so by statute if they are moving from the zoning that they're in to r4b would they have to meet those requirements so that was the question that i sent so that i could properly understood the revised motion um that can just be really simple and this really isn't what i'm looking for but i'm happy to go along with this uh because what i'd like to see is more housing less parking or um solar over the parking if the parking has to be there but those aren't things we can require at this time mr leonard the question about um what i heard was um i'm going to rephrase commissioner weich is the the multipliers that are in there aren't necessarily that's about making any modification it's not specifically about zoning is that um so so no it's a good question i i apologize i'm trying to do the math i'm not sure that i don't i'm sure our staff report is correct so but let me just um i just want to sort of talk through it so um at 383 dwelling units under the r4b um that would be 1.5 spaces as required times the number of dwelling units um so that's like 575 right so it would actually be 57 ev installed would be required so i think the calculations there were done based on the number of spaces proposed not the minimum required and the ev parking applies to the minimum spaces required so if they want to choose to add an additional hundred spaces those don't have to comply with the ev parking requirements um so uh so the minimum to comply would be 57 and [Music] i can do the math here shortly on the other percentages so just to be clear if um [Music] planning commission has a couple options in this regard the site plan doesn't meet that requirement you could simply find that based on that you don't recommend approval of it as indicated here the petitioner is asking for your consideration and sort of telegraphing that they intend to apply for a variance to the zoning board of appeal to seek relief from that um i will i would just add from a you know this is a conversation that that we started having at a staff level i think i've shared it during the planning commission i do think that that that is our standard which i've just described that in order to comply with our ordinance without a variance the entirety of those spaces would need to be provided i do believe that our intention in part as part of that ev ordinance um was to future-proof parking lots when they are being developed and significantly modified for that purpose of helping to support and accommodating that growing growing our infrastructure to accommodate the trends and ev vehicles that commissioner lee was referencing and as recently evidenced by another variance granted by the zoning board of appeals i think the way that that is currently specified that it is any site plan for city council approval this project is a great example of attention there that as part of this project vast amounts of the existing parking here are not being proposed for substantial investment or modification or digging up and so that that standard um [Music] i think that standard just is a factor in in those circumstances as as noted at the outset by commissioner mills we have flexibility in the ordinance built in for for landscaping we don't have that built in for ev parking perhaps it's something we should look at in the future but we don't have it now so um but um i i'm happy to follow up on those percentages here in a moment but they they should be reduced because it should be the percentages of required parking if i recall the language correctly commissioner dish um i i'd like to ask mr hirsch if he could return to the slide where you had um you had some numbers on the uh the ami that your rents are pegged towards or uh what did i say yeah yeah i said area being income okay good sorry it there it is between okay so existing attainable rental rates in mill creek are between 70 and 80 ami so i'm interpreting that to mean that the folks who rent in your places are somewhere uh that your rental rates appeal to folks who fall within that range am i am i misinterpreting or is that correct no i'm happy to take that one um you know we do a side by side with um the county when the county's affordable information comes out which is in april every year and look at where we fall taking into consideration there's a whole mathematical sequence of not just the rent but you have to include the utilities and everything else to get to a total number and we do it by by bedroom and at that time we are all in rental rate including utilities was it for one bedroom was thirteen hundred and fifty five dollars seventy percent of ami was thirteen hundred and ninety eight dollars so we were under that by uh approximately forty dollars a month uh the two bedrooms we were 1673 the metric for 70 percent ami was 1678 so again just under and then our three bedrooms we were at uh 1982.
During this time, I have never worked in a building with air conditioning. I have adjusted my wardrobe yearly to comply with the district dress code, yet try to remain cool at the same time. I bring ice and a cooler to my classroom, much like our construction workers do, to keep beverages and a cold cloth. The time has come to add air conditioning to our classrooms. While I know you are aware it is warm because you've stepped outside, I do not think you realize how warm our classrooms truly are. Today, my thermostat said it was 96° with a feels like temperature of 106° due to the humidity. Although a thermostat in the classroom says 82 degrees, it does not factor in the humidity level or the feels like temperature. Being a teacher of young children is a physically demanding job, especially at the beginning of the year.
um but we're trying to keep the separation of buses and car traffic so that we can you know have the most enhanced you know safe arrival departure procedure i think in the afternoons we're talking about the younger students been dismissed at 2 and the upper grades 240 buses will leave the property no later than no later than 2 45. yeah and that'll um there'll be uh the bus routes will be out in the next couple days um just putting fine touch i think you know perhaps the next day question came in so i want to get to that what are the spacing guidelines you're all using also if you've released any information about if there are student excuse me staff teacher vaccination requirements so the spacing piece what we're using is the cdc guidance which is a minimum of three feet when possible fortunately at the elementary level um relative to most districts we have very low class size so we're able to meet that three feet expectation uh in terms of the spacing guidelines in our classrooms some may be able to meet even a greater guideline particularly at fort river and at wildlife or space is a little more available in classrooms but we're following the guidance that we've received from public health authorities in terms of staff teacher vaccination requirements i think just two quick thoughts one is that um the vast majority of our staff and and teachers are reporting that they are vaccinated um and i believe that to be true based on the support we offered and how many people accessed it last year to get vaccinated that'll certainly be a topic on an upcoming school committee meeting certainly it's been in the news a lot and in massachusetts certainly yesterday's it was in news a lot this morning so i think that'll be something that is discussed at the school committee level and when information comes out on that we'll we'll be able to share it but i do i think it's worth noting that our vaccination numbers are very high in fact yesterday i think i shared this out in a different forum but we received our 12 to 15 year old vaccination numbers i know that doesn't affect many students yet in uh sixth grade but just as a sign of um how the community is supporting vaccination we had 80 of our 12 to 15 year olds vaccinated which is well above the state average of 63 and nationally that it's under 50 percent so our community is really supporting us um in that way you know i've been very public about being pro-vaccine um and um and i think the community has supported our efforts on that dimension um good question uh what does drop-off look like for kindergarteners the first week or two specifically fort river can parents park and walk kids to their rooms without going in so i think just one quick note and then and then i know michelle jump in and probably the colleagues as well is that uh in the information that will be emailed out this afternoon we will talk about visitors you know and we are um continuing to in most situations restrict visitors from entering the building but michelle why don't you jump in with thoughts about um what that looks like so for the drop-off especially for the kindergarten we are allowing the parents to to park and walk them um to the door we ask that the parents don't come into the building but you are absolutely allowed to walk to the door and drop them off at the door so we are allowing that um we'd like to keep it open for parents i could do that for the first week um to walk them through the door and then after uh kind of we start winning the students off of um having their parents walk through the door but whatever the parent feels is comfortable for them we are willing to to work with the parents to make sure that that both the parents and the company just as comfortable drops being dropped off especially in the younger grades yeah i'll just add that having been gone through this profit kindergartner it's generally much harder on the parent than it is on the kid so uh we want to acknowledge that it's not that no students struggle but but uh the tears usually come from the adults um more than the kids and i think i appreciate the flexibility to try to work that out but it's a hard thing you know it's it's thinking about the child school experience and what the next 13 years will look like so i want to empathize with a parent who asked their parent guardian who asked that question i think all three of us