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yes um so i um would like to just open that for that discussion if i may and um i want to thank chris graham for providing some comments on chapter 40 for um uh re-drafting it um but i would appreciate very much um arranging for a small work group which could be me and chris possibly shannon gabranville possibly uh council member griswold um and um i think chris vandenberg may be interested as well um to look at chapter 40 and um uh just to be able to ask some questions for about the the changes that you had suggested so that we feel confident that um i i feel confident anyway that i understand um some of the terms that you used and that that we can integrate everything the way that it will allow us to move forward um to have um both uh well multiple things reducing turf grass uh establishing um safety on easements um and safety for driving for visual visual kinds of things while we allow more native plants to be placed more plants in general to be placed in areas that um would like to have reduced from mowed grass okay rita so i'm a little confused is this some i just need some clarification about this because we've been talking about chapter 40 revisions for a while um are you proposing any changes in the scope of that not in this scope no it's just interpretation of some of the changes that were suggested the last time i asked for um some input from uh kristen and um uh commissioner gibb randall um and i have some feedback from kristin and we just haven't had a chance to have an exchange so i just wanted to call it a little work group so we could have some discussion and possibly i'm hoping that it could be done in one session because there's there's some significant um improvements that that i'd like to make sure that that i understand before we move it to this group for approval okay um as a commissioner you're fully entitled to do that and recruit whoever you think is appropriate and who might participate and contribute to this work so um i don't think we need any formal action by the commission um so um my suggestion is just that you uh send an email to the entire uh you know entire commission members and ask uh you know um if they would like to join a work group and just outline what the scope and the goals are and the estimated time commitment and then um and uh some and maybe not a formal deadline but some idea the deadline for that work and then um and then um get volunteers and then report back uh next month i think that's cathy one of the reasons that it's taking so long is not the ordinance itself it's the procedures and operations that um come from the ordinance and how it's interpreted and and so we're trying to make sure that we have some of those supporting documents available as well as there are some new developments and one of them is the national wildlife federation has issued a statement including recommended ordinances for local municipalities regarding uh wildlife gardens wildlife friendly gardens and so while that wouldn't be in the ordinance that would be part of the supporting documentation and so we're we're just trying to keep up to date as the world keeps changing and we keep finding additional information that will be beneficial no that sounds great um that sounds great um okay thanks kathy um are there any other comments does anybody else wish to make a comment at this time okay rita well thanks for the yeah thanks for the suggestion so uh look for an email okay um so are you satisfied with this i hope so yes yes thank you um so the next item under unfinished business is a standard item that we have about the gelman plume um i think we do have um some lingering questions about the ms4 situation so i don't know rita would you take the floor and discuss this um this item is here to keep the issue um to our for so that we have an ongoing ability to comment on what's going on with the gentleman plume and i want to just in this case um i want to call attention to um an excellent article that was printed in the detroit free press just yesterday by reporter garrett allison he reviewed the entire history of the gelman plume from its identification from before its identification up until now and i strongly encourage commissioners to seek that out and read it i will send a link to the article for you to catch it but it does have a pay wall so i have been uh in touch with the free press to see about obtaining some copies if i have to pay for them i will do that and and to allow that to be distributed so that people can read it without having if you don't have a subscription to the free press then it would be available but i would like to actually at this point in terms of reporting on status um i believe that um commissioner council member griswold is really um up to date and i see her hand raised so i would like to acknowledge her kathy you have the floor okay yeah i would just like to suggest that our minutes include the link to that detroit free press article even though it is behind a pay wall because i i think it's a very very important and comprehensive article and then also regarding gelman the city issues a quarterly report titled gelman plumen one for dioxane and this is public information one of the problems with gelman is uh some of the activities in court include our legal strategy and so they're privileged but i i can send this link to rita or galen so that we could also put that in um in the minutes and that's sort of the official city's position and it includes the settlement update uh the ms4 permit what eagle carter doing the mpdes permit um and one of the things that i've done is i work closely with scio township elected officials because the the government plume is in scio township and so they seem to be the most assertive and um and they have the resources devoted to keeping up to date every day i mean there's been some actions with the appeals court just in the last few days but at i have not received any um notice of it and the only information i have is privilege but what i can say and and this was in the detroit free press article is that gelman continues to appeal in and fight this in the court system and that has been their strategy all along and so i feel very fortunate that we have the dual path now with the epa as as a second way to work on on resolution or remediation and also related to this the water treatment plant is going to have another analysis they did one in 2015 to determine whether we wanted to invest in uh improvements to the water plant or to connect to the great lakes water authority known as the detroit water system uh and they're going to do another analysis and there will be a work session devoted to it i believe in september of this year so that's uh related to both of the dioxane as well as the pfas levels so that's a council work session kathy that's a yes that's a councilwork session so i'll make sure that the environmental commissioners are notified of the date of that work session in case they want to attend and i don't know if lisa dish wants to add to this um lisa do you wish to comment or chris graham does lisa um i don't hear or see her so chris go ahead you have before for many years i've been suggesting that there might come a time when we have such a drought in michigan that we don't have enough water entering barton pond to supply our water and that would be a calamity since we do not have a enough wells in the city to make up for the 85 percent of our water which comes from barton pond and the river and it seems to me that some sort of plan b ought to be in place if i understand correctly detroit's water comes from lake huron if i understand correctly genesee county and its environs are building a pipeline from lake huron so they can get off the detroit city water supply going all the way out to flint and genesee county i'm not sure i would propose we build a plan b pipeline to lake huron but it seems to me that the detroit water is in epsilante and it might or might not be practical to add a connection in case we need it for a year or so um maybe i'm nuts but uh i remember 1988 when it didn't rain from easter sunday and it was just the spritz on easter sunday until july 17th we were completely and totally bone dry in southern michigan and so was all of the feral growing zone of the united states all the way out to iowa and on days in june that year it was 104 degrees in the shade with a 40 mile an hour wind all day and it was unbelievably awful in 1988 i said uh oh along with james hansen who went to the congress that summer and said we have a problem about climate change and many people went to work until the oil and gas companies decided to quash work on climate change and now we are in a lot of trouble predominantly because of that i'm again maybe i'm nuts but um if our river our water supply doesn't flow very well or stops flowing for a summer we're kind of in trouble thank you um so is it my understanding that this discussion just pertains to the wastewater treatment plant hooking up to detroit's gia the glwa or just the water treatment plant the intake and in a couple of items i want to acknowledge the the water treatment plant um leadership brian steglitz and also glenn wizorchik i don't know how to pronounce his last name uh but they both seem to be very knowledgeable about this and so uh i have confidence that it will be a thorough analysis and a good news item is that 10 years ago we were using 120 gallons per person per day of water and now we're using 80 gallons of water per person per day so we have definitely reduced our water intake so this is this is fee increases and what they do i'm sorry i didn't realize we're talking about sweet stream i lisa thank you for all these reports we're doing a very fine job in our sewage treatment efforts in ann arbor we are very nearly state-of-the-art and i don't think we need to burden this the city of detroit with our stuff to my knowledge there's there's no discussion about sewer treatment connection only only water okay oh right thanks and i wasn't out the lunch all right thank you very much you're welcome thanks kathy um well we say you have the floor um but if we were to join this they would be we would be receiving treated water and we would just be delivering it we wouldn't be treating it and so i do not think that this can be a backup because it actually means an entire it would mean a shift in infrastructure would mean bypass our infrastructure so i think we have to make a one or the other choice either we refurbish the water plant that we have the drinking water treatment plant that we have or plan a switch but i but the idea i think chris of a of a backup in case we have a drought um wouldn't be viable because it's it's apples and oranges you know currently we treat our own water here in ann arbor and to to receive treated water as a finished product from this new pipeline um uh you know when i get to lisa i so detroit is pulling water from lake karen which needs actually very little treatment and i'm not suggesting giving up on our own systems if we have a problem it's going to be transitory it's just that um we have what five wells down on the airport the one in town is closed it's 15 percent of our water 85 is coming from the river and we do really genuinely need to treat that a lot but there may be a way to bypass a lot of our systems with detroit water for the time period that we might need it i'm you know i'm we have we have outstanding people working on our sewer and water systems the proof of that pudding is that somewhere back there a hundred years ago they said well okay we're not going to allow our storm water tiles our storm water drains to overflow into our sewage lines causing what has been disaster first southeast michigan and much of ypsilanti right next door we have a completely separate system we've had wisdom in our in our in the people that worked here for a hundred years and i i don't want to mess with that i'm not suggesting we switch to detroit water i'm simply saying we need a plan b in case the river stops flowing okay well i'm sure that'll be an item of discussion a public discussion leading up to whatever decision might be made but thank you kathy for and lisa you still have your hand up okay so um so thanks for bringing this up kathy um it's very important um there are certainly you know not just engineering implications but ecological implications political implications what have you so uh this would be a very important decision to be making um so let's move on to new business um uh the first item on the agenda is discussion of format of minutes and action points discussion what i'm going to say about this is that um city staff prefers to have very spare minutes that really just mentioned what the topics what the topics were discussed with no little or no detail beyond that um for me i feel like it would be useful to have um more of a summary like what we've seen lately you know um i think it would help another thing that would help is if they were indexed to the timestamp on the uh on the broadcast that would make it easier for people to refer to the to the video recordings you know if they're interested in a particular topic while they're reviewing the minutes um so i think it's worth maybe having a discussion about this about what other commissioners feel is useful um so the floor is open um if anybody wants to i see rita's hand raised so why don't you go first then kathy thanks um i just want to say i think that actually this set of minutes that we just went over these two so are an example that shows some contrast because there was one that um it has more detail and there was one that was a little bit shorter but still had information so i just wanted to point that out to help our discussion um and it um i'll just state my own preference is to have um kind of in a medium amount of detail so that we can see get a flavor for what the discussion was if we can add the time stamp that steve described um to the minute so that a person who may be interested in really seeing the detail of our discussion could track back to it and see it even more in even more detail in an even more detailed way than what we write that would be really super cathy you have the floor i support having the time stamp and uh in terms of the amount of detail in the minutes more is probably better but we have to weigh that against the the cost and of resources to create them so if there's limited resources we can capture much of the conversation simply with a time stamp and an easy link to to the video yeah okay so those are alternatives um i think this may be something that's best table for our uh our working session in august um i wanted we i wanted to bring this top of rita and i wanted to bring this topic up now because there's been quite a bit of back and forth between us and the city staff about this and um on the one hand i'd like to have a seven minutes that's useful for you know the residents and citizens here as well as um the commissioners themselves so um let's see are there any other suggestions about uh maybe modifying the way we uh the amount of detail we put into the minutes what i've heard is that having a time stamp has some support so um i don't think it's worth a big discussion right now so why don't we have a continue this on our working session and traditional working session in august and meanwhile we can have some conversations with cities further conversations with city staff about this and get a better idea of what's how much time staff time is involved in putting timestamps on these on these minutes okay a quick question steve is concerned from the city about the staff time in preparing the minutes or what is the the the concern to keep them brief hey it's it's mostly about staff time taking up and preparing detailed minutes thanks you know it's it's really not um it's difficult for the staff person to be managing the meeting you know organizing a lot of the logistics while also taking detailed notes and getting them into the format and legistar you know we've had us we've had a lot of uh problems a lot of back and forth about getting things set up properly in legistar and a lot of that has to do with the staff turnover and commission support but um but i think uh you know i'm i think some i think we should just decide something based on you know what commissioners feel that the need is or what would be more appropriate and balance that against uh whatever time we're requesting of staff okay and just saying as uh as the chair i've been i've been writing more detailed minutes and submitting them to staff so i'm happy to continue to do that and uh the major problem is getting them embedded into legistar so um so uh we'll explore that further and bring this up as a as an agenda item on the uh working session okay in august and uh have some more and we could lay some alternatives on the table and talk about the trade-offs in more detail at that time okay are there any other comments anybody wish to make a comment i'm hearing and seeing none um i think we'll move on the next item on the agenda is um is about ann arbor's contribution to phosphorus and the huron river so um this was mentioned in our meeting last month lisa dish uh mentioned that council had approved a legal settlement that's the the city has been involved in for i think at least a decade at least two decades um possibly three um and um you know this and i sent out a uh i sent out a powerpoint presentation that i think i'll put up right now if i may i've done some research and um this is um it's quite a complicated topic because just to just to uh recap the situation is that um the city inevitably has to uh discharge through both its storm water and its wastewater some phosphorus into the cowling river the phosphorus cannot be entirely cleaned out and put somewhere else um this phosphorus adds to the natural phosphorus burden phosphorus is a is a limiting nutrient in the aquatic environment here so what that means is that this additional phosphorus contributes i'm not going to say causes but i'm going to say definitely contributes to algal blooms harmful algal bloom blooms both in ford lake down river and in belleville lake um these algal blooms have not just uh they're not just aesthetic issues um uh they're associated with fish kills on substantial alteration of the ecosystems and what's most alarming is that it is um these blue-green algae um secrete toxins uh that are liver toxins to humans so if you remember uh the city of toledo for example because of the harmful algal blooms in lake erie the the where the city of um toledo against most of its drinking water uh they had to shut down their drinking water system for a substantial period of time i think it was a week or more until a situation could be addressed because these microcystins are very potent liver toxins um other communities have also had problems with this um like an adrian on the raisin river because because of cafo contamination the lake erie contamination comes mostly from capos that are located in ohio but there are cafos that's concentrated animal feeding operations that are located in um southern michigan and lenoir counties and monroe counties mostly waterway county and and other counties in michigan but they're not um the uh the river watershed does not have um much of an as much of an agricultural contribution to some of the municipal wastewater treatment plants so um the idea is that um the concept is that if anova reduces its phosphorus discharges into the river that they may have some effect on the harmful algal there's some controversy about whether this is true or not so should we be spending the money or is the money better spent elsewhere if we want to prevent these harmful algal blooms so um this is a it's a complicated topic and what i would propose um is first of all i do have this slide deck um that's all that's attached to the agenda so i can put it up but uh if enough commissioners have had a chance to look over it and it's available for public inspection um so i'm inclined to skip it if there's no um you know there was not as a special presentation um it's just there to facilitate our discussion um but my personal opinion after reviewing a lot of the information is that um i think this is best style discussed at a future environmental commissioning commission meeting where we invite three people to give a brief perspective for 10 minutes each and then join a discussion a more extended discussion for perhaps an hour or more about this issue um the people i would suggest inviting is rick lawson from the huron watershed council because um the mitigation of phosphorus is really should be based on a um on a watershed management plan and the heron river watershed council as a joint governmental body as well as an ngo develops the watershed plan for for the mid huron river here and so they their input would be critical um because they just finished the new water water management plan last year 2020 it was updated uh the second person who we should invite is um the director of the wastewater treatment plant you know or his designate so i think we would i would i will invite him to a future meeting of the environmental commission and then um the third person would be um would be a professor at the university of michigan who has done quite a lot of research on this issue locally and who is able to provide a lot of information um professor layman from lehman l e a h m a names are all on the slide deck um so i think um i think that's that's what i would like to do and um i'm wondering if so i'm opening the floor for discussion um kathy has her hand up and then young oh no no it's something something on your wall young when i don't see your hand up she she had her hand up first oh okay or is it or is it oh i'm sorry it's superimposed on an image of your uh something like a wall sorry about that yeah small picture i raised my hand earlier when i was talking about minutes um i just realized my name was spell around um on the last minute so can we just change that from like z h a n g to a zhe engine we can certainly do that without a vote thank you would you like to comment on the phosphorous issue young women i always think about this okay we'll have an opportunity in a future meeting uh kathy you have the floor uh yes our attorney general dana nessl has raised the issue of phosphorus a couple times when i've seen her in meetings and i was at a fundraiser in dearborn this week and uh mentioned that the even though there was a court settlement the environmental commission was interested in it and she asked to be invited to our meeting so um you may want to send her your slide deck um her statement was and she's made it more than once is that she became a lawyer only because she couldn't make it through organic chemistry but that's not really her first interest so i think that her her interest in phosphorus is is definitely genuine and uh so she would appreciate an invite okay i will certainly make sure that she is invited to this to the future meeting and phosphorus is an inorganic compound anyway not an organic compound okay okay more to learn okay so um thank you kathy because yeah it's uh it's a complicated scientific issue and i think the important thing is it's something that needs to be solved but we want to make sure we're spending the money in the right way yes and i think we're we're fortunate to have an attorney general who who is very interested in this and wants to learn more okay very good okay uh rita you have your well lisa you have your hand up i think lisa yeah well mine's quick i was just gonna say that um earl kenzie would be a great person to invite just from the wastewater treatment plant perspective yeah he's the director so i was going to invite him or whoever he might want to designate um is there anybody else you think could provide useful input for this discussion future discussion to me it seemed like these would be the most uh prominent players okay who could you know who could uh shed light on this issue okay arita you have a floor uh yeah thanks uh steve is there um i know you put some data in your um slide deck and i just wonder if there's anything else that you'd like to refer to us to review beforehand that would help us get a sense of for example the source of the phosphorus if there's a way to track it and if we have that information already just might be interesting and help us discuss well one thing i still hold on as you see there's a mention of something called capital e capital eq eq um i don't i have not been able to find the number um but that's what the uh just to just to recap what the settlement is uh we have two years to do whatever we've been doing what we're doing now we have two years to continue doing that um and uh but nobody seems to know exactly how much phosphorus we are contributing so um i think uh part of it is an estimate is establishing whatever this eq number is in terms of pounds per day that the city is delivering and i think i think both the storm water and the wastewater are relevant in this case um the second thing is that for the next um um practically 20 years from oh my you can see from the slide deck but we have until really 2048 you know to limit it to some fraction of that and then the hammer really comes down at a very you know a long time in the future like in 2045 or something like that so there's plenty of time it seems for both um you know technical advances and or you know and uh the reconsideration of this from a legal point of view depending on what information might come to life um i have been able to find one of my frustrations is that i have not has yet been able to find any document that eagle has issued which um effectively uh um um mentions about uh what remediation um standards are acceptable or what policies are acceptable i'm sure they're out there somewhere all i was able to find was a document from connecticut it points out that there are at least 36 mechanisms by which you know phosphorus could be reduced so that's quite a lot of cost benefit analyses it should be done or at least some triaging to be done so what i'm thinking this is something that the commission is um this would be within the commission's purview and it's also something that we would be capable of doing to help assist a public discussion and assist city council and in weighing the cost benefits of the various options that you might have open to us that's my personal take so i see more hands up this first kathy than lisa i think and then chris i think lisa was first lisa then kathy then chris okay i just wanted to say quickly that that we do i'm sorry i muted myself instead of putting my hand down um we do know a fair amount about where the phosphorus is coming um some of it is in those lakes to begin with um because they're depos you know they're primordial deposits and they just get um when there's a and the lakes are are anaerobic so they're still and and then when there's a like a big rainstorm or something like that it gets stirred up and so that's one of the things that's charging that algal blooms the other thing that we know is that runoff from fertilizer is is accounting for some of that because there was a significant decrease in the algal blooms and in the phosphorus after an arbor enacted its um ban on fertilizer with phosphorus and so the city itself has done a fair amount and we do know some about you know about what is causing this um i don't know i don't think anyone i i yeah i i cannot remember if i do know the amount that's in it that you know that we're discharging i can i was trying to look through my notes but i don't really think i'm gonna be able to find that oh not tonight you know i think that i think we'll have some time before you know we have this on the agenda for a subsequent meeting of the commission to figure a lot of this out and yeah my son my recollection is that we reduced our phosphorus emissions by 28 due that's fertilizer ordinance but we could certainly do more we could certainly do more and we've gotten something like 43 of the way towards a 50 mandate so that's like 80 of the way there just with that so um it's not clear what and um and professor lehmann was arguing with ava about what model they were using we're actually judging how much the phosphorus problem came just from the sediments and the lakes themselves and that uh of course there are the cheapest way to to mitigate this problem is to just aerate you know just aerate the lakes instead of uh that may be the least expensive and most effective way of doing it so um rather than um limiting our discharge further so this is worth you know this is this this this requires some consideration and you know identifying what the data gaps might be um figuring out what uh just figuring out you know how to get more certainty around the remedy the the appropriate remedy and whether you know how much of it uh really ann arbor can accomplish no matter how much money it spends um i think street sweeping is another input there because um you know fertilizer that ends up in the street you know like this is another reason why we should uh not be uh dumping leaves in the street for collection in the fall it's because you know they all contain phosphorus and so the running storm water will reach it out of that so keeping the streets relatively clean and not just fertilizer but any organic matter will definitely help and i think the city has made some steps in that direction as well but i don't have any details um kathy we have your handout um yes i was talking to kevin mcdonald in the city attorney's office and he is also very interested and very knowledgeable about the history of what ann arbor has done to reduce phosphorus and so i would suggest that he be invited to this meeting and also if it would be helpful i could request a summary of what um what the city has done separate from the legal documents for the last 15 years kevin said that when he joined the city that the um the file regarding phosphorus reduction was on his desk and that was the first thing he worked on so he's also very interested in this and and offered some information to me today so i i think that if we take the lead on this we'll find that there are many people that are knowledgeable and and are interested yeah yeah i'm sure there are so um i will i will contact him as well oh okay thanks yeah and um and so i would encourage everybody to exchange emails about this in the meantime and i will continue to distribute information as i can as it comes in and i'll try to consolidate it into a shared document that we can use as a basis for uh you know for informing each other and for helping us facilitating a discussion and making a decision about this at some future time um i think this is something uh is probably not so appropriate for the august meeting since it's a working session um and so we might wait until september to bring this up and as i mentioned i don't i don't personally feel any sense of get any sense of urgency about this since um you know since uh with the legal settlement uh we're kind of we can we're allowed to go through this you know just practice the status quo for another two years but there's no reason to postpone it that long but i think it's worth a a good consideration in building uh you know building a consensus and building more of a political will about you know what to do about what's appropriate okay um chris you have your hand up sorry um well i would hope the aerators in belleville and ford lakes are solar-powered out there in the summer it's nowhere i mean those pumps are serious electricity um it seems to me that we could do two things one relatively easily one much more difficult i suspect one is to increase the storage requirement for rain gardens um they are completely worthless for the kinds of rains we've had in the last month all of them will would have been completely overwhelmed and would be even if we increased the standard to something a little higher and of course rita knows and lisa knows and thank you lisa for passing on all these documents the coefficient of runoff for turfgrass is just about the same as asphalt and of course the i would guess the principle source of phosphate that isn't somehow added to the environment is coming off our soils and if we diminish runoff by converting turf grass to more absorptive plant materials that allow water to percolate rather than runoff will diminish the phosphate low down in the river and causing that to be a regulation is a ways away i would guess but uh it would have a big effect it certainly would um you know do we have the whole example of detergents you know dishwashing detergents used to have we're loaded with phosphorus phosphate and they were banned back in the 70s and they made a big impact um people are still allowed to use um phosphorous as a chemical as a pure chemical you know rock phosphate as a fertilizer but um even just you know just having a regulation where you're not allowed to use a phosphate infanti fertilizer in the city would be useful you know you can still add phosphate to your garden but it has it would be a slow release variety like we have we you know no fertilizers especially not on grass are phosphate contain phosphate in ann arbor that's the rule whether that's true i'm not sure how but i think the commercial companies are complying and i don't see much phosphate fertilizer in the vendors that homeowners can buy here well you can still buy it online and you can still apply it to your gardens but that's expensive to ship so most people are buying from local vendors and and that's right but i know but i know you can buy it off you can buy it from amazon 50 pound bags of it so okay so a lot of this is going to be public education of course so um um let's see chris did you have an um would you like you have any more comments all right i'm sorry okay uh your hand was still up so um does anybody else wish to make a comment at this point okay i see you're hearing none but uh so i will i will continue making inquiries over the next month and i'll give you the commission an update um next week next month and then we will have we'll have probably a whole environmental commission meeting for this item alone when when it when it's prepared when we're all when we all feel prepared for a general discussion and some moving forward to some kind of a decision okay well the next item on the agenda is uh professor sally is going to speak on steve yes sorry to interrupt but i think that we were going to we reordered to have kathy talk about a20 i thought that was going to be at the end at the very end okay i thought it was at the end of new business okay all right well that's continued this is a new business uh sally roy on the uh planning staff report i'm sorry next on the agenda and then kathy and lisa you so um let's see sally areta do you want to uh yes why don't you manage the discussion here sure i'd like to welcome and introduce professor sally oy astronomer from the university of michigan um who has guided the city's development of uh an outdoor lighting ordinance to improve the quality of our lighting at night improve the reduce the use of electricity and actually it's something that will improve our nighttime environment um and so i would uh she has um kind of along with john mursky done a lot of work and this uh ordinance that we're going to discuss tonight has actually been approved by the planning commission it's been slightly amended and you'll see you had in your packet the amended um ordinance that'll be discussed at city council in the first meeting in august i believe but we wanted to just have a chance to have the environmental commission to see this ordinance hear its importance and uh make some comments that i think will um i'm hoping will continue in an educational direction but but before we go i would just like to um again thank sally or youtube for joining us and and um i if you want to start right now and and talk that would be great thank you great um let me get myself set up here can you see my screen yeah yeah uh great um thank you so much for inviting me and um uh i'm actually also the coordinator of an organization called michigan dark skies and that is a community group that is dedicated to raising awareness about light pollution and advocating for preserving the natural night sky which as i will show is a an important environmental concern i do want to again give a great acknowledgement to commissioner john mursky who really took this on and said let's do this when i approached him about trying to put together a lighting ordinance for ann arbor and so without his enthusiasm and dedication and work together with a couple other members of the planning commission and a couple other people this would never have happened so we're very very grateful to all of them so i have actually presented on this topic before to the environmental commission four years ago but most of you are new now so i apologize to those of you who have already heard various incarnations of my presentation but um this is an opportunity to bring everybody on board and as commissioner mitchell mentioned to really hope to spread the word and and the environmental commission is so important for this kind of advocacy so um in basically we're talking about a change to the fundamental nature of the night and the night is its own ecosystem ordinarily it should look something like what we see in this picture the normal night sky with stars and darkness and so forth but in fact 80 of people in the world live in something that looks more like this at night and so that is obviously not natural a lot of this lighting is absolutely necessary for our functioning at night and some of it's beautiful but a lot of it is not and the part that's not is meaning not used means that it is wasted light that performs no function or task whatsoever and that means that it is literally wasted energy and therefore it's pollution it's light pollution when you look down on the earth as you see on this picture you can see all of this light going straight up into outer space where it serves absolutely no one so that light is not doing the function that it was intended to be doing so light pollution is a significant waste of energy and it's a problem that is also increasing exponentially as time goes by here's a study showing what the light pollution map of the 48 states looked like in 1950s in the 1970s in 1997 and then the projection for 2025 and you can see that this is really an existential threat to the natural dark ecosystem here's the light pollution map for michigan and you can see that we're one of the few places east of the mississippi where there are still substantial regions especially in northern michigan that have pristine natural darkness there's even a couple patches in the lower uh peninsula as well so this is something that is very precious now in fact the michigan department of natural resources has designated six state parks as dark sky reserves so even our state recognizes at that level that dark skies are a natural resource worth preserving another thing to point out on this kind of map is that these are particularly light polluting cities that you can see here in red but that their footprint really extends over a much larger area so the affected area is on the order of 10 times larger than the light polluting source urban center itself so the surrounding communities are in fact stakeholders in a city's lighting and its lighting ordinance so this is an environmental issue we humans don't pay too much attention to it because we are daytime creatures and that is uh to the detriment of every creature that lives at night artificial light at night the buzzword is alan for the environmental for the biological sciences artificial light at night interferes with wildlife migration mating feeding and sleep which is pretty much everything that wildlife do animals and plants live by a 24-hour cycle and that gets disrupted by artificial lights and that includes humans as well so for example the nobel prize in medicine was awarded in 2017 for discoveries relating to the circadian rhythms of human health and uh much of this stems from disrupting our sleep cycles which has serious health consequences including obesity and cancer and cardiovascular problems and so forth the american medical association has actually issued an extensive report about the problems related to light pollution to our health and that's posted on our group's website so it's not just ourselves that are having trouble with this but obviously animals as well if we can't sleep neither can they birds are an especially uh sensitive creature to light pollution and that's because many bird species migrate at night but they normally rely on navigating by the light of the moon and the stars but with artificial lights then they get very confused in their navigations and they frequently end up colliding with buildings which are the number two cause of bird death after cats and it's believed that up to a billion birds are killed a year which is just mind-boggling these are up to a billion that actually crash into buildings and die um and you may have heard about how drastically the bird populations have been going down over the last decades we are here on the bird migration highway in the great lakes and so uh that is something that birding uh community is well aware of this problem with light pollution and crashing into buildings and for example here in our great lakes area the royal ontario museum annually puts on this exhibit where they've collected all these dead birds and display them to raise awareness about this issue a particularly poignant study was done regarding the 911 tribute lights in new york city they have this on on every september 11th they have this display where they shoot these very very bright lights straight up into the sky on the footprint of the former twin towers and these actually attract birds so many birds that you can detect them on radar which is what you see down here in the lower left there are so many birds about 15 000 birds that are trapped there that you can actually see them on the radar so this is when the lights are on and when the lights are off that you can see that they're not there anymore and so they actually need to turn these lights off for 20 minutes at a time in order to let the birds go so there are organizations that try to promote these lights out programs including in chicago and detroit has also participated in these in the past as has ann arbor it's always a struggle to kind of remind people to do this every year but there are organizations right here in our area that are uh always raising awareness about the lights out programs including washtenaw safe passage for example here in our county so birds are not the only animal that is affected by light pollution there's another famous example of sea turtles where baby sea turtles hatch on the beach and then they are biologically programmed to look for the glinting of the waves and thereby reach the sea as quickly as possible in order to survive but when they see the city lights they go toward the glinting of the city lights instead and they end up not making it to the sea um and obviously they don't survive in that way so this is from a public service announcement in florida you may also have heard about the insect apocalypse when i was a kid and would go on road trips then you know the front of the car would be covered with insects and that just doesn't happen now which is absolutely terrifying because insects are the bottom of the food chain so light pollution has been definitively linked to insect to the insect apocalypse is just one of several reasons why this is happening but for example when insects larvae are exposed by lights at night then they get consumed by their predators more easily as well adult insects like fireflies even i believe are threatened now um and and yeah basically other activities that insects do are also disrupted they they navigate basically by the same principles that birds do for example and then there are other animals at night that are also uh important to us for example bats are nocturnal pollinators of certain things like the tequila agave and then fish apparently are also affected by light pollution including economically important species and so forth so just to give a quick overview of light pollution itself so there's three types we've got glare which is the kind that you see when you're driving at light and somebody shines their headlights and your eyes that is a health hazard it's a safety hazard um for both drivers and pedestrians and then there's light trespass and uh that happens for example when you've got the neighbor's flood light shining into your bedroom window which is also a health hazard as we've talked about as well as a nuisance and then you've got sky glow which is the unnatural brightening of the night sky itself and that again is a health hazard and an ecological problem there's also an issue with the color of light pollution so blue or light is not as good as as red light generally speaking and that's because blue light scatters much more strongly so that means it spreads the footprint of the light pollution you've also got a problem that blue light is more experienced more as glare especially for people who already have vision problems and then there's also the fact that blue light will also destroy your night vision more quickly than red light which is why astronomers run around with little red flashlights instead of blue flashlights so it turns out that these led lights that are very prevalent nowadays have much more blue light in them if they're the kind that are super super bright like you know when you're under a fluorescent light that's a very very white light that white color actually has a lot of blue wavelengths in it and that's the kind that actually uh you know is a problem at the level that the american medical association again has issued a statement about led lights in particular as being disruptive to our sleep cycles so leds have been wonderful because they are very energy efficient but the question is will they actually save us energy so there's a phenomenon called the javen's paradox which was known since 1865 that if you increase energy efficiency it simply leads to greater energy consumption and what i'm showing here on this plot is the price of lighting energy uh in this dotted line since the year 1700 up to the year 2000 and this is data for the uk and then uh the solid line shows the per capita consumption of lighting energy in the uk over that same period of time and you basically see that these two lines exactly mirror each other so people are not saving energy they're just lighting up more and i think you know anecdotally if you look around at all the led lighting that's gone up recently since the year 2000s it seems completely consistent with the gevins paradox and that's why legislation is absolutely imperative to realize any benefits of conservation for energy efficiency so the good news is that this problem is easily solved simply by following these four steps to light only what is needed no more than what is needed only when it is needed and no bluer that that is needed so this is not like cleaning up a toxic waste dump once you have the lights off the problem is solved uh and so that's the idea behind the ann arbor lighting ordinance the idea is to help accomplish this and to help raise awareness so that people can accomplish this and just uh look at their own lighting and how they can chip in so these are the highlights of the ordinance so it will specify that nighttime outdoor lighting should have warm colors and this is a technical specification for that so it basically corresponds to if you have a white light that it's not that super super white led white white but that it is a warm white in fact led manufacturers are getting much better now at manufacturing those kinds of lights uh that are warmer in color for white light trespass is going to be limited at the property light fixtures are to be fully shielded so in other words no light above the horizontal but not this but this that there would be curfew for business lights and there would be limits on brightness for facades under canopy lighting and parking lot lighting and to the extent possible that there would be some way to get non-compliant lights into compliance so that is what we are seeking support from this commission for i would now go into a little detail on the um on the ordinance itself so you can see exactly what the document is let me just switch to a different screen share okay so here is the document itself uh actually that's the old one and so this is in your packet so it starts with the purpose the purpose is basically to address the issues that i've just mentioned to minimize the adverse effects of light pollution to protect the natural environment to promote energy efficiency and also to foster an environment that actually enhances commerce and whatever we want to do at night if you have these more mellow lights then um it's basically a more pleasant urban environment in our downtown district then we've got applicability and it basically applies to all outdoor lighting at night that is on private property of course and because that's what the udc applies to and there are these exemptions temporary lights are exempted so that includes things like christmas lights so that's for a total of 90 days lighting for flags is exempted and any lighting that has to do with a historic character is also exempt and then there's the color as i mentioned the limitation on the color and then we have the limits on trespass and light trespass means no more than a certain limit is allowed over the property boundary and that's done by zones and then we've got a prohibition on glare and then we've got specifications for shielding so if you're shining the if your target is flat basically on the ground if you're trying to illuminate something that's pointing downward then basically your fixtures have to be shielded so that there's no light emitted above the horizontal plane as i showed an earlier figure for vertical targets let's say that you're trying to illuminate a statue or something like that then that's okay you can point upward some but you should make every effort to shield the rest so that you're not spilling too much light off of the target and then there are limits for facade lighting and a curfew for facade lighting and then there's uh limits to brightness on for under canopy lighting like at gas stations and so forth and then flood lights flood lights are not to be angled any higher than 45 degrees meaning 45 degrees downward and then there's a prohibition on changing lights so no moving lights or blinking lights or things like that the amendment that was mentioned uh extends this to temporary lights and then there's parking lots uh limits to brightnesses on them and a curfew for them as well and then uh indoor lighting also shall not be a source of light trespass or glare and then finally to the extent possible for example if you change an outdoor light fixture completely not just the bulb but if you change the light then it needs to come into conformance uh with the with the new rule and then this would be enforced especially for any site plan that requires a submitted plan to the city the rest of it is pretty much just definitions and there's a couple you know diagrams that are helpful and so forth made by commissioner lisa sovay and then there's the amendment right here that was discussed and added on by the planning commission and that again addresses the temporary lights not being flashing etc and that's pretty much it so um i would be happy to answer any questions about this well thank you professor white i first um i first saw this topic uh i was almost it was almost um four and a half years ago by now the planning commission approved this uh uh just about a year ago in august yeah so i see a few hands raised um kathy griswold and lisa i'm not sure who was first because i can't i still see the screen that's being shared cathy was first okay kathy you have the floor and then lisa okay thank you very much professor i saw this presentation at a local sierra club meeting at the botanical gardens a few years ago and i i also reviewed it and i believe it john mursky's request because i'm pretty outspoken about the need for lighting especially lighting for pedestrian street lighting and i um i agree with everything this is this is really great i look forward to something similar for our public right of way if whatever we can control locally that's not controlled by the the state and federal government what many people don't understand is more lighting is not better lighting and in looking at crosswalk crashes glare is is a contributing factor and also a recent crash that we had in the north side of the street was was quite dark and it was difficult to see pedestrians and so what ended up happening is dte kept increasing the brightness on the south side that actually made it because of the contrast even more difficult to see the pedestrian so i i won't go into more details other than to say um this is great i i recommend that we endorse it and i look forward to the uh the work for the public right-of-way thank you so much council member grizzled i remember discussing it with you thank you very much oh you're welcome okay um thanks kathy lisa you have the floor and then chris and then young when um this is really uh illuminating um i am confused about one thing which is that in the in the document that was on our screen in the applicability section there was um yeah it wasn't that one that we were seeing we were seeing a different applicability section uh and so that's partly why i'm confused the one that was showing on the screen as you were speaking at the very end included any project for which a site review is required uh i would strike that uh i'm sorry go ahead i would strike that because uh we're having the same issue with the um ev ordnance um the requirement of a site plan review by oh wait is it just site plan review at planning or site plan review at council or yours well um the the language that you saw was this can you see my screen or not yeah that's not what we were seeing though when you were speaking it was a much shorter thing and it had something about a site plan review and uh that was the sorry for interrupting but i thought that that was the prior version of the ordinance it was not what we are seeing right now so was it this it's not changing sally i'm not sure what's happening okay i'm sorry um someone it says your screen sharing is paused let me resume okay there we go okay so is it is it this can you go up a little bit yeah so scroll up no because i think this is the same thing again that you were just showing us yes so let me ask is it is it this one yeah it was this one okay yeah this is the existing one so this is going away all together so i apologize because when i first started to show it to you i i came up with this page and that and that was a lot because you were going into so much detail that was not on this page and i was like okay so now i understand and i'm looking at the file in from my agenda so now now i'm not confused i apologize and this what i'm showing right here actually is only for non-conforming existing lighting in the first place but of course if a plan is submitted to the city for any new construction it needs to comply with this and they need to demonstrate um okay um i think um let's see whose hand was up uh chris chris and then um pyongyang so uh thank you um gosh energy commission and planning commission planning commission wonderful help from the university the original request to do something about lighting in ann arbor has been around since the 2000s mid 2000s almost as long as i've been on the commission and i'm so excited that we've reached the level of sophistication that this ordinance suggests um i'm wondering if we could add a provision that would allow uh some sort of complaint process to [Music] to ask for city um intervention and egregious circumstances of too much light i appreciate that it's normal to do these kinds of regulations for cycling review procedures and in the long run that will help but there are um some [Music] obvious um uh shall i call them difficult situations out there that someone might make a complaint about and cause a process that might result in diminishing light pollution sooner rather than later just a suggestion thank you um enforcement has was something that was discussed you know quite a bit because this is obviously something that is difficult to enforce especially because it's at night um and so uh i think we just kind of left that as a c-click fix situation um but i hope that just by raising awareness and this is the kind of thing that's going to need a lot of education um so i hope also that you know we can follow up at some point with the suggestion that council member griswold made about you know moving on to the the city's right-of-way uh stuff also i mean we have actually had some discussions with the city and with dda to begin with and then i'm afraid coven happened then i kind of let that slide because a lot of my notes were in my office um so i think education is very very important in addressing these kinds of issues um but i hope that having an ordinance will at least allow people to start approaching each other and saying are you aware that you know you're causing glare and that this is actually an issue that the city has legislated about um so you know if if somebody is in violation of this then i hope you know there would be a means to at least try to submit it through see click fix and i also did want to mention since you suggested uh that ann arbor has been looking at this for 20 years i was pleasantly surprised that chelsea i discovered only the last few months has had a lighting ordinance for years and they've actually just gone through an update to it which is far more comprehensive than ann arbor's and also scio and brighton have lighting ordinances that work on parts of the ann arbor so we're a little behind the curve on this sorry uh young when you have the floor and then rita yeah thank you so much for the wonderful presentation i really feel the need to like target by pollution because some of my friends are like birders and then they really love birds and they also told me about like how lighting kind of kind of factors and i just have some questions for you so like what are the main sources of light pollution in that knobber it's like from like commercial like businesses or like is it from like residential area from like private homes and like buildings audience like be able to target those problems oh that's a great question that's a really great question um in general businesses produce a lot more light so uh i i don't have actual data on who's producing the most light pollution here in ann arbor but in general businesses do have the most light they need the most light so uh you know that's a natural consequence we've also had a lot of issue with street lights in ann arbor um in terms of the pedestrian globe lights that are downtown and dda has been very helpful in helping us to get some of those get most of those well some of those converted um the new ones that they have uh implemented since we've approached them i don't know if you've noticed but some of them have actually have these light lids so that the top half of the globe is dark and they also have changed the color of them so that they are this more mellow color and you can actually go downtown and compare and contrast you'll see some of these uh newer globes that i'm talking about i think on william i said william and then in kerrytown also on fifth um and deals notice immediately a contrast between those and the the ones that are on main street uh the university of michigan is a huge problem too um and they are not under the jurisdiction of the lighting ordinance so that's yet another you know uh uh initiative that we have um we're only just getting started with the university of michigan but we we do have that on our on our agenda um and then the rest of the new street lights that are going in are actually not bad um the city is aware since we've raised this so i think the new street lights that are going in are in good compliance and then also the the ones that are under the state jurisdiction for streets like um like jackson road and so forth those new ones are also fully shielded and they're generally in pretty good shape um although some of the ones that are being installed at roundabouts in the county we're having an issue with the washington county road commission because they are putting in uh lighting for the roundabouts that is significantly in excess of uh industry guidance so that is something that we're still trying to work on and of course the lighting ordinance won't affect them either so the lighting ordinance applies to the private the private property in the cities it would be private homes and businesses as well so i think the main benefit would be the businesses in answer to your question okay i see and also i feel like like because some doors some stores leave their lights on like even when they're not using them midnight i'm just like wondering like are these lights necessary for safety or like i i'm not exactly sure like what this flight support because like in china when i where i was where i lived for like a long time and they don't usually have lights in the stores overnight i'm just like wondering because i i was just really curious like what what those lights are if like they are necessary for businesses well it's not my job to decide whether the night lights are necessary or an area or not but if they're not necessary they need to be turned off basically uh but the there is a specification in here that lights that are not for safety should be off i believe half an hour after the close of business if they are outdoor lights okay actually thank you thank you um thanks rita you have your hand up you have the floor thank you um uh sally thanks again for this presentation it is great um i want to just point out that in our next step that one of the things that has really come to my mind is that the need for public education ongoing so given that the ordinance has its limits and applicability to the site plans i'm hoping that we'll be able to work with council to move things forward in an educational way to encourage homeowners and business owners to reduce their lights even if they are not covered by the changes in the ordinance it would be really nice in my opinion to reduce some of those holiday lights reduce some of the the lights on as young one was saying lights on in buildings at night it really supports the kind of thing that the hs0 program is guiding us toward that we really should be reducing some of our use of energy overall so i'm hoping that we see some action in that way as well thank you yes i think that's really the most important thing that we could be doing because this is not going to help unless people are aware and i think once people are aware they really do just suddenly say oh i never thought about that i think i'll change the lights on my house and it's really not necessarily an expensive thing to do our group is is available to help with anybody who would like to work on that kind of outreach we have on our website first of all we have a website and we also have educational materials there and our group has even developed a children's activity too i wonder if anyone was interested thank you okay rita um yeah thank you very much professor roy um so if there are no further comments um shall we go on to the resolution i i see additional hands steve sorry i'm sorry yes i did not um notice that well i think i don't know who was first at least i think lisa was first lisa and then kathy and then chris or have a very quick request um uh professor oye would you be willing to share your slide presentation with us because there are some graphics there that i think would be great to put in my newsletter so that my constituents can be aware of the problem the exponential increase for example was a pretty striking slide yes i'm definitely planning to do that commissioner mitchell had already asked me to do that in advance so i apologize for not having them ready for the meeting thank you councilmember dish okay thanks kathy then um kathy and then chris uh chris was next sorry chris and then kathy oh okay i just have a quick comment that probably goes a little bit beyond the ordinance my daughter lives in connecticut and she just drives me crazy because the light's around in the house all the time she's got two little boys that are running around she just can't deal with it but it drives me nuts and i compare it to a situation where i i saw in france once i went into a dentist's office and that hallway was dark and i had to push a button and the light went out in the hallway for one minute you had a minute to make it to the door or something and we just if if we could get a i think this whole ordinance and the whole lighting thing in general to me impinges on the whole idea of outreach you know people just need to be educated that we just don't need as much light as we got and it goes way beyond the ordinance so you know if there's some way we could erase the public awareness of this whole thing it would be great so let's i'll shut up thanks thank you that's exactly the point thanks chris kathy i yes i just wanted to volunteer my advocacy and and history based on uh pedestrian crashes and one of the examples that you mentioned was the lighting at roundabout and what most people don't understand is if if you're driving on a road that's dark and then suddenly you have this bright light at the roundabout it's actually more dangerous because your your eye is not going to be able to quickly adjust to the darkness again and you're not going to be able to see so it's not just a waste of energy so anyway i feel very strongly about that and let me know if i can help in any way thank you so much councilmember griswold i will definitely be calling you uh this issue with the washington county road commission um is exactly that concern oh okay and they are they are building so there's already a new one at wagner and miller i'm sorry this is not ann arbor business but um yeah but there's a problem with with the lighting and exactly the way you described oh okay and it does impact ann arbor residents who are driving out there though sure i feel it's relevant so yeah thank you well i didn't want to take up this commission's time but i will definitely contact you thank you so much which is a lot of anne our residents while mabel was closed but wagner is totally packed with cars yeah okay um i think i don't see any other hands up so rita why don't we move onwards to the resolution right all right so um would the commission like to look at the resolution on on the screen or have you all read it um so um i really feel uncomfortable reading the whole thing um but i think the the the sense of it is that it points out the the issues um of light trespass sky glow etc glare the blue rich led lighting um the waste of energy um just that light trespass is really a problem for safety and and for um just health i think um uh i'm skipping around here um well rita i'm sorry to interrupt but my understanding is that this there's nothing new in this resolution this is a resolution supporting what the energy commission and the planning commissioner already that is correct yes yes right and so the addition though that i just want to say then is the last part which has to do with education so encouraging council to work toward developing some educational materials or perhaps inc um working in conjunction with professor oye and her group um to expand that kind of outreach and education i really think that would be worthwhile so um yeah so that's that um so are there any questions about the resolution move to pass the resolution second resolution endorsing the amended enhanced outdoor lighting um and support of the energy commission and uh planning commissions um submission to city council love say aye we're raising i anyone opposed hearing and seeing nothing um i think it passes unanimously so would you have caitlyn forward this to city council we'll do that thank you all thank you very much thank you professor roy thank you so much all your support is greatly appreciated thank you we'll all be in touch okay well let's move on to reports from committees so natural features chris uh i think he stepped away oh he did okay well how about pollinators um pollinators um is working toward very similar kinds of things that i just mentioned which is education um to provide people with information on um the importance of saying this over and over again reducing turf grass reducing pesticides um and installing um gardens so um we are working with um a young entomologist who is providing us with some background and some um i think some additional support that will help us develop some materials and some outreach so that's that's our next particular program um and also in uh as a another one that i've talked over um significantly with commissioner mursky is um trying to work with some large landowners to convert property to less turf grass and we have a target ex-commissioner anne bannister is working with um with me to to approach one of the local churches that has some significant land that we think would be useful um so we'd be building on um installations there that would be provide educational information for even the parishioners that maybe they would take to their homes and expand it that way so that's just one right now yeah okay um oh chris do you have a report with natural features group um we uh because of my uh overload in business are going slowly a suggestion was made to try to convert a lot of the language in new and old in the woodlands section and the landmark trees section to a chart um apparently that's the fashion in the planning department now rather than just text in code chart and graphics and we've done our first attempt at that and it's not not so easy so stay tuned we'll see how that goes okay you're a pioneer here chris so i'm sorry um the other work groups i need to retire and and put full time on this stuff well um that's fine yeah okay um do you want to mention anything else no but i um had a client that lost a 36 inch heritage tree down into a big red oak down into his house last week i was very sad about that it was really big and uh it was a tree in an 84 fragment on the top of the glendalough hill and came down with no obvious reason perfect a healthy tree lots of acorns oh that's a shame okay um the zero waste working group you want me to go lisa yes i want you to go first and then i'll talk about the policy committee okay sure um so we've completed the micros grant that we will be submitting to um blanking right now lisa next energy yeah um for uh the first phase of work on creating metrics around the circular economy so that's been well worked and the office of sustainability and innovations will probably be submitting that on behalf of the city next week and then the goal for the first phase is to get an intern to work with us to do the background work and the research and the literature review to develop the metrics but then we've already started working on the second phase and the next grant application to move the work forward to implementation we've got great support from several organizations providing letters of support so overall we've put together a well prepared proposal and it's great that we've got uh support from several organizations county city university etc so fingers crossed that we'll be reporting back in september on successful um receipt of the funding which will be ten thousand dollars for the first phase okay so you'll know what the funding decision was in september that's what we're anticipating sometime september-ish yep that's right i think we're committed to the work moving forward and i think so is the city so if for some reason it's not funded i think we're going to find alternative paths right okay and then the other major thing that the zero waste working group is doing is that its policy committee has drafted a zero waste target date which will become a resolution to bring to council but first we'll bring it here um and it is it asks the council to reaffirm its uh zero waste goal which was in not the most recent but the one before that iteration of the solid waste resource management plan and we're asking council to reaffirm this goal and set target dates and think about strategies as part of realizing strategy five of the a20 plan which calls both for expanded composting and recycling so um and also uh to promote a circular economy and part of one of the stages along the way to a circular economy is expanding compost and recycling to reduce the amount of waste that goes to landfills and so we will be bringing you this policy document i hope at the next meeting we've gone through really a lot of drafts and a lot of really thoughtful deliberative sessions on this and we've engaged staff support and i think it's a really strong statement at this point so i'm i'm eager for you to see it and excited about that yeah that's wonderful okay um let's see um i guess that leaves the uh solid waste working group uh which is really basically uh construction and demolition ordinance i don't have anything to say today about that um so um i think that covers the committees and working groups um other commissions um i think shannon's not here so planning is not represented we still haven't gotten them assigned a commission or assigned to the parks yeah i hope to remedy that by our next meeting which is a working group session um and uh john mercy is out as well but he's provided he's provided a statement here from the environment from the energy commission that i think i will just read to people and his absence so the energy commission first of all at its meeting on july 13 they considered three resolutions there's a second presentation on the case for a municipal utility uh by the citizens group and order for public power a resolution was also introduced for the first reading asking the energy commission to formally request city council to fund a municipalization feasibility study this is estimated to cost 120 000 so um there was a lot of good discussion that a date has not yet been set for the second reading possible vote on the resolution as it is likely other viewpoints will be presented in future commission meetings if the idea advances there is also likely to be a lot of discussion on the content of the feasibility studies rfp regarding the scope right and mix of assets grid and or distributed energy resources including i imagine microgrids and services to be evaluated in the study so again now this is an alternative the city has um to provide actually to create a supplemental um [Music] um utility um that would be supplemental to what the gt is providing i believe there was a second reading of a resolution in support of a proposed energy benchmarking and disclosure ordinance which applies to the commercial and multi-family housing sector the resolution was voted on and passed unanimously the draft ordinance now goes to city council for consideration a resolution in support of a sister ordinance requiring a home energy audit and its disclosure at the time of sale of single-family residences will be taken up at the commission's next meeting so the two ordinances together will ensure that the ann arbor built environment sectors have some type of energy related disclosure requirement this would be commercial multi-family and single-family buildings so different disclosure requirements make sense for these different sectors both ordinances are modeled on similar ordinances which are in effect in other municipalities there was also a second reading of a resolution asking the city to promote and support the use of low-carbon materials in construction the resolution was voted on passed unanimously and now advances to city council for its consideration so a pilot low carbon meaning 37 percent lower carbon emissions co2 emissions a mix was poured last week on repair sections of south industrial highway and the tridelta sorority the cement workers liked working with the new mix and the second floor was observed by a concrete expert from michigan tech and a rep from the michigan concrete association so all of the above mentioned materials and resolutions are posted on legistar for anyone's inspection um so we should also mention during this meeting that the mayor has proposed a climate action millage to be put to a public vote this november the proposal was discussed only briefly at the energy commission meeting uh there has been some other um i think reports on m-live in a city council meeting was a brief discussion i believe about about this knowledge proposal um so um all i knew at this point personally is that uh you know it's a village proposal to fund the 820 effort basically um it's a 20-year um so far it's a 20-year mileage um i have to propose one mill um so um i think lisa and uh lisa and chris have uh something to say on this so you want to start lisa and then of course it's not on this i wanted to say that i could report from the planning commission and that it's very easy because the planning commission did not meet on july 6th and it is meeting now so there's another report okay all right well thank you sorry i just noticed that uh chris you had something to say about this uh going back to your um um gosh um forgive me i've completely forgotten what in the world you were talking about before you got to this getting tired my apologies no i'm sorry i was talking about the parks benchmarking and before you talked about the arts commission other parts parks i'll think of it and be back to you okay all right so um and then um okay that's all that john wanted to report at this point okay from the energy commission so i'm sure there'll be a lively debate about this knowledge proposal and i um i'm not sure when council is going to bring it up uh on its agenda possibly i think on august 2nd is that correct okay lisa is affirming that so we can expect to have a discussion of council about this knowledge proposed knowledge um that's all i know um so if there's no more okay chris has his hand still has his hand up i haven't thought of it yet i'm sorry i'll keep working with it that's okay so the next uh report uh on the list here is from council and uh you were going to mention about the a20 so this would be a good place to talk about the a20 i mentioned to council member dish that i was working on a resolution for the environmental commission and she offered to co-sponsor it and suggested that we just bring it to council and we did and it passed unanimously on monday tuesday night and before midnight the 820 plan was actually updated so it's truly a living document and the resolution was to add just a few words to um strategy six action six of the plan to include not only monitoring heat air quality waterways and flooding but implement sensors to monitor and strategies to manage and just a few words but that is is very very important because it moves us into a more active operational area and i want to commend um missy stokes for for writing the resolution for uh supporting it and also for um updating a20 as well as jennifer lawson uh and what this means is that we will be more proactive and there will be no increase in funding needed from the general fund because storm water management is funded from the storm water fees so there there is a separate fund for that um and missy and i met with some neighbors who had extensive flooding uh damage and it's been chronic um off orchard hills drive and the proposal is to have a meeting with the neighbors not only in that neighborhood but in a couple of adjacent neighborhoods and we feel that we need to be proactive because if we're having flood damage on a regular basis we can't be a resilient community if we haven't resolved our minor flooding issues that are chronic you know we've got to be ready for for these uh heavy rains and one of the issues is that storm water management was not required in residential neighborhoods until the 80s so many of our older neighborhoods do not have i'm sorry storm water management and in in the case of orchard hills drive the there is a county drain there but it's inadequate and uh we believe that it is collapsed in at least one place so excuse me with with this framework we'll be able to have um the office of osi do education advocacy uh interacting with the community and then um sort of scope out some of these projects and then the actual work will be done um and i'm through public works and that does acknowledge that we're going to need more staff because we can't just say we're going to do more uh through osi when the work is going to be done through public works and so there's already been a discussion about that and that that will be ongoing okay all right thank you you're welcome um yeah this has been a recurring book you know kind of kind of still a um i think a unresolved area certainly um you know so i think this is deserving of a full commission meeting at some time in the near future at the right time are you referring to flooding yeah maybe we can have a review of the city's green streets policy and revisit that somewhat because it does seem to not be addressing the issue completely so um lisa you have your hand up and then chris kathy was first i want to thank you very much for all your work on that it's so important that we make the connection between flooding and climate change and that the work of osi while it has been brilliant and effective in the areas of energy it also needs to extend to these other effects of climate change so um but did you want to update them about the landfill solar project and uh and the fact that council approved the um articles in court of incorporation for joining warmah if the other members of warma accept us or do you want me to have just done that by what i just said because council also did that yes if you do that i i guess i would like to say that um this resolution it really looked easy and simple and it was done within a few days uh but that is because of of the tremendous um work from staff that had been done prior and so it was just the right time to bring this together so i i i cannot say enough about the staff that that worked on this it passed unanimously it was not controversial at all however it was something that has needed uh to be done probably for decades well yeah thank you very much kathy that was that's fairly stellar um chris you have your hand up so um lisa and kathy the performance of the city in the six and a half inch event friday three weeks ago presented flooding problems that weren't on the list of things that were approved in a extensive study three or four maybe five years ago there are things that we need to worry about those that list was a list of chronic things and are underway did we get some new ones to add to the list in this last event um we are aware of them neighbors have raised issues i think that it's still being formalized i know that in the third ward there was an issue on pittsfield street or road um i have two in the second ward narrow gauge nature area as as well as the area around the arboretum uh it will one of them has has made will be on this in the cip however uh when we have this type of flooding we can't be a resilient community if we're going to take four or five years to analyze it and get it in the cip and so i think that this resolution is going to fast track some of these i'm i i begin to see the list and compare it with the really comprehensive study that was done and see if there are new ones in this much i mean for us to have more than a four inch event is really unprecedented and so no doubt some new things showed up would you mind sharing that list with me sure i'll go back and find a study and the city has a model to predict these things and it may explain why i all fast-tracked so much steven um construction debris i don't usually take materials to what used to be called calverts which is where a lot of the construction debris from ann arbor gets cycled through out on jackson way west jackson road now owned by recycle ann arbor and i was astounded at the volume of material that they're processing through there every day i mean the place is just really busy and i asked the guy okay so a load of construction debris comes in here are you sorting it recycling it and he said absolutely so i would suggest that um contact be made with recycling ann arbor with the guys that are working out there i don't know who's leading and solving these problems for them but uh i think they're hot on the trail of no they are sean adams is my contact out there they've been doing um they've been doing this for a number of years in support of led projects you know many of them at the university because they have uh you know because that's a requirement for led certification you're right on top of it thank you stephen yep and you know um yeah and um some of the um you know some of the uh some of the materials are are eminently recyclable and some you know like for example asphalt and all that asphalt that gets taken up when they do road repairs that's always fun that's almost all recycled but other things uh it's more difficult so um yeah thanks for the comment chris um i hope i can update the commission next month uh during the working session about the cnd the other thing that we're really missing is is recycle ann arbor's reuse center on south industrial yeah yeah they lost their lease a year ago and the places remain closed and gosh been nice to keep the thing going for that year of pandemic i guess but um yeah yeah it's my um it's i sorely miss it that was the first place i went to before i went to a hardware store because you could almost always find like uh what you needed like a bed frame or a you know or a piece of pipe to do something to do a project or you know yeah shingles so um i'm hoping um i'll see what i'll see if i can get an update from raa and uh and distribute it to this list okay um so is that is that the complete report from council kathy and lisa that's all fabulous that's really good news i'll have to go look at the uh i'm sorry i missed that council session i'll have to go look at the uh the agenda in the minutes on the attachments myself and see what was transpired for the details um so in terms of a chair report i just have um one and that is that we we need still need to recruit two members we're still missing two members and uh i've requested an update for applicants and i want to encourage anybody who's listening this to if they would like to serve on this commission to apply within the next week on the city's website and you would be considered along with the current list of candidates for these two positions um and i need to continue trying to contact the parks commission to try to get a parks commissioner assigned um that's all i have to say right now um so the next uh are there any questions i don't see any so um the next uh the next item on the agenda is a report from staff uh galen do you have um a report from the staff not this evening okay um so let's see the next item on the agenda is action points review um so what i have um so far is that our next session in august has traditionally been a working session i think that's a good uh that's a good practice so i would like to schedule that as a working session um part of the you know especially because we have new commissioners on hand here so um please um please respond with any agenda items you'd like to have discussed during this working session um and uh galen hardy uh we'll check that off we'll check to make sure that all commissioners have been added to the email distribution list i thought that had been done um a month ago but apparently it has not been done um i will uh send out the promised survey by monday on um commissioners with what their skill sets are and what their interests are uh and what kind of goals they would like to see with for the commission i would like to have this survey returned by august 10th if that's possible so that um i can compile everything and then and then distribute it before our working session on august 26th uh galen hardy will include the link to the freak article in the minutes um and um i have a subscription to freak so i know i can read it um i'm not sure what the copyright laws are on this kind of distribution but i think um i want to respect whatever those are so uh um i'm surprised it's still behind their paywall uh hopefully they'll decide to release it at some time in the near future and then sally roy will uh share her slide deck with commissioners i think possibly rita mitchell already has it so maybe rita can just make sure that uh that slide deck is emailed to all the commissioners as soon as possible and um are there any other action points i might have missed with somebody any new action points can you say number uh i think it was number three again the survey oh yeah you'll include a link from the uh freak article on the calendar no uh no about the uh survey to commissioners i think that was number yeah i'm going to send a survey by monday to the distribution list for the commissioners it's basically a survey it's it's all long answers no multiple choice on what people's skill sets and interests are whatever information they want to share like um you know if they've got a linkedin page or something like that they can choose to share that but whatever their interests are what they're passionate about um discussing and having uh having this commission deal with on what their skill sets are and um what issues they would like us especially investigated over the next year um that's what i was talking about so i'll handle all that galen okay and of course you'll be copied on it as well so are there any suggested items for the next agenda at this point um but i will call i will send out as i have been trying to you'll send out a call for agenda items uh rita and gail and i will put together a skeleton and then um and then we'll see what uh people might want add it to frida you have your hand up yeah i just want to put myself on them for a task to send a message to commissioners for their interest in working with me on chapter 40.

