.
The second is to get the uh extra trust grant uh to move that up a little bit for special education. They are they are moving in that direction. They felt that they were a little disappointed in the governor's um proposals because it really didn't change much on education, but it seems that the legislators both uh both parties Republican and Democrats are very committed to those two goals. And uh I think we're going to see some action. The legislative session ends on May 6th and I don't think we go to our budget vote till the 9th or somewhere in that that area. The other good news was, as you all probably read, uh they're going back to um full paid breakfast, free breakfast for our children that come to school. They think that's important as did the governor. Um when we pushed a little bit on on lunches on free lunch, we didn't get it.
The board welcomes public participation and ask that the speakers please limit their comments to three minutes. Speakers may offer objective comments of school operations and programs that concern them. The board will not permit any expression of personal complaints or defamatory comments about board of education personnel and students nor against any person connected with the Danbury public school system. Okay. Do we have anybody here for public participation that would like to speak? Nope. Okay. We will move on. Um, at this time I will entertain a motion to table consent calendar items 26-18 through 26-22 and action items B through F to the February 23rd meeting. >> Motion made by Kate. Do I hear a second? >> Second by Al. Any comments, concerns, questions? Seeing none, all in favor?
Their performance reflects innovation, perseverance, and a strong pursuit of advancement to the Southern California regional playoffs. Uh, dated today and signed by our superintendent and board president. And we would love to invite the whole team up to the front uh to take a photo. Don't Don't go anywhere. We now have board member comments for you. I I'll just say again, got to say it before, but just congratulations guys. Just uh thank you for being another reason that just showcases that here in ISUsa we we do it all. And so thank you for your dedication, for your hard work, and all that you put into things. And congratulations, >> Board Vice President Rodriguez. Yeah, congratulations students. Um, and thank you for your dedication and also your parents and I keep seeing the same faces winning. You must have a lot of awards in your house, you know, you know, and and congratulations again.
So, we're excited for Avery to um get her get her certification and hopefully become part of the certified staff. Now, we have Justin coming up to recognize one of the coolest cats in the district for sure. So, we actually had to tell him a white lie to get him here. I told him that he was coming here to help me present Bosley with an award for the green grass. So, Frank, come on up. So, he's a little mad at me right now. You got to stand right there. All right. So, today we have the privilege of recognizing someone who represents the very best that Blanch has to offer. We want to congratulate Frank Kerrian, better known as Frank 2.0. I know he's got another name, but we'll leave that. Frank is the kind of person that every school district wishes they had. He is our Route 9 bus driver.