have been there on this call all four of us excuse me three of the three three of the principles in me and uh we're trying to you know balance that with also the the kind of safety um general parking lot safety as well as coveted safety concerns that we have but thanks for the question that was that was a good one other questions for anyone here well i think unless one comes in i want to thank everyone for viewing this again please feel free to share this if there are other questions that come in that are school specific uh please do get in touch with the principal i think you've already heard from all of them uh welcome you to the to the school year um and know that our whole team not just the people on this call but every staff member is actively and anxiously gearing up uh for what we are planning in terms of a great school year we know it's not the same school year um that we had a couple years ago and we're looking at this as opportunities outdoor learning being one which i think derek started us off i think that was the beginning of his talk about the building we're trying to find ways that what we're learning uh and what are things that we've learned over the course of pandemic that are making us rethink our approach to children this was a pretty nuts and bolts one on space but even within this one you can see that there's different opportunities we've accessed to try to improve the learning experience for all students in our district so again thanks so much and we hope you have a great uh i guess a week and a half so to speak uh hopefully get some nice warm weather get the kids swimming running around playing sports dancing whatever it is that they like so uh they get that and we look forward are really excited to to be greeting your students in a couple weeks but thanks again for joining us have a good rest of your day
if the unvaccinated student or staff member test positive for clover 19 the individual must isolate for 10 days from the onset of symptoms until fever-free for 24 hours without fever producing medication and then i want to uh close with the point on on exposure uh we are constantly working to communicate and uh be a part of the process of contact pricing and we follow the exposure management plan that is outlined in uh by the department of um county of department of public health uh and will continue to go above what is even required in that protocol and we do communicate with the department of public health after each single case uh and when we have additional cases at one site we will uh partner with them to determine if we have uh what would become a cluster um so i want to i end my part of the presentation by um sharing with our board of education members and our community that we have some vaccination dates that we will be um offering here in uh the school district and i want to give dr mitchell and her her team i know mr creel was also part of this uh and um we have the following dates for our vaccination uh clinics that we'll be offering here at the district uh at asusa high school on saturday uh september 11th uh from 9 00 a.m to 12 p.m would be the first administration and then the second administration also at azusa high school would be on october 2nd also a saturday from 9 00 to 12 p.m and gladstone high school will um follow a similar rhythm uh we'll have first administration on september 25th uh from nine to 12 p.m and on october from 16th to 12 p.m uh and now i'd like to turn it over to dr mitchell uh thank you thank you uh there's just been a plethora of evidence-based research and best practices that have surfaced over the last few months around bringing students and staff back into the buildings there's been a recent report from pace which is the policy analysis for california education and that's led by faculty directors at stanford uc davis uc berkeley and usd and it's titled reimagine and rebuild restarting school with equity at the center and the report synthesizes uh some important points of research and evidence-based practices talks about that the impact of coven 19 has been difficult for all students particularly devastating for students of color students from low-income families our english learners youth in foster care students experiencing housing insecurity students with disabilities and other marginalized children on youth they talk about how this year constitutes a critical opportunity for schools to offer students families and educators a restorative restart this is the moment for districts and schools to reimagine and rebuild equitable school systems where all students have the support and opportunities they need to thrive as we recover from this emergency and build toward an educational system that does place equity at the center so all students especially those that were most affected by the pandemic have the support that they need to achieve to launch this restorative restart yesterday our certificated staff development day was intentionally designed to provide staff with learning around instruction restorative practices and social emotional learning three priorities as we focus on a restorative restart our keynote speaker yesterday was jennifer gonzalez uh she spoke about approaches to post pandemic teaching in four areas in support of our restorative restart we talked about lesson design things like reducing our overall quantity of student work to only the essential elements that are more densely packed with learning that leaves more room to plan hands-on experiences more project-based community-based and movement-based learning he talked about meaningful collaborative work that students can do together we talked about innovative assessment practices such as more feedback fewer grades and more robust collaborative project-based tests talked about giving students more opportunities to improve through iteration and fluid or incremental deadlines higher order tasks that require a level of originality we talked about inclusivity and universally designed learning experiences we talked about better representation in classroom materials making sure that the books and other materials students learn from reflect our students our families and the diversity of our world and she talked about regular dedicated time for relationship building to make sure we're connecting with everyone and more restorative practices and more bias awareness work on ourselves jennifer's keynote transitioned us to our workshop with the western justice center who led the learning around conflict resolution education and their work partnership with the zeus unified we ended the day with the principles leading a social emotional learning module which included a plethora of classroom resources that teachers can use right away to implement social emotional learning or seo in an integrated instructional approach now that we've given you an overview of our restorative restart components i want to transition to our ed services team it's going to take a few minutes to highlight some of the exciting work that we have ahead and now i will turn it over to norma camacho thank you i'm excited to share some highlights from the multilingual services and categorical programs division our commitment is to provide a high quality education for emerging bilinguals and ensure that the work that we do is aligned to the california english learner roadmap which is the policy for educating els in california we are thrilled to be able to expand the sobrato early academic language seal model beyond preschool to three elementary sites with the largest population of english learners in our district seal is a research-based model that provides professional development curriculum support and technical assistance equipping teachers to meet the needs of diverse populations and english learners the seal model is detailed in the california english learner roadmap as it illustrates principles 1 assets orientated and needs responsive schools principle 2 intellectual quality of instruction and meaningful access and principle 4 alignment and articulation within and across systems we will also be working through the blueprints for effective leadership and instruction for our english learners future also known as belief modules during our instructional leaders instructional leader meetings this year the belief modules were designed to support administrators thinking and planning around english learners and english learner programs to ensure a high quality education for emerging bilinguals in the area of family engagement we are looking to implement california association for bilingual uh education cabez project to inspire project to inspire is a leadership development program for parents and families that is aligned to the community learning theory the work is centered around developing social capital while developing our families as leaders as families complete modules they become trainer of trainers and in this manner we continue to grow the capacity and leadership capabilities of our families internally this work will be done alongside our community liaisons and site leadership teams we will also have math and literacy support teachers at all of our sites who will be supported through professional learning and coaching by our tosa teams to provide targeted supports to students in order to continue to accelerate learning we will also have some focused literacy training to better equip our teachers and how to build and develop literacy not only during language arts but through content as well our goal is to increase the academic achievement of our emerging bilinguals by supporting and building the capacity of our teachers administrative teams and families and now i'm going to hand it over to mr gary creel thank you norma good evening uh one of my responsibilities as the director of child welfare attendance is overseeing the district's health services department and i work with three registered nurses uh mim coombs ellison melissa lofton and our newest hire bob judge and they are integral in the district's response to covet 19.