we're also working with the state to close the fiscal year as such the budget fiscal year 2021 reports as of june 30th will be presented to the board at the september 9th meeting as the fiscal year has not yet been closed due to the transaction still being processed last month ade tentatively awarded asdb over 870 thousand dollars in funding from the elementary and secondary school emergency relief fund the funds can be used through september 30 2024 and we're currently putting together plans for student support and other appropriate uses of those funds the sr3 monies do require 20 percent of the expenditures to be used for learning recovery so we will be folding that into the budget plan as well the proposed 2022 budget has been presented in the report and is based on initial appropriations and what we expect to collect in revenues resulting from our initial budget projections positions we do have approximately 99 vacant positions which consist of the teachers instructional and residential service assistants interpreters bus drivers and other various positions on the bottom of page three begins the financial summary where we begin to compare may 31 2021 information to may 31 2020 the budget fiscal year 2021 collected revenues of 30.2 million was about 769 thousand dollars lower compared to last year's expenditures of 31 million and that's primarily due to the decline in what we were able to spend in our federal and state grants medicaid rental and gift donations total obligated expenditures of 52.3 million are higher by about 923 000 when we compare that to last year's amount of 51.767 percent of our expenditures providing instruction and student support and 12 percent in agency administration the remaining 21 of our expenditures are in the areas of transportation operations food services and our two statewide service programs for the deaf and blind programs on page 10 of the report through may 31st 2021 we are showing a surplus of about 2.1 million when you compare actual revenues of 51.3 to actual expenditures of 49.2 million based on initial projections for fiscal year end close i am projecting about a 2.5 million surplus once we closed the fiscal year so that has been consistent with the last three years where we have been ending the year with a surplus based on the review of the financial data there are no immediate concern process reviewed multiple companies and awarded the contract to k-12 by elior k-12 was awarded the contract based on their ability to provide services their company history as well as cost of the contract k-12 currently provides services to many arizona districts including benson tunsan tombstone and thatcher unified school districts k-12 also provides services for the mississippi school for the deaf and blind i have invited k-12 to present about their services today and how they pro how they plan to provide a great meal for every student please allow me to introduce amy gibbons from k12 also due to presentation limitations uh you'll be able to see her presentation on board docs as you scroll through she'll make note as she goes from one slide to the next good evening thank you so much model and we really do try to make sure that every student we serve is given a great meal next our agenda this evening is just a quick introduction of our company how we're going to align with the arizona state schools for the deaf in the blind in our responsive partnership plan next k-12 by elior is a chef-centric food-focused company we are 12 distinct hospitality companies that are united by our passion for food service and excellence we now are umbrella under the name of k-12 by elior you might know us in the field by summit or avians or perhaps lancer or aladdin next collectively we have more that we service more than 2 000 schools in over 500 districts across the united states and annually we prepare over 150 with specialized training for our staff to allow effective support for your students in staff with special menus and service line identifiers in braille digital menu boards technology resources real-time communication access translation apps braille identifiers and qr reader codes for your students and staff our menu software website nutraslice has a text to speak option we also will have a certified dietary manager to support all the special dietary needs of your students we will offer guest chef exhibition cooking and sampling programs we plan on increasing food quality and adding more variety for your students and staff and we will we will have an annual student survey as well as probably monthly students with staff and students we have we will customize your menus based on student needs and local preferences we have a catalog of over 3000 recipes and 75 of our menus are scratch made next on this slide you will see an example of what the cafeterias will look like once all the marketing has been installed we will utilize our roots marketing campaign next and through our triad tuesday's global bites and additional marketing we plan on being able to engage your students we have try it tuesday pick 3 for any students that perhaps bring lunches or breakfast from home we plan on marrying council that meets quarterly and has discussions what does that entail who is part of those discussions sure we partner with the principals at each school to choose who would be on that council what we will do during that time is offer samples of new menu items allow students and staff to have feedback on what they would like on our menus as well as nutrition topics that they would like to see thank you my second question i noticed that you mentioned an annual survey for our students is that set in stone as an annual basis or is that up to discussion to do something more on a quarterly basis a quarterly survey to review with students that then could be addressed in tandem with those culinary council meetings is that something that's potential absolutely so our annual student survey is simple students will pull that item and replace it with something they do like we also talk to students when they're in the cafeteria every day and we also look inside garbage cans to see what students are eating and what they're throwing out so we can change those menus oh thank you also just to make sure that we had uh considerations for our bi students as well as our blind students we've also made sure that all the vi students in blind have heart trays hard silverware in order to work with that we're also looking at the menu to make sure that our vi students considerations and special needs are also addressed within the menu and lastly with k12 because they have such large resources the special meals are also a high priority and those are the special dietary restrictions on our students so we're ensuring that every student receives not only a great meal but a safe meal okay the first option was to look at vacancies in asdb and to do internal transfers some of our food service employees selected that option the second option is to transfer to the new food service company to apply an interview and see if there are opportunities there with k-12 and the third option is to apply else elsewhere our human resources have been actively working with all ten to help them and smooth over the transition to whatever is next in their lives we have been successful with seven but we do have three left that we need to do the reduction in force in doing that then these three individuals become eligible for unemployment unemployment insurance so back to you president nigro okay um team has done their best to help people smooth the transition for their life not everyone is going to be happy about these changes but i do think that it has been important for us to show that we are making an effort to make this change as smooth as possible and with that making that smooth transition i think has happened with most of these employees and as a last resort if we have to do the reduction in force that was our last option so i do want to commend your work that you and your team have been doing thus far i am supportive of this reduction in force so i would like to make the motion to approve the recommendation from superintendent reichman for a reduction in force okay thank you pv uh are there any uh seconds to that motion this is uk i second that possible candidates to be an on budget person and you chose um karen grandin so karen grandin worked with asdb since 2018 about three three and a half years as our onboard person and the one thing that i wanted to point out to you is that in 2017 2018 we did things backwards you made the selection presented me with this election and then when i checked with our arizona procurement rules rather than working for you as the board of directors so this time i decided let's try to do it through the arizona procurement system um to figure out how to do that our procurement specialist lou estrada did some research and she found an on buds person international association that's already a vendor in the arizona procurement system and the onbudsman international association and yes has a list of members that anyone could submit their letter and resume to us as a potential contracted vendor we posted and announced a good match for asdb in terms of working with you the board and working with the agency that we can go back to how we started up with karen grandin and do it again that way it worked with karen grant or i mean what are what are our options what can we do what's your suggestions what do you want me to do and that's why this is on the agenda and said possible action because i wasn't sure you would be prepared to take formal action so if you just want to have this conversation and provide me with feedback or think about it and put it on the agenda for the next board meeting we can do that it's just putting it on the table here so that two maybe three times and the five years i've been here we've had the state on budsman's office contact us with the complaint and then we would respond to them into that complaint so that's happened a handful of times do we set up a more formal arrangement that's a good question and we can explore that the other idea that sort of has popped up in regards just from the standpoint of when we have a client complain and can go all the way up to fair hearing through the ag's office and under the ag's office a lot of times they kick us back to formal mediation with that client and those mediators work out of the ag's office and then we pay maybe take another look at the ombudsman and the role i personally think what was just explained is really good because it has a has a familiarity with arizona with how things work at the legislature with asdb with our community so i think we should take a step back and see just like what was explained but at the same time maybe there's some thought process of uh maybe expanding the the role of the ombudsman in the sense that says you know they shouldn't be within the agency they should be you know a pure true ombudsman and what kind of does that look like are there outside organizations that may be able to fit that bill for us and i say that in the sense that the legislature you know historically the ambassador has not had much interaction with the legislature is there um do you envision an expanded role for the unboxed person that would involve interaction with the legislature i i think it's just something that has just been over the years i've just seen that that issue kind of grow and you know it's it's an issue i think just that might be a potential i might be completely off base in that mindset but it's just something that keeps coming back to me that the agency has a good job of you know going to the legislature and having this conversation superintendent rickman does it a great deal but maybe there's a role on the ombudsman side that kind of sees it from all angles because i think sometimes it just depends on the political wind if you will the legislature what could be happening to asdb short term and long term at the same time we need to make sure that the board understands the um and the superintendent's intention here there are multiple factors that need to be considered when we are bringing on an ombudsperson if we are bringing in someone outside how could we possibly consider the out their outside interest potentially influencing the board and whether that would be a benefit to the agency or potentially a benefit to the students or not my biggest hesitation is that if we were to engage in outside umbuds person for example through an agency or through the procurement process however the case may be that person will likely not be familiar with deaf blind deafblind visually impaired individuals and may make recommendations that might put national level perhaps another possibility is to approach agencies that have a similar population and view of services who perhaps need an ombudsman as well and we can discuss a cost sharing agreement so for example we could consider acdh they may need someone who to perform similar services perhaps the governor's council they may need an individual who is sensitive to the disability community so there may be opportunity to engage in a partnership and again protect the agency's mission uh thank you pb uh mike i believe you uh wandered the floor yes thank you um i apologize if there's been a job uh announcement or a job description that was circulated uh i apologize but i didn't see it so i was hoping that maybe that could could be um distributed to the members reichmann has several possible avenues to take to approach this situation and she's asking the board what we would like in terms of how she proceeds so that's my understanding is that now we have an opportunity to talk about that process and figure out what avenue to pursue and potentially look into additional options that we haven't considered yet some of the concerns that have been shared is that if we have a job posting as you mentioned would that individual be working for the superintendent or for the board do we need to consider a separate or outside position or contract who would report directly to the board rather than to the superintendent could we work with another agency to partner could we uh look through for a procurement contract that already exists in this system of course taking the risk that that individual may not know anything about our population that we serve so i my understanding is that's the intent of this conversation let's facilitate those so those are just some thoughts on my end thank you um pv this is pv dance i have a question for you what does your a mudson structure look like in the arizona department of education um well so we it very it's a wide agency so it's hard to to nail down a specific i think there's multiple intake excuse me i'm sorry mr wonders if you could speak into the microphone a little bit better yeah sorry got off track um so within the department of education it's it varies between program area i think in some part depending on the customer service facing front obviously there's more intake points for that we have various functions so we have dispute resolution services i think it probably varies significantly depending on the size of the district i think the larger districts have a much more sophisticated process and probably a more broad spanning process for that but i can't really speak to specifics about any individual district and this is pv again and why i'm asking these questions um i think that might be where um the board could start looking at what superintendent reichman needs we may be able to model what we do based on another school district of course asdb as a school for the deaf is a unique agency and in a somewhat odd position i'm teetering on the brink of a state agency and also a staff to kind of fit their issue within one of those nine or ten different avenues and sometimes depending on the issue it may have overlapped uh between two of them and it was you know we got things that were um you know kind of filed in the wrong place so to speak and we had a we had to change that we had you know issues of of staff um you know not being afraid to kind of come forward um you know for fear of you know some sort of retaliation which of course we would never do um but if they don't feel comfortable they don't feel comfortable but we still want to hear the feedback um so you know we still want to get any kind of issues um dealt with and and and raise them in a way that that we can manage them so what we did on from the policy level is we consolidated those nine or ten to i think four uh primary avenues and we organize them shown otherwise uh so what the average person does is kind of figures out what the real issue is and then guides that person to the appropriate you know avenue for um you know vindicating their their complaint or their grievance again it depends on the subject matter and then the abundance person would give us a report of her work and there wasn't uh you know in terms of the cost i mean this is not a full-time position i think we spent about seven thousand dollars per year uh in the last four years uh on the previous umbuds person so it was not um you know it's not a full-time position by any means um although that depends on you know a low you know caseload of course and that's why the contractor avenue looks more attractive to us in terms of being you know separate yes the karen brandon was an employee but we you know so that you know that is a fact uh but she operated independently uh folks so you know that specialized experience was important to us our old umbus person had that experience i'm not sure about about this one or the one the resume that that came across here uh but that is something that we're you know you would really need to to look at so from from my perspective uh you know i'm not i'm not certain that the resume we got is going to be you know accurate i mean there's certainly a possibility or going to be the good fit for us there's certainly a possibility to enter into a contract and then move away from that contract uh if if it's not working for us or to get someone in the interim well you know for the next three months or four months will we transition to someone else i think that would likely be okay you know at the same time the uh sharing as such had mentioned with another agency might be helpful that person would have a knowledge of arizona a knowledge of state policies and they'd be local they wouldn't you know be doing everything our policy can change we we didn't have one we didn't have one of these policies four years ago uh we we created it we uh met with some committees we met with some other community and we've we've crafted these policies we can always change them uh if there's a desire to do so but uh to have an unbuzzed person that continues on uh you know in the role that we we've had it uh that's you know to me that's really what we're looking at unless there is some desire to change those policies or to look into them more for more in depth oh tv thank you president nigro this is pb jams i'm considering two things i think it's necessary for the board of two considerations will arise so we need to make sure that we of course consider our recent strategic plan regarding communication and relationship i believe it falls under that pillar and it also could align with effective resource management as complaints arise an ombudsperson being involved could have a long-term impact or result on the agency so it's important that we have the right person who has the correct information to make the decisions that will benefit the agency in the long term thank you pb um that does raise the question of our if we do uh enter into the contract with the uh the vendor that has uh submitted their rfp um ms cooper do we have a right a unilateral termination in that contract or is it are we committed for a year or six months or for some period of time and we can only terminate for for cause it is my understanding that we can do the unilateral i'm sorry it is my understanding we can do the unilateral but i will confirm with the procurement manager okay great so in other words if we were in a full-time position uh you know at all it's it's much more limited than that historically um and i guess you know in in terms of if we were to do hire the person that responded the rfp temporarily i'm not i don't know that she necessarily has the experience working with deaf individuals and blind individuals that i think was one part that you know might have been a bit lacking so i know i'm not necessarily enthusiastic about that but i do understand that we uh we need it on budsperson we've been without them for a few months uh we're likely looking into september before we make another decision at the earliest so that's that's something for the board to consider do we want to extend another few months without one or do we want to try to have this one until we agree to a more more permanent more sustainable solution pv this is pv jam perhaps because this is coming to the board and we have a very short time until school information okay are there other comments on on this matter from the other board members unlike in zoom i can't tell if uh the people attending remotely are raising their hands or turning on their cameras i i don't have any um you know visual indication i just have the audio indication so uh to the extent that you'd like to to speak just just go ahead and speak up this is sukay kind of to piggyback what pv was saying i was wondering if we would need to make a motion tonight to authorize the leadership team to move forward in that direction for an interim for interim coverage of the ombudsman position until we have a chance as a board to develop that more fully uh that's a great a great comment i think what we could do is have a motion where we would allow the superintendent to uh we would allow her at our option to enter into the contract with the rfp provided that there is a unilateral right determination um that we have our unilateral right determination uh and that trying to think other terms that we might need but i think that's it as long as we had that unilateral right determination and more sustainable selection or more permanent selection the agency can do that but we don't necessarily need a board motion or act to do that so i'm not sure how to state it but i would like to move that we allow annette and the leadership team to move forward with an interim contract with the person that we have through the office of procurement with the limitations that they understand this would be a fee for service for the number of hours used for a intermittent period of time until um this position can be developed more fully okay at the superintendent's discretion at the superintendent's discretion thank you excellent um thank you i would uh second that motion like you know from my perspective i do have concerns over somebody that is completely out of state that is not going to be in state coming into our school and our districts and kind of just like going through our stuff i mean i guess this it would you know the files and data would be relevant to their job position but i guess i would personally feel more comfortable if this person was much more local than all the way across the united states can i um i i wholeheartedly agree with you and i don't i'm not suggesting this as a long term i'm suggesting in the case of some a complaint coming up until we are able to define this position and fill that need internally whether it's internal to asdb but internal to arizona i think i think pb's comment of needing to have that backup plan in case there is a complaint before that is developed we should be prepared for that eventuality who is currently handling complaints if there is one either or that i'm uncomfortable giving to my teacher if they're a student um they don't and without fear of that the invites person saying hey you know this you know i have this information and uh you know there's some level of confidentiality there uh that's that's what we have interrupted so in terms of the complaints or grievances that all is still fully functioning uh we just don't have the investment and we haven't since the the resignation several months ago okay thank you pv has a comment this is pv jams again i would like to recognize your comment brittany that is certainly valid and i share your concern the issue that we're addressing right now is again we do not have that centralized person who can handle things if they escalate to a certain level we don't i think that if the board were to allow the leadership team and superintendent reichman to use their executive decision making to figure out how to proceed in that temporary contract that gives the board and the agency some kind of protection at the same time giving us the flexibility to ensure that we are on the right track and we remain on the right track in the long term if that person does violate confidentiality and nef or violates any aspect of the contract they don't have to deal with just us they have to then deal with the state of arizona and that is something that no one in the state takes likely lightly so that would should hopefully alleviate some of your anxieties thank you um and you know from from my perspective uh you know in terms of the the person being in you know in virginia i have not read the state procurement contract uh because it is very long complex but miss cooper i would think that we have uh that the vendor will be submitting to personal jurisdiction and venue in the state of arizona meaning that it would not be difficult for us to kind of drag her into court if we needed to not that i expect that we would um motion that is on the floor say aye aye aye aye uh all opposed okay uh the motion carries um superintendent reichman i think you have the direction from the board that you need uh that you've asked for in this item and uh we look forward to revisiting this in the next board meeting next item is 702 information discussion item legislative update marie murphy good evening board president nigro members of the board superintendent reichman assistant superintendent speaker and rex for the record my name is maria murphy i'm the director of policy and government relations for asdv i'm going to impose upon you for about 10 or 15 seconds to just make a personal digression and just say what a pleasure and how happy i am to be here and see all of you in person it's been about 14 15 months since i've seen and except for the financial aspects which all of those became effective as at the start of the new fiscal year july 1st the budget went ahead and passed on june 30th so we got it basically done as close to the deadline as we possibly could and we have spent the last few weeks just trying to tease out exactly what was included in the budgets this year so what i can tell the board is 150 000 was included specifically for asdb for um an update of the classroom notification systems in tucson and we did receive some additional funding in inflation for the baseline for students because um 2863 included um session law language ade and asdb made a joint committee and have started working on what does lea implementation start to look like for asdb over the next year we met and had an introductory meeting on june 22nd we had our second etc so we had a whole three weeks of vacation and as of yesterday we're we're back in the saddle again preparing for for the next legislative session one item that i would like to note is because the budget bills were signed so late into the fiscal year this year i was able to alert the executive slash operations team about the possibility however remote that we could be potentially looking at a partial government shutdown if the bills were not passed by midnight on june 30th so uh superintendent reichman took the bulls by the bull by the horns and got the entire group together and we started contingency planning for what does it look like on july 1st if there is a partial or total government shutdown so the entire team pulled together was able to come up with the draft contingency plan so we are still in the process of finalizing that plan ms cooper would you like to take that because we were aware of that ahead of time yes it will tr um it will have no impact it will just mean that we will have to inform ospb and jlbc anytime we plan to use more than the appropriated revenues within the cooperative services fund we would have to make sure that we have excess cash to spend anything over and above beyond so now we will have three appropriated funds one being the general fund the second being the schools for the deaf and the blind fund the third being the regional cooperative services fund the primary reason for them separating out the regional cooperative services fund was because it made up a substantial amount of our other services that we have our other funds and so that was the primary reason to separate that out but it has no impact in terms of budget we project the budget based on enrollment for those students within the cooperative services fund as well as expected fee for service and vouchers and as just a follow-up question to that is is there consistency in growth year to year in those funds i guess so for establishing a projection for a needed appropriation it's fairly consistent it's not wild even dropped off and maybe no one did but i thought i'd make that clear um it's because i don't have zoom and i can't note it myself the next item is 703 information discussion item introduction of possible discussion policies g c k a i k f b discussion on policy bbbd marie murphy yes thank you for president nico so you have before you the redline policies gcka ik a fb and eeb for discussion they were presented to the public i have not received sorry i i have not received any public comment regarding them but at this time i would like to make myself available for any questions okay um i would like to note the bbbd discussion and i just wanted to bring this up to the board uh for discussion as we transitioned back to you know primarily in-person meetings uh historically we would have all of our meetings in person and there we'd have a a phone line for board members that weren't able to make it for one reason or another they'd be able to participate telephonically just like as they are doing today we wouldn't be able to see them we didn't have zoom at that time or members you know we can miss meetings if needed if that has to be we can use the technology whether it's zoom or uh the telephonic line um if for some other for some reason we have to there's there's no problem with that uh i don't you don't want there to be any i don't want there be any barrier to attending a meeting um certainly if it's you know just location i i don't want there to be any barriers to to be able to attend and participate uh effectively but if the board wanted to discuss and i think the reason we have this here is if the board wants to discuss amending the policies to uh you know set an expectation as to what percentage of in-person attendance the board members would have versus uh attendance via other means you know right now uh there there isn't you know our attendance policy is is essentially after if you missed two meetings in a row uh you get a talking to uh by me um but fortunately i haven't had to do that um i don't believe that my predecessors have had to do that in the nearly six years have been on the board but you can although you can get around that by missing every other meeting so maybe that's not a great um a great item either but you know from my perspective uh is the board interested in having a policy that says you know maybe 50 of the meetings that you attend would be in person in a given year or in a given calendar year and then the others can be um you know attended electronically uh or maybe you don't want to update the policy and we'll have it as is um i just want to get a better idea from the board uh you know what their what their expectations are so that we can get on the same page in terms of uh you know in-person attendance and attendance via technology thank you president nigro i'm sure everyone is like waiting with baited breath what's baby going to say and i'm not here to disappoint you i do have a question my interest is about board member attendance um is 50 typical what is average what is is there some sort of standard what is this 50 attendance oh i meant if we were to change the policy to say 50 are attended in person and then the you know the remainder could be attended via technology so so not that a board not that the expectation is that your a board member is here half the time it's the expectation potentially that there's some percentage of in-person attendance that would be expected and is and storms can often come unexpectedly or if there's limited transportation and they're unable to arrive at a location that we've decided as long as we have some sort of clause that leaves it up to the president's discretion to waive that 50 requirement i do think that 50 requirement would be a good idea um with that clause to waive it at the president's discretion um uh pv i hate to interrupt for a moment um i understand that i have been uh remiss in failing to take a break at the 90 minute mark so i apologize uh for that um the uh the staff does need a break i think we typically break every 90 minutes um so pv if you could hold your thought for a moment while we take a short 10 minute break okay all right thank you though that's the only thing i got going for me hello everyone thank you for that break and we were resuming resuming our meeting on we left off on 7.03 information and discussion item ms murphy if you can return in case there were any questions i know pv was um in the middle of a statement on which i unfortunately had to interrupt him uh but you can continue thank you president appreciate that and thank you for the interruption i think a break was necessary and beneficial for all of us i also want to recognize that 50 in-person attendance i think is a good idea with the potential for having some sort of clause that that 50 requirement could be waived at the president's discretion that way if an emergency were to arise you have the ability to use your discretion in those special circumstances another question though as representatives of the community people who work within and serve with these populations and represent these populations i think it is also important that we include some sort of percentage for being part of the meeting regardless of whether that's in person or remote i think we need some sort of minimum attendance okay thank you pv other other thoughts on the tense policy yeah i would i would just agree with what pv was saying i think it would be wise to also have a contingency baked in okay i i would like to import right um in zuki right now our bbbd says that after two consecutive miss meetings uh the board president is going to send a letter um to to the board member that missed the two consecutive meetings if there are three consecutive meetings that are missed then the president has to meet with or write to the board member to determine whether or not resignation is in order and to report to the full asd board of this communication um you know fortunately that i haven't had to do that again i don't think my the predecessors that have served with me as a when i'm with me i've had to do that um so it hasn't been an issue for us so i i'm i'm less concerned about the overall attendance policy because i think we we have we generally have good attendance and again board member is going to miss a meeting or two um you know over the course of their three-year term i mean that's that's part of life um but in in what i'm more concerned about is that we have an expectation that if we have an in-person meeting that you know we don't just have one person that we have as many people in person as we can uh and then if the technology is used uh to you know kind of allow board members to still participate even if they may have other obligations professional obligations they have travel obligations etc so it looks like what i'm hearing is if we can have a policy that you know our expectation is that we're at least half the meetings we're going to attend in person and it could be an excitation it doesn't have to be you know you get a nasty letter then i think that would be good all right does that sound good ms murphy it does would you like me to include the language um that uh in person could be at the discretion of the board president yeah i think i mean if we use the word expectation it's not a shell or a must it's not a you know a word for terms of requirement um you know we could make a requirement and then say exempted at the discretion of the i mean i don't know it has to be the board president but maybe that's the right way to go if we do use that if we do if we do make it a must or a shell okay uh great thank you very much i'll have it ready for the september first september perfect and then yeah that'll be first read in september and then it can enter the next time yes okay our next item is 705 information possible action item board work study on august 12th 2021 the date for the poll results uh on that one that was the date that the poll said we should have our meeting so i would like to move that we have our our meeting on august 12th and again this is the work study session i second that uh all in favor aye aye david is that an in-person meeting um yes that is that is in person um you know work study sessions so not as formalized as our uh regular board meetings um there will be a i mean it's in person but there will be a telephonic option it won't you know if you can't join in person you won't be excluded from it okay well we when you're talking about electronic i mean we just voted on this but nonetheless uh we're talking about still having a possibility of a zoom option as just compared to teleponic though right yeah i think the i i prefer that we have some kind of video component to it um especially because just because you can get that individual information for those that need it um and it helps everyone really as opposed to just on the phone okay and of course it's better for me too because i can't i can't see who else is on the line and what they're doing exactly thank you okay thank you all right so um that motion has passed so august 12th will be our meeting it'll be in person there will be that technological component to it um that's the more you know informal work study session meeting um on the uh dlea issue that we talked about at the last meeting uh next is 801 call the public for non-agendized items and we so again in this meeting we had a hybrid approach or combined approach we solicited emails and then also there could be any members of the public that are in attendance can fill out the form and indicate that they would like to speak i don't believe that we've gotten any of those forms on this matter for any member of the public that is here we do have an email that was timely received and i'd ask sue k to read it thank you it is an anonymous email from concerned asdb parent and the subject is just concerns and the email is as follows as a parent to a student i am concerned about the state of affairs at our schools and believe it is crucial that the board addresses these concerns one merit pay what merit pay standardized increases are in place for staff and faculty based on performance and cost of inflation how do we keep and then reward our best performers are there yearly reviews to maintain staff with good performance and measures to reduce those who do not meet department expectations year after year what procedures are in place to bring those not performing well to the standards of other individuals what is the time limit to bring these individuals up to those standards number two annette reichman within her five-year tenure what genuine accomplishments have been made beyond a five-year observation of bamboo grassland a farmer does not plant one seed only and watch it grow but tends to the rest of the crops and gardens number three nancy alexander why does the school pay for someone without quantifiable data of accomplishments as a contracted consultant with the responsibility of a strategic plan where is her strategic plan we have paid to have is it is it the standard for any organization to take two years to prepare a plan without execution what controls does this consultant really have why does her linkedin account state she is an asdb superintendent search facilitator isn't that complete is she the person who runs the agency and annette is the token face for asdb number four kelly creasy as a principal of the tucson school why does it appear as though she is uninterested in pushing to make her school the hub it has been for the deaf and blind communities in the past as principal why does she not know asl the community language she serves asl is the third most commonly used language in the us so why wouldn't she know the asl as the leader of the deaf school why does it appear as though her campus has its own agenda to protect itself and not move with advancements in greater learning while keeping keeping complacency and mediocrity as the standards for its mission is hr a part of the problem for not finding a suitable person to run a school with some of the lowest scholastic numbers in the state how do those scores compare nationally with the same school setup number five lisa yancarelli as leader of blind programs why does she not have successful programs in place like the deaf programs like camp leap and the deaf mentor program what is her plan for our blind students success other parents have complained on the lack of blind student support isn't that the main purpose of her position is her position and necessity or is she not qualified for the position thank you for making this public platform available for submissions as i am not able to attend the meetings i will do more submissions for subsequent meetings on where i believe the board should be should turn their attention uh thank you um 802 discussion possible action item agenda items for next regular board meeting scheduled for september 29th 2021 in person in tucson and before i open it up to others i wanted the board to as you you probably noted um we're linking the things that we're hearing about the things that we're doing uh in this meeting with our strategic plan to make sure that our efforts align with that plan there but we're continuing the the implementation of to make that more clear so board docs actually has a which is the application where we run all of our meetings that has some of those capabilities built in um latisha uh showed me how she could do that she showed me another district that does that and she's looking into learning to adapt or use the board docs to to accommodate that so you'll be able to click in um you know let's say on the financial report let's say or particular pieces of it you'd be able to click through and board docs and that would link to the specific goal and it has the metrics of that goal so that was the you know for for the next meeting for me i at least like to see one hopefully that will be working to some extent uh on our next for our next regular meeting in board docs um i also like to see the the dashboarding so to speak of the data that we have in our strategic plan and how i'd like to produce or have produced the formats of those reports so if that's in board docs like that other school district does where you can click through it and see where we already know say this effort relates to this piece of data we can click through and see it that would be great um also if there's a consolidated dashboard where we can take a look at the you know all of the metrics that we've enumerated in the strategic plan and see that in one place and go through that uh you know page by page and and data by data to see our progress and to see if we're making the progress that we that we want to see thank you president micro i would like to see if we could continue the conversation about the ombuds person and that role and what that looks like whether we need to expand the policy or integrate other options i think it's worth having it as a discussion point and potential action item for a future agenda i would like to see what superintendent reichman and assistant superintendent cooper have as far as findings during that meeting as well thank you pv in terms of the uh just to clarify so you're proposing um changes to the to the policy or or are we always focused on the the subject of finding a specific resource just more specifics to have a discussion on which avenue we would like to pursue for a long-term permanent solution whether that be a neutral third party like we're doing temporarily or whether we want to have the discussion to develop contract requirements and expectations as a board just to further the discussion on what our options are as we get some more exploration in the meantime i think that the loss of karen has hurt us more than we realize right now i think that now that we have seen the unique needs of this person the struggle will be to find someone with the qualifications she has left some big shoes to fill okay um so i think i'm hearing both then because we certainly want an item where we talk about the the search for the above person and the specific staffing that we would need we could also have another item where we discuss potential changes to the policy if any of the board members would like that that policy changed or amended in some way to expand or contract the role of the inbox person okay um are there other other items for next time no okay um hearing uh none we're gonna go to 901 actually i'm adjournment and before i uh entertain lin's motion uh to adjourn i would like to thank um all the you know the media and all the staff uh for setting up this meeting in sedona they've done a great job i don't know if you at home can see what they've done here but it's um there's quite a bit of material here uh to produce this meeting that all had to be you know none of it was here natively it all had to be brought up uh from uh you know from our facilities uh and uh and set up and there's there's quite a production um area over there with several staff members that are able to you know to produce this event so i know this uh particular meeting especially because it was not housed at one of our um schools it was not housed in pinkster tucson where we have a lot of this equipment that's that's here it's it's it's available uh we know what our bandwidth with capabilities are we know where our technology is um and to to kind of move this uh up north was quite an undertaking i understand that we're here for a few days uh setting up and they've done a great job so so thank you and everyone should even though you don't see it in the broadcast um it should be appreciative of our staff for that uh so 901 is the german has anyone moved to land yes this is my duty to move that we adjourn meetings uh second uh all in favor aye aye thank you thank you again so much um for for being here and for having our first in-person meeting uh since march of 2020 it's nice to see everyone in person and we will see you we'll see you on august 12th and then we'll see you on the next regular board meeting in september thank you you

