I guess >> I guess what I will say is that we need to to add to the polic to the polic a statement that says that >> you know that >> we there's things that will be unforeseeable. I mean we won't be able to prevent and that's not what I'm So you see where I'm going with that because you're saying you're we're trying to protect you. >> Yeah. we are protecting you but then anything can happen even if the kids or the or our staff and students are in an event that belongs to the school. >> Yeah. So then they get to so if it does happen the instructor needs to notify immediately front office. We notify the parent. So we're going to follow a chance that they're not protected. You know what >> we're going to then do what we can do to notify parents and notify the school.
>> We'll see. We'll see if you all have the same opinions about >> Well, I remember on the pizza, I didn't like the spice. The kids like more spicy things. >> My kids love spicy things and I I'm a beige woman. Yeah. >> Yeah. Is it on? >> Okay. I'd like to Oh, hello. like to call our meeting back to order. Thank you. All right. Um, we are going to move into our brief board business meeting. Um, do I have a call to order? Do we do a roll call? >> Yes. Murray >> here. >> Miss Humphre >> here. >> Mr. Jesse Brainer >> here. >> Dr. Blake Roberson >> here. >> Mr. Chson is not present. Madame clerk, you have a quorum. >> Okay. Um, so we're moving in for consent agenda items. Um, 5.0 and approval of consent consent agenda items. Um, we don't >> Oh, yes.
Um, so the ask that I have for you, um, with the increase of the funding and right now, it's it's roughly $6,500 to give him that a lot of time to bring him up to, uh, give him that that extra five hours a week to to service the school district and as well as service here. Um, we're also asking him to take on servicing the websites um and and making sure that those are up to date and on a more regular basis given the hours to do these these things. Um, we've also seen an increase in in tickets, ticket requests, help desk requests. Last year alone, we had roughly 450 submitted tickets. This year to date, we've had over 450 tickets submitted. So, the requests are coming in with the new um curriculum that that's going to be coming out with the upgrades in technology and the new platforms.
So that's part of the training. We all have to understand if this happens we do this. If this happened we do this. So we've got to un everyone needs to know the policy understand the procedures we're going to use and the expectations of certain uh incidents happen. Yeah. We're not there yet. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Mr. Vice Chair, I know you're there. Um you wanted to say something. I understand that you did go to the uh governor's meeting. Uh maybe you have something more to give us. >> Can you hear me? >> Yes, we can. >> Okay. Um thank you. So I have a few questions about this, but I did want to share out what I shared with the chair a few days ago. Um the governor had already signed an executive order uh prohibiting ice from entering into public spaces, which includes schools and churches.
We have to do a motion. Uh, do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda items? I move that we approve the consent agit consent agenda items as presented. >> Second. >> Okay. Um, so do >> discussion if we >> No, we don't discuss consent. Sorry. >> I'm just putting on record. I did actually study this before I came here and I'm failing miserably. I'm so sorry. Looked it them up. Um, okay. Okay.
The uh this position also services the MCCAST tests. Um the students taking it and the staff that are proctoring the MCCAST test. We're just looking for the ability to to make sure that he has the available time to be in the school to service the district that and and needs that we have. I' I've had a chance to meet with Alex number of times. He's doing incredible work for us, but appreciate every time he's here and and the filming is and the audio we we're really getting it to a good spot. We can't have him in the school, expect to to accommodate the hours that he has. Um, so the other part is he's doing incredible work. We don't want to lose him right full-time position somewhere else. Um, so we want to continue to keep that consistency. We have it in the tech department and that would make us have three full-time FTEEs total in a in a district our size for technology and repairing as well too.
Um, but you know, my questions are more related to two things. So, we're putting this as another district policy or amending the policy that exists. Um, and so I'm assuming that, you know, the staff and the folks that are in the building are going to be trained or at least informed of these updates and aware of them. >> Yes. >> Um, and so, yeah, that's my first question. Have staff been informed about these changes or have been trained in any way through their PD or through another mode of communication. >> I think once we make a policy, they will be changed. >> Yes. And then we will also work with law enforcement. We have our own uh school officer. We have a good relationship with the Andover Police Department, also Lawrence and some others, so we can get a heads up of what all of a sudden might be going on in our communities.
So, do we have any discussion on any of the consent agenda items? >> We can't discuss it. So, we just go to the vote. >> Oh, okay. So, we're going to we will vote on whether or not we approve the consent agenda items. >> Okay. So, all those in favor of approving the consent agenda items, say I. >> I.
So, it's definitely a a need. >> Questions for you? >> And I I was curious, historically speaking, um, we had students volunteered into filming um, when we had those classes. So, I'm curious if that also could be brought back to alleviate Alex from here. as my understanding is those classes have kind of gone away. So, we don't really have those programs in place anymore. Um, I mean, we we Dave Dave and I have talked about exploring these opportunities. We just haven't had the ability to sit down and and look into it with anymore. And truthfully, we're being a little cautious, right, in the filming and the audio, right? We've had a couple maybe hand slappings on us, right, for not maybe filming it the right way or the audio might have not been on at the right time. So we've had some complaints filed. So we we're making sure there's consistency.
So having uh being able to communicate and having a heads up on what's might might happen will be uh something that's important to us as well. So I think this is our first step. Albeit maybe we should have done it sooner. Uh we are now trying to do this and get things right so we can protect our students. >> Excuse me. Wait. >> Yes. Go. You still have the floor. >> Just so I can finish my second comment. So my second question is more related to you know the staff understand that this is sort of regular policy. It's part of the district's policy. Um and like you know we all know that the reality of this immigration immigration enforcement hasn't been respectful of the law or even school environments the way that we would expect. Um but let's say you know a staff member violates this policy in any way.