uh 70 percent is 1939 80 22 16. so we were just over 70 percent so that's uh you know the the current rents in the community that's how they track uh vis-a-vis ami calculations okay that's that's great and and i know that you're not running an affordable housing projects so i know that you don't qualify people you don't ask them to show proof that that's all they make so that they get access to your facility but um clearly you're you're serving a clientele already that um that uh that or your your rents are less expensive than what many uh much of the housing in ann arbor goes for so um i know this sounds like i'm taking a diversion but i'm really not um i am i am i am so happy to see an infill project like this one this is creating density in a way that is um not just palatable to people but it's actually really constructive and affirming because you're providing greater diversity of types of housing in your existing location and you're using this opportunity to upgrade the communal amenities in in this site and i i also think that's really wonderful and we are right now spending a lot of time debating asking you to kind of to make a pretty significant um investment in adding additional eevee parking and i am i am in favor of us doing that but i want us to find a sweet spot and i also want us to think about where this money is best used if we're asking you to put more money into this project would we get closer to our sustainability goals by saying to you boy it would really be great if you minim at minimum electrified the appliances but even like maybe exploring as commissioner abrams abrams suggested electrifying this new portion using heat pumps for the heating i mean where would i rather you spent the money i am just not sure how many electric vehicles other than electric bicycles are going to be in this project and i'm not trying to make generalizations about who buys electric cars i'm honestly not saying anything about i'm not trying to um whatever it is that i'm not trying i'm not trying to say that only people of certain income buy electric vehicles but i did hear you say that there isn't currently an eevee on the site and i do think we should expect that evie um there will be more over time um i also appreciated the two percent figure that commissioner lee gave us and so i just i would like us to just pause just for a minute and think about of all the things that we can suggest um is this the one that gets us the most bang for our buck when we know not only um do a lot of carbon emissions come from housing but we also know that indoor air quality in the united states is incredibly poor due to the fact that we all have gas heating and gas stoves which um release a lot of methane in our houses and that's not a desirable thing so if i just don't want us to ask for too much of an amenity that may not pay off for a long time whereas maybe if there is additional investment it could be in something more productive and i'll just i i don't we don't need to debate this for another two hours i just wanted to have a just a tiny moment of thinking about priorities and also realities in terms of who what are we trying to accomplish with this development and who does it serve commissioner dibb randall i really appreciate you bringing that up commissioner dish because i was kind of thinking the same thing one question that i do have is that you say existing attainable rental rates in mill creek what are you planning for these new units is that this is not like considered affordable housing we can't hold you to anything if you're not kind of committing to that and so what i'm wondering is i think generally you're you know your development is there and you're probably not going to you know double that rate or something like that because you kind of want it to be side by side you know not too far away right from but i'm just wondering what your plan is for what you would be charging for these new units because if it's going to be significantly higher than are we are we getting what we think we're getting by seeing that statistic there because it only refers to existing not what you're proposed is yeah i mean it's a good question i think that um uh you know as you mentioned it's not we're not designating this or or you know uh trying to find uh you know tax credit housing or any of that sort of thing you know we don't really know i couldn't sit here and tell you a certainty what the rents are going to be this project is you know depending on how the you know entitlement process goes potentially up to two or three years away in the future so you know our expectation is that they will be market rates for that type of unit in this location um you know relative to what surrounds it not just in our community but across the road and uh in general in southeast ann arbor um but to try and pin down uh we're gonna be at x of of ami i i don't have enough information to sit here today and um you know forecast that would you say that um because of your location and because of what you know about your neighbors i'm sure you probably have some sense of what competing rents are because that's your business um is this a pretty common niche in this part of town given what's going on around you like is this something like if you you know if you charge twice as much you're probably not gonna get it here right because yeah i mean it's not downtown for sure i mean it's not you know super it's not super walkable we're out next to i-94 i mean it's uh you know there's certainly going to be limiters on you know upward rent pressures based on you know just you know kind of proximity to uh what people are willing to pay more for so if you have another unit or whatever this other neighbor is nearly to the north of you you know i don't know if that's similar if they're condos or if they're wrong uh no i mean if you go further to the north of us we have uh we are actually on the project immediately to the north which is homestead commons which is actually on a per uh on an ami basis is even lower than the 70 percent um to the right of that if we were looking at the screen as another what i would say a lower income product no move the cursor the other way uh and then yeah to go to the right there and then keep going and there's um you know one of ann arbor's last trailer parks is also right there so and then next to that is hikoni which is a you know a subsidized housing project so um you know that's certainly uh kind of the general area okay so i guess i um and so there's a certain limitation just based on geography and whatever the conditions are around you that are that are going to govern that for the most part i guess what i i um if we're if we're going to relax some things because we want you to be able to do it we're not gonna a lot of people come in front of us and say i can't afford to do that you know and so if we're if we're getting this if we're if we're relaxing some of the things that we're asking for in some ways then what kind of guarantee are we getting that you're going to actually be building something that is you know in a reasonable in something that is in this neighborhood of of cost in terms of rents and so um i just want to be careful about like what um it's one thing if it's affordable housing because then we know you're locked in you know to that you have an obligation to meet that you have no obligation to meet that here you're just bound by whatever the real estate market is in this area and so i you know um yeah again i would also just i would point out that i think a lot of petitioners that come before you and say we can't afford to do that are doing so even when they have you know a brand new project that has 350 units this truly is an infill project of you know 100 units and so we don't have the ability to spread out some of these additional costs beyond providing the actual unit and the housing um to some of these things that are uh you know not aspirational i mean they're they're they're great i'm just we don't have the ability to take an extra you know five dollars per unit and spread it over 300 units right it really is kind of this this infill um you know opportunity uh so i i think that that would be kind of you know our our perspective on on that is it it's really a little bit betwixt in between with uh you know what it is and what we can accomplish based on its size i would actually um to commissioner dish's point i would welcome your thoughts um development team mr martin in terms of you know really the ev ordinance is driven largely by our by a20 goals and and within a20 there are a whole bunch of other things as commissioner dish pointed out so are of the things that we have discussed i mean and knowing your your you know the market that you're expecting what what seems reasonable in your mind here like what is possible um because i i am with commissioner dish i would rather not have infrastructure go unused um i think it will be used uh before the end of its life but i but i recognize that there may be some things that we can have immediate gains with in electrification in solar panels so um yeah i think that um my perspective would be that um you know if we were able to cluster more plug-in uh ev stations around the community center and it seems to me like that's a pretty smart plan right because that provides access you know for people throughout the community i'd like to go back to our team we hadn't really contemplated you know our thought was is that given the existing utility infrastructure that was in place which you know again if we look at footprints and what we have to bring in and everything else you know utilizing what's there is the most efficient you know our units right now have a smattering of uh appliance uh utility usage we have some that are on natural gas and some that are electric i think that we could as we get into this we could go through a costing process of what might be possible with respect to potentially swapping some of those things it might be on natural gas for electric again going back to kind of the ami conversation uh you know still trying to keep conscious about you know keeping those in place utilities still somewhat practical but again certainly happy to evaluate those things and agree with the sentiment of uh you know the the uh sudden emergence of a you know a large quantity of ev uh vehicles in this development in the next 10 years is probably unlikely so if we can accomplish those goals uh you know of providing equal access and being strategic about where we do place the ones we put in um you know there might be some opportunity to look at some other some other goals and again you know we feel like the merits of the project are pretty strong um you know with respect to providing additional housing and some of the other uh you know kind of diversity of housing type and uh you know completing that sidewalk and the idea of the complete street and some of those other things are you know things that were were you know putting into again what we consider to be a relatively small project uh so happy happy to talk about it uh but i think that's where we would stand right now commissioner dish yeah i don't want to take up a lot of time here i just wanted to say that i think we went down this road because you have to go to the zbea to get a variance from the eevee parking requirement and so i think where our conversation started was you wanted to swap likes for likes and so you were asking for a variance for the ev parking and so maybe you should give more than the minimum was where we started and i think where we've opened the open the conversation up a little bit more is thinking about yeah maybe maybe a bit more eevee parking and yep play strategically clustered to the community center great but rather than swapping likes for likes we've broadened the conversation to what other things could be done to also forward the a20 goals and i think there would be things that would be less expensive for you and more effective for the overall um a20 goals and i know that this can't be made up on the fly tonight and i'm not asking to write it into amendment and and you know tattoo it on your forehead or anything like that right too permanent to permanent but um you have some time before you go to the zba to look at that and then it will come to council with the recommendations from the zba and it will be a firm