we are making sure that our audio's on trustee because just a thumbs up that you can hear me loud and clear all right um and then uh firm i'll call you by the name of your firm uh jenkin gates and martinez if you can please make sure okay l g-a-l-e thank you so much jenkins scales and i apologize for that jgm so jjm if you can please make sure when you speak um that you speak straight into the mic so it's nice and loud and clear feel free to take off your face mask as i should now so that our public can hear us who are connecting with us um online um and we'll just uh wait for the presentation to be on and trust the challenge to come in and as you are setting up the presentation and we're waiting for uh trusted chavez um just a reminder to the uh board members we will each have the ability to um ask the questions that we submitted that are on the list so um it's uh the name are on there in case those of us are wondering who will be asking what so we'll just go down the list um the one through nine um if you have those open and available to you uh i know you have those open available to you trust your family have those open and available to you vice president quinteno um um getting them out okay if i can ask this a question while we wait just to clarify um so we have now the google forms thing available to us and i have it open here but just to confirm so we can score on this but as long as we don't push submit we can be fine and just save if we wanted to do it that way we could just save kind of each tab for each firm and then at the very end when we're ready we would push submit on all of them but um that's kind of how we agreed it right that we would admit the scores at the at the very end at the end correct and unfortunately so for us we have we have these in paper we're gonna put it in writing here but it sounds like you have a good system for yourself in keeping the tabs open and you know this is very important for all of us so you know we'll take as much time as we need let us know if there's any issues raise your hand and i'll make sure that we pause um so yes that sounds like a great plan and uh those of us that are here have a printed copy of the questions we can write you know break it up in one two three four so that we identify which firm and your notes and then at the end we'll take time to submit a google form for each firm and then get the total at the end perfect okay um any other questions before we move would it be possible to see the questions yeah i thought that's the way we can make sure that i like this here is the port okay with that allowing the firms to have questions on the table yeah sure absolutely thank you yes that makes sense okay and then um you just give us a thumbs up whenever you're ready no pressure we're all waiting on you take your time you know it's our first time back as jess mentioned i forgot how to comb my hair as well all of it but uh we're back and we're happy um you know and we want to keep it that way so yeah i think we're all we're all feeling we're all feeling anxious of being back with one another but uh we're happy to be here so as long as it takes we will be patient and we appreciate your support bunion um okay we're good all right um so uh we agreed on the process um is there any questions clarifications around that process or just go right into it okay welcome [Music] we're a small minority old business second generation my father started it 40 years ago and i became ceo uh five years ago construction project management architecture it's literally in my blood uh i live buy it i love it especially the education i been on a board chair for a charter school in los angeles i've been a substitute teacher a coach a mentor education and building youth is something that is a great passion of mine uh so they said who are we so jjim we've been we've worked in construction management since our inception and with k-14 schools for the past 30 years so when bond programs first began we were actually on the initial programs for lausd laccd managing their program management the team i brought with me today i have myself mr alert robinson who's the program director and mr toby black who will be one of our program managers also as well you see listed here is david page who will be our senior project controls alert robinson has over 30 years of experience uh he's managed the san jose city college uh bond program uh which is over 400 million dollars at san jose city college as well as other programs throughout the bay area here such as oakland and west contra costa toby black has over 20 years of experience he's developed i.t district standards very well versed in dsa and the requirements i needed for those david page as i said he's a guru in everything project controls he's actually he actually teaches program and project controls and was the one to develop lausd's entire system uh some of the projects that we've done you know some of them are within our proposal so i won't spend too much time but i just want to make sure i highlight the experience that we've been able to do over the last 40 plus years we're a small business but have completed some massive massive programs one of them being la unified and their bond programs like i mentioned before west contra costa fremont unified and their bond program in which toby was a part of los angeles community college district and their bond programs we were a joint venture partner uh when it was first uh when it first began in 2001 i think and we've been there almost since with the exception of i think three or four years outside of that we've been there the entire time managing their programs uh santa rosa junior college were there managing projects over there for campuses up in the bay area or up up north some of which is the life science life sciences labs and classrooms and also the district-wide security update uh upgrades uh they uh from everywhere from santa rosa junior college to their show and farm uh we are installing cameras video boxes call towers everything in which to just help them enhance their campuses so this is what we call the five percent and there's four companies up here um each one i'm sure is qualified some more qualified than others um but what differentiates us uh what we say is the five percent that differentiates us our philosophies and goals and in doing our research seeing the issues that you know alum rock has had in the past it actually irritated us because it goes it puts a bad name with consultants with program management with project management uh it's a distrust and we're here to build your trust for you to say we can trust jgm we want them to partner with us going forward and how we go about that first and foremost is student success madam president you mentioned it before and um during our earlier and i was happy to hear you say that fantastic that's the one thing we look at if we're not keeping that in mind student success none of us should be in this room uh it's first and foremost and i preach that and everyone i hire must do that same thing fiscal responsibility again we're well aware of the issues that have been had and the not only do you need to trust us but the public needs to trust us too we know these uh it's coming from bond funds the public has very graciously uh voted for these bonds and not being fiscally responsible is just a method in which just spells doom uh we keep that in mind uh for every bond program that we're on and just every public works project that we're on bond or no bond we know the money's coming from the public and we have to be well aware of that third is communication and transparency this goes to the heart of trust can is the information that we're giving you is it accurate is it valid is it up to date and not even just you but the uh the cboc as well the the reports have to be timely and we have to say whether good bad or ugly that the what the numbers are what the numbers are it's it's again going right back to that heart of trust and lastly being community partners we have we're here not to just instruct you on what to do we're not here to tell you what to do we're here to work in collaborative partnership with you uh with the board with the public um and it's something that we really take pride in and an example of that is uh at our work with san jose city college they were hosting their first annual golf tournament uh it actually just took place up the road at san jose uh country club we jumped at the chance to be the one of the title sponsors for it uh through actually that we met a gentleman who or a student who we learned is on he's on the basketball team and has a history of working in construction a week later we hired him as an intern that's what we like to do we we don't want to operate in a silo we're here to be involved to have our name right next to alamo and give you the information that you need to succeed and becca one and last point i'll make is the swedes have a term that i just found watching at youtube or not youtube but a netflix show uh called yantalaga and that means we don't like to boast we want you to we implore you to talk to those that we've worked for that we're currently working for uh and have them tell you how we do how we operate how we communicate uh so much so that i will that we love to put our references right here on the screen for anyone to call and we actually encourage that so with that once again i very much thank you for your time and look forward to your questions thank you so much and with that as i mentioned i was on you i'll repeat that uh with that uh we will go down the list of the questions that we have just as they were submitted um and each board member had the ability to submit two questions and an alternate question so we're going to start off with question number one from clerk ednesto mr gerano if you can please present your question to the firm okay you can hear can you hear me yes okay um so thank you for the presentation and i only have one question i submitted because it's kind of a multi-party so i didn't want to take up too much space but the question that i have is do you have experience developing and implementing a district-wide solar energy program if no what is your familiarity with the financing options available to districts and what would your approach and strategy be in developing a solar energy program in alabama if yes please describe your experience and how it would be beneficial to the development of a solar energy program in alamo [Music] okay and i'll take uh this one we've had the privilege of working with several school districts on their solar implementation programs and we've been around since the early days when solar first was introduced and if people remember shamron and people like that actually had a program and you'll see a number of school districts around that have the canopies on their sites over their parking lots so we did a lot of that at west country costa unified school district where i served as not only a construction manager on an elementary school but also became the design program manager that was one of the things that we did as a district standard so our approach is to identify the ancillary funds that are available through the state uh to rebate programs that that are out based on what your utility company is having what the state has and then match that money and put that into an allowance that adds to your bond funding amount so we're not taking bond funds to implement the program minimal bond funds will be used we'll be using the state grants and the other things the federal government grants to ensure that that happens plus all the rebates that you get the other thing that we did from a technical perspective we did district standards in consultation with the experts at the time on solar and we just we did a lot of solar ready projects where we actually put all the infrastructure in through the bond so that then when people wanted to do solar they had the opportunity just come and install the solar panels that connect up that worked out really really well and today if you go to west contra costa over you know half of the new schools we did have solar there now but they all have the infrastructure to add it whenever it comes available so that's our approach and we would work with your district to ensure what available funds are available here in the san jose area and how do we meet the needs of your maintenance and operations department to maintain this great asset and resource thank you so much and uh being the first question here we are supposed to have a timer on screen just to give you all also awesome thank you yeah right on uh jose are you able to help us out with that uh timer on the screen just to ensure that we're all following the same timer and i'm not giving them extra time here thank you so much though for uh taking time for yourself thanks for that so we can just show the timer for a minute on the screen so that i'm sorry two minutes on the screen that we agreed to um so a two minute timer on the screen um next question um and we'll have trustee midfam asking the next question thank you so much and i hope that you all caught that and that there's some sort of mike in the room that's catching me thank you mr uh you can uh proceed with your question well begin the board a summary of the cost control and accountability procedures you use with contractors and subcontractors to ensure that a project stays within its allocated budget and timeline to the extent possible on insurance lines with all labor and workplace safety laws well that's a great question and we put in place processes and protocols that address all of these things basically the contract is sacred for each project and we're going to develop budgets with your team hand in hand every step of the way so you know about design phases and project phases so from project identification all the way through implementation we'll be updating budgets every step of the way with you and your team letting you know where the where the pinch points are and where the challenges are so it's because it's not our money this is your money and your constituents money your stakeholders money so what we do is just ensure that if there are adjustments we have a documented procedure so it's all transparent that you guys approve the changes not just us unilaterally saying we're gonna spend more money here there or wherever you're going to input that and say and set those priorities and once we get that in place we'll adjust the schedule if needed and sometimes it'll be a credit back so that you look up and we did this in west contra costa you get to add one or two more schools because we saved you money just about the process in which we put projects out to bid etc the architects that we choose to work with and identifying the scope of work early on because that's the critical pinch point if the scope's wrong the whole project's going to go cattywampus and haywire just say it's just not going to work out so that's our approach is to be hand and glove and transparent in all we do funding wise and scheduled next question could you name the time has had a conflict with the contractor and elaborate on how to refer and resolve that conflict to ensure the time and progress of the bond finance project go ahead and i'll answer this one um uh i've had the deal in the last let's say 2020 has not been kind to a lot of school districts with contractors oh i'm sorry i forgot it was even on um uh i've actually had to deal with that recently uh contractor actually he went over his schedule well he they went over their schedule uh never submitted time impact analysis didn't start the project on time even though we pushed them to start on time and submitting change orders for things that were already in the contract uh one of the things what we did and they were small contractors uh one of the things that we did uh is we sent letters to their bonding company when it got to the point after we tried to work with them multiple times get them going what is the issue what's causing you to not be able to continue the project along and they still just weren't they were being continued to be difficult what we did is we ended up having to contact our bonding company get with the district hey this is what's happening this is the issues going on uh he what they weren't paying their subs uh they were never showing up on time this is what we would like to do and go with the district this is our recommendation to deal with this because they are wasting everyone's time and they're wasting money we had we had a specific goal of trying to get a building taken down uh within a couple of months we had another building going in but they just kept dragging it out and we it held up another project so we got with the district uh let it find out we didn't want to hurt the fight uh going after the person's bond the company's bond it's going to hurt them getting other work we don't want to do that we're still trying to partner with the community and partner with the small contractors but we got at least let them know that this is costing everyone money what we ended up doing is de-scoping the work uh bidding the the rest of the work out to another contractor and you know back charging the contractors so that we save them on the project uh next question myself uh so my question is have you noticed that some of these questions might be similar you know and these are things that are very important to us um but we'll be exactly listening so on number four have you been a part of any questionable behavior and how would you deal with the board met how how would you deal with a board member or staff asking you to be involved in questionable activity for example fraud fortunately no um we haven't been part of any questionable behavior um how to deal with it i i look at it as a lot of things when it comes to the company is my my name is on the company uh as i said before it's the second generation my dad started it so it's a legacy um he's one of the most stand-up people that i will ever go and i make sure i follow in that same footsteps if there was anyone within my firm that came close to anything that was deemed questionable uh it would not be tommy um yeah again my my my name is there i'm the g in jgm that means everything to me uh so if someone were to come a board member if a staff member uh were to come to one of my employees one of my cell by myself i would then take it to um if it happened to be a board member i would take it to you president uh if it was a staff member i would take to you mr chain um it would not be targeted we will adhere to california state contract public contract code and all of the ramifications they're in and so we'll work with you with writing language in your contracts to ensure that this kind of thing won't happen whether it be from scope definition all the way through completion we just don't do this stuff next question is how would you deal with a delay in a product what would you let the district staff know about any delays um do you have any examples of any delays in any of the products and what uh i'll go ahead and take this one um i was about to put my mask on uh first of all transparency and communication is key we i myself as we were mentioning in the you know with questionable behavior i can't lie because i start laughing so i just felt it's i just it honestly is i just be honest with that and that's what we're here to do is to be honest with the district and with you all if something's coming up where a a project is being delayed for whatever reason we have to let you know uh that way you can let the public know this project is being delayed these are the reasons why it's being delayed um whatever they might be it's communication that's key to everything especially getting trust with the disc with the public is we got to communicate and be transparent this project is being delayed these are the reasons why uh how we handle the delay is we have language in the in our in our contracts is if a contractor is being delayed whatever it might be uh if it's there you know for whatever their delay they need to submit uh a time impact analysis that shows us how they're going to get back on schedule uh and sometimes like currently now there's a lot of shortages of materials that's something that we have to tell the public tell everybody steel's being delayed because there's a shortage of it the chips you know for a lot of uh controls for like say hvac systems are the same chips that go into cars that's right so there's a delay in that and everyone has probably heard of that that you know problem that's come up uh so how we deal with that is well let the public know this is this these are the instead of saying here's the problem we tell everyone here's the solution to what we're gonna do while this is going on we're gonna go ahead and take care of all these other parts first so that you know when a file with when stuff uh material become available we can finish this part off but at least we've got this other 75 completed um the first thing that we will do just by the way i'm kovit 19 certified by the state to actually go in and do this and so i've consulted with a few school districts and clients would be churches other public entities to address this very issue the first thing we're going to do is evaluate your current hvac system and the new ones that have been installed plus the old ones to figure out hey we're going to get them cleaned and sanitized and then we're going to come in and seal the duct works and then we'll come in and recommission them in the case of the 2018 units and make sure they're compatible with the cdc guidelined and approved hepa filters because we're going to replace the filters and install hepa filters throughout the district and then we'll come up with a budget and we'll work with your maintenance department to determine what filters they want to use of the improvements and we'll make that a part of the district's standard as we go in and start evaluating and developing standards so that's the basic thing and the other thing is is just to go in and recommission it commission assistance to make sure that you're getting the best bang for your buck and you're getting energy efficiency as well so it's not just a pure air situation but we come in and monitor your air changes the amount of air flow that you have and so we've been doing this now for the whole coven 19 year we work with different cleaning companies and cleaning firms to go in and address all the issues with our current clients but also put plans in place and standards in place so that we kind of future proof this situation can hear your questions if you can please take off okay well well the uh first thing we look at we need to evaluate the scope of work of those initial projects review the commissioning that those projects went through and at this point most projects go through some form of commissioning before it's turned over to you to occupy so we'll re we'll evaluate that and see where we are in warrants so what safety issues it's really going to be a campus by campus evaluation to determine that but just in our general experience uh 2018 is almost like a lifetime ago and so with the new kona standards and things that are in place the first step is just like the other stuff let's evaluate what systems we have in place how safe are they do they meet current cdc standards and codes do they meet current you know city ordinances regarding safety and then we go from there but for the most part you know most of the stuff that we're dealing with is really on the life safety issue and those codes fortunately haven't changed very dramatically so in terms of your exiting and your path of travels and your egresses you should be in pretty good shape from 2018 till now the big thing is going to be just on the hvac side and the system side you know what kind of uh exposure you have with regard to the existing mechanical systems that are in place or that they provide provided so that'll be a hand in glove exercise with your district maintenance staff so that we can determine we know what cdc says and what cal osha says are the preferred you know types of systems to input and what those standards are and calculations are but we work with your district directly to determine which manufacturers you prefer what's readily available because that's a big issue and then also what we want to implement so this is again a transparent hand and glove solution that we'll come up with together [Laughter] in the last 40 years we've never had litigation we've never had conflicts uh yeah never uh and nor do i plan to that's a streak i like keeping alive so i'm not sure if testing i just unmuted myself uh no i think should i just keep myself unmuted here daniel because i know you have muted me so i just want to confirm the question and just me oh so go ahead and read myself all right okay um no i think they heard me answer okay uh maybe if you want to repeat the question the question was do i preface it with all the other comments [Laughter] have you had any recent litigation or significant conflict within the last 10 years with any of your clients or so please tell us so you heard the response yes thank you can i move on tonight thank you vice president yes please all right um please explain your pricing structure um do you include automatic escalators and you overhead in your proposal please provide an example of items for which you would typically build a district to the benefit of the public so that you are aware or the differences is between the between fourths if i do recall i think we just had hourly rates in there for certain positions uh usually within um uh usually within that we will have a just a three percent cola cost of living increase or adjustment uh that happens every year um that's how we normally do our pricing structure uh for billing outside of that say the for except for the say softballs trailers oh yeah uh we don't really build the travel yeah trailer travel um computers copiers oh i'm sorry that you're my friend yeah outside of uh you know trailers you know copiers uh uh laptops computers you know uh basically overhead um and so that's that's the only additional if if that i think those are the nine questions that we have uh for you at this time thank you very much and if you can patiently wait in the other room and we will call you at the end of the meeting uh with the decision okay thank you so much for your time thank you okay thank you so much and publicly we can be patient as we um as his firm exits and we bring in the next i think um and the next firm just to remind the public we have kitchell um coming in thank you would you like me to ask them thank you can i ask a couple of questions uh president can you hear me hello can anyone hear me i guess not i can hear you chosen okay well i wanted to ask right and if we're not speaking we will mute ourselves uh the next firm coming up will be kitchell um and we will be setting up so thank you uh public for your patience um i don't think she can hear you or me i don't know why yeah i wonder why she can't hear us she on the english channel i am i am too i think she is no because well somebody would hear us i'll just text her go ahead trustee pam you can do it however you want i believe christopher harano is doing a tab on his computer um i'm writing them on our paper um as long as you have your scores by the end of this process um you submit them all yes thank you trusted family okay we have our next firm here firm kitchel welcome and we will open up with the presentation and then go into the questions each board member submitted one or two questions so we will just ask them as we submit them after the presentation thank you welcome just so the public knows um i let daniel our technology person here supporting us to let me know give me a thumbs up when we're ready to go with the presentation oh when i speak thank you thank you very much uh we are the kitchen team we're very uh happy to be here and good afternoon to uh all board members superintendent mr chang and uh we have a brief presentation that complies with the request that you sent us and uh we'll be ourselves talking as we go and uh first of all uh i'll introduce myself our team will do the same and i'll talk a little bit about our uh rest of the presentation i am arturo i am the regional executive for kitchell in the bay area and i am responsible to provide all the resources that are needed for our team to provide the service and fulfill this contract that we are lucky enough to be selected i have 30 years of experience in this industry i used to be on your side of the table i used to be an employee at the director of facilities in real estate both for san francisco unified and berkeley unified so i have a full understanding of both inside and outside the district and what it takes to accomplish a test like this hi i'm patricia nguyen i'll be your program director and your main point of contact throughout the program i've been with kitchell for over 19 years working on various k-12 programs throughout the south bay including two bond programs for san jose unified school district and union school district i am a parent so i have two school-age children in the k-12 program also and i am bilingual i speak vietnamese and english so i look forward to working with you guys good evening everybody my name is jason villanueva and i'm the project controls director for kitchell i have over 12 years of experience with reporting and business intelligence and analytics and so what i do is i support each of the programs that we run uh to really provide accountability and transparency to the services that we provide for our clients and i look forward to working with the district thank you thank you uh in addition to the folks that are here today uh we have other people that uh we have in our team they couldn't be here because of the constraints and the the number of people were allowed to bring and uh but they both are bilingual by culture they live in the area they have work in education in the area myself i also bilingual by culture and spanish and uh we're happy to provide our services we have a history in the bay area for over 30 years we set up originally around cupertino that was our first education client kitchel has been around for over 70 years and here in the bay area over 30 years we started with cupertino many years ago and have done a number of districts around here overall throughout california we provided services for over 60 school districts up and down the state and we have put in place over 14 billion dollars worth of school construction uh in terms of uh the work that we have supported and managed for other districts um we have experience with a number of local districts around here and this experience has enabled us to see and learn and provide and build just about every type of building in any school setting and therefore we bring that experience to bear be that classrooms laboratories gymnasium etc some of us have done just about every building type and we will happy to bring that experience to you uh ron here we've done uh uh milpitas yes our presentation seems to be stuck oh let's have a quick pause here so our presentation can be caught up for the public thank you for your patience we'll pause the timer all right i think we're good now back on so just to conclude my remarks and sorry about that um uh we've worked with a number of districts right now we're helping milpitas we're helping redwood city schools uh we used to work up until recently and hopefully more later over at east side you're the defeating high school district a number of great facilities there and again the our experience comes with us to support this particular district and we're very honored to serve you patricia so you know you've already started some work on the program planning we want to take meet with you and pick up those pieces and really understand what's already been done so we can be efficient and not repeat work that you've already completed but we want to take our experience so we can realign the budgets and help you prioritize projects based on the current needs and really these are components to put together your program implementation plan that's the roadmap for how you're going to spend your bond which how where you're going to allocate your dollars and what schedule you're going to do the projects on and this is how we transparently show the community what we're going to do so due to time constraints we're just going to focus on three key issues that we're going to talk about updating costs in the previous facility conditions assessment and helping you prioritize projects and then jason's going to talk a little later about the dashboard system and how it can relay information in a transparent manner and throughout the process we'll be collaborating with you and communicating with you to ensure an essential program so we really want to work on updating the costs of your facilities conditions assessment that you've already done we understand with kovid there has been major impacts to costs in the area due to labor shortages because there's multiple projects going on and then as well as supply chain on other programs we've had to pre-purchase electrical equipment to meet the timelines we need because not just with covid's supply chain but also the houston freeze affected delivery affected all the manufacturers and we are in constant communication with those suppliers so they let us know ahead of time what's going on and we can work with them and say okay you know let's try to make up the schedule and let's pre-purchase certain things to try to meet the schedule and still meet our deadline and then in prioritizing projects we really want to address look at first what are the critical needs of the campus to address your safety and code issues you know as a parent i want to make sure my child's going to safe school just like everyone's child goes to a safe school and as you're realigning certain campuses in your district we want to make sure that the programmatic needs on each campus are addressed so that we can equitably manage every campus and make sure the faculty and the students have everything they need to be successful with tobit impact showed us how to be flexible over these last few months we were able to on other programs move projects ahead quickly because campuses weren't occupied so projects that we would normally do like a solar project that would have to shut down a whole parking lot we were able to do much quickly much more quickly because there was nobody parking on campus so we we are a team that is agile and can adapt to changing markets so one of the other service offerings that we provide in terms of us managing a program and the projects is really the ability to be transparent and to hold ourselves accountable for the services that we provide um we actually create custom dashboards and what you'll see on the screen is a sample of some of these dashboards that we're able to create and we use these as a communication tool both internally and also for the general public so that they are aware of what's going on how the dollars are being spent so there's a lot more confidence that you know we've set a plan and we can track how that plan is going so a couple more examples here of being able to identify early risk right if we can keep all that information in one place where everybody can go to to work out the same information we can identify that risk and and mitigate it before the risk becomes an actual uh reality last example here is really being able to display financial so we can connect to any system and we use microsoft power bi because it's non-proprietary and it doesn't lock you into something that that you have to pay for over time especially if you don't want to use it anymore and so again this is another service offering to help us with the theme of accountability and transparency thank you jason um uh the big part of this effort i mean is the technical component but the communication strategy it is really important to be able to communicate with a community that has supported you and that we can do that we do that every day multilingually and understand what needs to happen and we communicate what has happened when it's gonna next things are gonna happen so that there are no surprises both you and the community are ever aware of every single element that will be happening and how much is costing and so forth uh just in closing i just want to say a couple of things uh we are a local leader in k12 program management we've been here for over 30 years providing this kind of service we're proud of it and we bring a lot of experience to support you secondly we have a proven approach we bring a skeleton of best practices so that we can adapt to your district and there is no learning curve we've done this before we do it well and we can do it again adapt it to you so you can have a successful program and lastly we're a local diverse group of professionals and we'll be very proud to serve you thank you very much [Music] thank you um and at this time we'll go ahead and start with the questions um we'll have the uh first trustee uh who's joining us virtually and we'll be asking the first question yeah can you hear me uh trustee christine can you hear me we cannot hear you i'm not sure if it's something in here one second i think you did there it is perfect oh you can hear me now yes all right awesome okay thank you for the presentation uh my i have one question submitted but it's kind of um several questions in one so i'll go ahead and go with this question do you have experience developing and implementing a district-wide solar energy program if no what is your familiarity with financing options available to districts and what would your approach and strategy be in developing a solar energy program in alabama if yes please describe your experience and how it would be beneficial to the development of a solar energy program in alabama yeah the answer is yes i do have experience working on a district-wide solar energy program oh i'm sorry yes so most recently um in sara togo we are putting solar panels on three additional parking lots and it's able to take the campus 90 off the grid um that delivery method is a design build project so we worked with um sun power who provides the panels and then they also provide the construction for it and we provide the coordination for the site and for the campus to do that i've also done it in san jose where we worked with chevron and they provided some of the financing for that solar program by selling back some of the solar energy that was created so it's really a district decision do you want to create solar energy to sell back to the grid or do you want to keep it and use it for yourself because um what we did in saratoga was we designed storage so that we stored the power and the campus could use it so if there was ever a power outage they had a generate enough power saved to use for their own campus thank you and that's it before we go into the next okay um we'll go ahead and move on to trustyfam at this time and so we do have cost control measures that we've used we work with work closely with the district to align with whatever program you prefer um but to make sure so i regularly when we're in the cm phase work with the contractors um to review costs every month so that there's no surprises and i forecast any changes that i foresee being out in the field that would result in changes and additional costs for the district um and also part of the part of the technology that we bring especially with different contractors that come on that may have different accounting systems uh whether it's with the district or ourselves we can combine all that information into one place so that we can appropriately track it what we want to do is we want to make it easier for the contractors to be able to you know use whatever system they're comfortable with to track their budgets but we're also able to take that same information so that we're comparing apples to apples with everybody else and being able to provide that information so it's more accessible to everybody it's in real time and there's no barriers it allows people to really be able to see engage how are we trending in terms of spent right if i if i'm able to see in real time the direction i'm heading we can go ahead and make uh changes to that so in terms of things like with labor compliance and safety laws and stuff we can track all that information uh regardless of whatever system people use now by default we use procore internally and that's another offering that we extend to our clients should they not have something that they already use does that answer your question yeah trust your family or you're able to just go into your next question and if you can meet yourself there could you name a time when your firm has had a conflict with a contractor and elaborate on how your firm resolved that conflict to ensure the timely progress of the bond finance project um i think every project has conflict with contractors but how i resolve them is i i work and anticipate the challenges that they're gonna have so sometimes it could be that their subcontractors are not performing if that first first we identify the problem and then i really with our background as general contractors also help them solve that issue so that it does doesn't delay the project if there's times that a subcontractor is not performing we point it out to them and help them support getting that subcontractor back on track so that they can perform and do the work and get the project done in time because there are times when on low bid projects your contractor may not be sophisticated enough to realize that there's an issue but we will identify the issue because our background is builders as well as designers and construction managers we can identify that [Music] we answer the question you have to be answering all right the next two questions are from me um the next question is is have you been a part of any questionable behavior how would you deal with the board member or staff asking you to be involved with questionable activities such as fraud first of all i have not been part of but i've had an experience with that and it was not a k-12 it was at a community college level it it was not a fraud per se but it was an inference from a board member that he would like to see a process that uh favor a a certain professional obviously we have an ethics code that we follow ourselves and we have our own moral compass and uh for me and and i had a very good client then that the vice chancellor of facilities uh was our direct uh boss per se so we always have one contact that we're the it's a go-to person so i brought the situation to that particular uh vice chancellor and he addressed it with the chancellor at the time and they uh worked it out with the board member and welcome to the process of public procurement and at the end of the day nothing happened but uh it is something that we're very aware and that we're very proactive to avoid and to communicate the situation to our clients so that the proper action can be taken does that address your question yeah the next question is how would you deal with the delay in the project here okay the next question how would you delay how would you deal with a delay in the project when would you let you know that the staff know about any delays and have you had an example of any delays in the past um in projects you have been a part of and what or how did you deal with them um so yes there you know there are sometimes unforeseen conditions that causes delays and you know i'm in on projects i'm in regular communication with the the owner and the client so that they're always aware of what's going on so that they can become part of the solution as well i don't want surprises to arise at the last minute so an example of this is a middle school i worked on um when we opened the ceiling there was some structural issues that we were not aware of so the state required us to redesign a portion of that structure well redesigning it and then getting a new approval on that delayed the project several months but we you know the owner was involved in these design meetings the whole time so they could see the impact of this change in the scope and then they were able to talk to the principal um we had already moved the classroom into interim housing so they talked to the principal and let the teacher know right away so she could plan the rest of her curriculum knowing that she would stay in that portable until the work was done um so i think the sooner you let somebody know the better because that nobody likes a surprise at the last minute they want to be able to plan and make the best uh adapt adapt to what's um coming up and if i can add one quick thing typically these situations arise for nobody intentionally gets delayed there's always a cost and what we try to do is focus on the cost the root cause of the delay so that we with the contractor the arc that industry can resolve and recuperate it can be manpower it can be a supply chain or it can be material that is not available typically those are the things so we are there as a practice thank you thank you very much next questions will be uh presented by trustee linda thomas okay indoor air quality is at the center of concerns about how schools can safely open during a pandemic what would you do to solve the air quality issues have you looked at the scope of work on the emg report in 2000 issues the issues that need addressing um so yes we we have on other school districts address the air quality issue we actually our engineering and architecture group did a whole site survey for san francisco unified and gave them a report to identify what they needed to do for their hva system to upgrade it to meet the requirements so they could bring students back to campus and that was except you know the district was very grateful for that report because we were able to do it really quickly we're they're already in-house we didn't have to go and procure another engineer they they could do that all in-house because we have licensed engineers and architects in-house which is i think what sets us apart from other construction management companies um the we uh have reviewed uh lightly the report and have not done a it's their analysis to figure i mean there's only we have a summary of it they have a full report so if we were given the opportunity to look at that in detail we would be more than happy to finalize it and provide some potential solutions to address that for sure okay besides all the five projects that a previous board approved in 2014 and bond money was available and was supposed to be spent to finish those board approved projects in your expert opinion what are the safety issues that need to be addressed first or immediately i'll i'll start the projects safety is first and foremost on every project on every school district and essentially us and not not only anything new you the district are trusted by the parents in the community to safely provide the education for the kids and uh so it is really important to prioritize especially student safety at the outset of any program if you have a limited amount of funds you have to go through a process and figure out what makes sense in terms of how do we prioritize and keep safety and compliance in the top of your list it is going to be very important that those items are addressed as soon as possible and especially if they can grow to become more compounded problems that god forbid we have an accident or something and then the district is in a very difficult situation so it's something that we would come look at and analyze the conditions of every situation and figure okay what can we do here to mitigate their safety and the risk of the district do you have any no that's the data to browse your question thank you and now last but not least we have vice president andres ditto presenting the next question all right the question has been asked and however some of the material is somewhat dated and so i think it's important to provide uh all those who brought forward proposals to to respond to this question that's why i'm asking you so have you had any litigation or significant conflict within the last 10 years with any of your clients and so please celebrate yes uh we addressed that in the proposal i don't have it in front of me but since that has happened we have not had any new situations that uh are a legal challenge where we have done something or someone else did something and we got uh a name in the complaint so what we've had we addressed it in the proposal and uh i don't have it in front of me but we i believe we address there were a couple of situations there and we provide an explanation and provide the uh of the situation and also explain the outcome and i believe we actually were it was well established and we are okay thank you the next question is please explain your pricing structure do you include automatic escalators and any overhead in your proposals please provide example of items for which you would typically build a district this is you obviously have it in writing but some benefit for the community so they can understand how you guys intend attended bill i will uh address that and if there's anything like this please uh jump in uh for us what uh a is a typical cm service agreement and what we do we sit down with you at the outset and map out what it's going to take to accomplish the scope that you request from us we have provided rates for individuals for each of the positions and what we do to the best of our ability without knowing how exactly the future looks but we that's why we sit down with you and we figure out the best uh uh or the optimal uh schedule to deliver the projects that you assigned to us and we basically look at duration times our rates that equals a certain amount and depending upon which staff you uh the project mandates and what we also have is over time if a pro project has a duration of three years we include and i believe we include it there and the footnotes i believe it's about three percent increase annually i can't remember if it was theirs in january or in july but it's a cause that you know we give our employees we treat them fairly they get raises cost of living increases et cetera so it's something that is part of and we're transparent we show you what it is and it's written there uh we have options when we get to the point where we define the the scope of work in the duration where we can depending upon what is the appetite of the board we can convert it to a lump sum uh price including based on the duration including those escalations on an annual basis and that becomes the price for the program management effort and or construction management for certain projects as we see we do it together thank you okay and that concludes the question portion of our interview um if you can uh please wait in the room uh next door and we will call all the firms at the end with the um decision at that time thank you thank you in public if you can just be patient we are going to be calling our next firm up which is get my little notes here we have coming coming up next uh yeah so let's go ahead and take a four minute bio break as the next firm sets up uh looks like we have quorum presentation is ready to start i'm sure linda's on our way back [Music] let's give it a couple of seconds [Music] otherwise let me i have uh vice president quintero here i have mr pham and myself and i see trustee veterano um linda come back we'll go ahead and uh since we do have quorum we'll go ahead and start on on the presentation uh do you have um i think she went with lisa to check on something and you can let let me see [Music] seconds here um so we can restart the clock as soon as we start can we uh pause that or rewind if possible on the presentation up on our screen is that possible otherwise we'll composite maybe i can pause it and maybe it's on me no there it is it's oh it's so good okay well let's go ahead and start um i see uh the 130 on there as soon as we start i'll just make sure that we time it at 10 minutes so welcome um we'll go going to start with the presentation portion uh welcome coming thank you very much we're really pleased to be here today to make our presentation um to the elm rock union school district um the good thing about coming just a quick overview we're a nationwide international company but we have a san jose office each office is a stand-alone but we really collaborate within the other offices so we bring a lot of integrated services and a lot of expertise to all of these uh uh to all your projects which one that one okay now okay my name is john olson i'm the project executive um i will oversee the team i'll oversee bringing the services the right services at the right time to the district um i'm there to provide backup support when big issues start to happen complicated ones i've been in the business 42 years been doing k-12 uh construction management for the last 24 years so i've got a lot of experience can bring a lot of that to to the table importantly is i grew up on the east side san jose i was an uh alum rock um student for nine years of my life starting in kindergarten and i actually graduated all the way to the eighth grade so um it's very near and dear to me you have i like the community i have friends here i have family here um my friends have children that have gone through the district so it is very very important to me to be really excellent everything we do for you with that i'll good evening my name is michael gordomani i'm the project manager for various projects on the bond program i'm actually born and raised in the bay area as well so again working on projects in the local community is something that's extremely important to me and that'll go over to frank hi my name is frank dickinson i'm a director for coming i'm a director of project management um i would be working to help with this managing the staffing of the various of whatever we needed in the way of project management um i've been a california general contractor for over 40 years and we're coming now for uh five and uh one of the relevant projects that we just completed that i managed to team on was pajaro valley school district in watsonville we did three years of their bond which also included the building of a new sports stadium so with that uh just real quickly we'll go over you know who we are we talked about that the project team uh then we're gonna get into our program approach and um thank you so here's the here's the uh project team frank's gonna be your day-to-day central contact um i'll be the project executive i'll be working with frank i'll be working with the district i'll be working with the user groups working with the community i'm here to support the team to make sure the right resources are brought to bear when you need it in a cost-effective and efficient manner um we chose this team with uh and we're only showing five or so people here but we chose this team because of their k-12 experience and their local experience as well as their different expertise and we're going to talk about the different expertise as we go forward okay so as you kick it off we'll have a 30 60 90 day plan yeah it's very important that as we get started on the project that we hit the ground running um one of the first things that we're going to we would want to be doing is to meet with all the different stakeholders and including construction teams uh maintenance teams um even even your i your technical teams we found that if in the beginning you meet with all them and try to get the info get the ideas of what they really need it really makes the thing start out correctly with that information we can better prioritize uh what projects go when so that we can put to start putting together a master schedule also early we would want to bring our cost team in uh i'm assuming that the district has their own cost estimates from for the various projects um and it's the way that the construction is right now a lot of the estimates are are really they change basically daily so it would be good for our costume to come in to see where our costs are compared to now um and then and then to look at that uh as well for any escalation in the future um we would also in the beginning uh try to figure out best delivery methods for the various projects um and then the last thing would be to help you uh engage and um design teams thanks frank as frank mentioned we were gonna hit the ground running i want to talk about cummings way how we approach a program or master program approach and how we set one up really it comes down to setting up the proper documents and making sure that there's transparency and communication through the entire process from the very beginning to the last project closing what that what that entails is financial tracking our financial tracking systems making sure that the expenditures are for bond authorized projects and running through to the project management portion standing up the project management and projects getting project schedules in order project budgets in order as well as the weekly and monthly reporting process so we have transparency and communication on the entire process visibility on project priorities visibility on project budgets project spending and project timelines and that takes us into constructions you know we set up the contract administration process make sure the public bidding process goes smooth and projects hit the ground running as well and we are involved in the inspection process making sure and making sure that construction goes smoothly and we go to the end on close-up um also with that is funding so funding obviously is extremely important so our background you know working with many school districts and k to 12 different schools we understand the office of public school construction different grant opportunities they have for possible funding as well as prop 39 best practices and compliance understanding bond compliance means uh fiscal accountability means fund tracking and reporting making sure the community has eyes and this is a transparent process so we understand what's going on projects and that comes down to record retention having a paper trail i'll quickly just touch on budget and cost analysis and we have a strategic approach that we implement on our projects to make sure again that we can timely implement and deliver cost estimates that are audit proof and provide the financial stability and information that you need when reviewing so hannah glover with the continuing estimating and budget reconciliation uh efforts that we're going to do um we have great value engineering systems we started the concept we look at materials labor uh equipment availability right now there's there's shortages um in a lot of material and equipment we look at that and it may say yeah we want to switch the material or the equipment in order because there's less of a time lag and we'll be able to hit the schedule better we have a great constructability team it's made up of all sorts of different experts uh designers uh civil structural electrical mechanical waterproofing we get into all the nuances we utilize the uh army corps of engineering uh a system and on a recent high school project um ground up we have we found over eleven thousand dollar eleven thousand conflicts errors emissions and we're getting those cleaned up before it goes out the bid what does that do it saves rfis requests for information it says change orders it makes for a more efficient schedule you get the projects done on time and the whole process works off smoother these guys save themselves save the district's money exponentially it is really the best thing going so yeah so scheduling um as mentioned scheduling is going to be a very important aspect once we've talked with all the different stakeholders uh we'll work together with our um coming schedule team to put a master's schedule together we'll look at the particulars um of some of the long-term more maintenance type things because they take different different types of scheduling uh get ready to procure the designers and we'll look at we'll see what you guys have that might be shovel ready that we can really get started as soon as possible to kind of keep it going um and then the main thing is going to be we will be doing keeping up a master schedule monthly and and publishing it to everybody i don't say i am that's my picture alex shepard uh anyway we're i'm really dedicated i'd be i'd be honored and humble to give back to the community to shape my life in my early years thank you thank you so much at this time we're going to go ahead and begin the question and answer portion of the interview we're gonna go ahead and um just go down the list and you have the questions in front of you and we'll just ask them as they are in order there and we're gonna go ahead and start with trustee ernesto vegeta who is connecting with us virtually yes thank you just a quick check can you hear me can you hear me yes yes we can hear you i wanted to make sure all right um thank you for the presentation and my we were able to submit several questions mine is only one but there's kind of a few questions embedded in there so i will read that question now do you have experience developing and implementing a district-wide solar energy program if no what is your familiarity with the financing options available to districts and what would your approach and strategy be in developing a solar energy program in alabama if yes please describe your experience and how it would be beneficial to the development of a solar energy program in alabama so i'll answer the first question coming i talked about where integrated services we've got a team that works throughout california that does nothing but energy efficiency sustainability that includes um life cycle cost analysis but includes all sorts of solar they've done solar on on schools on parking