Any opposed? Excellent. Okay. So, now we move on to >> Adjournment. Well, that was I made that way harder than it needed to be. Okay. >> All right. >> Um, do I have a motion to adjurnn? >> So, moved. I have a second. >> Second. >> Excellent. Okay. All those in favor of adjourning say I. I. I.
But do I agree that students great opportunity? >> I mean I think they had headsets and listening to make sure it was being recorded. >> Yep. >> Definitely the future. >> Thanks John. >> Great. >> Before Aaron you can come on up before you go. So just so the public knows all those reports that we just heard about that there's a lot of detail these reports that everybody put together. They got charts in there and data in there to support why they wanted. So last year when it came to budget time, we got to our March budget hearing. The room was full and it was a surprise to everybody about what the budget asks were even though we've been talking about it since December, right? So this is the first time we're talking about it. Aaron's going to give us a little bit of information on how it affects the budget tonight.
I'm assuming that that would apply um in the same process of discipline if if a staff member would violate this policy and we would hold them accountable for doing that. >> Correct. If it's a policy and they don't follow the policy, then then then we have to look at what the consequences for that uh individual should be and would be. >> Okay. Thank you. Yeah. >> And Murray, >> I mean, I would I would think that the the resource officer coupled with maybe someone from a resource officer from Lawrence could take a half hour out of their day to coincide with half hour of your PD and present that to the staff. you know, one voice kind of thing. Instead of anybody trying to reinterpret something, they're hearing it from law enforcement. >> Yeah. So, like any PD, we will plan it first so that it's effective, that it's most what's the most effective way we can get the message out and make it uh uh so everybody's clear and understands what the expectations are.
But our next meeting on February 24th is the big budget meeting where Aaron will tell us every single detailed number, what it's going to cost the towns or maybe not. I don't know. But um that will be a big one to watch. And then the March 10th meeting will be the opportunity. That'll be a hearing where everybody can come in and say yes, I don't care about the math curriculum. Cut that, but give me my biology teacher or whatever it is that people, not the committee, but community want to say about the budget or you're going to support a town meeting. So that's sort of the roadmap from here until town meetings. Tonight we're hearing about the asks. Next meeting in a couple weeks, we will hear about the exact numbers. And I say exact numbers, but they will likely change come March 10th. They'll likely change from March 10th to May 3rd, I think, is the town meeting.
So, we'll plan and organize that. Then, we'll deliver the uh PD and it may be one voice as you say. Yeah, it's easy like that. >> But I also before I part of that planning might be having conversations with our school officer and maybe I don't know what her experience is and what her concerns are. It might be more broad that we want to go directly to you know people who have already seen and been involved in in situations like this already that can advise us a little better and what to expect. >> Good. >> I'm done. >> Mr. Mercedes. So to kind of elaborate a little bit more on on on our concern, obviously there's there's you know these are these are young kids. They don't even have like ID most of them whether they're legal or illegal. No. >> Um, so my question would be, I know you said that the protocol would be notifying the school, the school will notify the parents, but in many occasions, whether they are legal or illegal, people don't have funds saved to try to hire an attorney to go represent them just to get them back because they travel.
But that will be the the public's opportunity to hear about the budget. So nobody should say, "I didn't know you were voting on the budget tonight. Here it is. Spread the word. Tell your friends. Jed put it on Facebook. Everybody watches Facebook. So that will be this is the opportunity. If you've got an opinion about the budget, what's being added, what won't get added, what towns will support, what they won't support. This is the opportunity for that. We're starting now. There's at least three more meetings before the committee actually votes on the budget. So the committee will take a vote on the March 10th date. That will be the number that gets certified to the towns. that will go to town meeting unless of course it changes before between then and we know that it usually does. >> So but that's the process. So >> I'm curious when um if we could put our schedule the budget schedule and like you know this was the meeting this was the preliminary budget these are the specific like hyperlinks to these asks and the budget presentation and then our next meeting is this just so people can see it within the newsletters um for each of the elementary schools and the high school.
They they they move them quickly. that, you know, they don't even inform a lot of the uh local authorities where they're being taken and suddenly this person can or this kid can disappear for weeks. So my question is are we as a as a school would use the our our attorney in any way to to to advocate for these kids who may end up being taken, god forbid, right? But let's say they take endurance, they just taking right taking a right turn on the bus. They they pull the and they just pick on this everybody who look like me and take them out and you know the school get notified. But while that happened the kid is put into a car that nobody knows where is going because they don't even identify. They can be real ICE agent or they can be fake ICE agent because unfortunately we can't even know who they they're real or not.
Um I didn't see the scoping meeting on those newsletters this week. Um so I think it would be really helpful just to get you know shot front of the bow to say hey this is happening. >> We can put it on our our website as well too as pop-ups. U we just finished the the popups for school premium is that there was a lot of things like that but we can certainly add this to that and and the other thing that I think will be helpful for Brent is the feedback in for our admin of this process. Right. So, it's a little different than we did it last year, right? Um, you know, doing the elevator pitch, giving that ahead of time to you so you had a hard copy to look at and ask your questions so weren't having the questions back and forth yet so we can answer them ahead of time.
They don't leave an information to anybody. They just put people and put them into these cars and they they vanish. Now these parents on behalf of these parents who are probably going to be calling us trying to figure out where the kids go and how do they they're going to go to the police. The police is not going to be able to do anything. What are we going to be taking place if there's need of at least a temporary representation from uh an attorney perspective where we were responsible to have these kids quote unquote safe until they get home once they they get off of the bus and home right there's nothing we can do but while they're on the bus or they're in a place that like um me so was saying in a place of of basketball or playing during the doing the transportation of So how do we do about it?