commitment by then and i feel um comfortable with that i don't want to i don't want to actually bind this too closely to a particular number of charging infrastructure that where we could get better outcomes with something else so what i'm hearing commissioner dish if i'm hearing you right is that rather than channeling to zba the parameters that effectively let zba do their thing that this is going to come before both of the like both things have to happen before it comes before council again and this is something that council is going to have to weigh to is that is that fair but mr leonard because the because in my mind what this a lot of this hinges on is that like zba determination like should there be something about is there if the if for some reason the zba like if if this proceeded to the zoning board of appeals for variants on eb parking and it was not granted then um staff you know if if if your recommendation include that condition that condition was not satisfied it would proceed to city council with a recommendation for denial that it doesn't meet the city's code is that the question yeah but that's assuming that there's we tie it to a specific number of evie parking which is not what i what um right well two two reasons if you modified it to tie it to a specific number and that wasn't achieved um then um so a couple scenarios one no variance is granted the petitioner would have to either modify the plan to provide all the required ev parking spaces of all categories otherwise it would not satisfy the code two if it were another option would be if the planning commission didn't modify the the motion as presented it's conditioned upon you are reviewing a site plan that doesn't meet the code you're acknowledging that you are inherently saying that if a variance is not granted to provide this level of ev parking then it would not meet the code or third if you were to modify that in some regard the same standard would would apply however in that case it the zoning board of appeals could make some other determination the petitioner could meet whatever that standard is and then technically despite your recommendation of a particular number it would proceed to city council compliant at that point with code either way what i would say is there's time before it gets back before commissioner dish to think about what it is that what knowing the elements of you know that we have dual goals um in the city both about affordability and about sustainability um and and thinking about cost-effectively how to achieve those um there's time for that commissioner gibrandal i don't know if this is an option and and i have to assume that you could you could weigh in on this giving your third option that you were talking about that the zba would kind of come up with their you know it'd be sort of an alternate route i'm wondering if you know none of us here perhaps commissioner mills just because she works in this space more than the rest of us probably nobody on the development team necessarily knows what the bang for your buck thing is that the city really wants and so what i'm wondering is is there a way to in this process of reevaluating obviously you all have to do the math and all that kind of thing that steps you're the development team that's your job but i'm wondering if there's a way to get the voice of the sustainability office into this conversation so they can say really what's going to make the biggest difference is you know five av stations but electrifying one of the buildings or putting solar around the building or whatever it is it's thinking about it as more like here's this pot of money that's gonna have to happen no matter what you do in terms of how you're handling um the edie thing and that you know it can be and and that amount obviously is going to change depending on on what the strategy would be but that if we could get some sort of expertise because they would have to hire that expertise essentially to be able to really run all those numbers and i feel like we have some of that expertise in the city in terms of being able to um have them weigh in i i don't feel like i know that to know like because we're we're sort of hanging our hat on the on the ev thing because that's a code that we actually have not because we're looking at whatever we think is the most efficacious approach for this for this project in terms of meeting our goals so i don't know if that strays so far away from what our options are mr leonard i'd just be curious if if that's something you could see as a pathway between now and zba to be able to get a sense of just where it does make sense to put that extra energy into so to speak um in terms of dealing with alternative energy scenarios for for this yeah i i don't my initial reaction is i don't think that's appropriate the this discussion about um other sustainability factors uh on this um ultimately has to be relevant to your decision on rezoning of your recommendation on rezoning this property the site you know the site plan is being measured against standards set forth in our udc and that's that's why the e-parking specifically i don't i don't think it's necessarily because that's something we that you have leverage on it is something that it's in our code that's not being complied with when we're talking about um electrification and other aspects i think that's a question to the planning commission is if you don't feel those things are being satisfied in a way to meet our master plan to support the rezoning then i i think it would be difficult for you as the planning commission to make that recommendation contingent upon something happening um so my my gut is if if that is a that is a scenario that you that you feel is important before you the planning commission makes a recommendation on the zoning aspect of this as it relates to our our comprehensive plan then i think that's an investigation that you would want this team to look at and come back to you before you make that zoning determination i don't think it's as relevant to the site plan i don't i don't see those things as a detail to be worked out akin to an outlet dimension okay alrighty that's helpful thanks commissioner dish okay i don't want to delay this so i don't want us to postpone this site approval this has been a thoughtful discussion and this is a thoughtful project and considerable time and work's been invested into bringing what's before us all i'm trying to do is to respond to the idea that there was it was indicated that um there will need to be some kind of negotiation with the zba to justify granting the variance to our code around evie and i would rather see that be a really useful offer and that's kind of between you and them and so we've made some suggestions as to what you can do and you know you might end up just deciding it's a whole lot easier to just throw in 10 more ev spaces and you know place them as we've discussed and so that's i was responding to the idea that there's a negotiation that needs to go on at the zba and i was trying to and then it seemed like we went down a big road where we started to you know amend and specify and i just wanted not to have that happen mr leonard yeah i just want to be careful um the zoning board of appeals isn't by no means is a negotiation so they are you know they're they have to consider the variance standards and and make a determination i mean i think it at times it can come across in that way because one of the one of those standards is is the proposed variance the minimum necessary um to achieve appropriate for the issuance of a variant so it's you know it's a it's a it's a nuanced way to use language but but it isn't a negotiation in the same way that planning and development or a conditional zoning or in some cases a typical zone rezoning are from a legislative perspective from my perspective like i just want to channel to zba the discussions we've been having about ev parking because i don't know that that how much that like and and the balance around this has come to them you know yeah and i that can be done to me to be clear we can convey to the zoning board of appeals in that petition that you know the planning commission discusses at length and think believes that given the circumstance of this site a higher provision of ev parking compliance can be attained by this project that can absolutely happen as a communication but i you know i just want to be clear that you're making a recommendation based on that and advice the zoning board of appeals will be making ultimately their determination given that that's the case i'll just start wearing it and i said look we don't have control over them um uh and we don't i mean you know we can channel them the things that they might consider but they have their own standards and we have ours and so the things before us are twofold does this have has the petitioner made a case and and that supports rezoning one from our three to r4b and then two do we believe that the site plan complies and that we ought to um allow the landscape modifications which would allow the existing parking lots for better for worse to stand as they are um and i think on the first part at least i'm i feel like the case for rezoning makes a whole lot of sense and on the site plan i the the the change that i think ought to be made is about the bicycle parking in part because we know that um that this is a place where people will like the petitioner agrees that it makes sense there's economies of scale of doing it now as we have just discussed um and so i would like to see that as as um when this moves forward that that the the version that city council sees um includes those provisions um sometimes mr leonard that's just we channel this to staff and it doesn't need a formal amendment would you what would you advise here yeah we can definitely do that what i i just want to be clear i heard some reference to adding class b bike parking which is not required under the udc in this circumstance adding additional class c parking so um what i'm what i'm happy to do is work with the petitioner and just take that feedback and work with them to identify some spots on this on the site where they can accomplish one or both of those and what we would do in that circumstance is just communicate to the city council that this was a question that was raised to planning commission that the opportunity for more of that and this is how the petition responded they added x number of additional spaces on the property and that would just be incorporated into the site plan that gives particularly uh commissioner and council member dish the opportunity to take this conversation and share that at the city council table with the opportunity to respond to whether or not that resonates as being responsive or not to to the discussion so um i don't feel like we need a motion we're have i'm happy to work with the petitioner to explore that what it means is that we will work with them to accommodate the best we can and communicate the outcome of that i'm comfortable with that other comments questions discussion right now we have the two motions as initially read no amendments if there's nothing else then i think that we're ready for a vote if you could do a role called vote cleave with mr leonard absolutely uh so this on both motions as originally drafted with the clarification that um i would say i will actually work with the petitioner both to address additional bicycle parking and ask for at least a response for other sustainability aspects but i would really say that that is largely at their discretion of seeing what they can incorporate and we will but we will communicate that they investigated that what they concluded am i understanding both of those accurately okay and you will continue your research on the park and what the deal is there because that's going to factor into a lot of your calculations yeah i did find a one map that referenced dedicated but it's somebody wrote it by hand and i can't find any other language to it so okay uh commissioner gibb randall yes commissioner yes commissioner abrams yes commissioner dish yes commissioner lee yes commissioner clark yes commissioner weich yes commissioner mills yes unanimous very good thank you very much all right can we take a what time is it can we take a five minute break to fill water bottles and stretch our legs and come back at 9 30.