structures on public uh places they're experts uh they give lectures they give presentations so our team understands the financing our team understands the nuances i mean they'll be able to come in and help right-size the the uh solar systems um they're very good at what they do did that answer the question yes i think okay thank you for your response thank you uh we can't hear you now i said thank you for your response yeah they just just just add they'll they will develop a district-wide program for you um you know want they look at the long-term thank you next question will be uh by trustee pham we'll ask the next two questions okay will you give the board a summary of the cost control and accountability procedures you use with contractors and subcontractors to ensure that a project stays within its allocated budget and timeline to the extent possible while ensuring compliance with all labor and workplace safety laws yes thank you so i think to start um really what it comes down to number one is understanding the scope and then building a relationship with the contractor and then as we talked about how we have our standard best practices our cost control process we have regular scheduled checking meetings with the contractors there are certain time frames that if something does come up they're required to notify us so we have a visual on everything that's going with on the project with scope this also keeps them accountability contractual wise as well as we are we understand what buckets are used for other allowances or contingency and how to authorize those um those scopes as well as they should understand there there's no reason for ever to be authorized on scope or building scope that's not already approved to go forward that's something that making sure you have visibility with that as well as understanding the project documents and being involved with the design team um and managing the project's schedule as well making sure that you know in your weekly oacs you're doing a three week look ahead you're managing day-to-day process what's happening on site and understanding that they're not doing any unauthorized work and then at the same time managing the cost control change order process with the district going through these are potential risk items and this is how we're going to mitigate it and this is how we track it just to add to that our our philosophy during design is to make sure the architect's designing to the budget so 30 60 90 we're doing uh budgets validating what the architect's telling you and making those decisions to get it back under under control backing budget during the early parts of the design not waiting till the end and just to close that out and with the you know prevailing wage uh making sure and meeting workplace safety um understanding that being in the process in our kickoff meeting going through uh how the project should be set up as well as the regulatory requirements that they have to meet nice time could you name a time when your firm has had a conflict with the contractor and elaborate on how your firm resolved that conflict to ensure the timely progress of the bond finance project yes we had um a contractor actually in high school district where uh they had a tendency to not do their paperwork to um constantly have delays um look try to look at everything that they couldn't do as an excuse rather than trying to figure out things that they would need to do if there were any concerns and they were at one point we had a schedule that was uh three months out of black and there was a large number of change orders that were being asked for because of their concerns um a number of different things we did we first started started trying doing things through channels the way in the project meetings and uh with letters and with emails and that sort of thing when that didn't work um i actually would take a side a couple of times the owner of the company and tell him where his failings were and sometimes i would get a little bit better uh work from these people and sometimes not uh finally we resorted to uh sending legal letters stating you know the schedule was off you know it gave them all the backup as to why they should where they should be and why we were they weren't why it was important that they get back onto their schedule um as well as making sure that any any added costs that they were thinking that they were owed that they had to do that through contractual uh change orders and when at the end of the project they came to us with a like 150 000 worth of change orders that nothing had been said the paperwork had not been done directly for contract i just want to add that a lot of the districts that i work for i get brought in when a project goes bad we're not part of it but all of a sudden they say we're under water struggling we brought a high school that was way behind schedule everybody was fighting brought into project manager and ultimately got the school open on time okay uh next we have questions um i'm sorry my questions uh so the first question that i have is have you been a part of any questionable behavior how would you deal with it and how would you go with a board member or staff asking you to be involved in any questionable behavior or activities such as fraud we we just avoid it that that's a red line that we will never cross as a company um you say question behavior between us and a contractor or board member or someone something like that any question or behavior yeah whether it's any of that no that's not tolerated that's not tolerated the public you know k-12 is important in the community k-12 has got a great responsibility i'm sure this group has cleaned up a big mess beforehand that i'm aware of and i think you've done a great job to get to get your audits being audited passing them i think that you'd be commended how do you do that well you were straight up you were transparent you were communicated set goals and objectives and if any behavior if we become aware of it i'll probably go to you first i just you know to somebody and say i just got approached by so-and-so that ain't right and by being transparent by being open i have never seen anybody approach us in my in my career and that's over 42 years because i've always gone to companies that were just honest period um so yeah if someone came up to me and wanted to do some shenanigans no because when i added that or just from again it's from the the the culture of the company right that that's how we manage individual projects as well so just in terms of subcontractors and contractors they understand that um we do it right we do a transparency with transparency and it's important to us the community is important to us that we do things properly with integrity and i think people around us work with us realize that very soon so we don't ask thank you uh next question how would you deal with that delay in a project when would you let the district staff know about any delays do you have any examples of any delays in any of the projects you have been a part of and how did you deal with that sure um yeah i can start actually well to start it with transparency so these things aren't coming up as surprises right we're having our weekly schedule check-in meetings as well as our meetings with the district as well so they're they're involved in the entire process now we would let the district staff know immediately and i have a good example actually recently on one of our projects we had a material delay because of uh supply chain and covid and this was something that we had some specific material that needed to be here so we as working with partners with our contractors right in our meetings we're looking at how can we resequence the schedule how can we mitigate this how can we uh manage around this so we can absorb this while still holding an end date so understand a lot of these buildings this one specifically had an accreditation deadline that if we didn't finish in time we weren't going to have accreditation for this program so it's extremely critical that we found a way to get it completed and how we did that was using our resources using our again our partnerships with our contractors and with the district as well in meetings how can we get around this how can we sequence we ended up doing was resequencing how we built the vertical on part of the building so we can come back and do the other portion later so really it comes down to if it's open discussion we have experts working with us we'll figure out how to get it done because we know what's the most important as delivering a project just to add to that um we don't just send paper to the contract you're like that doesn't do any good so on that one project i told you there was real big trouble there was a war between the contractor the architect and the district we came in there and we started working with the contractor and we gave them options i'm not just saying give me a recovery status we gave them options we've said you know this one sub is struggling get somebody to help them um we brought a project manager in that work for the project to talk to everybody they got an answer squared so that's proactive thank you next question from trustee linda chavez uh indoor air quality is at the center of concerns about how schools can safely open during a pandemic what would you do to solve the air quality issues in element the good thing again because we're integrated services we've got estimators uh and mechanical electrical uh especially mechanical uh that will come in take a look at a system have ideas work with a designer and it also is hand and glove with our sustainability and energy group they do the same thing it's all about building health so we can attack it from two different ways early on you can say if you do this give you you know if you put in uh you know this sort of filter or if you start putting in uh separating rooms whatever it is we'll give you options early on with cost and schedule and impacts how's that going to affect the students how's this going to affect the teaching so we've done it we're doing it throughout california right now especially southern california so i've got a really strong team pick up the phone bring them to bear we'll have solutions for you very quickly yeah and one of the things that we with all the different experts of various things that we have there's there's a lot of people that can think outside the box and they'll look at all different options that there are um one example of that was there was a school where they had painted their windows shut you know and that used to be a thing that i used to see a lot of and and so when this started you know one of the things is outdoor air so what one of our people suggested is why don't we fix the windows put a screen on them and then keep them open whenever it can be and something as simple and you know inexpensive as that can really make a difference okay thank you besides all the of the five projects that a previous board approved in 2014 and bond money was available and supposed to be spent to finish those board approved projects in your expert opinion what are the safety issues that need to be addressed first or immediately here in elm rock so to clarify your question these projects haven't been finished they're still ongoing and they're they're occupied students um so first and foremost get out to the site meet with the principal meet with the people on site figure out egress make sure that the work and the workers are separated i've been doing this for 25 years with schools and occupied campuses making sure that the barriers are safe making sure that signage is clear making sure that that the principal's aware of okay this is what we're gonna do we we put out weekly updates this is what we did this week this is what we're gonna do here the impacts so that they can distribute to the school and to everybody here and understand what what are the challenges and what are the mitigation items we're going to take care of and also understand testing understand the quiet times the school needs to have and work the contractors to the off hours whenever possible anything else no say safety is a priority i'll just wrap it up with that thank you and last questions from vice president all right uh so the question is gonna be asked is one that was already you responded to in a packet what the packets are somewhat dated so i think it's important for us to provide opportunities to all those that are here presenting to respond to this have you had any risk litigation or significant conflict within the last 10 years with any of your clients so please tell us so um i will tell you this let me start with this in california we don't have any real disputes there have been a few uh across the country because we are a national company and we have acquired a few businesses that have had lawsuits already pending everything that we have gotten involved in litigation has always been resolved but i will tell you this that um the california team specifically the west coast team uh yeah and i mean for iraqis this way um no litigation we avoid it we resolve it we we're proactive we communicate we're transparent you know it's resolve the problems it's kind of a lean construction technique which is resolve the problems called last planner at the earliest and and best opportunity to resolve a situation so if it's a all of a sudden we find a conflict i've seen it where it's a great map four years ago but where the structural engineer is talking to the iron worker because there's a conflict between the anchor bolts and and the structural steel well they both work together and washed it for an hour she'd go can you do this he goes no i can't do that maybe i can do this she no can you do that and they worked out a problem for a hundred fifty thousand square foot mat poor it was magic so we really believe in taking care of the problem early on if a dispute is starting to come together bring the right people in the room and mediate it at the lowest possible level at the soonest time second question is once again uh this has been laid out from the documents that you've provided however the public should know and should get a snapshot of what your strategy is and how you you approach feeds please explain your pricing structure do you include automatic escalators and any overhead in your proposals please provide an example of items for which you would typically build a district so the way we bill is we developed a team we have an agreed to hourly rate and we bill for actual hours worked so these projects are going to do this one day it'll be one one two people might be seven back down so in real time you get to see at the end of every month who was working on a project in the description what they were doing and be able to know what we're charging so in our package i said what's called our ppme it showed my projected over three years uh all the work that was going to be done and who was going to perform the different aspects of the work once we come on board with you what we would do is take a look at that and then refine it and come to an agreement okay here's a gmp so with that you know what your exposure is we work to be as efficient as possible um we have a three percent a year that's standard in the industry uh escalation to our fee rate um so you know about it in advance you know when it's coming there's no surprises we you know we have to be your advocate we have to be your partner you you know we can't give you surprises we can't very transparent if we have expenses we'll let you know we'll get them approved in advance yeah if we see some big changes that we didn't expect we'll talk to you first we're not going to throw out a change order we're going to talk to you first and say hey you know this is really you know turned out to be what much different than what we play so at any given time we really hold to our budgets you always know what you're paying for and you always you know can challenge us thank you thank you very much now this concludes the question uh portion of our interview if you can uh patiently wait in the room next door and we will bring you in at the end when we make our decision okay thank you very much appreciate all of you thank you very much we'll have a three minute break in between uh the setup take down here take down the setup of the next firm see you back in three minutes and in that process just uh named the final firm we have tri group coming up there is something just opportunities and less reasons for see we're here and they're not okay so it's 8 13 um we are still waiting for the firms to set up so thank you public for your patience um not sure what's happening just waiting patiently so we just found out the reason it's taking a little longer is because they're in the computer lab so thank you public for your patience hopefully there's a root conditioner welcome you are our final firm yeah yes please it took us a little longer to bring you in since you were a little further thank you danielle and just give us a thumbs up when you're ready to book it we're good all right um so welcome uh this is tri group and we'll go ahead and start with your presentation portion and then after that we'll go into the questions and answer portion welcome you can join us at the podium and speak from the podium um for your presentation good evening adam a board president members of the board of trustees dr bauer mr chang good evening first of all i'd like to introduce my name myself my name is june roja from tri group and with me is mr brian rasmussen the vice president of the right group and dr peter parente also another vice president of tri group i'd like to thank all of you for inviting us to this interview it really is a pleasure for us to be here so with that we'll go ahead is it correct the board room is unneeded and the firm is moving is that correct all right thank you a couple seconds okay thank you this is a i'd like to go over about the right group our organization our project approach and team uh what's different about our firm and then we'll be happy to answer any questions from the board so tri grip has been uh in operation since 1987 and continuously for the last 34 years we're a firm with very diverse experience and we represent not only individuals with facilities experienced but we have previous administrators we have four former superintendents assistant superintendents we have four licensed architects in our firm engineers general contractors communication experts so we really have the depth that allows us to be able to provide service to our clients we're a medium-sized firm 48 personnel with offices in california in philippines and canada and we've managed over three billion dollars of direct uh program management construction management for uh school districts with their bond programs so with the composition of our team not only do we understand your challenges we've been there we can manage difficult conversations on behalf of alumni school district when that is ever necessary for us to do that we will do that and we don't shy away from that thank you so we are unique again as i said because of the composition of our firm and that allows us to be able to look at district bond programs not only from the perspective of someone with construction experience but also from an educator's standpoint because we believe at the end of the day a bond program should support student success and should support the curriculum so beyond buildings we build relationships and we only have one client in mind your students so for us our approach has always been it is never our bond program this is your bond program and we are here to help you in any way shape or form that you believe you want to take your bond program to so everyone in this field may know construction however our team knows the direct correlation between the built environment and student success and what you see is what we get we really feel our clients with staff that are seasoned so we don't bring in someone that would do on-the-job training we don't do that you know we really believe that the district should get what they pay for and that is with seasoned experience one of the things that really sets us apart is we have a communication and outreach plan we actually have a full-time staff uh that if we're fortunate enough to be selected for alan rocky in your school district we will have a full-time person helping the district communicate with its contingents so with that with the bond programs that we have managed even now currently for a large school district unified school district that we're helping with tri group introduced what we call a labor partners meeting and in that meeting we meet with all of your union presidents executives and we tell them what's going on with the bond program on your behalf we have done a lot of school site meetings we work with cboc because we believe that at the end of the day it's important for the public to know what the district is doing with the bond dollars and cboc plays a role in that aspect and so we really work with them again we we don't manage meeting were there as a support to the cboc they are in the independent body established by statutes especially if uh if if you've done a bond program uh you know the prop 39 that requires a cvoc we do social media on the district's behalf blog posts twitter facebook linkedin and we do a lot of community outreach and we do a lot of surveys on your behalf at the end of the day a bond program is measured whether or not it is on time and on budget because if it's not on time it impacts students if it's not on budget that means you have less money to spend on other programs that the board would want to accomplish and we also recognize that project schedules need to fit the educational calendar to make sure that students are not impacted by the projects and we will always work to make sure that your interests are protected one of the things that tri group developed for our clients is the art of a bond program and art stands for accountability responsibility and transparency we want to make sure that we represent you as the board to your community by making sure that the bond dollars are spent and that it is spent in a way that's accountable to the public that we take our responsibility seriously that we do everything that is written in your bond language that you have approved and that were transparent in that process and we want to make sure that not just from the beginning but each and every time a project starts we will meet with the community we will meet with your principals with your teachers so there are no surprises one of the things that we're very strong in is we tend to over communicate than not communicating or minimal communication our four focus areas deals with budget schedule record keeping communication and outreach these are the four pillars uh that we follow every time we manage a bond program again i've talked about budget and schedule but because sometimes some of your projects are supported by state money we want to make sure that your record-keeping is uh really solid and again we want to make sure that we communicate with you with your administration and cboc and the public and the staff so why to your right group first of all we recognize that public programs are a public trust and that trust demands accountability responsibility and transparency we will work with and hold all vendors and consultants to your district accountable because that's what you expect from us if you again if we're fortunate enough to be selected and a principle that we have practiced in our firm which we actually have developed is a dollar doctrine principle of a dollar doctrine what that simply means is that album rock school district when you pay someone including us all of your vendors your consultants contractors if you pay them a dollar you should get a dollar in return and perhaps a dollar twenty if we can even get that but the district should never get less than what it pays for and we are very committed to make sure that we do our best to make sure that you're getting that dollar whatever that contract amount may be and sometimes when that happens when we're really holding people accountable it leads to very difficult conversation but we can assure you that our team will always protect your interest i think this slide really represents why we're different you can see a lot of acronyms uh initialisms abbreviation right on the blue section are are those acronyms initialisms that pertains to the typical program construction management firm and right on the green are again acronyms initialisms abbreviations that the education side the curriculum side uses what's different and unique about the uri group because of our composition again with not just facilities uh folks but also educators is we understand each and every acronyms and acronym and abbreviation initials that's there for example the very end when you talk about ada in the blue section uh that's stands for if you're from a facilities frame of mind that's americans with disabilities on but when when you get to the green from the curriculum side it's average daily attendance so i think that's the strength that we offer uh to your district so what's uniquely different despite all the bells and whistles that you you'll hear from the firms we will put in seasoned professionals in your project and again for us we're not just consultants we want to be a partner with you we want to make a difference for you and the students because quite simply it is our passion thank you thank you and uh now we're moving to the question and answer portion of our interview and you have the questions in front of you on the table um we will then uh turn over to the laptop in front of you uh danielle is going to help us set that up and we will go down the questions as they are presented we'll go ahead and start with trustee ednesto by hidano who is joining us virtually and we'll present the first question uh trustee if you can give us a couple seconds to set up the audio go ahead okay quick sound check can you hear me all right good okay so thank you very much for the presentation uh we have the opportunity to submit one second trustee sorry about that president you can answer from where you're sitting yes thank you good okay we had the opportunity to submit several questions my question is kind of several questions in one so i'll just go ahead and read my question and i'd like to answer that so the question is do you have experience developing and implementing a district-wide solar energy program if no what is your familiarity with financing options available to districts and what would your approach and strategy be in developing a solar energy program in alam rock if yes please describe your experience and how it would be beneficial to the development of a solar energy program yes theo right group actually has a solid experience uh in developing and implementing a district-wide solar energy program in fact we just finished a 30 million dollar solar installation for hayward unified school district that encompasses 32 sites 32 school sites so what would be how would first of all we believe that it's very beneficial not only because it protects the environment saves the environment but from a financial standpoint it really saves the district's school money for example the project that we have the 30 million dollar project we have done would actually net the district over 60 million dollars for the life of the bond program uh and all that stevie's obviously helps the general fund you know the process that we believe districts should do first is to make sure that there is a feasibility study that is conducting an engineering study you look at the district's you know energy expenditures in the last 24 months and then you analyze what would the benefits of installing a solar program and when we talk about solar energy that is not just limited to the rooftop solars or the parking shade solars what we've done uh when working with our clients is we encourage them to look at energy storage battery storage we look at ev electric electric vehicle charging stations because all of that can include can actually result in additional savings for the district so you do the feasibility study if it makes sense you do an rfq you you know you vet the potential vendor that will do this and there's a specific government code that will help school districts determine and vet some of those firms so again it's a very quick way to say that yes we've done it we've worked with other school districts other than hayward greenfield for example school district is in the process of implementing that we've worked with them and so so yes we've done it thank you the next portion will be presented by trustee evening family thank you okay yeah i am okay uh when you give the board a summary of the cost control and accountability procedures you use with contractors and subcontractors to ensure that a project stays within its allocated budget and timeline to the extent possible while ensuring compliance with all labor and workplace safety laws i'll ask the brian rosenstein to respond thank you so the the reality is a budget is made during the design of a project and not during construction and while managing it during construction is really important it is really important to be managing the architect through the design process and doing cost estimating and checkpoints along the way to make sure that the project is designed to be within budget in the first place once you move to the construction phase there are various controls that we can put in place we track things so during the course of construction simple things like what's called a request for information an rfi issued by a contractor you can tell based on the question whether there's potentially cost associated with it so while you don't have a change order yet from the contractor we track those things as potential exposures and costs so that we can see where we're falling towards and against the budget relative to um you know on the big picture so that we know how much money we have left and where we stand and you can also track that relative to time over the course of the project and just have a general feel for whether you're having numerous issues up front and you're heading towards a budget problem and that you may need to implement some other measures in order to correct that the question also talks about timelines uh contractors need to submit schedules we typically make pay applications monthly on projects contingent upon having a construction schedule submitted so that we have checkpoints what their perspective is you generally develop just a feel for the project and to know how it's tracking time wise but the bottom line is they don't get paid until they've submitted all the proper paperwork that allows us to monitor the project and make sure that it's tracking on schedules so that you end up with a project on budget and on schedule when it's completed next question uh could you need a time when your firm has had a conflict with a contractor and elaborate on how your firm resolved that conflict to ensure the timely progress of the bond finance project okay i'll use a recent example and i mean i would say off the bat you know we are the district's agent so if there's a conflict we're representing the district and it's a conflict with the district that we're trying to help mitigate and manage but we were recently asked to take over a 60 million dollar project that was mid-course was close to a year behind schedule was having significant budget issues and we stepped in and so our first thing was to immediately do an analysis the project what was going on and what was happening and what we learned was it all boiled down to more of a personality issue between the design team and the contractor and a failure to communicate in a proper manner and by stepping in we brought in the principles of those firms and had a meeting to talk about communication and the staff assigned and we were able then to work through that and the project moved forward much more fluidly after that and we were able to successfully complete the project for the district at the end of the day though it is the district's money and we need to have that in our best interest so we can't allow a contractor that's looking for expenditures that they're not entitled to and there are mechanisms in most contracts that allow the district to force the contractor to proceed and it can be resolved at a later date that's like a last resort but you know there are legal terms within most construction contracts that allow the district to not allow it to end up stopping a project causing yet further issues with schedule and or budget time is money so that equates to you know an issue for the contractor if the time extends they have more overhead and you need to look at that and mitigate that as part of the process thank you the next questions will be presented by trustee linda chavis [Music] oh i'm sorry i wanted to just skip over my questions okay so the next question is have you been a part of any questionable behavior how would you deal with a board member or staff asking you to be involved in any questionable activity for example thank you for the question madame president first of all theo right group has never been a part of any questionable behavior have we been around it yes but we have never been a part of that and how would we deal with it with a board member or staff asking to be involved in pressured questionable activity quite simply we won't and our firm principle is simply this we would much rather lose the contract than be a part of any questionable or fraudulent activity why because at the end of the day students feel and parents feel that the school district their schools are the safest places for them and if we don't do our job managing and and being accountable to the public funds because it's going to questionable activities the students are the one that gets hurt and they're the ones that will not see the value of the community supporting the bond measure because it's not directly benefiting them because going to other inappropriate activities so our position on that is very strong in fact uh as a firm to ri group never on our own while we are let me rephrase that we are always available to you to the board members to administration to answer questions at any time but it is not our practice to actually go out to individual board members and communicate with you directly behind the scenes we just won't do that but if you have questions we're more than happy to answer that we follow the district approved process we will do everything that we believe is right for your district and for your students so again to the point that we're willing to lose a contract and walk away from a contract if we are ever uh exposed to that and and if we have to take action to surface that with you or board or administration we will do that thank you thank you next question how would you deal with the delay in a project when would you let the district staff know about any delays do you have an example of any delays in any of the projects you have been a part of and how did you deal with that so our normal course of action in working with the district is there's typically you know whoever our point of contact is we're having regular meetings with them so instance at the moment working with hayward unified we have a standing weekly meeting at the project level and we have a standing weekly meeting at the program level so if things are suspected that they're going south as far as the schedule and there might be a delay on the project it would be discussed at one of those meetings depending on what it's related to if something is escalating and becoming more urgent then we're working we're reaching out directly at the time we become aware of any thing that might be impacting the project that whatever the facilities team or whoever we're interact with needs to be kept apprised of what's happening so we're doing that constantly i mean and as i talked about earlier we get schedules monthly at least from the contractor your general walk of the job site through the course of every week you can get a feel for whether a project is tracking or not they the contractor also weekly has to supply you just a short look ahead over the next couple of weeks you can track whether they're falling off of that course those are all red flags to start to indicate that there might be a problem so we are constantly communicating and if there is anything major happening on the project the district is the first point of contact to immediately notify them that anything may be happening as far as recent recent projects as i mentioned that project that we took over construction there were a number of delay issues relative to that the contractor had fallen behind on submitting the schedules um you know we literally ended up holding three months of payments until they got caught up with the schedule procedure it's important that that data is provided otherwise you can lose control and not know where you stand it is important to constantly make sure that the required documents are there to make the contractor accountable for what they're doing thank you and now custody okay indoor air quality is at the center of concerns about how schools can safely open during a pandemic what would you do to solve the air quality issues uh in allen rock thank you for your question even long before the pandemic we knew that indoor air quality mattered when it came to student uh success and uh teacher success um as a long time teacher myself and school principal i could see that in classrooms when um indoor air was getting stale or when doors and windows were kept closed and the air conditioning was just recirculating 100 percent of that air so when co2 levels go up students get sleepy um especially after lunch i will say now we've also seen indoor air quality affected by the pandemic and fire smoke so at this point we know that technologies have been have improved and we're looking at increased hepa filters the ability to in pull in fresh air at all times when that's safe to do so and to make sure that also there are efficiency measures in place so that machines aren't running all day and all night long and we can also make sure that the systems are actually up and running each and every school day i would uh also recommend as uh my experience tells me that it still lands at the end of the day with some sense of control in the classroom by the teacher who can make sure that the temperature is adjusted accordingly without having a separate centralized control at the district office where somebody else determines what the ambient temperature should be um so thank you for your question anything else to add to you i'd like to add too uh that this obviously is very important topic right now we currently uh uh are doing what we call the covet risk assessment for one of our clients that we are actually going uh room by room not only sorry i think the timer just changed but real briefly in addition to just air quality we want to make sure that there are uh face mask available gloves the uh sanitizers all that so we're checking room by room and i and i believe uh districts as a matter of course and practice should be doing that along with air filtration systems thank you besides all of the five projects that a previous board approved in 2014 and bond money was available and supposed to be spent to finish those border-proof projects in your expert opinion what are the safety issues that are needed to be addressed first and immediately and have you looked up the scope of the work on the emg report in 2018 the issues that need addressing [Music] so thank you for the question first of all i think with where we are right now the the priority issue should be the ventilation hvac system right because we don't know when this pandemic will end so i believe of the the the projects that should take precedence and be prioritized would be hvac systems in addition to that there are some day-to-day things that i believe exists in alum rock right now for example in your playgrounds in your pavement areas there are a lot of alligator not just alligator cracks but really deep depressions that potentially if you have not experienced a great deal of it yet that students can get hurt so i think anything that's related to safety should be addressed playgrounds so um those would be what we believe if you have a certain limited amount of money uh all of it should be uh focused towards what is going to be creating a safe environment for your students do you have anything just as a i mean at hayward unified again when we started with that broke bond program two and a half years ago our team i mean myself i'm a licensed architect and a licensed general contractor we put three teams together and we did our own visual site assessments and walked every single campus walked into every classroom we took photographs we developed the matrix of conditions of different things not in a detailed sense but we can you know come in and help you identify the issues and walk your sites and look for things and then we can work with you and your staff to prioritize that based on budget and funding available and i could add one more caveat to that i just finished a facilities master plan recently for a school district in california the teachers and the principals knew where the safety hazards were they're the ones getting the injury reports at the office manager's desk and they could point out which crack needed filling or which trip hazard or other issue became apparent so part of this assessment is actually listening to the staff on the campus thank you and the next uh last but not least questions will be provided by vice president some of these questions were asked in the the initial information or the rfp those that was put out but um it's been a while the information is somewhat dated so i wanted to provide the opportunity for all firms to go ahead and respond to this uh have you had any recent litigation or significant conflict uh within the last 10 years with any of your clients and so please collaborate thank you for the question uh mr quintero tri group has never been sued or any claims have been brought against us not just in the last 10 years but since the existence of the firm for the last 34 years so we have never been involved in litigation we've never been sued we've never had any significant in fact let's say we've never had any conflict with any of our clients um so we're it's again integrity is very important to our firm as i've said earlier we'd much rather walk from a contract than be part of anything that's questionable um so we're happy to report to you that you know our answer to this is very brief because we've just never have been involved in these kinds of situations thank you all right the next one is please explain your pricing structure you include automatic escalators and any overhead in your proposals please provide an example of items for which you typically build a district once again the this is information that's here the idea is to allow the public to be aware of what what they're in for because they're ultimately the ones that are paying for this thank you we really looked at uh you know being a former um school district administrator we've been all of us actually have been a lot of our team members have been on the other side and one of the things that i believe is important is for school districts to deal with credible and reputable firm that once a contract has been agreed upon that is a contract right so as a matter of course once it's been signed we don't even look at the contract again because we know that we are so focused in delivering quality work for you the board the administration again but most importantly for your students so when we look we basically look at our pricing this way once there is an agreed upon price that is our price we never go back to you asking you for additional money uh or again nickel and diming the district that's never been our practice in fact we give a lot of freebies to our clients we never charge them for the only time that we would go back to the district to revisit the fee is that the district wants us to do something that's over and beyond what was in the original scope of the program and we believe that is a reasonable conversation to have because when things change then you know there's a potential uh additional efforts uh that might be required so we would like to have that conversation but if everything has been defined by the district and once we agreed on that fee we guarantee that we will never go back to you for additional fees we will finish it from start to end and part again of our principles in the end if we didn't do our calculation right and we end up losing money we lose money we will never go back and ask for more that's just that's just how we operate as simple as that there's a fee agreed upon and we stick to that fee we'll never ask you for anything extra thank you so much and this concludes our interview for today um if you can please uh wait in the room while we figure things out and then call you back at some point thank you for your patience and uh great thank you very much that's the opportunity to be here thank you thank you so trustees at this point uh we will tally up our scores we will submit our forms um our staff will then support us in telling everything up and putting the totals together and then presenting those at some point i see jess at the podium do you have anything to add mr serna well um we're almost there um um at this point you have the four sheets on your laptop um i think and if you need some assistance that maybe down the end may help you if you think you need it at the end of each you press the submit button that score gets submitted and then we will tabulate all the scopes at the end um i i don't know um if you will need to have any more public comments at any point at this point uh prior to probably just prior to your vote i believe that phone call yes thank you um so during this time as we are telling up um our google forms just uh wanting to ask my peers and uh necessarily see you here um are you okay with having public comment first and then finalizing our forms uh i i already submitted and we got to figure out this um i think we need to put our i can't hear you ernesto so we need to figure out so i can hear what you're saying um give us one second and thank you all for your patience as you all know we're doing our best to ensure that our public is involved that we're as transparent as possible that we're able to do i'll deal with all the technical difficulties so thank you for um being patient with us let's try it again trustee can you hear me yes okay i already pushed my submit button on all of my so mine are submitted so i'm okay either way okay um are you all okay he's okay with taking public comment at this time any oppositions to taking public comment at this time okay so mr chavez can you help us with public comment um any members of the public wishing to address the board uh yes madam president at this time we have no public comment okay um okay i'll wait a couple seconds see if we have anybody pressing on that button do we now there's still none okay all right so at this time uh we will finalize the completion of our google forms um danielle is here to help us if we need support in submitting any of the forms thank you and thank you public for your patience if i make president uh that i i believe our staff will be able to allow you allow to display the final totals at the end correct so we are going to be submitting the forms and then allowing time for staff to gather that so again public thank you for your patience okay i'm guessing jose and danielle are involved with the receiving and uh you all will let us know when we have that total um thank you again public for your patience and thank you staff for working so hard no pressure this is where we should have some background music i know right linda's gonna sing a song for us nice can you hear me yes well since we're waiting i'll take a quick opportunity to wish uh an alumrock graduate my daughter a happy 16th birthday we talked last month about our last meeting about how we all parents and families and teachers how we all work through a lot of special events to all of us and you know this it just speaks to the importance of this work that we're doing that we all make the decisions to you know i know people have worked through anniversaries and birthdays and things so so happy birthday to my daughter and and you know we're again it just shows the commitment all of us as a community have to getting this work done and doing it right happy birthday to her can you say her name her full name yes for sochi beautiful happy birthday thank you for letting your dad hang out with us i swear it would be more fun to be hanging out with you oh my so ernesto what type of cake did you buy for her 16th birthday uh we're actually gonna go do something tomorrow because of tonight's meeting so she'll she'll she'll let us know that tomorrow so we're postponing it delaying it for one day i thought you were going to say you're going to sing a song but i mean i'm not i'm not a singer will be thankful for that yay we're almost we're almost there public exciting times so a day we've a lot of us have been waiting for especially those of us in this room and trustee in his home [Music] so are we gonna is are all of the um applicants gonna come into the room and then we're gonna pop it on the screen or do we know what that process is gonna look like already good question yeah maybe we can good question and dr um bauer just mentioned that we can probably bring in the reps um to then have that total be seen by all of us at the same time for safe percussion reasons unfortunately we can't have everybody here um but uh jess you know more or less the timing should we start calling in the reps the representation they have two or three right reps the from each three more or four the three people per person there will be 12 people i don't know if that's too many yeah or maybe we group them in each kind of corner they want to all come in um [Music] make sure yeah let's do that safety precautions especially with this variant and our numbers going up so let's call in the representatives whoever they choose to um get that total um and you know more or less the timing because i know it'll take some time to bring them in and maybe we can start bringing them in one performer we'll get we'll get a copy of this um will we get a copy with the spreadsheet of everybody's total yeah like you know because we'll see the totals here but i mean the one that has everybody exposing like everything that we put the last time we saw the one with everything kind of like how in my appointment interview yeah yeah yeah we saw everything i think that's been the kind of the practice that we've developed over time for appointments and i think i remember seeing just everybody's scores and i think that was even initially part of the purpose of the the google forms kind of thing is to be able to automatically tabulate collect and visualize all those scores let me uh ask staff and make sure that that's how i just don't want to say yes right and that's not what they have but it all makes sense exactly what you're all seeing mr cernak can you confirm that if we're going to have so we're going to have kind of a help we've had when mr pham was appointed when i was appointed um we'll have a total on the screen but that will have access to or even on the screen i guess it would be shown you want access to the individual sport well that's a question for danny yes please so if that's going to take a little longer so you can let them know if you can check in with them right i know they're coordinating that right now danielle are you listening to us and i don't expect yes okay awesome thank you we have awesome staff all around i think if we've collected it as we did in the past hopefully it's this when you do it like that it automatically populates a google sheet so hopefully that'll be visible available yes come on in as we're all waiting patiently anxiously like waiting for our final grade just a reminder to everybody thank you for your patience it's our first time back having this hybrid mode uh learning about you know what creates echoes what where we need to turn on and off so um but we have great staff taking care of things as they pop up so blessed with that i know that um every meeting let's roll back hopefully and are able to be back um it'll just get better and better and that we're able to provide um continue to provide the transparency the information um to our public and all those that have an interest in what we're doing here at alan rock um just very proud of uh everything that we've done already uh where we've been and what we've been through to where we're at now and where we're going so anxiously waiting the for the outcome and uh looking forward to continue to work with you all in one way shape or form you never know and i heard that i broke a record of our last board meeting up ending early so now i'm working on breaking my own record today it didn't happen but in the future in the future it might it might always another chance i have till december and at the rate we're going we're having special board meetings every uh every week it seems like so i'll have plenty of opportunities so when we get the totals hopefully it's clear well either way you know we have to break a tie you know we'll do that but if it's clear then um at that point we've already done public comments we will ask for the motion for that law that firm i'm sorry and then a second and then vote on it can i ask a question about the process now or do you want to wait until we get to that motion i think since we have time it's good to ask questions now um i know we mentioned we have the alternate questions that we're going to go with if there is a type um and then break the tie in that way okay so my question is once we get to the point um to be kind of finishing up the process here is the is what the staff needs is it a emotion that reflects the actual decision of the firm that's chosen or is it more in the form of a recommendation because um i'm assuming that once we give our get our results tonight there's some potential negotiation that needs to occur with regards to pricing and you know just all of the the specifics and maybe some further reference type work so i'm just wondering if we're going to be um putting on the table a motion to just like solid move forward with this firm or the recommendation that staff moves forward in vetting the firm and then moving forward as appropriate good question and you just reminded me of a conversation we had um so yes you're right uh it won't be just a solid because we do have some pending facts and some of the things you mentioned and then also um our staff will be looking jess do you want to go into more detail on that any other information it sounded like the question was after the is displayed there will be a vote on behalf of the board will officially vote to select the top rated firm to be the permits yes but also pending um we i remember i was talking about pending a background correct that's correct yes um and so making sure that we're clear on that right before we present that um so do you want to talk about those details or do you want me to go in further all right i think okay i know we have it in writing because i know we've discussed this so cover if you can help us maybe with that i know we put it in writing um i do remember and or just correct me if i'm missing anything um that um based on today's winner um it'll still be pending the background check further uh background check and then just like trustee picarano mentioned you know contracts and details um to be worked out and insured by both parties um am i missing anything on that cabrera no i don't think can you hear me yes um no i don't think so um here says the firm receiving the highest high score will be selected as the finalist and will be subject to a thorough background check if the final list is not clear background check the runner-up will be selected as the finalist and will be subject to a thorough background check and this process will continue until the fine is the final list clears background check so i hope that was clear thank you chelsea for your questions um any and good question and i'm glad we're saying that before uh we select the final one so i really appreciate that um any questions comments on that item good point that trustee personal is making okay i think daniel is ready to display the uh final tabulation uh one second daniel uh before we do that trustee so i heard that you know it is pending background checks but i know that in part of the questions that that we asked um the firms to respond to it also makes reference to pricing being negotiable so do we want to put into our motion specifically background check or should we just say some pending further um final vetting by the district by district staff or something like that and then that would include background checks any negotiation that needs to happen around pricing and any other things that that you know staff needs to cover i just i'm just a little worried that if we say background checks only but then they pass the background checks but if we can't come to some agreement on pricing then we kind of get stuck in a little something there so agreed and maybe um at the time when we make that motion if you want to make that motion and then somebody can second in um i think we're ready for the results um so as soon as we see the results if you want to put that motion out including that i like that the betting um and then hopefully one of us will second that and then we'll move forward thank you just and um are we ready yes okay without further ado here we go okay so we see the totals um trustee vegarano i i don't know if you want to help us with the motion um based on this are we going to see the the individual votes as well i couldn't hear somebody said something but actually so we could scrutinize those later we see the finals so can we i'm ready to make a motion i mean i'm just thinking in the interest of the public just to be like hyper transfer [Music] and if anybody sees some issues with um but the scores aren't reflecting when you submit it then now is the time to speak well we wouldn't know if it reflected what we submitted unless we saw the scores right can you hear me can you repeat that yeah i said we wouldn't know if it reflected the scores that we submitted individually unless we see the the individual tallies and again i'm i'm you know maybe going a little overboard but i just doing this and i guess in an abundance of transparency to make sure that it's very particularly with this um this specific contract that we're just super transparent about the selection process and especially because it's it's a very close vote so you know my my thought is just in the interest of being very transparent about how things were scored and not having to come back to that at a later date based on some questioning agreed let me check them with stuff okay danielle are you able to uh put the totals um per trustee and our submissions on a table okay he is working on that so thank you for your patience and i agree um [Music] a couple minutes more i hate to say i hate to add to the the time here but you know i just i think it's important no we're all with you uh trust me but i know we're all in agreement uh just trying to manage your the speaker here your voice the mu button believe me uh allowing you to speak pausing speaking but know that our staff are working diligently right now behind the scenes to get that information out and i'm in agreement for transparency reasons so thank you all for your patience okay here we have it uh the totals and um i'll leave them up i know each one will probably want to confirm that our numbers are correct so um as you can see the name of the firm is on top and the totals are okay i there that's i mean at this point i think first of all thank you um staff will say or whoever um is doing this it's an important part of the work tonight and i think at this point it's sufficient anyone who has questions can look at the youtube video or you know wherever they need you to reference it but now we've shown the votes so at this point then i would make a motion to um for us to have staff move forward with the top um top points for um as our as our firm that we contract with for this work uh pending any final vetting necessary by staff that's the motion [Music] i would suggest that uh maker of the motion to say who who the top scorer the person who got the top support or the organization that top square that way there's no question once again uh trustee if you can repeat the total scores as uh board vice president quintero suggested um do you need him to repeat that um i'll i can i just amend the motion to reflect that the top point getter is the coming firm followed by kich kicho jenkins gales and martinez and try group in the event of the need to go down the list based on that vetting process that i mentioned perfect uh yes and it was just seconded by vice president quintero and at this point i'm going to go ahead and call for the vote unless there's any questions comments or concerns by any of the trustees before we go there okay see none uh go ahead and just call your name as uh i have you here and on the screen uh trustee linda chavez trustee minfam and myself i'm passes unanimously uh thank you so much um so uh welcome cummings and thank you to all of you for uh interviewing with us tonight and uh we look forward to continue to be in community somehow or other uh and um yeah thank you everybody thank you public for your patience in this uh first hybrid meeting um and we'll see you soon again yes adjourning this meeting at 9 23. thank you good night

okay i want to say chris thank you very much for the the help that you've provided so far i appreciate it very much okay so what are yeah okay so that our next for next agenda for that you want that as an agenda item um let me just decide that i guess it would be september if we're doing a work group on in august right um yeah and i just want to remind people that uh if there are no other comments on items for the next agenda i also want to remind people that we need to elect um a chair and a vice chair at this meeting as well okay so that will be an agenda um so let's see if there's no other suggestions at this point um uh the next schedule meeting is august 26 2021 it will be a working session meeting and then we begin at 7 pm so the next item on the agenda is public commentary our second public comment period this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes please call and 1-888-788-0099-487-853-5247 meeting id 978-7334-3910 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 desired speed 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 of your comments and be patient there is a delay of up to 30 seconds before a connection is established is there anybody on the line right now galen no okay well in the meantime there's something i did forget with the chairs report and that is that i'm sorry i've been neglecting the commission business the last couple of weeks because i've been working very hard on fifa's um with the national sierra club and some other organizations on i just want to announce that uh debbie dingle had co had had uh written and submitted uh a bill called the pfas action act which uh as which is a significant alteration in how the epa and how and how the toska program handles pfas uh this bill passed the house yesterday after three years of consideration um i i do not know the complete details yet because of course there were amendments flying around at the last minute so i'm here to look at a final copy of it and i can send commissioners a report on that but what it does is that i had significantly empowers the epa to regulate pfas chemicals in their in our environment and their manufacturing use so uh we finally got some movement on this issue and so i'm looking forward to some relief for residents some businesses small businesses that are largely affected by this this will also possibly ultimately affect our ability to get some money to uh for whatever uh get some money obtain money for whatever remediation might be required um from our water treatment plant or our wastewater treatment plant with regards to fifa's contamination so um um kalyn is anybody else on the line anybody on the line right now uh no there's no one on the line okay so um this ends the public comment period and so i declare this meeting adjourned at 9 24.