Our students are unable to do most things independently at the beginning of the year. Therefore, teachers are walking around constantly in order to assist them. In a classroom of 25 students, that is a lot of movement. In our age of technology and tracking steps, I usually have 12 to 15,000 steps by the end of the school day. The cooling areas in schools are often at opposite ends of the building. Imagine gathering materials for 25 5-year-olds, getting them all in line, walking to the opposite end of a hot building, transitioning them into some type of activity, and then repeating the process to go back to the hot classroom. Sounds exhausting. It is for kids and the teachers. Plus, it is a huge disruption to the continuity of teaching and learning and acclimating students to the school and school environment. Water and popsicles are not helpful. messy dripping popsicles that the classroom teacher must help students clean up and water that gets warm within 20 minutes.
not only do they hold certificates in dph or public health i'm sorry uh but they also do a lot of the the work with training our health aides our principles and doing that sort of work um they were instrumental in building uh part of what we did with um the observation rooms for students who were exhibiting or who were symptomatic as opposed to students who maybe were just sick and were sent to the health offices and we we set up that protocol in addition to them uh we will also be hiring a program specialist in uh health and wellness and that person will be uh working with me and the nurses uh to ensure that you know the students are safe we're looking at hiring health care professionals such as lvns and cnas to assist the health aides these these hires would be on a temporary basis and we would have more staff on hand to assist with things like contact tracing the screens and everything that uh ms jamal and mrs ronkio spoke to earlier we have several employees and are training more in contact tracing they took a eight-hour course in contact tracing from johns hopkins and they're the ones that will assist us with uh some of the work that we do with students mr ronkio mentioned the vaccine clinics that we have planned we also have the covid tests that are happening now at the high schools and we will have those tests available for the community uh the vaccine clinics are not just for students they are also open to everybody in the community and we are hoping to schedule some more vaccine clinics at some of our elementary school elementary schools so we can have a more of a neighborhood approach once the vaccine becomes available for students who are younger than 12 years old we also have a post shutdown independent study program uh this is in addition to the in-person instruction the district's independent study program or isp program is designed to provide an alternative excuse me to in-person instruction for students whose parents feel that their health may be put at risk by attending class face-to-face the independent study program is an educational program that will provide instruction based on the state adopted content standards by certificated teachers tk6 students will receive 60 plus minutes of daily synchronous instruction from a certificated teacher and then live academic and social emotional support from the teacher and other support staff this could look like small group instruction pull outs tutoring that sort of thing students who are in the 7th through 12th grades will be enrolled in apex the district's online curriculum they will be in a program that has a certificated teacher employer employed by apex who is the teacher of the class and they'll also have the uh like a case manager who will be working with the the apex teacher and site administrators and counselors and the like so students will receive instruction live academic and social emotional support just like the tk6 students and all students will be signing a learning agreement wherein the conditions and expectations of independent study will be outlined and must be signed within 30 days of the start of school dr mitchell has spoken a lot to the restorative practices and peer mediation that the district is involved with uh in addition and i believe this has come up with previous board members we had about 15 staff members who were trained in the abc's of conflict and they will be expanding our peer mediation program from foothill and gladstone high school i skipped one i'm sorry the student reengagement to improvement attendance that's something maria mejia our outreach consultant and i'll be working with school sites and uh community liaisons to welcome students back to school that there there are a lot of people who are rightfully concerned about the new delta variant and their student safety and we just want to make sure that you know parents understand what their options are that the schools are safe and to get kids back into school los angeles county as it does at every beginning of every school year is providing the district with um banners and whatnot to welcome students back and just talk about the importance of attendance uh we will continue with our therapeutic counseling that we have for students we've had a relationship with mckinley children's center where they have uh clinicians on all they had clinicians on all of our school sites and you know with an office and they were very much [Music] integrated into the uh the school after the pandemic they had to change things up um and so we don't have them back at the school but we do have those individuals who will be working with students we also have uh doctoral candidates from mizzou specific unity or university uh that we they're we call them psyds and they are working with us um to provide counseling as well as other providers and with that i will turn it over to the director of special education aaron kramer good evening so to expand our power we're having difficulty with the audio we're going to skip to the next one and we'll come back to you okay good evening i'm here to talk about the college and career career pathways department and as you can see one of our main goals is to meet the objectives of lcap and we have eight cte grants and each of them have their respective objectives and goals and we intend to of course meet that um one of the main things that are that are the same across all of the goals regardless of this lcap or the cte grants is that we want to ensure pathway completion for cte students we have transitioned to a two core sequence for all of our pathways a concentrator and a capstone course and these students upon completion are known as completers and that helps not only with cci but it definitely helps them develop the skills necessary to transition to post-secondary goals we want to also involve middle school students and teachers in what is known as a cte advisory meeting we started these advisory meetings last school year in which we bring industry partners to talk to our teachers about what are the expectations out in the industry that students should be prepared prepared for and so we want to bring in the middle school teachers who teach some of the stem courses project lead the way courses and then also have the students participate so that they get a sense of what is needed in the industry what are the big goals that pertains not only to cte grants but overall in regards to equity is to increase el special education and female participation in cte pathways that is proportional to school demographics this is a critical piece if there are students who are not accessing cte pathways they're not they're not able to see necessary skill sets that will prepare them for post-secondary goals so we would definitely want to increase that participation we also want to increase participation in student work based learning and internships as well as what is known as ctsos we've been very fortunate to increase each and every year from the past three years the number of business partners who are willing to offer our students internships we started with one mou now we are up to 12.