thank you everybody see you next month

hey welcome everyone to the okay next item on the agenda is public comments regarding agenda items we have the comments regarding these yes i have a question regarding uh mr gibby's email about the copa 19 requirements i'm not sure if that counts as a agenda um you know what that is not really anything on the agenda however if you do have a comment about that we can address that into the media thank you following our next item on the board or the on the agenda is organization of the board collection of board officers first being the president of the board i find it easier to nominate people than you don't get nominated yourself i think i would like to nominate um mike white for president and russell harvey for vice president okay um okay do we have a second next item is the secretary of the board you know [Applause] okay have a motion okay next is the school board appointment as the legislative liaison that seems like a real good job for the president [Applause] okay [Music] deputy treasurer shelley gardner motion passes next i want you to do is to appoint the high school eca treasurer tina williamson hi motion is second to still is to appoint the corporation attorney susan traynor chastain with lewis and cappis final item here is to establish the date time and place of regular board meetings so it's still the still the fourth monday with the two exceptions obviously with okay minutes from june going to see two payrolls for june on wednesday june 4th 2021 for a total payroll of 432 491.37 along with that payroll came the accounts payable for payroll taxes and retirement her total accounts payable for the june 4th payroll 123 92 the second regular angle for june was dated june 18th for a total payroll of 643 429 and you'll notice that's a little higher than normal that's with retirement payouts accounts payable for retirement and taxes total accounts payable 207 387.77 and the next of your finance package you're going to see the pre-pays for june 2021 uh total for uh prepays for june 367 was there anything in particular anyone had a question about this one okay all right there's no question we'll just go ahead and move on to regular claims and that will be dated today july 26 2021 as with every july there's several reviews we have insurance licensing renewals we have software renewals there's lots of renewals if there's anything particular that jumped out at you that you are questioning i'd be happy to answer any questions on that there are number 12 accounts payable um our claims for data today july 26 2021 542 679.61 i'd like to point out that this month um there was a lot that was being paid out of the esser grants that's why those those claims are a little higher this month but almost all those higher end items i'm again happy to answer anything even after we're being related um any type of media on the internet or if they have to have like dvds or something that they want to play in their classroom we have to have a license to be able to do that in the classroom to excite you to see things about that in your education june 2021 1 million 28 814 and 70 and then operations you'll see that the balance is a little bit higher and that's because we had our payout in june for property taxes and as you know that helps support our operations for the rest of the year so it's been a little bit higher two thousand excuse me two million two hundred ninety one thousand ninety four dollars and forty seven cents if you'd like to go ahead and go to the last page of your funded report page six total current balance for all funds the end of june 2021 8 million 205 thousand forty four dollars and two cents if you'll take a look at your depository statement balances you'll see all the main balances there along with outstanding checks for each bank and then the balance after battles ball banks minus the outstanding checks you'll see at the bottom the june fund balance should be eight million two hundred five thousand forty four dollars and two cents for all thanks and you'll see that that matches the fund report thank today very much the final thing in the consent agenda is personnel reports part one and two of which are on the website just to add to that you know as a customary you know we're continuing to uh fill any last minute remaining vacancies before the start of the school year so any of those staff members that are in place but weren't on tonight's personnel report will be onboard on august 14th okay can i get a motion to approve agenda some have a motion in a second all in favor all of those questions the next diagonal is reports and the first up is assistant superintendent report documents so we just ended our first week of jumpstart our candy cruise program so we have an average 125 elementary kids every day and 30 milliseconds um [Music] and then after school program so i keep talking about it so today's finally here um we did a great job marketing and advertising we've had students um registered for k-8 um about 200 so 100 elementary and 100 middle school so we're able to set some criteria and go back through so we're also not going to be able to provide transportation from elementary families because we have no transportation on the bus strikers to be able to dedicate to that um so that's gonna sort of alleviate that for that so that's one criteria the other criteria is students that are going to come full time five weeks a week versus one day and then look at their time stamp on on registration and so families will be we're going through all those lists today and families will be notified by wednesday um whether they're on the waitlist as we expand staff we can we're still going to be able to have the ymca house at tv so and provide some financial assistance for families sounds good thank you next up is superhero yeah so just to add on a couple things obviously all of our staff has been working extremely hard to get our buildings grounds our staff in place and making sure that our teachers and buildings are ready to go so appreciate our administrators and maintenance crew custodians everyone it's really a team effort to make sure we're ready for the start of school as obviously we get ready for crunch time and return our kids on august 4th it always feels like we're not quite there but we always the staff and team really does a great job of pulling together and making sure we're ready to go so really excited about that and i wanted to thank everyone for that um just a couple of uh updates um we're continuing to make progress and meet with our focus groups and design teams for the different projects that will be taking place as a part of the larger building project um so we're still working through uh schematic design i've just been really impressed by the feedback and suggestions given from our team members and the work with krm as our as our architects so that work will continue to kind of take place we're almost reaching a point uh to where we'll be finished with schematic design and there'll while the architects develop construction documents and blueprints and prepare big packages for october and november um before ultimately hopefully awarding bids right around the end of november beginning of december and then ultimately begin work so no other work is commenced i'm outside of the turf and track project and that's underway that's scheduled to uh uh the turf um is scheduled to be completed um on september 1st with the track service scheduled for completion on october 1st um so talking to those our professionals there that project still is on time so that's exciting to hear but we will obviously continue to move forward with the work in those projects before work picking up on focus groups from work in our middle schools or excuse me our middle school our primary school they'll begin taking a deeper dive here i believe it's actually tomorrow morning looking at tz to see if we can't get a better handle on some of our moisture or water issues so that project will kind of go a little it's it's going to start a little bit sooner than originally anticipated because we know not all construction projects will be started at the same time so we're still working on what that sequencing or phase will be even with the work that's taking place at the high school itself we don't know the order of events you know we know that the science labs are a part of it but we're not necessary to a point where we know when the science labs will be completed because obviously we have to make you know if it's during the school year we have to make arrangements with our staff back so looking forward to seeing some of those things come come together here soon um in the next couple of months so we can move forward but overall very excited we had a very good concept um interest rate was really good so i'll have to follow the court net for the board next month on that um we're waiting on our immunization schedules but overall that was good and was a good market for our bonds uh second item i have is i've been providing the board your quarterly cash flow reports for education fund and operations funds so there's a couple of items that i just want to make make note of and you know one of the things that we've been talking about for i guess i could say over a year now is really honing in and balancing our budget to where we're not spending more cash than we're receiving and so we've had to make some you know difficult adjustments um throughout the school district for both education fund funded positions and also positions funded from the operations fund and ultimately if you can remember for the education fund your revenue is very our revenue pretty much determined based on our ada encounter that's our student account and so we've been averaging a net decrease of just over 42 students the last five years and we had not been adjusting our expenditures when we've been seeing decreased revenue so we spent a lot of the last year kind of right-sizing the ship with that making difficult decisions to not fill positions when people had left and you know in some instances reorganizing some of those some of those students and that's something that we have to continue to to do moving forward if our student enrollment decreases but overall i just wanted to kind of note or point out on the final page there's a three and a half year history for expenditures i'm in revenue monthly here today and so if you're when i'm looking at the far right-hand side of the page our year-to-date expenditures out of our education fund through the end of june we're right at 5.9 million whereas if you look in 2020 we're at 6.4 in 2019 we're at 6.2 so you can end in 2018.

um it was 5.8 so it increased steadily each of the last three years but then it decreased and so those adjustments and those changes that we've made has helped to obviously decrease our spending and some of those adjustments we haven't even for instance positions that we haven't filled moving in this next school year we haven't necessarily realized those savings so that will continue to kind of help us moving forwards because on the front page of your cash flow report you can see i have a column here it says match balance difference and so that's the cash balance of the end of june compared to the cash balance that we started the year with in january and the cash balance difference is net a positive of just over 186 thousand dollars but the important thing to note with this is because we couldn't afford all of our expenditures or yeah we couldn't afford all of our expenditures in our education fund we shifted some staffing positions to our rain day right around just under 400 000 annually so we don't necessarily have and then growth of 186 so when you're comparing that i looked at the expenditures from rainy days for staffing and we have 643.83 out of the rainy day so really we're to the good 344.71 so that's that is a good spot to be in because we're in the black there but we also know that we made some adjustments along the way and we've yet to see or realize we'll and so i'm predicting that we're going to end the year in the black for the second year in a row and that's a good thing but we obviously have to continue to make good decisions in order to make sure we're on track so just another kind of quarterly everything um with that so the other thing that obviously can really help with that is um obviously student enrollment coming back right we know the legislature has increased money loans but we can also benefit if our student enrollment doesn't decrease for this school year from where it was last year or hopefully maybe we can come back and see it grow a little bit stronger all those things will help our help our cash flow and help us with long-term improvement but overall making the progress not quite where we need to be but it's definitely a lot better than where we were a year ago today so i want to share that with you and then i won't talk in depth with operations fun seminar just comparing year-to-date expenditures 2020 versus um through the through june we're about 165 000 less so again we've made some adjustments there as well and we all actually also have a better than anticipated um engine so i know originally we were worried about those tax settlements but they've continued to kind of come back better than expected or strong and hopefully that'll be the same case from the center a couple of financial updates and then um you know just whether i return to school land uh so that's uh returned in-person instruction plan obviously that's been opposed to mature families and just much less or much like how we did last school year we're always working kind of move or meet that moving target and so as if and as conditions change you know through the pandemic obviously we're gonna have to be flexible and we might have to look at making more restrictions or hopefully things continue to go well and we can um loosen or reduce some food restrictions but we're we're going a mass option for next school year with the exception being our school buses it's a federal transportation mandate so we do have to wear masks on school business we are working very closely with the health department um we also have to you know contact tracing and family you know students or staff members manner and quarantine but working closely with them because the guidance and number of days have have been adjusted um we're following their guidelines for that and more closely um we're still uh you know coded also brought some good things with just our extra good cleaning protocols and procedures and just some some subtle changes that have been made to our campuses so we're going to continue with just great cleaning practices which help copen and everything else as well um but that's pretty much all i have for this month or have any questions i'm assuming we probably have a lot of last-minute people uh signed up for school i'm just wondering how your public registration was going especially with the kindergarten yeah so i talked to mike and then all right so kindergarten enrollment has been very very good i think i think jenny had said that enrollment just in general writ path was better than last year so that's positive at least 35 so yeah so we don't necessarily know quite where we'll be um but that's definitely a positive and we can grow our own home and really stay the same that's that's helpful and hopefully more students will come back to this i definitely have noticed a lot of uh cash transfer requests and non-resident transfer forms past couple of weeks of students have you been seeing any of the adventures is not the same [Applause] agenda is old business and there is no old business so we move on to the business and first of all an approval request for additional appropriation resolution yeah so this is just a standard resolution we have to pass with the selling of our bonds and the building project so it's my recommendation that the board over this resolution motion 2022 proposed budget calendar yep so it's my favorite time of year um budget season so i are actually close to kind of having the budget ready to go um but in your factory is our budget calendar and as you recall since we have an appointed board we have to follow some extra steps with the county council and so we have a calendar that in your packet that helps us meet all those uh state statutes and guidelines in order for us to move forward with an adopted project it's pretty much a corresponding dates dick as well and a second next item is an approval request for the idle school corporation amendment yeah so um this one is just more or less kind of a cleanup um with regards to high school we refer to ourselves as dreamcast high school but according to the doe we're still listed as green castle senior high school and so i'm just seeking proof to come to move forward to make that amendment to where we can call school and that requires board approval and i have to actually uh take care of that action here before um it doesn't change anything and just adjust the name next item is an approval request [Music] for food services hiring today increase yep so mrs carego [Music] has recommended that we adjust the starting pay for a cafeteria assistant from 10 50 to at 11 an hour these positions are all funded on the food service account and she's been doing very well with a food service fund balance and she can afford she [Music] next on the agenda is an approval request for some donations the first being hassler trucking company to greencastle high school athletics in the amount of fifteen hundred dollars a therapy dog yeah so we always appreciate everybody that donates to our school but the community foundation um is covering the cost for the training and the purchase of the therapy dog which mrs ward uh megan ward um the concert has been tasked with and listen so graciously volunteered to handle and to let the dogs stay with her and work on fundraising some of the other items or maintenance items but we just think that that's just such a adds a lot of great value for that school environment especially for some kids it might be having some struggles i just need that extra staff members too so it's my recommendation the board accepting these donations [Applause] [Music] i have almost [Applause] you tell me [Music] [Applause] visit others is other [Music] um you know our administrators and supervisor director has been working really hard to build some last minute vacancies but there definitely is a shortage and we're pretty much looking for every classification i'm employed from cafeteria workers custodians bus drivers ias instructional assistants and teachers so we are working to build a few of those and i know that we have one that you might have to look at a long-term substitute for because there just aren't any candidates out there and administrators you're exploring all avenues calling universities going the non-introduced route looking for maybe a teacher that might be a good fit but not necessarily licensed in that area so we're continuing to kind of work on that and kind of work through those things i definitely don't think that this is a new problem if the shortage is real we've been talking about it for years the legislature doesn't seem to necessarily believe that but it's a real shortage anyone else okay well in a departure from a regular board meeting um we have the children wanting to make a comment on the weekends school startup time and we know that's a relatively sensitive subject so we'll allow the comment um keep in mind we're not going to get into a question and answer and much dialogue so you are welcome to make your comment and um keep in mind we'll hear it and it will be considered whatever okay so there's no question answer okay well that's very unfortunate i uh unfortunately haven't had any answers from any questions i've asked so it's a little bit frustrating but i would like to share um you all know because i've emailed all of you um cdc recommends massively warm indoors this is from the cdc.gov slash foreign virus back to school k-12 guidance by the way this is a research by the cdc centers for disease control this is from expert scientists in a field who've been studying diseases and how to prevent them for decades and this is the solo non-partisan job of the centers of disease control and their recommendations include masks that should be worn by all individuals who are not fully vaccinated in schools and it says correct use of masks by people who are not fully vaccinated is especially important indoors and crowding set in crowded settings then additionally i know i've provided all you with the information that laurie ramsey chief first consultant indian department of health on june 4th 2021 she put a report on the indian department health website and that report suggests all students were not vaccinated which would include all students under 12 years of age wear masks indoors at all times with the exclusion of eating additionally i have been told this research was done locally here and our numbers were much better unfortunately i'm not allowed to ask questions but i did find on the indiana code dashboard the current number of positive cases active cases in the county is higher than it was last year at the same time um so that information i was provided is non-factual i want to make sure that was known and quantified it's literally on the any of the cova dashboard i have to show that to anybody anybody's willing to uh take the time to listen or look and also additionally if you look at the indiana code dashboard you'll find that right now to the point this month the 80 of the cases in the state have been found to be the delta variant of code 19 which is more transmissible than the other variants that we've dealt with in the past and it's more easily spread so i just like to go on the record personally just making sure everyone's aware that opening schools with zero national requirement whatsoever is extremely dangerous for the entire community while zero to 12 year olds may not be at a large risk for death they all have family members many as we just heard earlier 350 people approximately asking for child care we're only going to be able to offer 200 uh so the rest elderly grandparents aunts uncles whoever we only have 33 approximate vaccination rate around here i don't current number as of today but it certainly hasn't jumped over 50 um so i just want to go on the record and say i think this is uh risking lives i think it's going to cause a lot of people's sickness and i think it's very preventable with simplifying morning masks which we did last year in exactly the same circumstances thank you for your time you and you are recruiting derek jorgensen the next round about the engine is adjourned thank you okay thank you you

um all right well thank you thank you everyone who showed up for this public hearing we appreciate you being here we're going to call this meeting to order uh it is simply a public hearing to discuss instructional time model and attendance for the year 2021 and 22. we are here per in person diana butler myself and uh margaret gabby is on the phone jennifer uh brimhall and uh chuck waldo are not able to attend but we have a full quorum so we will proceed dr wright will turn the right over to the time over to you to explain this yes hearing thank you mr merrill we have uh the desire to make sure our schedule reflects what it has in the past the last three years there's no there are no significant changes however we do want to implement if necessary the ability to utilize flexible learning models to respond to inclement weather natural disasters or god forbid another pandemic that creates a shutdown that would be state mandated and so the there are not any real significant changes most of these changes outlined simply give our students credit for the work that they're doing and provides added flexibility this is a requirement by hb 2899 in the arizona department of education and two hearings another in addition to this one are required to meet the standard to enable us to adopt a flexible learning model again i want to re-emphasize we're not looking to change the school schedule we're not looking to do anything differently it is a monday through friday reflected just like it was at school's end in the event however we have to adjust because of uh circumstances beyond our control we want to be able to flex if needed in order to do that and to count that instructional time an uh flexible model is required so that's the purpose of this hearing uh the handout outlines a couple of things that might be of interest to folks the high school students are required to have at least 720 instructional hours grades 4 through 8 ninety hours and grades k through three excuse me first through third seven hundred and twelve hours and kindergarten students are only required to have 556.

trustees with the held in public was start time 603 if we could begin by rising we'll ask mr hoffman to lead us in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the united states america and to the republic for which it stands one nation thank you mr hoffman i've started our meeting this evening we have a patrons comments that'll be patrons registered to comment on educational issues i have a sign up sheet here i go down go down the list and call those that are on here to come up to the podium we have public comment uh you're given three minutes to speak on the topic that you'd like to speak on if the topics are continuous in nature you have 20 minutes total we'll also have i think mrs green in the back if anyone's walked in and would like to sign up there's there do you have it with on okay on the podium so we'll just start with the few that we have here um ask you when you do come up to state your name please clearly in your your address and uh you know the topic you're speaking on you'll roll right into what you'd like to say scott's gonna have time okay mr angel will take care of the timer um so see some of these are actually a little bit hard to read but it looks like chris chris likes to come forward david you also want to mention we're we're not here to answer questions yes thank you mr hoffman so the public comment we we just take the comment it's not inter we don't have an interaction back and forth um you know so you might listen to whatever yes you may have questions but we won't be answering those questions directly you know so it's just a comment opportunity to comment all right okay thank so my name is christine and my child is supposed to be a student here this coming year i'm sorry only because you're the first one just interrupt you for a second would you please state your address also with your oh sure 4141 augusta drive crown point indiana thank you i came to speak about the issues that will keep us from registering and continuing to be in the public school system my bra my background so you know is that i'm a holistic health practitioner and through this whole pandemic i've had thousands of patient visits maskless so the first issue i have is masks they're useless my child contracted covid from someone at school even though she was wearing her mask and the other child was wearing one as well an n95 mask filters particles down to 0.3 microns the virus is 0.125 so it goes right through an n95 making children who are unvaccinated wear a mask will create a hostile environment because everybody will know everybody's vaccine status they also cause lots of side effects including dehydration bacterial risk headaches sweating decrease in cognitive precision toxicity toxicity and immunosuppression the second problem i have is force mandating vaccines i used to be pro-vaccine and after my son was vaccine injured i had to research and that's why i became a holistic health practitioner the amount of vaccine injury i have seen since the introduction of this vaccine is insane the nuremberg code states the voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential this means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice without the intervention of any element of force fraud deceit duress overreaching or other ulterior form of consent or coercion and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision there is a reason children cannot have sex vote drink smoke do drugs and etc the vaccine is experimental and not fully approved you are part of the study if you take the vaccine every animal in the study died and they had to abandon the study a new lawsuit has been filed for forty five thousand deaths in three days the creator of the vaccine is begging the cdc and who to stop children have a 99.9 recovery of covet 19.

we exceed all these areas within this instructional model and have done so for you for years and so the uh the purposes of this again is just in the event that we had let's just say we had to evacuate because of a forest fire in the area and we were unable to attend in person for a period of time our students could switch to an online platform prepared like we had last year episodically as needed and the students would receive instructional credit as it were those minutes would be received toward the average daily membership for our students and that's important for funding frankly we also want to make sure that we have outlined within these procedures how our attendance is tracked that's one of the requirements so st teachers still have to track tens irrespective of the model that we have in place there's there are steps in place to make sure we know which students are participating who they are and to what extent are there any specific questions relating to the flexibility element within this adopted adoption we're seeking from the board and feedback from the community margaret do you have any questions no not at this time how about you diana well you know and i don't i was just looking at the hours our high school students exceed that our grades four through eight and seven through eight are right at what they need to be yes we've built we built in a little bit for inclement weather however this schedule would enable us to give credit for those if we had to have you know i guess ten years ago you could have four or five feet of snow in a relatively short period of time our community would not be poised nor are our facilities prepared to handle that much snow that quickly so we have to prepare for those things until just recently in the blessing of rain we were very much in fire in the danger of a forest fire in fact we had one in the wagonville area about six weeks ago that posed a threat we've had him at white river and thankfully though that at least for the moment for the next several weeks were out of the woods there no pun intended and then uh they're just that there's there's so many different things for which we must prepare that the state has allowed us to have this flexibility and i think one of the takeaways from the covet pandemic is that the state needs to be prepared to allow the schools to flex so i we are not looking to shorten the school day we're not looking to change any of the models and we're certainly not looking to move online only for any length of time i think it's important to announce and to reinforce mr president that we do not have an aoi which is an online instrument for students in k through 6.

a study done on covet patients that died were severely hospitalized had three or more comorbidities and a very low vitamin d level i personally haven't had a patient die of covid yet if a vaccine is mandated you can expect a lawsuit from myself and my fellow parents who strongly oppose if critical race theory is introduced it is a racist concept if i get a whiff of anything of this nature my child will be yanked i strongly advise the school board and staff do not support for our children to take this dangerous and experimental vaccine encourage learning about crt or encourage use of a pointless mass that only damages our children's health and well-being [Applause] looks like uh jamie bateman see jimmy bateman tamara bateman or tammy bateman 1211 west 129th avenue crown point indiana i have done some research on covey 19. a report from the university of louisville pronghorn mask used four hours per day promotes facial alkalines and inadvertently encourages dehydration which in turn can enhance barrier breakdown and bacterial infection rate which include headache yeast infection of the mouth spreading low blood oxygen weaken immune system and decrease degenerative disease also obscuring non-verbal communication masks interfere with social learning in children vaccines people are still testing positive after receiving the vaccine have passed away had reactions etc we are in stage three of clinical trials that's why the fda won't approve it cr crt and seo crt should not be taught in schools it is a racial divide and can be put in seo without parents knowing under a g rakita's parents bill of rights i am requesting from crown point community school corporation oh seo material and curriculum i am done [Applause] we have an ed finn correct thank you i just want to take a minute to thank uh the school board administration and teachers for this what you've done over the pandemic we have three boys in the school system oh i'm sorry ed finn 8241 doubletree court ground point indiana think about that but uh thank you very much for they all attended virtually it wasn't the same as being there but the teachers did a tremendous job so what i want to talk about is the choice the choice of creating a safe environment we know that the vaccine is not available to children under 12.

those grades we tried to look at implementing the model for our students in grades fifth and sixth frankly the interest wasn't there and we do not have the instructional capacity to support a parallel path for families that wish to do that we do have the ability in grades 7 through 12 to implement if needed a an aoi to support those students i will add if it's an aoi there are very strict requirements with respect to the time needed daily it equates about five hours a day or more for the core subjects and 300 minutes i believe is the time so it is not something they can come and go we did we set to a i think there was statewide an expectation that we're going to work hard to overcome with respect to student attendance and participation if this is not going to be a come and go within this schedule for the 21 22 school year we are going to strictly enforce attendance at all grade levels and that's something that will need support from the parents and we'll send that in all of our communication and those messages will be reinforced by administration as well so you mean a come and go a family couldn't choose to do online and then do in person and go back online you have to commit to one or the other correct for the entire year or semester for uh in this instance uh grades k through six don't have that option in grades 7 through 12 they would have to commit for at least a semester at least a semester and then if they are not maintaining the requirements they would be dropped and have to register and come in person so this is a there's rigor involved in any school year it's important to note that most of our students are behind and there's a certain amount of ketchup that must be played and so given the every school i think is struggling to find and retain qualified people we're very blessed to have our needs met and have a strong teaching core however we don't have a bunch of additional capacity and so we're wanting to make sure that we put our teachers in the best position to succeed as well and don't over tax them we learned a lot last year things that look good on paper in a practice they just were not practical and one is having kids online with it with kids in front of you and other kids that are corresponding as it were it just doesn't work it's not a it's not fair to the teachers frankly we also learned in the data revealed grades 7 through 12 did better grades 10 through 12 did markedly better on online online only environments 7 through 8 did marginally well grades k through six it was frankly was disaster we didn't make progress we went backward and that was across the board simply put students uh within those age groups need a person and teacher they need to teach your lead instruction they need the socialization all kids do but it would be putting families and students in a poor position i think even to offer an aoi for the k-6 grades all right thank you dr wright margaret do you have any questions or comments no how about you diana all right uh if there's no questions or comments any principles you have anything to pipe up and say anything about it anybody in the audience yeah all right so um we'll just adjourn this hearing at uh 509 so this year we don't have to have a motion since it's just public hearing this hearing is adjourned

i have one son under 12. so for me this is a personal thing but it's also for any child under 12. that's going to primarily affect the elementary school and 6th grade so i would encourage you to think about what has worked in the past which is masking social distancing good hygiene and even a virtual option for students who have real concerns about being in there so and making sure that the masks are mandated until not forever but until this is available to all children who want to take it if their parents choose not to have them take the vaccine that is a choice i choose to wear my mask out in public because i don't want to take something home to my young child i don't deny or have any problem with someone else making a different choice if they've had the opportunity to do so so for me it comes down to that personal choice aspect of it it's available my 17 year old is taking it he goes to work at mcdonald's he wears a mask most people don't he explains why he does they're fine with it i think we can be a lot more understanding than seems to be some of the the conversation happening so to me you know please take this into consideration we know masking works we know ventilation works we know that all of these precautions do work and just until we can get it to where everybody has the ability to make the choice whether or not to be vaccinated thank you for your time thank you ed and uh is it tim chicky timmy 13454 cardinal lane cedar lake indiana i just want to touch on the mask uh issue one of the first things i've learned in my field is knowing your pp you have to know the limitations of your pp before you're allowed to use it we all know that masks most people talking about a surgical mask are designed to stop the transmission of bodily fluid that's why surgeons wear them all these masks that people are being asked to wear whether going to home depot school the store they're asking for face coverings what does that mean what is that going to stop i can throw a piece of silk on my face i can throw a sweatshirt over my face there it's there to make people feel more comfortable it's really not helping anybody don't that even with mask wearing you continue to pass the disease and it really hasn't stopped anywhere whether you look in texas texas where it's been more open or florida or you go to california they still have the same issues with the disease uh illinois they still have high numbers and they've been as far as a vaccine goes they've been encouraging people with lotteries and things like that so i say that to say that the vaccine itself really isn't working to mandate a vaccine as well when it's not fda approved i think would just be wrong but that's that's really all i have we'll need to understand the limitations of their pp hi my name is nick santos stefano address is 3099 west 136th avenue my father there are three kids that go to eisenhower i'm asking if the board please consider making mass optional for everyone we were talking about cloth face coverings here just like the last gentleman said not medical masks or n95s are better none of the cloth masks our kids wear to school are approved to do anything they're not tested or ul listed even medical procedure masks say on the box they're not designed to stop or slow the spread of viruses the only specification i could find on the cdc's website for cloth face masks are that they should be made of at least two pieces of material and then held up to a light no light can show through them some very scientific standards science does tell us that a covid viron is .06 to 1.4 microns and cloth face coverings filter between 10 and 22 microns using those specifications a covadviron can be up to 366 times smaller than the cloth face coverings that our kids wear to school are i've read many studies that show cloth face masks do not work to stop the spread of covid and that there are many negative side effects associated with masking children some of which are they harbor bacteria and mold they decrease oxygen increase carbon dioxide intake and even cause negative psychological effects i have many research studied printed out here in this folder i can provide to the board if they're interested all of my kids got sick last year we suspect it was something they got at school even though they had masks on all day for the first time ever one of my kids had a cough that lingered for over two months and i suspect that masking was the cause of the extended cough the main age group i believe we were talking about here as far as masks is the two to 11 year olds that are not yet able to get vaccinated science tells us this age group tolerates kova the best of this age group that gets sick they don't get severely ill and the mortality rate in indiana since the beginning of the pandemic for all children 0 to 19 years old has been 0.01 percent that's a 99.9 survival rate i ask that you please keep face mass optional so as parents can make that decision for our children ourselves another thing i did want to ask i know that you can't answer questions is i also have heard a lot about critical race theory being taught in public schools i've heard very different definitions of what it is i was wondering if maybe the board can define it and if it exists in our schools thanks for your time instead of brent hold holding i'm not sure about the last name pronunciation pronunciation brent um is there okay if is there anybody else who'd like to walk up to the podiums uh sign up to okay just please state your name and address could you please yes sign it sign in thank you my name is unjin choi i'm living in monster indiana for 14-11 monster yes sorry you'll need to be a crown point uh well my daughter goes to crown point school because my daughter goes to crown point school where father resides in so that's why i'm here for as a mother i would say i think so yes i have an equal cost study i have joined equal custody so i think i have a right to say so please go ahead so i live in the 1411 brookside drive number one monster indiana and i have i do not have equal access to rds system it's fine mr speaker okay i do not have an equal access to rds system to crown point despite equal joint custody this issue has been addressed persistently over one year but there's no definite resolution even though i have an equal custody i only have a custody asset which doesn't know anything i don't have any assets my daughter daughter's grade anything i address also crown point school we have parent parallel parenting that means there's no communication between god between me and her father i have no control father does not inform me the school information um so i addressed this issue over and over and crown point system says this is a system issue unless i searching after the information there's no given also my voice has not been reflected reflected and as a mom and decision is made with my ex by a letter a union laterally for school decision without any information with me and i finally have a meeting with caucasian advocate which he used to be a principal here and no issue resolved outcome appears to be a repercussion and punishment over my daughter because i continue to choose to advocate my daughter's being as a mother thank you thank you um i think last call for anybody would like to step forward please sign in the sheet and then state your name and address okay um my name is kaylee chicky i live at one three four five four cardinal lane um i'm a senior at cromboy high school and i really just want to talk about more like the emotional thing with the masks is that crown point is based on like how far a smile can go and when you see other people in the hallway and you want to smile at them and like you know if they're having a bad day or make them just feel better about themselves i've had multiple experiences with like just struggling in the hallways and just how far a smile really can go and with the masks you just can't do that and it's lowered a lot of positivity in the schools and i've noticed the entire junior year at my school the positivity level just dropped from when i was a sophomore to a junior and i can't do that again as a senior and i know a lot of people that have said that they're going to be homeschooled if the mass continue and that's really all i have to say [Applause] i think based on our uh based on our board guidelines i believe we can take one more comment on uh that on that topic if uh sure come forward so sign in please and then state your name and address hi my name is sandy sparling i live at 13296 taft street i have a son and a daughter my son is entering seventh grade at taft my daughter will be fifth grade at lake street this year first of all lake street amazing we've had awesome experiences there the mask thing is an issue for us so much so that we are looking at transferring my son to crown point christian this year or possibly homeschooling last year was a rough start to middle school for him transferring from elementary to middle school as hard as it is one of the large issues that he had with masking aside from everything stated that i already agree with most of these people um swearing was horrible last year we are a faith-based family we choose not to use that kind of language and we don't believe it should be allowed to be used in the schools however when children are masked nobody knows where that language is coming from it is rampant in the hallways it is discouraging it is upsetting to a faith-based child it should be upsetting to anybody that 11 12 13 year olds are speaking that way not just you know under their breath shouting it in the hallways f school school this effing school sucks all these things are happening in the hallways the teachers don't know who's saying it so it's not being corrected that's just a minor issue the health thing is the health aspect is the primary issue but masking our children there is going to be long-term effects of it including emotional physical and spiritual damage [Applause] unless there any other comments on educational issues extend our time on the topic of masking this evening if anyone would like to speak on educa then please come forward yes or you agree correct it's a topic um sign in yes please we've closed the opportunity to speak on masks this evening but if we have other topics to comment on we could accept them so we can go forward okay so it's one one zero one five elkhart place and crown point um as of the sum i'm sorry misty olsen okay um they're saying that they're taking away the testing for covet so now are we still gonna my question is are we gonna be doing testing and then sending kids home for two weeks i know you can't answer that but i feel like that needs to be addressed it's very important they are now saying in forbes magazine just today that they are taking those pr or rt pcr cv tests because now they cannot determine between the difference of the flu and then the covid so now that these tests are no longer going to be used this is my problem with um wanting to know if they're going to do any kind of virtual learning if my kid doesn't want to take a test can she be at home for two weeks and then how does that you can't answer questions um basically i need to know if there's a way that we can address it going forward for her not to miss school she's got a 4.0 i don't want her she's a virtual learner as well me and my husband are here because it's the first time we've actually been here i'm shaking very nervous but um we this is very important to us and we are looking for other options for schools so thank you so much [Applause] any other comment this evening i'd like to pause comment for a moment i'm reading our guidelines i just want to stay true to what we have downs for guidelines so our guidelines state that we'll take 20 minutes of public comment it's not specific to a topic um i'd like to make a motion that we extend that for 10 more minutes if necessary second second by mr baby all in favor signify by saying aye aye aye aye opposed that moisture it's five zero three [Applause] if if we were to continue we're going to ask that so we extended it for 10 more minutes we're just going to hold true to that for the 10 minutes so anything that was repetitive we could refrain from that that's all yeah just okay thank you uh good evening i haven't been to one of these meetings that my name is christopher sparling um i'm at 13296 taft street crown point um i not exactly sure who to go with two with this so i guess here we are um we are considering homeschooling my children like my wife said and this isn't about masks i know we've gone away from that even though i agree with everyone um we've been going to different sources within the middle school community for my son and daughter trying to determine um if they are eligible for extracurricular activities or classes at the public schools such as band and sports and other things that we've heard that other states do for example if we were to homeschool our children um you know i've been in band my whole family's been dad band michigan state and everything else played we'd like to find a way or get some information whoever that might be from to allow our kid our son and daughter 10 and 12 to be able to participate in band as homeschoolers if we do decide to go over that route i've served my community in law enforcement for over 20 years i'm a taxpayer i've had over sometimes four or five jobs at a time i pay my taxes um i'd like that opportunity for my children we raise them right respect their country their town even though we uh disagree with a lot of the politics happening right now so if someone could please help me address that because we've heard other states and other schools have allowed that to happen for their kids so they can continue to learn in other ways other than musically i think there's no need to argue what that can do for a child in how they're raised and their cognitive skills and abilities and what have you um so uh i keep wanting to talk about the mask right now we're down there so yeah we so i just you know and i and there's so much divisiveness regarding all the mass thing and i'm not going to go down any kind of roads or studies or anything but i i personally you know would be okay with the option to wear one i think it is harmful to children i don't think it is wrong however if someone wants to allow their wants their kids to wear my ass is fine i do not want my children to wear masks so maybe that's some kind of compromise we can come to i don't know i'll let you folks decide that but my main thing was um the band question and like sports and that sort of thing um but i just want to echo uh what my wife said about 30 seconds the cursing and i know that a lot of folks here like whatever the kids know better okay well working the streets there isn't a thing i haven't heard and i haven't seen but i'm telling you my son who's straight a student i have never heard and seen those kind that kind of language the things i've heard that come out of the hallways you know and it's it's unbelievable and i understand the teachers hands are tied to a degree but there's got to be some kind of discussion about this at some level thank you so much william pierce 138308 court crown point we could spend days talking about masks and treatment of covid they do this every day we need experts to tell us what our program should be there's some humorous things if you want to protect your your backyard from mosquitoes put up a chain-link fence that's what basks are worth i've worn a mask for about 55 years i wear a mask dial when i need to i go in the hospital every day we wear a mask we are protected we protect the people around us if people don't want to wear a mask it's their choice they want to be vaccinated it's their choice the options are available but we have many people in the community infectious disease doctors pulmonologists and uh epidemiologists that can tell us what's best for us i don't believe a word that comes out of cdc [Applause] plenty of talent in the neighborhood that can help us protect our children grandchildren and ourselves so consider that please thank you [Applause] do we have anybody else okay we're going to close patron comments and uh i believe dr terrell has a comment of his own thank you this is a little out of the ordinary but i want to make sure that we seize the opportunity tonight to make some comments to all of you first i want to thank you for coming on both sides of this issue the one thing that i would encourage that i think we're missing greatly in our country right now and that is civility as we talk through issues and i and i appreciate i appreciate the way that this community has come around and supported our our kids ultimately our schools yes our teachers yes but ultimately our kids throughout the last year and the challenges that have come with that i encourage you to wait around until you hear my recommendation for what we will do moving into the school year something that's not on the agenda tonight that i want to address and i ask you to just bear with me i'm going to read some statements here regarding critical race theory and social emotional learning and i want to get this information out there to you so that you understand as a school district here in crown point schools where we are on this issue crown point community school corporation does not teach critical race theory critical race theory is not a topic that we feel belongs in the k-12 classroom we do i'm sorry please plea it's a little bit of a list here please let dr terrell read through it we'll be here all night we do teach indiana state standards for u.s history courses those standards sometimes include topics about race and the history of racial tension within our country none of these standards are taught in a way that uses or promotes critical race theory we have an existing board policy number 2240 which limits discussion on controversial issues and topics related to curriculum of a particular course that same policy reminds teachers to consider the influence that their role holds before expressing their personal opinions social and emotional learning is another topic parents may have seen in the news recently social emotional learning or sel is required by the state of indiana but it's important to know that crown point community school corporation does not use sel for teaching what some people might call social justice topics our social emotional learning program is about helping students build their social and emotional skills some of us previously know them as soft skills or even employability skills things like working as part of a team not letting your emotions get ahead of you when you're dealing with a problem or having grit and a positive outlook when faced with an issue these type of skills not only help our students in the real world but usually have a positive impact on academics as well sports and other curricular activities are great examples of how social emotional learning has been around for a long time but we didn't use the term social emotional learning when the student is on a basketball team they're not just learning about the fundamentals of basketball there are a lot of other positive life skills and student gain the student gains and the best coaches help their students grow those skills we are applying those same concepts in the classroom level with our social emotional learning we aren't teaching anyone's children what to think we feel confident that there are no hidden agendas in our social emotional learning anytime a parent wants to discuss or examine social emotional learning teaching and materials we welcome that conversation parents are our partners in the educational process they can start those important conversations by reaching out to their building principal and we can work together on what they feel is best for their child and i want you to know that that's not new because of mr akita and what he's come out with that has been state standard here within the state of indiana for as many years as as i've been involved in education here in indiana as parents you always have the right to have those conversations but again they need to begin at the building level that is our stance on critical race theory i read it intentionally because i once i wanted to make sure that we covered the necessary points please hear me and understand that we do not have a hidden agenda with critical race theory this is our stance with it this is truly what we believe and we believe that this is what our teachers our partners in education our parents our staff members and community as a whole want from our schools for our kids thank you [Applause] thank you for addressing the topic for us dr terrell and we can move forward to 3.01 is the three consent agenda dr terrell thank you for your consideration this evening for our consent agenda we have 3.01 which is our regular business meeting of the board of school trustees minutes from the 7 15 minute or meeting also we have our personnel agenda 3.02 and then 3.03 the voucher checks as listed in your board docs thank you dr terrell you've heard the recommendation i'm sorry you've heard the consent agenda as presented we have a motion to approve so moved second moved by mr angel in second by mr hoffman any questions or comments on the agenda if not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries five zero and we go to um item four action items we have 4.01 the back-to-school plan for a 21-22 school year dr terrell thank you it is my recommendation that the 21-22 school year start like a normal school year as we begin the school year we will follow these covid protocols please note these policies and procedures may be changed if we have an increase in positive coveted cases in our schools or are given new mandates by governed by a government organization masks are optional in crown point community school corporation facilities with the exception of buses if your child rides the bus they will have to wear a mask have a mask with them and wear it each and every day and again this is a federal mandate please screen daily for covet symptoms anyone who is sick student or staff must stay home any student or employee who tests positive for covet 19 must complete a minimum 14 day quarantine and may not return to school until symptom free if a student in your child's class or who rides your child's bus test positive for covid19 you will receive a call from the school so that you can continue to monitor their symptoms cleaning and sanitizing will continue in our buildings and on our buses hand sanitizer will be available in all classrooms and common areas good hygiene like frequent hand washing is important crown point community school corporation will not require the proof of vaccination for any student or staff members we welcome visitors and volunteers back into our buildings but visits must be scheduled in advance field trips may also return to normal we will continue to monitor multiple daily points and recommendations as they are made from our local and state health organizations as we make the adjustments as needed and we will make the adjustments as needed throughout the school year finally to allow the school corporation to be responsive to fast changing developments the board authorizes the superintendent to implement changes to the plan should changes need to be made in responding to new information regarding coven 19 in our country state and community in the superintendent's best judgment that is my recogni my recommendation for our beginning of the school year plan thank you dr earl you've heard the recommendation as presented for to approve the 2021-22 back-to-school plan as presented we have a motion to approve so moved second moved by mr smith and second by mr hoffman i have any questions or comments i um i believe everyone well maybe not everybody but i was asked online mr smith do you have anything to comment on this evening yeah i just want to say thank you to all you that came out today i like dr terrell said the civility was great so i felt like our community has always set an example even through the difficult times last year so one thing i would say is that these are always difficult circumstances that you can't accommodate everyone but the data points seem to suggest that the school should be open and no mask and so i feel like we've always done the best job we can as a board as an administration based upon the circumstances that we had to deal with and we'll continue to do that and put the children first and so i am in full support of this plan moving forward and understand that you know factors and circumstances could change and so but as long as we can continue to move forward safely and we should we should continue to move forward so uh i'm in support thank you thank you mr smith oh mr patrick anything yeah i support the plan as proposed by the superintendent also um i do want to make sure that we're clear on a couple of these points the phone call that somebody might receive about a positive either on a bus or in a classroom is just a phone call for informational purposes is my understanding that is correct at this time we do not plan on starting with the full-blown contact tracing requiring you to quarantine your kids okay and i i believe the board you know i won't speak for everybody i'll speak for myself but i am i am touched by the people that showed up today because you're showing an involvement in the community it's a shame that it takes a pandemic to uh to fill this room uh but it is one of the more exciting topics obviously um because it affects us all so deeply and um i'm just glad to see people involved and people show up and state their opinions and take that podium i know that's not a that's not an easy thing to do and you guys put time and effort and and research and your comments and and that means that means a lot uh to me to and i'm it's a pleasure to hear those comments so thank you thank you mr babjack mr hoffman would you like to contribute i would like to echo the sentiments of mr smith and mr babjack this is a an issue that has created a lot of divide in this country um i would echo the sentiments of the gentleman back here talked about the stopping mosquitoes with the chain-link fence but i would encourage everyone to consult your local experts and make your decisions that you believe are best for you and your family members but i also would encourage you to take into consideration the effect of those decisions upon the people around you or around your children and the rest of your families these decisions have been extremely difficult over the past year and a half it goes back to when i first ran for school board nearly 20 years ago i asked the superintendent at that time how do you be a good school member school board member and he says it's simple you do the right thing and what we are trying to do based upon the information that we receive sitting in these seats is to do the right thing for the great majority of our students families community members and the educational process thank you mr hoffman mr angel um sentiment's exactly kind of mr huffman uh explained them um every decision i've made here my time on the board has been what's in the best interest of students first our faculty taxpayer dollars things like that if you make that decision for students first the decisions are pretty easy and at this time based on all the facts involved i believe that this plan is the right way to go just like that could change but as of right now and today that's the right way to go to get these kids back in the school classroom thanks mr angel um for myself i probably i think i sit here more on the fence than any of the board and it's it's very difficult um i think that from a corporation standpoint community school corporation want to make sure that the attendance issues don't cause any problems to families who you know we want to encourage if someone's not feeling well we want to encourage them to stay home promote you know push them to stay home give them all the help they need to stay home we need to be very careful that that's not ever an issue for those that you know any help that can be given i think it's still still very important to you know help where we can to continue to moderate data points we're going to have in in dr terrell's recommendation was that we you know give him the uh as as it was worded the authority to implement changes to the plan as data changes and i i think that's very important that their the data is continuously monitored um and i i i've had people that you know her close to me with uh a child that was affected um you know i think in the room we all have heard of unfortunate situations of people losing life um and uh i you know so i i have great respect for anyone who is vocal or wants to wear masks or supports vaccines i i i respect it greatly um and going back to being a school board member now for eight years as mr hoffman said i think you start off down this road of you know you you believe in what's right for your family and your child but then there's a whole other large large large population of children that we try to think about as well it's not always what's best for us but we're trying to make it you know for our individual family but we want to make these decisions what's best for the entire school corporation and as i said i was probably probably on the fence a little bit but ultimately i'd want my children to be in the school without masks on and as hard of a decision as it is for me and it's kind of it's difficult to say that i i understand it's not actually a popular thought but ultimately it's what would i was told before this well what would you what about your kids and you know there's a good chance my kids will go to mask at some point time during the year if we feel like you know we're watching that's what the choice the idea of choice is all about and um so a little bit of rambling there but i think it's uh some thoughts that wanted to be shared and ultimately for me it's going to be how would i you know want to take care of my own children um who are in first and second grade and you know i have the choice of doing what i what i like them a the if i if i'd like to so anyhow anybody else have uh any other comment if not you've heard the recommendation to approve this 20 21 22 back to school plan as presented all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries 5-0 item 4.02 this evening is approval to apply for and receive grant funds from the crown point community foundation for the winfield elementary steem club and robotics team is that step supposedly stem club there uh yeah that's a great idea good idea mr hoffman yeah we you're you're more than welcome to stay but there's nothing more exciting than what we've already covered at this point you can hit you can stay for us approving the textbook rental revisions to uh the middle schools if you want that'd be good [Music] that's terrible repeat 4.02 as approval to apply for and receive grant funds from the crompton community foundation for the winfield elementary steam club and robotics team mr mears thank you mr president and school board members administration is seeking to apply for and receive funding in the amount of one thousand dollars from the crown point community foundation for the winfield elementary school science technology engineering art and mathematics club and robotics team we have a kindergarten teacher who would like to apply and introduce and integrate developmentally appropriate stem education and steam specifically coding and robotics into our k2 student body mr ramirez would you explain the difference between stem and steam sure steam adds in the a for art which then kind of encompasses all of our learning and incorporates the liberal arts in addition to science and technology mathematics that is a valid point yes okay if you heard the recommendation for mr mears to prove to apply for and receive funding in amount of a thousand dollars from the crown point community foundation for the winfield elementary school science technology engineering art and mathematics club and robotics team do we have a motion to approve so moved second that's moved by mr hoffman second by mr smith any questions or comments from mr mears not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries 5-0 and we have 4.03 as permission to apply for and receive grant funds from the crown point community foundation for birth to school programming mr mayors thank you mr president as you shared we have another request from the crown point community foundation for us to be able to apply for and receive grant funds from the foundation for our birth to school program we would like to apply for and depending on the crown point community foundation's review receive funding in the amount of seventy three hundred dollars to expand the birth to school programming focusing on kindergarten readiness sorry thank you mr ramirez you for the recommendation to apply for and receive funding the amount of seven thousand three dollars from the crown point community foundation to expand birth to school programming good motion to approve second move by mr angel in second by mr babjack any questions or comments from mr mears i don't have any specific information but my understanding this has been a very effective program over the past many years is that correct yes we have seen this program grow most recently we applied for crown point community foundation grant in 2020 and that allowed us to expand our kindergarten readiness programming to begin in september as opposed to february and that expanded into all of our schools offering kindergarten prior to that it's only been offered in our title one buildings and we were able to see essentially um fourfold of our families participating this past year because of the expansion into all of our buildings so we are serving over um 200 families in preparing for kindergarten readiness i'll just comment to save mr angels some breath and thank the crown point community foundation who have been huge supporters of our school system through the years so we appreciate it what was in favor saying by saying aye aye opposed motion carries five zero and 4.04 is the student handbook revisions and additions we have mr g and fermi uh thank you mr president in your board packets you have the updated student handbooks for the elementary schools middle schools crown point high school and our new preschool student handbook most of the updates and revisions are just names contacts and basic information some branding updates that have been provided with new logos from mrs allen a couple items worth noting prior to covid we were working on some tobacco and vaping policies the board actually had some administrators in here right before all that hit us um happy to report that we did update that section for to including the consequences some uh educational sessions that a student would have to attend through our sro program at the school so we're happy we were able to put that in there and hopefully i'll make a bigger impact on those kids making those choices also this just another thing to note that this is our first preschool student handbook for the new program so good job for all the folks that worked on that with that being said the administration would like to recommend to waive the reading of the handbooks and approve handbooks with the suggested additions and adjustments thank you mr g fermi for recommendation to approve to waive the reading of the handbooks and prove handbooks would suggest suggested editions and adjustments we have motion to approve i will move to waive the reading of the handbooks and approve the handbooks with the suggested additions and adjustments second that moved by mr hoffman and second by mr angel do you have any questions or comments from mr gene fermi i'd like to thank all those involved that's not an easy process with all the changes that have taken place thank you for all your work on that all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries 5-0 and we have 4.05 dss contract for summer school denim mr g fermi the second session of summer school began today in our elementary and middle school buildings the corporation will have a need to continue to utilize ess our third party contractor who supplies substitutes for our schools substitutes utilized for summer school will be paid the same rates earned during the 2021 school year so the administration would like to recommend the approval of the ess 2021 summer school addendum which is attached to your work packet thank you mr g fermi for recommendation to prove the ess 2021 summer school addendum as presented in our packet we have a motion to approve it's removed second moved by mr bab jack and then mr smith or huffman sorry second by mr smith any ques questions or comments from mr dean for me i was in favor signify by saying ai all right opposed motion carries 5-0 we have 4.06 policy revisions additions and deletions the second reading and adoption mr gene fermi uh last board meeting mr akiwa had provided all of us with the annual neola board policy updates and revisions the updates included new state federal law as well as revisions to existing board policies in addition to neola we also utilized policy advisor from isba in this updating process uh the revisions were provided last month for a first reading since there's been no additional changes the administration is recommending the board waive the second reading of the policies and adopt as presented thank you mr g fermi good recommendation to prove the way waived reading of these policies has adopted and adopt them as presented a motion to approve so moved second moved by mr hoffman and sacked by mr babjack need questions or comments from mr g and fermi all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries five zero and 4.07 is the 2021-22 textbook rental revision for the middle school mr g and fermi at last month's meeting we approved the school board approved the 21 22 middle school textbook rental feeds through some diligent work of our staff here in central office we worked with a company zello who provides our middle school college and career software we're able to move the fee from four dollars per student to three dollars and 25 cents we'd like to pass the savings on to our parents and are recommending the board approve the textbook rental and supply fee for zello college and career software be moved to the rate of three dollars and twenty five cents thank you mr gene fermi for the recommendation to approve the 2021-22 middle school textbook rental and supply fee zella college and care readiness software to three dollars and 25 cents do we have a motion to approve moved by mr angel second sent by mr hoffman any questions or comments i was in favor signify by saying i oppose motion carries 5-0 and 4.08 award of bus bids mr reese thank you mr president members of the board the transportation department received bids for five new buses and five trade-ins to not enhance the staff but just to replace those buses that are old and aging this is in accordance with the bus replacement plan for the 2021 budget it was done to the cie ciesc cooperative purchasing program that we've been a part of for quite a while and happy to report that uh we'd like to recommend the awarding of the bus bid to curl and bus sales for a total net cost of 570 thousand 728 and 30 cents thank you mr reese for the recommendation to prove the award to approve the award of the bus bid to lowest overall bidder that was kirlin bus sales for the net cost of 570 728 dollars and 30 cents do we have a motion to approve some move second moved by mr hoffman and second by mr smith any questions or comments from mr reese welcome back to mr reece thank you yeah welcome back any other comments questions all those in favor signify by saying hi hi opposed motion carries five zero and discussion report items now at 5.01 is the ilearn report mr ramirez and mr gene fermi thank you mr president and board members thank you for this opportunity to give an overview of our ilearn results from this past administration in spring 2021.

i think in looking back a year ago to where we were at many of us were uncertain about what the ilearn administration would look like if it would even occur and really as a true testament to the deliberate work that was done at the building level with involvement from our parents and our students we were able to administer the ilearn assessment this past spring and i'd like to share briefly an overview of the elementary ela and math outcomes from this testing we are pleased to share in comparison to 2019 that we are seeing in general a five to ten percent decrease in proficiency when i say that we are pleased to share even though i'm saying that we're showing a decrease in comparison to 2019 we believe that a lot of the instructional practices implemented throughout this past year which include videos chunking content very engaging instruction and multiple opportunities for our students to demonstrate their understanding did result in our students continuing to do well and to perform and demonstrate their understanding of standards that we are assessing and skills that we are targeting we do look at this year as an opportunity to close some gaps and when i say gaps i don't believe that these are insurmountable gaps through the monitoring of learning collaborative instruction and planning as well as growth focused practices we believe we have many opportunities this year to identify and support the needs of our students in looking at our data again we do believe that our teachers and our students continued throughout the challenging year of covid to really pursue rigorous academics and to provide instruction and intervention as needed so the overview again does show the five to ten percent decrease but we view this as a positive for us as we move into this school year to continue to very intentionally meet the needs of our students you know i would add that you know at the middle school level um going back to 2019 i was still the principal at colonel wheeler it was that was the very first administration of the ilearn test when we switched over and it was difficult it was just difficult even just to administer it for the kids it was all computerized it was all new so across the state uh test scores came down and so um going into the covert period and then trying to administer this test and navigate through all that it was very difficult to mrs ramirez's comments on it was just um it was a heavy lift just to get all the kids in there and get them tested and they did a really great job of that so it did remain uh very similar results we we did see decreases across the board uh english language arts and math by five to ten percent in our middle school scores one of the things i think we we were already had some momentum in working on that because we weren't satisfied back in 2019 what our scores were at so we had um adopted more than just one we adopted a new curriculum in science and a new curriculum in math that was all being implemented throughout the course of last year and what was really was really positive is this summer our teachers at the middle school level have had a chance to sit down and build that curriculum and work together to hopefully implement it at its fullest capacity when we when we move into the next school year so as mrs romero said i think there's still there's still a lot of positive momentum a lot of things that we have learned that hopefully we will help to close up these gaps um remaining 10 to 15 percent higher than the state average is it's kind of not what our what we expect here you know we expect a lot more of that and our kids are are going to get there for sure because they're great kids and we have great staff and we'll get there thank you information items this evening we have a star 6.1 superintendent discussion groups um dave can we go back real quick i just have one question on the island if that's okay um was that testing administered while the children were in school last year it was right it was in this yes the buildings worked especially with the distance learning students to create schedules so that they were allowed to come into the building when their students were not present or at specific times that are allowed by um ilearn so that they could be administered the test in a safe environment gotcha thanks so you had to round up a significant you had to round up a significant group of people work with them get them into the buildings well we actually do we utilize the wednesdays when right yeah yes but the building principles and the staff the teachers really did band together to find ways to make sure that they had testing assignments groups support for students who were coming in on a non-traditional day to come in for testing so it was quite a heavy lift and really a lot of work and reshuffling so they did an excellent job of making sure that all of our students had that opportunity is this is this were you kind of expecting this or were you really not sure what to expect with all the variables that were in place i don't think anybody was shocked right and it was it was consistent with what everybody experienced across the state um again very new test and and going into the second year in that atmosphere it's difficult right very difficult and i think to mr g and fermi's point with the first administration being in 2019 we didn't have any comparative data from 2020 and then we have a very abnormal year as well so to compare the data is also very challenging given um both sets of kind of circumstances that occurred when it was administered off the top of your head do you guys know what our participation rate was we were well into the 1990s so again thank you to our teachers administrators parents for really working to make that happen as well any other questions thank you uh superintendent discussion groups mr smith anything to report out of cedar lake nothing from city like anything mr hoffman would you like nothing new to report let's move forward to 6.02 director of elementary education mr ramirez thank you mr president and board members i would just like to kind of summarize where i think we are at when we look at where we're at in the summer and you hear and you talk to teachers and staff many will share that the summer is going by very quickly we have approximately three weeks until we get to start working with our students and re-engaging with our colleagues which is a really exciting time there's much work to be done and i think that both on the professional development side for our teachers as well as then on the side of welcoming back our families and helping our students transition back into school whether that's through summer learning open house kickoffs that may be happening in different buildings it really is an exciting time and is a true reflection of our staff and our teachers and really their desire to make relationships with students and to kick the year off on a positive note so there are many wheels in motion right now and things are just gearing up for a great school year so it's an exciting time and a very busy one thank you mr smears uh 6.04 no i'm skipping 6.03 director of secondary education mr g furby um this i mean for secondary education this is about as quiet as it gets i mean we do have uh the middle school starting a second session of summer school but the high school is looking forward to that last week in july when they can actually say hey something's going to stop here a little bit but i just want to mention that we did complete an administrative retreat over the over the course of last week and it was really just an exciting time to get together with our new administrators our our seasoned experienced administrators and just to see us all kind of coming together and and this crowd would have been happy to see that you know looking forward to some kind of normalcy for our school year planning that way it wasn't all about you know where we're going to put up a plastic shield or you know what are we going to do with stickers to stay apart it was more about talking about instruction and learning and team building so it was an exciting time and we're just looking forward to the upcoming school year and it's coming quick thank you director of exceptional education ms pasquez good evening president morney and board members um the exceptional ed department has staffed about 18 positions this summer with some of our additional positions we've added along with the bulldog buddies preschool program lots of interviewing and hiring which is a great feeling last week as a result of the retreat and i won't steal any of dr terrell's thunder we had the opportunity to have all of our building administrators under one roof so we were able to provide them some training with procedures for special education evaluations and referrals and what that process is supposed to look like as well as their role in the case conference setting as the public agency rep so there's a lot of particulars with special education law that they need to follow during those conferences thank you miss passage just have a question mrs pascus after it's been about 15 months 16 months special at audit where would you say we are with those items on that [Laughter] more degrees than i'll ever think i could ever have and that person literally got stunned by that question so no but where are we at with it for the majority of the issues okay great and once again the board is here to help if there's anything that needs to be done to finish the review of that so we thank you for your efforts and moving forward with that thank you director of communications i almost brought my name tag with me but i thought that might seem a little we would like to see that so i loved it diana could you hold up brooke's name tag she's official now it does exist registration opens wednesday through friday this week depending on a student's last name and parents will notice a few extra steps unfortunately i apologize however we are required as a school district to make sure we inform parents of certain rights at the beginning of every school year before we just posted those documents on our website they were there and a parent had to go search for them we have changed that now and they are part of the annual registration process just not really doing our due diligence before to make sure parents receive those so there's seven or eight of them just some information and parents will click to acknowledge that they receive the information okay nobody will probably need a name tag when they find out you're responsible for the newsletter that went out because uh based on me being around town it's been nothing but a hit and so we greatly appreciate your efforts with that and helping out the rest of them get the information across i've heard nothing but compliments about that newsletter items that were items that were picked to be highlighted you know whereas the calendar registration ideas i mean things that you would normally have to pick through an archaic website that you've also done a great job of uh yeah the feed it's been pretty pretty pretty good news yep several positive comments people that have mentioned it so thank you yeah business department mr reese thank you mr president i uh i want to thank uh dr terrell on the board for having the confidence to allow me to give this a go again um i i i think uh the administration team that we've worked with just for me two that two days and a couple hours has been really rewarding to get back in the swing of things here in the crown point community schools and the business office staff has been super in working with the new arrangement and i couldn't be more excited i think everybody's really i think everybody's really excited about what we're going to do here in the next next few years so i want to thank you all for that that confidence in me thank you glad to have you back and superintendent of schools dr terrell so there's a few things that i'd like to just bring to your attention in public i know that i've already shared with you as well before this summer has really been a great summer for us to work through some common language issues as you've heard from mr pascus as we're dealing with some of the results from the special ed audit a year ago or a little more than a year ago but also carrying that on even beyond just the exceptional ed part of our school situation or environment that we have here that team building that camaraderie that's coming around our administrative team we're making great strides there i would like to thank our cabinet publicly for the amount of work they've put into this it's been ambitious summer in light of covid and everything we dealt with last year to all the additional changes that are coming be yet to continue to develop our our staff here the amount of professional development that's gone on the number of days of professional development that took place over the summer and have are yet to come even before the summer is over has been amazing and appreciate so much the the teachers willingness to do that as well i also would like to bring up something that i feel is a great accomplishment and is in partnership with our teachers association with mrs jansen being here this evening we've been able to participate in a couple of pre-bargaining sessions which uh has not happened here in our district before and i appreciate the way that the the association has come prepared and bringing things that they'd like us to look at and review we believe crown point schools is a great place to work as well as a great place for kids to go to school and we're just really interested in trying to do everything we can to reward our our employees not just our certified but also our non-certified staffs as well so thank you and we look forward to that also want to invite all of you and and have you put the date on your calendars the monday when kids come back to school on wednesday we'll be having a back to school meeting with all of our staff members in the morning at crown point high school in the auditorium i look forward to a very upbeat informative meeting there as we kick off our school year really missed out on that opportunity last year and so i i'm going to start it by introducing myself because i feel like even though i was in a lot of buildings and tried to be out as much as i could you know one of the things that was consistent as as i met with our cabinet members this year this summer to reflect back on last year every one of them brought up the fact that they want to be in buildings more and and with the situations we faced last year that just wasn't the top of our list for a lot of different reasons and so we all look forward to being out there and being able to support our teachers our administrators our students as well as we continue through that last thing i'd just like to continue to recognize and while they've got a ton to do before the students and teachers report back to school that is our summer employee maintenance custodial group and the work that they're doing throughout the summer has been a heavy lift and continues with several things that they've got to check off yet but uh our buildings will be ready to go and one field as you saw in the update is in a great spot and we'll be ready for our kids when they return out there as well so i know the teachers and principal there are looking forward to having a normal year not just because of covid but because of construction finally coming to an end and wrapping that up so they look forward to that as well thank you thank you dr terrell other business the board of school trustees have put on other business do we any other business out there that we'd like to discuss dr terrell we heard anything back about possibly working out with the city the addition of a new building there has that gone anywhere no we met with the mayor several months ago and we haven't heard anything beyond at this point in time thank you yep i'd like to acknowledge dr terrell and his what did you call it the the family fun night or something the bullying get together last wednesday at here at the crown point bowling alley was a great opportunity for administrators and their families to get to meet the rest of their families and besides the coworkers and comment was made several times that these people work together and talk about each other but because of covid they never had the opportunity for their families to know who they were talking about so it was a great opportunity for that it was a great opportunity for me to be able to speak with our administrators freely and openly and got to visit with several of them and eat a lot of pizza so it was i think it was a wonderful event at a at a very modest cost and and uh great teamwork building the event and if mr hoffman's looking to come out of retirement he could be a pizza cutter i saw him out pretty well yet he still beat you and bowling i believe there was no effort on that says the guy who competes at everything have any other other other business if not let's move on i would just add um thank you for meeting with the with the teachers and starting that process of the preliminary negotiations i know that's something that you guys have wanted for a long time and so i'm very very grateful to hear that that finally happened and hopefully that makes the process and sets some you know tone eases some minds um relieves some stress all that good stuff so thank you for setting that up anyone else move to adjourn let's go to uh how about board statements for statements appreciation and recognition mr smith i don't have any statements of appreciation i do have a comment i just want to say that you know this year is a very exciting year from the from a board member's perspective from the administration perspective teachers just as it's the first year that we've had dr terrell and some of the policies he's putting in the changes he's made where we have some normalcy to it and although we've been you know that the glamorous conversations have been covid mask red yellow green schooling things like that i think the general public needs to know that the train has never stopped and it's continued to roll and there's been a lot done that i think we're going to reap the benefits from this year as a corporation and so that excites me i'm excited to see what that looks like and where we're at in the year and i'm excited to see where the test scores for ilearn are next year and just to see the progress and the improvements have been made so i think the expectation in the bar is high across the board but that that's extremely exciting to me to get back to school function and some normalcy so i want to commend all those people that poured into those behind the scenes not only were they dealing with the interruptions of covid but they were working their jobs and then also having the foresight to implement all the changes the board was doing and recommending and the administration was recommending and i think everybody's adjusted well and done a great job so i i think this could be one of the best years we've had in a very long time and that gets me very excited so just want to thank thanks to everybody that's worked so tirelessly to do that thank you mr smith jack yeah i boy there's so much to look forward to i can't wait to watch the the uh dirt start to fly at all the different schools with the improvements that we have planned as far as classrooms and new schools and playgrounds and all the stuff that's going to happen uh in the next couple years is going to be amazing and then i just i just want to say again like you know there are a couple people that that stayed around for the the rest of the meeting but that was a good thing that we had that many people here today to to show up and speak their mind and um that's not an easy thing to do and i'm glad to see our community involved you know with this process helping us get we're all in it together and so they showed that tonight in a very peaceful and um you know effective effective manner i think we've all seen the highlights of uh some of these meetings not going so so well and i never wouldn't expect that in crown point and it was demonstrated tonight so that's all i have thank you mr robin i have nothing further mr angel uh just one time for the crown point uh football moms uh they provided they have a watermelon night where they provide fruit and other things to the players after practice and some hot practices they provided a snack meal for the bus trip to northwood for their scrimmage last thursday so one of those underlying clubs behind the scenes that helps our football players when you're dealing now with from what i hear over a 120 players total but like somewhere near uh over 100 just on the varsity level from 10 through 12.