okay we'll call us back to order and we're talking about item 10a since we switched that around in our agenda this is 700 tappan street the amended planned unit development zoning for city council approval um we'll do our normal st petitioner presentation for up to 10 minutes and then move to um mr kowalski and then we'll open the public hearing and commissioner clark i don't know if it was if you're there you want to just go off you maybe she's not back yet i'm thinking that we should wait just especially since we lead off with the petitioner presentation so that she can be here so if you can bear with us for just a minute in the meantime matt could you put up that um that one particular uh drawing from the pud supplemental regulations it's page two sure i was actually going to ask uh mr atlanta was gonna i was having a couple network issues he was going to drive the powerpoint show so within that uh brett i had added it's we might have to scroll through a couple slides yeah but go through oh you're ruining all the surprise of my show there you go i believe that's the one you want incorrect yep thank you okay and we lost commissioner clark um so i don't know if she's having network issues i can keep my eye out for her but um why don't you go ahead we will catch her up when she gets back on if she wants she's able to reconnect okay should i begin then go ahead yep okay all right thank you um my name is scott munzell uh i'm representing rich devarti the owner of dominic's as well as mike mccloud who is a tenant at 700 tappan street mike is on the call but i think he's phoning in um i appreciate the lengthy discussion you had on the prior application so i will try to be fairly brief um to start out this is a this is an application to modify slightly modify the text of an existing planned unit development in the supplemental regulations that deals with the timing of curb cut removal it's important to understand right at the get go there's zero physical changes being proposed at the site mr davardi intends to do nothing for the foreseeable future um and this as i'll explain this requirement was triggered due to um the special exception use application uh that mr macleod has had for his marijuana dispensary that's been there for quite a few years but um it's important to just go back and give you a little bit of history the original planned unit development was approved in 2009 actually that was an update from a prior version but the reason it was really done was that as many people are aware of dominic's it's an unusual uh location this is one of the things that really contributes to the charm of the city which is that different uses spring up in different places and mr devardi had the casa dominic's going it's a commercial you know restaurant use surrounded by residential uses it was considered non-conforming under the city's zoning ordinance uh back in 2000 well in the 2000s and that created certain operational issues for him and so one way to cure that in a way was to uh seek planned unit development zoning for his properties in which which he did and therefore it currently is quote unquote conforming because um it's the uses are captured within a pud at the time mr devardi was not sure of what if anything he would do and so uh but he had a proposed kind of concept plan of what could happen and that is the screen that i'm that's shown there and basically in the pub it broke it down into four different areas but you can see the cross test cross-hatched areas where areas that mr devari thought he might undertake some construction in the future but the city council just approved the pud with the concept plan which is not unusual you know you can do a two-step uh planned unit development so he had the concept plan approved and he knew that at some point in the future if he were to undertake actual construction he'd have to come back and provide an actual site plan for the city to review which would have to undergo the typical site plan process now when it when and if according to the zoning or the supplemental regulations um when uh where did they go they basically said that um there was reference to the curb cuts excuse me and um which was pointed out in the staff report but the important language actually is the next sentence which was not included in the planning staff report after it talks about the off street parking spaces about the numbers it says then says all useless curb cuts shall be removed and the curb shall be restored as part of the first pud site plan approved within the district now mr devarti never applied for any changes he never applied for a uh site plan a pd site plan to undertake any of the changes that had been approved with the concept plan and so therefore there was no trigger for the curb cuts to be removed so from 2009 all the way up through roughly oh the late you know 2018 2019 for 10 years or so the curb cuts all remained in place which was exactly what the language that the city council had adopted would have anticipated that curb cuts remain in place until a pud site plan was approved and then he would have to um you know take out the curb cuts so um it's not it has not been out of zoning compliance until this technical thing happened and i'm sorry this is kind of long but the city when they adopted the medical or sorry the marijuana dispensary regulations required every dispensary to submit a site plan so what happened was mr mcleod submitted a site plan as part of the special exception uh application and that then the city considered a first site plan which triggered the curb cut removal requirement remember typically a site plan isn't required until you're actually undertaking construction mr mcleod is proposing zero construction on the site and so this is one of the ironies this is where we got caught up in kind of the un uh the unfortunate language and concept of what the city council uh approved back in 2009 which typically and would not require the curb cuts removed until there was a site plan contemplating construction but the the special exceptions from marijuana dispensaries just required a site plan so even though there's no construction being proposed it's it's put us in this unusual um uh kind of uh situation what we would like to do is um you know mr mcleod's uh building is in b it's 700 tappan street and so when you look at that you could see at the back or the west end of 700 tapping there is some diagonal crossed in hatched lines that is currently an existing legal parking space that's used by a tenant who lives above dominic's in uh right next door in the area marked a and so she uses the curb cut to park in that legal parking space um we and so now there's the site plan which the city is saying hey you need to remove that curb cut we uh we don't believe and mr davari wants to retain that parking space and therefore the curb cut um and there's no again this contemplated that there would be construction in that in that legal parking space which would eliminate the parking space because there'd been a building over it and therefore the curb cut would have been useless which is what they were referring to in the supplemental regulations where it says all useless curb cuts shall be removed and the curb shall be restored as part of the first site plan um but now i mean the curb cut is not useless and it's in it's being used and it's it's an important uh aspect for mr devarti and his his tenant which if that curb cut was removed the tenant would then have to find on-street parking in this neighborhood with thousands of students um which is not a very workable um solution but again i do want to note technically the site plan there was not a non-compliance with the zoning ordinance until the site plan requirement of the special exception use for the marijuana dispensaries so so it's a complicated scenario that why we arrived at where we are today um so again no plan to make any construction and so we would like to tweak the language of the supplemental regulations such that it reflects what we believe the true intent of city council was which is when there is construction that would in one of those areas that would then eliminate the parking space 90 seconds that's when we would remove the curb cut so um citizen participation meeting happened one person attended no objections she supported it we believe that the public benefit we'd offer is a rain garden in exchange for the creek it'll meet city code we're still having issues there but one of the important things to remember a key part of the application is that there would be permanent planters installed that would prevent any parking north of the building on 700 cap in which seemed to be one of the major concerns for safety there's never been a pedestrian incident in that location and the planters would then prevent any parking on the north side of that building um in the what's considered front yard so that was one of the major issues that mr mccloud has addressed so that we think that the public benefit of the rain garden um in exchange for the tweaking to actually comply with what we think the original intent of the city council was that's what we're asking for um and i'm happy to answer any questions thank you mr kowalski you want to fill in from staff's perspective sure good evening again everybody um okay we'll do a quick uh mr manziel covered quite a bit in there so i'm not won't necessarily go back into all that history of the approval dates um unless there's questions for that um so we'll go through a little brief thing here if brett if you could just advance the next thing outside i think we're all kind of familiar with what we're talking about here but again it's directly across the street from the business school and the law quad so um the aerial photos kind of zoomed out a little bit there you can see a little yellow square um so it's really surrounded by a lot of pl land so here is this is really the uh the crux of one of the issues is this picture here um so this is the area again that um uh that they were prohibiting to block off with with the planter blocks um but leave the pavement in place but um kind of construct planter box to prohibit parking because that was as mr manziel indicated that really the the largest source of concern there was that parking there that was previously used for parking people would have to back out angle across the driveway um one in this shot you can also see what they're proposing as part of their kind of benefit the area up to the top that kind of graston area there um is is where the the proposed rain garden will be and i do have a slight amendment to my staff report in that i did speak with the stormwater reviewer today so he is working with um i believe it's washington engineering on this to um uh and he feels that they for what that's worth they could modify that that will that will meet code i don't i don't have a plan yet that says that um but as part of that so essentially what that rain garden would gather um would be their their roof all their roof water really and and they they are also proposing a trench train kind of along this the pervious area here that would remain uh yeah kind of exactly parallel thanks brad right exactly they're kind of a trench strain that would pick up some of that impervious uh or that the drain off of that impervious uh surface there um so if we could go to the next slide and so again