so um just thank you the moms club for what they do for our players and help with the coaching staff so that's one less thing they have to worry about as we make the transition with a new head coach thank you mr angel for myself not not so much i know there's there are good things taking place that uh i don't have on the tip of my tongue to recognize but uh to take a step back for the other business of the board i did want to go back to that we've heard a couple comments while up here in the last few months about um the name of taft and i'd just like to ask our administrators or maybe dr terrell to consider whether or not um you know at what point in time that might be a discussion that with the for the name i'm just speaking on just the hearsay i don't know if we you know why is it still going to be the same name is it going to be the same name it's uh just something interesting that we mentioned before that i think we would want to discuss um also a fall conference is coming up i'm not sure if the board members saw the email um you know i think we would encourage each other to try to get down there if we can so just throw that out there i know i've i've waited till last minute a few times to set up hotel arrangements that's not a good idea i didn't check the schedule to see if the cults are playing but they're at baltimore on monday night so they're not in town okay all right i already looked after i saw the email from diane yeah because yes so you got to jump on that right yeah i've been there i've been with somebody waiting way too long um but i don't have anything else i just want to actually show some appreciation towards fellow board members when things come up and uh we have our potential maybe a one-on-one conversation or a breakfast that we get together with one another and you know kick around thoughts and ideas and can be honest with each other in how we feel about different things i think we have a nice understanding and relationship with each other and it's appreciated so thank you to you guys um anything else if not we're looking for a motion to adjourn so move second moved by mr angel and second by mr hoffman all the favors signify by saying aye aye opposed no documents right you

well good evening welcome to those of you who are here in the audience and welcome to those of you who are watching on live stream again today is tuesday july 27th and this is a regular board meeting of the gilbert governing board we have just concluded an executive session and so we are ready at item two opening items calling this meaning to order we'll go to a moment of silence and then if you will join me with the pledge after our moment of silence please join me for a moment of silence thank you please join me with the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for thank you we're at item 2.04 roll call miss wilson would you please assist us with that dr charles santa cruz here miss laurie wood here ms sheila eugetti here ms jill humphries here mr president all board members are present you have a quorum thank you mr wilson we're at item three is a need for a public hearing uh relative to item 3.01 for fy 2022 instructional time model for secondary grades 7 through 12 synchronous learning so as we move to that is there a motion to open a public hearing i move that we open a public hearing on the instructional model thank you is there a second second thank you mr jetty any discussion all those in favor then please signify by saying i i all those opposed the same motion carries four zero we move to item 3.01 dr mccourt thank you dr santa cruz governing board members a month or so ago i think in a work study that we had we discussed uh the instructional time model and what the requirements are for that and this is part of that requirement having two public hearings i'll turn it over to miss betts to give a little presentation related to that good evening governing board members dr santa cruz dr mccord much like we're required to hold a public hearing for the adapted budget we are holding a public hearing to gather feedback and input from the public and further from you as you so desire and so there have been some updates so i'll just go through the presentation and we can open it up after that there we go sorry uh so just just to start and and i i won't repeat the house bill 2862 requirements and definitions but we'll it's there for those who are interested in knowing some of the some more of the details we are focusing on secondary synchronous online learning so just to define synchronous it basically means that they're online so students that are at home and the teacher is at school providing instruction during the normal scheduled class time versus asynchronous where the student is largely working on their own so this is specific to synchronous online learning and the the attendance or capturing of the the students in instead of a positive attendance where we're actually collecting minutes in this particular case we will be able to take attendance during that class period and then that therefore that gives us the flexibility for purposes of reporting for our average daily membership or student account and then taking attendance we will be educating registrars as well as teachers on how they will take attendance so that we can maximize the student count which therefore maximizes the funding for that student so whether they are full-time or part-time we are able to to to do this due to house bill 2862 so i'm pointing at sean again to figure out how i get this to go did it go okay so house bill 2862 was the original house bill that the governor signed however during the budget reconciliation bill the legislature did make some changes so the most notable change see if i can get this to go i don't know why okay so um prior to this um [Music] let's see so these are definitions and then during on this particular slide we are specifically talking about how we account for student time during the school year so you can see in b it indicates after two public hearings a governor governing board may adopt an instructional time model or multiple models to meet the minimum annual instructional time and the purpose here is to provide some flexibility to school districts to provide instruction to students in multiple ways so in this particular case we are still obligated to meet the full instructional time required by statute to get the full average daily membership for students so the change the change that occurred so in e if you look at e on the slide it indicates that a school district or charter school may define instructional time and hours to include any combination of the following so in-person instruction obviously remote instruction up to 50 percent of its total school instructional time without any impact on the school districts or charter schools funding the prior house bill indicated district so now the legislature in the reconciliation of the budget bill has narrowed this to each individual school so at this point in time if we ever wanted to offer a synchronous learning as in global as a global school we would only be receiving 50 percent of the funding with global as they are 100 online so we are focusing on synchronous in which all the students are accounted for synchronous secondary where all the students are accounted for at the junior high or high schools so they are actually enrolled at mesquite high or at gilbert high or at highland high as opposed to enrolled in global academy so that's the largest distinction i just had a couple questions about d um i understand direct instruction project based learning i didn't really understand what the legislature meant by independent learning i mean i think i know what independent learning but master based learning i i really need to understand that better so i would really like some help from my colleague dr newman hello good evening um it's mastery based learning is generally what they would call that okay so um just looking at the standards and ensuring that students have mastered the level of proficiency for those standards okay thank you that that when you put the y on there then i understand it better thank you okay great so specific to the instructional time model which we will bring to you at the next board meeting after our second public hearing for approval so right now we are focusing as i indicated on 712 and specific to synchronous online instruction so for fiscal year 2022 the following learning options are offered so in elementary we are offering in-person on elementary campuses or we are offering only synchronous online instruction where all the students are enrolled at global academy so under those circumstances they will be scheduled during the school day they will be taught by teachers during the school day but and they will be taking attendance but they will be a global academy student for secondary we're offering of course in person on campus synchronous online enrolled at the secondary schools and then asynchronous online enrolled at global academy asynchronous really accommodates the student and the student schedule where they can take the class on their own time whether it's at the normal school day or at 10 o'clock at night okay so so the whole goal or one of the goals of this other than providing flexibility to students is to maximize our average daily membership um or our student account which maximizes our funding so so we in order for us to be able to do that the board would have to adopt this instructional time model so again the class hour is scheduled during the normal school day as one or more of the students classes so this is really indicating to you that we can take a full-time student or a part-time student the student is expected to be online and engaged with the teacher at the scheduled time on their class schedule enrollment so again students are enrolled at the junior high or high school of their choice and are reported to the department of ed as part of this secondary school and then taking attendance as is normally done for any on campus attendance is taken by the teacher at the beginning of each synchronous online class period and then reported accordingly as i indicated training will go out to all the schools to assist them in doing this though this is very comparable to how we operated most of last year when students were remote learning doctor santa cruz may spits go ahead okay so with this i'm just wondering um are the asynchronous so is the synchronous ever attached to global academy or they're always attached to a high school there they have a line of enrollment at the high school and they're taught by a global academy teacher i believe um in a synchronous model and then what about the asynchronous and then the asynchronous is fully a global global reported at global and and the teacher is a global teacher okay thanks and one one question i have is that this model would be fully funded at a hundred percent that's correct the one that we're looking to adopt whereas global academy is considered i don't know um online instruction so it's 95 percent if they're full-time student if they're a part-time student that's correct okay that's correct and then the other advantage of this particular instructional time model for purposes of funding again is that we would eliminate concurrencies for part-time students so if a part-time student is enrolled in three or four classes synchronously and then actually attend school for another two classes there will not be a concurrency they will be 100 percent funded as a full-time fte okay so um only in the event of a statewide closure so we wanted to make sure that we are anticipating the possibility uh understanding that we are still in a pandemic here in the united states so in the event that there is a statewide closure ordered by the governor or the legislature we would move to a k-12 synchronous model district-wide so if you recall last year we did that at the beginning of the school year and everyone was synchronous district-wide and at that point in time though they were noted as distance learning and we still had the reduction down to 95 percent that was the distance learning adjustment so with this flexibility offered by this house bill as well as the reconciliation bill associated with the budget that gives school districts and charter schools the flexibility to continue to maintain full funding throughout the school year in this in this event okay whoops okay come on okay so now again to maximize average daily membership which is our student count and then therefore funding so just to share what mrs humphries just reminded us so online full-time or part-time the normal funding is funded at 95 percent for full-time and part-time is funded at eighty-five percent the other complexity is that the online students have what we call positive attendance so they need to record their minutes on the online platform to receive their full-time status and to be funded at 95 percent so the proposed secondary synchronous online instructional time model it eliminates the five percent or 15 reduction and the average daily membership funding calculations for high school students just as an example so 100 funding per student would be 5 747 and change 95 percent is almost 300 per student less and then 85 percent is almost 900 per student less so it does have the potential to have a very positive impact on our funding once this model is adopted okay so the next steps as i indicated we will prepare for the next public hearing we are still waiting for further guidance from the department of education on if there's any other details that we're missing to get this implemented we will continue to train and describe the process for generating average daily membership at that point in time on the 10th we will have an action item for you as a governing board to approve and we will be specific that we are asking you to approve the synchronous 712 instructional time model for all of next year and in the event of a statewide closure that we would adopt that instructional time model k-12 in a synchronous setting and when you say next year do you mean i mean fiscal 2022 the current year that we're just beginning okay so sorry you talk about getting it adopted and implemented that was my question once we adopt this i mean because we're adopting this shortly after school starts if it passes when would students be able to enroll i mean is there a planning time or a so they're already enrolling because we already were planning on offering the synchronous online option and the decision was made prior to our discussions about the instructional time model that the students would be enrolled at their at their secondary campus so those have set us up quite nicely to be able to implement this so now it is a training issue regarding taking attendance and making sure our registrars understand that they are enrolled at highland junior or at mesquite junior or at gilbert high school and then continuing to train the teachers on taking attendance in this environment because we've really kind of done this already you really kind of done it already yeah i mean it's not it's not really new it's just putting in to statute what we've already done and then improving the funding level for those students right okay and this is i believe this is what the legislature intended for us to do so that in seeing how the last couple years there's been all kinds of different modes offered i think this was the intent to try and say make whatever is best meeting the students needs to be educated full-time however you're doing that as a district we're we would like to fund you for that but we need to know your plan and how you're going to be accountable for that that's what i take that as not that that we're trying to you know switch up something that i think this was their exact intent and and for me um being the cfo it was important to maximize funding as much as possible as we are educating these students i also believe that for our secondary students high school students probably in particular it has some great potential if i'm a high school student that would rather take my first two classes at home in my pajamas it may really catch on and we may see more and more students wanting to take advantage of this offering which again meets the needs of our students so it's a win-win i i do have a question because it's it's not fully remote it's not that they're always online it's only 40 of the time or 50 can you explain that part of it i mean do we bring those students into the schools or what that 40 percent or 50 i'm i'm confused about that so and there's there is some confusion surrounding that so it does say the school's instructional time so the school is if it's mesquite junior high the school is going to be operating 180 school days so of the students that are attending it just it just means that we have they in order for us to receive full funding that cannot exceed 50 of the instructional time of the school so the interpretation is that it's in the aggregate not on a school on a student by student body so the student half doesn't have to be in school fifty percent of the time fifty percent of the time that's correct that just among the student population no more than forty percent of your population is taking correct so if 40 of all the students at mesquite junior were taking taking this option where they were part-time synchronous remote and part-time in school we would be fine we would be receiving full funding for them for those students if it were 60 percent we would only receive up to the 50 percent of funding full funding for those students due to the instructional time okay i think i understand it better that that is a very that's a very um little quirk that is hard to understand exactly what they're meaning well and i do think that that it was a two-fold i think that the intent of the house bill was to provide greater flexibility to school districts for meeting the needs of students this is just something that we believe that we could implement in the current year and have everyone be acclimated to taking attendance and understanding how it all works so that we would be prepared for the future okay thank you and that's all that i have board members anything further i don't have any requests to speak to this topic at this point first glance at it at a public hearing so i'm sure that there will be some questions at the second hearing so item 3.02 is request to speak there are none so item 3.03 is the adjournment of this public hearing is there a motion i move that we had adjourned the public hearing for the instructional time model thank you mr jetty is there a second oh second thank you mrs wood any discussion seeing no discussion and we will vote all those in favor of adjourning the public hearing please signify by saying aye aye all those oppose the same motion carries for zero we move to item four reconvene our regular board meeting we have a motion to reconvene item 4.01 that we reconvene our regular board meeting ms humphries thank you mr jetty thank you i'll second it thank you so it's been moved and seconded that we reconvene our regular board meeting any discussion seeing none we'll vote to reconvene all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye aye as opposed the same we will go to item five we're just a series of motions here 5.01 is to approve the agenda is there a motion i move that we approve the agenda as presented tonight thank you miss humphrey is there a second i'll seek it thank you miss wood discussion seeing none we will vote on approving tonight's agenda all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye those opposed the same okay motion carries 4-0 item six is superintendent's recognition awards uh dr mccord item 6.01 thank you dr santa cruz governing board members if you could join me in front of the diocese we have a couple of people we'd like to recognize this evening so [Music] good evening everyone how are you it's okay to talk you good good to see you thank you for being here welcome to our first meeting of the 21-22 school year and i'm glad to kick it off with a couple of recognitions this summer we we had some folks get recognized for some things that they've done and i think it's important that we recognize them here the first person if she would come up would be sharon boomer principal of spectrum elementary you gotta stand right next to me while i talk about you yeah mrs boomer has won the national association of elementary school principals award for the elementary and middle level principals each year they're recognized with their national distinguished principal program the award honors a principal's outstanding efforts and work to ensure that america's children acquire sound foundation for lifelong learning and achievement and i know that mrs boomer is heavily involved in this organization this is a well-deserved honor and we want to thank her for everything that she does congratulations she has an award we've given it to her three other times this summer because we've recognized her but we want to make sure we do it here so thank you come on jason can you get a picture congratulations [Applause] okay next can i have clarissa monreal come on up and um carrie blackburn these are educators from campo verde please give them a hand and there's their distinguished new principal mr tyler dumas raise your hand there you go smile is that a smile there it is these two have been recognized as a project lead the way distinguished high school for the second year running one of 42 schools in the us to receive this recognition can you guys one of you i know i'll let you fight over it explain what this award is and what it's about for everyone so they have a good understanding make something up if you don't know there you go oh you are prepared you okay so project lead the way is our curriculum that we use through all four years of biomed and we had to apply and prove the things that we're doing and so in order to meet the criteria to become a distinguished school 95 of students had to take the end of curriculum assessment at the end of the year 25 of students or more had to participate in in more than one pltw course so more than one level at least 33 percent of our students had to have two or more pltw courses so biomed is a four-year program and we have to offer students enrolled in at least three courses and so campo verde offers all four and then we have to implement strategies and procedures to support reasonably proportional representation with regard to race ethnicity poverty gender and can support these claims with data you guys get that basically one out of 42 in the united states now think of that we actually have 50 st we're going to get a little geography 50 states so it's not even representative of the entire united states this is what happens when you put good educators over great programs it makes exceptional students so congratulations to both of you congratulations to campo please give them another hand one more time thank you very much governing board members that concludes my recognitions for this evening now move to item seven which is superintendent's report item 7.01 dr mccord thank you dr santa cruz governing board members again everyone welcome for this evening's meeting i hope everyone had a restful a relaxing enjoyable time with your family this summer summer's over ladies and gentlemen it's time to get the kids back to school and some of you are smiling really big about that i can see out there in the audience so and we're happy to have them today our new teachers to gilbert public schools whether they're new to education or new to gilbert public schools but have taught for a while showed up for work today we met over at highland junior high and we greeted all of them and we shared some fun stories and we gave them some professional development and uh we're very proud and we're very lucky to have these folks we give our principals a lot of things in a lot of direction in terms of what we expect of them and their number one priority is to hire the very best and as i mixed and mingled with these folks this morning and got to know them a little bit i'm pretty sure that we hired some of the very best so thank you to them all of our teachers returned this friday to start work and so they'll be on their campuses getting their classrooms ready to go speaking about ready to go our operations department has been extremely busy this summer with several projects at several of our schools most projects will be completed when we welcome back students on wednesday august 4th there will be some projects that will not be fully completed but that won't interfere with the health and safety of our children nor the education of what we're going to provide them a huge thank you to our operations department and our building managers ground crews and custodial staff your hard work and dedication has truly paid off and it's evident when you step on a campus again to all of them thank you and lastly i just wanted to update everyone on the replacement for our former governing board member mr reed carr i communicated with the maricopa county superintendent's office late last week and they told me they were very close to naming a replacement we will communicate that information out to everyone once it's available dr santa cruz that concludes my report for this evening thank you dr mccord and just an aside our congratulations to operations at the beginning of the year when we saw that list of projects it was quite ambitious so to know that there are just a few lingering things that won't interfere with instruction is a good thing so we appreciate that it's like anything else when it comes to construction materials are sometimes hard to come by and so they are struggling with some of those things but they have timelines and they will meet them so it's good thank you sir we move to item eight as a request to speak to the governing board and we have four requests this evening ms wood will play the recorded message okay recorded message please make an open call to the public during a public meeting subject to reasonable time place and manner restrictions to allow individuals to address the public body on an issue within the jurisdiction of the public body at the conclusion of the open call to the public individual board members may respond to criticism made by those who have addressed the board may ask the staff to review a matter or may ask a matter be to be put on a future agenda however members of the board shall not discuss or take legal action on matters raised during the open call to the public unless the matters are properly noticed for discussion and legal action during the open call the board requests that speakers refrain from voicing complaints against school personnel or any person connected with the district as it may impact due process rights policy ke keb and ked are provided by the board for disposition of legitimate complaints including those involving individuals forms required for use of these policies can be obtained from the gilbert public schools website our speakers will come to the microphone in the following order amber mcafee gerald bradley justlyn kozier and cheryl massey speakers will have three minutes board members hello i'm sure many of you are hearing just as i am from the pro mask side that the delta variant is very dangerous and we need to start promasking and masking kids in school and the cdc has come out suggesting it i am here as a parent to ask that you follow the state mandate and the state laws which says that you cannot forcibly mask children in school i have a little bit of information i'd like to share none of this should be new masks do not filter out covid except properly fitted and 95 masks i never saw a single child or anyone on campus wearing such a mask so that's not even an anything that kids will be wearing so that doesn't apply here masks do cause hypoxia mask acne increased dental and gum disease fight-or-flight syndrome which suppresses the immune system speech delays and many other devastating problems the world health organization also stated face masks should not be required as no evidence is available on its usefulness to protect non-sick people therefore if you aren't sick you should not be in a mask please let parents decide if they should mask their children they are the ones who know their children they know their health history they know what's best for them according to the cdc kids also aren't spreaders of covet and statistically schools have lower transmission rates than the community outside the cdc also believes that anywhere from 49 to 62 percent of all kids under 19 are already naturally immune to covet due to exposure the journal of medic of american medical association analyzed over 77 000 people and found that asymptomatic transmission was 0.7 percent which statistically means it doesn't exist there has been a 67 increase among the youth and sewes of suicides in pima county very close to us that's a real increase that is something that we should all be concerned about that has to do with masking lockdown school closure and all the other devastating social effects of coping the delta variant according to the public health england's variance of concern update which happened this week has a far less says that the delta variant has a far less serious illness and death impact than the original covid virus by a factor of 10.

it is not the threat that we are being led to believe it is finally the cdc stated this week that the pcr test has failed its review the emergency use authorization has been revoked because of too many false positives this was the test that the board used to justify closing down justified hybrid justified masking we were all lied to none of that should have occurred and there has been devastating impacts on our youth and adults the cdc also says that one out of four adults has contemplated suicide in this last year can you imagine the impact on children we adults we have history we have wisdom we have maturity we have experience those kids have nothing and to mask them again so i'm asking you as the voices that are pro masks get louder this week and louder as school starts please listen to the hundreds if not thousands of parents who agree with what i'm saying don't mask our kids again we tried that it didn't work please let parents have the choice and keep our children mask free thank you thank you gerald bradley thank you my name is gerald bradley i had just a brief background i had two children elementary age kids i had online educated last year part of the reasons was of course the coronavirus and the unknown elements about the virus at that time last year the district i thought took it seriously last year schools acted quickly considering this was a pandemic we knew very little about and took mitigation measures they did work um at least at the school that my kids go to which is neely when i looked at the statistics i was very impressed i knew neely did a great job with their mitigation measures there were so few covet cases there you couldn't even say they happened at the school so they were successful the organizations that are now encouraging us to continue to do those measures are the cdc arizona's own azdhs dr cara crist the american association of pediatrics i'll spare you the list but it goes on and on and it's from dozens and dozens of educational and medical organizations and that's because the science backs up what they're recommending they're not just doing it for no reason the good news is i mean it looks like there may be a vaccine for children mid-winter maybe earlier so in some senses it looks like we're reaching the finish line where we're going to be through this and this may be something that is more like the flu where people that get vaccinated or kids that get vaccinated if it turns out to be safe it's something we can all manage they're not going to infect their grandparents their parents and have people die um the delta variant there's things we don't know about it but it's way more transmissible that's something we know it is dangerous children do die from it um there's reports of them dying there's reports of them on vents in other states and they're in icu and i just read something about hundreds of children and other countries have died from it so obviously i can't back that up but that's what the articles say so i imagine the district wants to have some sort of compromise between folks like myself and folks like the last speaker and that that makes sense well governor ducey's mandate allows people that don't want to send their children with a mask to not to do that however we also have to take into consideration the people that care about the safety of our children and feel that mitigation measures are still appropriate so i'm asking the board to do everything that they can within the mandate and considering the mandate by governor ducey to encourage policies that were the mitigation measures that were successful last year i'm not asking for the district to tell all the kids they need to be mass i know you can't do that not asking that but i do think that it's your job and it's the school's job to keep the kids safe so i don't think that kids that wear masks or kids that don't should be ostracized bullied or anything like that time nope hi there my name is justilyn kauser and i am just here on behalf of parents tonight we're excited for this school year we're excited for our kids to get back to normal get back in school get back to their activities and all the things that they've been anticipating so i'm just here to ask you as you discussed the coveted mitigation plan for this year to put our children's education first we want to see them have a successful happy education filled year we are over the political propaganda that has plagued all of these decisions throughout the last year across our state and our country and we just don't want to see another year of education for our children jeopardized i realize that everyone has different levels of comfort with covid and that's where parents come into to play the last speaker mentioned that it's your job to keep our children safe i think it's my job to keep my children safe it's your job to keep my children educated so i feel like each family can decide their own comfort level decide what's best for their kid and decide how to do that i'm happy to see that we have options with the synchronized online or asynchronized online all those different options so that it can kind of fit everybody's model and every parent can choose what's best for their kid so as we discuss these mitigation things again i just want to see our kids be successful our kids have the academic year that they deserve and let parents have a choice let parents decide what's best for their kids and when they come to school let's maximize their education and i want to thank you for your time and that's all cheryl massey hi it's been a long time since i've been in front of a microwave a microwave in case you haven't figured me out i am not a parent of any of the children in the school i am a grandmother who is hoping to see my children live in democracy not um you know what else we have we're on our way to communism unless we do something so i am changing the subject of what everybody else has talked about but it would really work with your education plan whether the children are in school or if they are online i dropped off about three weeks ago a curriculum that was created by wall builders if you go on wallbuilders.com it's a the men's there that due to speaking explains the constitution simple for people to understand we are having some of our rights taken away as it is at this point that the government didn't give us so they really have no business taking them away such as free speech which is which is one of them um the curriculum is in the hands of the k-12 social studies coordinator who is apparently new this year so i asked if he would return my call after he has a chance to look at it but you don't have to wait you can go on wallbuilders.com and look for constitution alive and the men there have 11 lessons that will completely explain what the constitution is supposed to be operating like and you can see the things that we see right now some of them are way wrong they're taking rights away that they didn't give us such as guns that's one of them besides a speech another one is protecting the right to property and to be able to protect it so what i'm suggesting to you is that you use either useless curriculum which can be used as a class or the children can go on line and find wall builders constitution alive and take one lesson at a time it would work well for the high school students particularly and so when the seniors leave high school they're ready and able to understand constitution that hopefully they're living under that that is the whole thing as far as making things right and taking back our rights there's no reason why i won't fight what have i got left so i have six grandchildren this time thank you we'll now move to item nine which is reports we have two reports this evening nine point zero one we'll begin with the first report dr mccord on 2122 covid 19 mitigation strategies thank you dr santa cruz governing board members let me pull this up real quick and we'll get started again thank you for everyone for being here this evening as we embark on this next school year uh putting together mitigation strategies for cobit 19 and so i'll take you through those this evening i think there it is first off mitigate strategies one of the first things we'll ask our families and our employees to do is to do the daily health check and that consists of asking basically these four questions and related to your current health having a fever or had a fever in the last 24 hours does your child have the following areas a new cough a headache body aches loss of sense of taste or smell chills sore throat diarrhea vomiting and congestion or runny nose is anyone in your home currently being isolated for cover 19 due to a positive test or coven 19 symptoms and have you been in close contact closer than six feet more than 15 minutes in a 24 hour period with someone who has been diagnosed with coven 19 again these are just some things that we ask our all of our families and our staff to consider before going to school on a daily basis just know that any mandate from the state or county health departments will be followed any executive order from the governor's office will be followed as well and as many of you know we we are are placed and given those things over time and you don't necessarily know when they're coming so we have to switch sometimes on a dime but we do the very best we can related to that heading into the mitigation strategies more specifically face coverings face coverings will be optional based on section 15 342 0.05 passed into law with the state budget this year that section states notwithstanding any other law or order county city town school district governing board or charter school governing body may not require the use of face coverings by students or staff during school hours and on school property and b a school district or charter school may not require a student or teacher to receive a vaccine for cobit or to wear a face covering to participate in in-person instruction and so i want to make sure everybody understands that when the debate of massacre or no mass comes up this is what we're sitting on as i go back the previous slide if this is an order this is the law passed by the state we are going to follow those things this afternoon and as it was mentioned earlier by another speaker the cdc and adhs recommended the use of mask indoors for those who are vaccinated and unvaccinated in areas of higher substantial transmittal areas and someone else started to bring this up before their time was up but we have had conversations with all of our school administrators and we are asking and they'll pass this on to their teachers as well and and to our students school sites will be vigilant about student and staff behavior regarding mass bullying again this obviously comes down to a choice for the individual whether they want to wear a mask or not but it also comes down to respect you have to respect what those individuals are choosing and i think everybody can agree with that next social distancing will observe three feet social distancing when possible normal traffic flows and capacities in all areas large group gatherings we will allow large group gatherings but we first ask schedule event outdoors when possible it will be difficult this time it's extremely hot and having a comfortable setting outdoors is is difficult um but for the most part we will conduct business as usual in those areas the covet 19 dashboard we will update that on a weekly basis we're thinking of a thursday uh each week but just know we haven't set the time we'll communicate that out when that exact date is moving forward positive coven 19 notification we will continue with classroom letter to class and staff and any student within six feet for 15 minutes or more in a 24 hour period quarantining and this is something that we needed to get a ruling on from our attorneys and maricopa county department of health and this is what they came up it is mandated by a lot of quarantined students who have been in been identified as being in close contact with a cove positive student or staff member close contact as defined by the cdc is being within six feet for 15 minutes in a 24 hour period or physical time contact with a positive person per the cdc and maricopa county department of health students or staff who have been vaccinated do not need to quarantine also anyone who has had coven 19 in the past three months do not need to quarantine and we will just need verification of either one of those if that's the case athletics and athletic events mitigation and protocols will be determined by the arizona interscholatic association they came out with some of those protocols i think late yesterday afternoon and our district athletic director has been reviewing them and they're very similar to what we worked with last week and we'll continue to follow those guidelines in order for our students to play sports school closures that will be determined by the maricopa county department of public health field trips day and overnight including out-of-state trips may proceed but please understand there's always a caveat related to that there's something going on in another state or a different part of our state we reserve the right to decline that field trip if need be food services the federal government has extended free meals for school-age children for this school year like they had last year so breakfast and lunch will be available to all of our families cleaning and disinfecting again as i went back in and and praised our operations staff and our custodial staff they're going to continue that what we learned out of covet is some of those practices that we instilled last year are best practices now moving forward just to make sure our schools are disinfected at at an appropriate rate and um it's it's going to be better overall for years to come for our students when it comes to germs inside of a school uh transportation will observe the three feet social distancing when possible buses will be sanitized after each route and windows and vents will be partially opened in order to have fresh air circulating throughout water fountains will be open inside and outside and we also we've installed a lot of water bottle filling stations at many of our schools not every school has them but they're in the process of receiving those and those will be available as well parents and volunteers are no restrictions at this time school will monitor and adjust as needed classroom seating social distance if possible but the teacher will determine the physical layout of their classroom we're not mandating whether they have to be in rows or they can be in groups we're going to leave that up to the comfort level of the teacher and what they feel that they can best give the appropriate instruction for their students cafeteria no formal restrictions but stay spacing when possible while students are eating and for recess there are no restrictions again this is um as of july 27 2021 and again as we've learned as we go through time things can happen but our main goal is to make sure we get students in the classroom keep everybody as safe as possible and give them the very best education that we know we can give governing board members that's my presentation for this evening board members any questions comments none then we will move to item 9.02 monthly budget report as of june 30th dr mccord and miss betts i think i will turn it over to miss betts for the review of our monthly budget again good evening governing board members dr mccord so i wanted to share that this will be the last monthly report reflecting activity for fiscal 2021.

so the year that just ended in the future please know that at the end of september early october we plan to provide you with a final fourth quarter uh quarterly report reflecting the final fourth quarter year to date of fiscal 2021 at that time we will also be presenting the annual financial report to you and that will be provided to you for for approval so next month we will start with the new fiscal year so this is our district operating funds and the results here are reflective of our the results are reflective of the end of fiscal 2021 that informed the budget balance carry forward reported in the adopted budget for fiscal year 2022 so it remains the same as you saw last month and note the two highl the two highlighted main funds uh the maintenance operations fund as well as the undersecurity capital outlay so um let's see again this represents what is true today we are now going through the 60-day encumbrance period where we are completing the payments of final invoices where we are accepting final revenues from the state of arizona as well as from our property taxpayers in addition this is where we're making all the adjusting journal entries and again as i mentioned last time our focus is on maximizing the budget balance carry forward into fiscal 2022 so that we have as much flexibility as possible not knowing what our student counts will be not until probably mid-september we'll have a good idea so the federal grant funds i just wanted to point out uh the highlighted area there of other federal projects funds 300 to 399.

you can see that the avail available balance is a negative 23 000 just a detail as part of the 300 to 399 funds they are not budget capacity driven and this particular claim or expenditure was from a junior rotc and their process is always to spend the money submit the claim and then we would receive reimbursement so it's not budget driven so we are just waiting for reimbursement for that twenty three thousand dollars due to that particular circumstance we are going to start re-labeling that column where it says adopted budget to adopted a budget slash expected revenue so it's not so it's a little bit clearer in the future the state grant grant funds the school safety grant this was a grant that was awarded to us late so we did not have a budget for that particular grant but again we have the authority to spend the 59 thousand dollars we are just waiting for reimbursement from the state of arizona so enterprise funds we have shared the good news about nutrition services primarily due to the fact that we have national free breakfast and free lunch through june 30 of 2022 but in addition we wanted to share the positive turnaround of our community school funds so our estimated resources has been increased by over a million dollars up to 8.7 million dollars and we're expecting to have an available balance of about 1.3 million dollars in that fund at the end of the fiscal year and that's all i have for today thank you miss betts questions board members i think you answered the two minus categories that were listed there and i surmised that that was probably the case that it was a reimbursement fund other than that it was quite clear and quite well done anything else all right we'll move to item 10 then consent agenda items for consideration discussion direction and possible approval item 10 is opened for a motion i move that we pursue sorry i move that we approve the consent agenda it's been moved that we approve the consent agenda is printed is there a second a second thank you miss wood it's been moved and seconded is there any discussion seeing no discussion we will vote on the consent agenda all those in favor of approval please signify by saying i i all those opposed the same motion carries for zero item 11 is request for future agenda items once again if there is not an agenda item that you have burning in your heart to be communicated publicly this evening please make contact with miss wilson and she will list those for consideration with us item 12 is board committee reports item 12.01 gilbert education foundation ms humphries uh yes i just want to report that we um have worked on the giving closet at gilbert high school that was a um classroom grant that was given and that's been completed we have a a retreat which is a way of saying we're going to work really hard on thursday and have a very um productive day um to plan our next year so that's where we are at gilbert education foundation thank you mr humphries item 12.02 city of mesa liaison uh miss wood nothing of note to report thank you ma'am item 12.05 insurance trust representative miss eugetti we haven't met so nothing to report item 12.06 legislative representative and i have nothing to report at this point i think everything that concerns us budgetarily and legislatively has been very public over this summer uh item 2.03 12.03 and 12.04 uh we're in mr carr's domain he is not here we don't have an appropriate substitute you don't have any information there dr mccord no sir okay then there are no reports in those two areas we moved item 13 meeting dates thank you dr santa cruz we have our next meeting is august 10th is a work study and a brief board business meeting august 17th is a board policy committee meeting and august 24th is a regular board business meeting thank you sir we reached item 14 14.01 is adjournment is there a motion i move that we adjourn thank you miss wood is there a second second thank you miss eugetti discussion seeing none we will vote on adjournment all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye those opposed the same motion carries 4-0 thank you for your attendance those of you in the meeting room tonight and those of you on live stream and to all staff who are here in attendance we

august 2nd the best day of the year the day we get to have you all back we are excited to have our west school tigers and families back on august 2nd [Music] on behalf of our administrative team all of our teachers and all of our support staff we want to welcome you to the 2021-22 school year go cubs go bears [Music] [Applause] here at captain cva we'd like to welcome you back and thank you for choosing coolidge schools here's to a safe and successful school year on behalf of the coolidge unified school district we just want to welcome you back to the 21 school year we're so excited to have you back bear down