so this is um where the curb cut leads to that the parking space which is behind that building it is technically a legal space because it is behind the front line of that building um so that is really the space that the petitioner wanted to preserve so again they have agreed to kind of block off that that area to the left in this picture and uh but however preserve the access to that parking space along that building um i think we could go to one more slide i think it's kind of another view oh well it's mostly pavement okay and then the last view i believe okay again is what mr manzelo say if we can leave this up for a second so i will fill in so it is correct again the original or the most recent the pod that really that covered this in the 2009 that was approved it did envision a much larger development i mean again you can see here the concept plan that was approved had these areas cross hatched to be filled in obviously that hasn't happened however the zoning was approved um the zoning was approved with the restriction of the curb cuts to be closed um uh two curb cuts it had a maximum of two kirk cuts in there so right now that district that covers abcd that you see on there has um has a maximum of two curb cuts proposed as a requirement so in going in and looking through the procedure so this was also an issue as mr munzel mentioned when the the site plan through the uh so when this was originally uh approved the pud the provisioning center was not uh well obviously the building was there but it wasn't a it wasn't even legal back then when this was actually approved so the provisioning use did come on afterwards and um that current the operator of that is a tenant of that larger complex so they also as mr munzel mentioned the site plan as well as a special exception use so through the deliberations of that the special exception use that was approved by planning commission in 2018 they uh as one of the conditions of in that they also requested the planning commission at the time and i'm not sure if any members on on the board right now were were there maybe yeah because sarah um had requested that that curb cut be closed prior to that the the petitioner submits uh a site plan showing the curb cut closed um prior to issuance of a co um unfortunately a co was issued an error but while i should the ceo was issued so they have a co to occupy that building so the curb cut obviously still remains so we've got a couple of issues and really again that that zoning that that covers this parcel is is really the crux of the issue because again for the zoning conformance thing as they go through the process for the provisioning center and whatnot there are certain requirements that you know the property has to adhere to these to the zoning of the district and right now as staff looks at it you know again there's requirement for two curve because they exceed that it doesn't specify which curve cut can be needs to be closed it just says a maximum well i think i believe it says one on monroe and one on oakland i believe um so it doesn't say which one along the road has to be closed but obviously the the other one along monroe access is a larger parking area this one's kind of that vessel space and through the deliberations i was not the original planner that was involved with the special exceptions or the the beauty site plan or actually even the original beauty for the larger project but in speaking with that planner and again going through some of the records i mean it it in part of going through staff's analysis here on on our takeaways from what they're proposing is that um it was that kurt cohen was a significant part of discussion through the pud originally um the pud site and even obviously as part of the original pud but as indicated previously that was a much larger development that was proposed but even after that as the site plan for these for 700 tap in with the special exception use was presented that was also um a significant talking point of planning commission was that curb cut now we didn't there was discussion it wasn't necessarily specified between the parking that access is kind of behind that building versus the parking along that the kind of parallel to that sidewalk which is really again that the large much larger safety issue but there was all part of the larger discussion that planning commissions at the time had deemed really that that curb cut was was um kind of an important item to be closed and and it would improve the safety of the area and and so so on and so forth so staff had used that in part of our justification as well we looked we did discuss with the traffic engineer of course um and and really where the petitioners agreed yet cutting off that one parallel to the sidewalk that was you know a no-brainer again the safety backing out across the sidewalk uh the transportation engineer absolutely guaranteed you know that's that's that's a true hazardous situation there really there there was similar feedback on backing out of that street or back sorry backing out of the kind of the tenant space for lack of a better word behind that building um now that would be used a lot less frequently than obviously a customer space access along parallel to that building um so but but again that concern was there that the traffic either needs to back out onto monroe across that sidewalk or or back into the space um so uh again i i think that kind of covers a lot of the discussion let me see if there's anything else in my notes that i may have left off between myself and mr manziel's presentation but i think um we've we've got that all covered i believe right now so i i do expect some questions and so on so um i am definitely available to answer any questions uh thank you thank you mr kowalski um i'll open up the public hearing this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the proposed pud amendments at 700 tappan and the surrounding property if you wish to address the planning commission on this item press star 9 if you've dialed in or you can use the raised hand feature if you've joined us through the web link if you are watching us and want to dial in now the phone number is 877-853-5247 6634 1226 city staff will select callers that have raised their hands calling on you by the last three digits of your telephone number or if you're on zoom you can see your name so mr leonardo will just say your name um you'll hear an automated announcement when um when mr leonard promotes you to be able to speak please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sound so that we can hear you clearly please state your name and address for the record if you've dialed in or have joined us through zoom and want to provide a public comment use ray's hand or on your phone you can press star nine okay i'm gonna start reading seeing no one i'm gonna start reading the proposed motion but if somebody does raise a hand just let me know mr leonard i guess the motion is short the motion reads actually i don't know that the proposed motion that is in the script that i have is actually the full motion give me just a minute to pull up the full motion because it just seems oddly short the ann arbor city planning commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approve the casa dominic's planned unit development pud revised supplemental regulations can i have a commissioner move that moved by i don't know just a minute half of you are covered by something on my street move by commissioner dish seconded by commissioner lee anybody want to kick off conversation or do you want some background from the two of us who have seen this a couple of times [Music] commissioner give randall do you want to start off or do you want me to that's fine yeah this is the third time i think we've been around um i have to say i'm feeling a little impatient with this to be perfectly honest um uh i know i should probably be starting with questions but my sense is that when you put forth i see what you're saying about the language but when you put forth the special exception use you open yourself up again to analysis and with that analysis we were super clear about closing off that curb cut because it was part of the original debate it was part of our debate and when i look back at the aerial photos from 2009 forward there's cars parked pretty consistently in that spot next to the house to be perfectly honest i feel really it's disingenuous to say we want to keep the pavement and put a planter in front of it which is like why wouldn't you just remove the pavement it's like what's the point of that so that you can move it and and then have more cars parked there because clearly it's being used that way um so i feel like you're kind of taking up our time frankly i don't feel supportive of granting this at all and that's my bald opinion about this at this point in the night [Music] i can add in that just for other commissioners benefits some of the discussion in the past some of like we talked about which curb cut we looked at the initial language and so there was a healthy discussion over like did it have to be that curb cut there was a lot of discussion about whether they're where would customers park um especially if there was handicap parking i remember like pulling up google street view and showing that there are handicapped public parking spots right there we like a lot of these things are things that we did cover um at you know google street view right now not on the monroe street side but from the tappan street side is a shot from october 2020 showing a car in the place where two years prior we said like there should i mean and this is a question for staff like is that ever legal like is are i i seem to recall before that that's you're that's you're not supposed to park there that's correct i mean there's certain properties that have there's actually a book back in city hall a binder that had certain properties have been grandfathered in with the use of parking in the front open space we did not have that recorded on this site so that's correct i don't know when the site was established or the sorry the parking um but that's correct that's that's you can't park in the front open space and so i mean it's a non-starter for me if the pavement stays even if it go even if it's something even if it's planted unless it's something that you really like it's so it's such a great rain garden that it would be too wet to park in i don't i i feel like this is i it's difficult for me to imagine this is kind of an ingrained seems ingrained here that that's a place to park and so um i i share commissioner gibrandal's uh sense of deja vu um in this discussion commissioner clark and then commissioner abrams um yeah just to echo your sentiments of um kushner get randall um i was just actually hoping for a point of clarification about the um occupancy that was issued by error i'm not quite sure i point i was just hoping that maybe clarify yeah i can take that um so um ideally when we have a development like this we make sure that we've satisfied all the conditions prior to issuing a certificate of occupancy um in this circumstance we just are we just broke down so i just have to own that mistake we had signed off on the issuance of a certificate of occupancy for this um for this use we shouldn't have now that that's been issued i don't think it's appropriate to remove it but i want to be clear right now they are in violation of the approval it's not being operated consistent with that so like any other zoning violation we can take enforcement action on it um but they had expressed an interest in pursuing this as an option and as i'm interested in ultimately compliance rather than penalty we thought we'd afford the opportunity for this process to bear out if it's unsuccessful we would work with them to establish a reasonable time frame to comply with standards for approval and if not citations would ultimately be issued anything else commissioner clark you're good okay commissioner abrams related to the to the cfo i just wanted to confirm that an alternate time or like an alternate chronology for this would have been for the correct chronology would have been that the cfo would not have been issued until the curb cut was removed right i mean given that it seems it seems odd that we would grant an exception based on an error um that doesn't really make sense to me so uh i'm not inclined to vote in support of it that's all thanks commissioner dish yeah i just want to make two points um i did look back at my notes from our extensive and lengthy and illustrated with google street view pictures discussion of this in january and i did find unequivocally that we were saying the parking lot which is not really shouldn't be referred to as a parking lot because it's not an official parking lot needs to be torn up that is what we said in january so that's not happened and what's proposed is to have a raised planter and use the rest as a patio which i'm not quite sure how many months it would be useful as a patio but when it's cold and no one's sitting on it as a patio it's going to still be a parking space so that was an equivocal and there was a um there was a reference to the intent of counsel when they created this and i just i want to object to the argument that um the there are two languages governing the the arrangement of curb cuts in this um in the original pud which i looked back at and there is the language of maximum of two cur two curb cuts and then there is the provision in the pud that a useless curb cut should be removed so it's not clear that i mean i don't think that one can state unequivocally that only once a third curb cut is rendered useless must it be removed there is a very clear statement that there is a max of two curb cuts and that's not what we have so um i'm not going to support this either commissioner solvay yes for all of that the other thing i'm curious from staff how to calculate parking because the other item in the pud is minimum two off street parking spaces maximum of ten um and similar to like the curb cuts of deciding which ones and this seems to be the useless one there's a few garages and carports but then when we're looking at uh aerial views right it's all like gravel drives but like a whole series of parallel car parked cars and these gravel drives so when like on different lots not this lot right so i guess i'm also just curious how and when does parking get calculated to see if we're at two or ten because i mean in my mind you've definitely have at least two elsewhere get rich why are we fighting over one parking spot close it for five but from staff review of this entire pud i am curious how do you calculate this parking to evaluate if we're between two and ten right now that's that that's a good question because again in in some of the ways that the way that pv was written that's the sub it was a concept plan so it didn't um i think ideally when you look at like you said you walk around the site there's gravel there it's it's not like a set parking area right there so what would the situation that was again through a build out so if they were to like right now they if you walk behind there they probably have about 10 spaces when you look because i did so that's where but how we would and it was just 10 spaces for the entire district so it wasn't you know by by use so i mean i guess we wouldn't like like we didn't assign like one for this 700 capping or anything else like that so it's just kind of also right there'd be nothing that precludes this the resident of the you know using one of those other spaces in that district and then i think i again ideally when the when the pd if and when that was ever built out that would be the maximum they can because we wanted again to lock that in so there wasn't a larger parking area in there to keep kind of what they had or you they could reduce it so but we haven't calculated like as it pertains to this 700 happen i haven't gone back in and you know like uh kind of calculate out where the other parking how that relates to this or how those uses relate to the parking on the site i guess i should say i'm not sure that fully answers your question but we didn't go back into a lot of that analysis of the parking of the other uses yeah i think it's just like are we looking at this relative to site b or when we look at what the special exception use is triggering are we even actually looking at a b c d with some of these blanket right like pud regulations um because there's like a lot of part right so now like do we get strict on the whole district or are we really just kind of trying to look at site b in the aspects of the special exception used in site planning well i think all right yeah yeah if i could jump in on that i think it's a good question i want to echo some of the comments that mr munzel made that i think he was accurate the the language that was adopted by city council when they created the pud reference site plan and that that's a that means something in the context of our code in this case when the special exception used for the marijuana provisioning center came in um not only consistent with our code but consistent with state law a site plan has to accompany the granting of a special exception use permit and so in that case we only considered the site plan for the special exception use we did not look at the whole site and so when we're looking at that two to ten parking requirements as a zoning designation we in fact didn't um and maybe that was just an oversight on our part we didn't look at removing that spot as impacting that because we didn't really envision it to be an appropriate parking spot regardless i think if a substantial development were to come in for this site that's where that two to ten parking range would would be mandated and at that time we'd be reviewing it according to our standards and the like does that help yeah that helps a bit and i mean it's kind of the other logic of it from my mind is if there's a future more intense development that reduces parking even more it makes even more obvious the reason to get rid of the one parking spot we're discussing right now and close the curb cut like i can't believe we're spending our time talking about one curve cut for one parking spot um versus pedestrian safety especially with you know what we're seeing with curbside pickup i can just see a lot of people driving into this curb to get like a window drop off sort of thing and things like that like i can't support this any other questions and i want to make sure what i so the the ask before us is to amend the original casa dominic's regulations effectively on like the idea that that there can be a maximum of two maximum of two curb cuts that is the it would strike that effectively is the is the proposal yes mr leonard i mean apart from this like that's the that's the action that's before us um i'll leave that to matt to summarize matt can you summarize the proposed changes to the regs yeah well what what and actually what which again a question from mr menzel i noticed in the last revision hey i'm trying to figure out your man the strikeout version is over you know right now that the regulations are i think i lost you were coming back so be careful about what you say okay am i back now i think you're back and in sync go for it wait i'm sorry [Music] we can see your lips moving along with your voice okay okay sorry okay thank you so um this so if everything was it was not approved tonight it didn't go to council or was denied by council the existing supplemental records stay in place so what the petitioner has proposed what in front of us is actually that strikeout version they have in there it actually says four curb cuts now which i would ask at mr menzel it went because in the in the uh the strikeout version it says there's now they're proposing to have a maximum of four curb cuts and the original pud says three right i mean sorry i said it went down to two so i was a little kind of confused by that that that changed so i might want him to explain that a little bit but really that wasn't what they're proposing until kind of to delay the curb cut until there's a site plan that's submitted for uh that involves 700 tap in and that area within there and then that would kind of trigger that uh that the removal of that that curb cut for that area so that's kind of essentially what they're proposing is that to kind of delay that until that a major redevelopment that involves 700 happen would would be triggered a site plan for that area there but the the the uh there's a couple other changes within those regulations again the strikeout version that um it says yeah it permit a maximum of four curb cuts uh two from monroe one from tappin um and then it basically the language is probably a building permit being issued that they would uh in areas b or c that they would uh remove that curb cut so area well i don't have that map up right now but that involves 700 tapping in the adjacent parcel so that that's really that that that is the proposed changes is to kind of delay that until that a site plan that involves site as you can see here thank you brett uh areas b or c is submitted and then prior to that the curb cut would would be eliminated um with uh well it doesn't say the impervious removed but we would make them and remove the impervious as well another and the only other addition to the supplemental rags really would be the um that they added in their the uh requirement for the rain guard to be in the location located in the northeast corner of area b so really the only changes are regarding those curb cuts and then that the addition of that rain guard especially as drafted especially with increasing the number of curb cuts i cannot support this um so any other comments um mr bunzell i go ahead i just wanted to respond briefly to some of the comments that were made if you look at the um the drawing if you can put the drawing back up what what i tried to do in the supplemental regulations is you know dominic's has been there for longer than i've been in town it's probably longer than most of you it operates there is the loading area for the restaurant is in the southwest part of drawing a part a so rich is going to keep the curb cut on oakland which near the letter d and people you know the the the delivery trucks come in into that area and then they exit on monroe street at the northwest corner of a and i think that's what he uh proposed with city council why there was a reference to only two curb cuts what what i tried to do was clean this up and so and again the language from the existing the existing supplemental regulations while it does refer to the two curb cuts you know it then does give the timing for when that's that's my that's what we believe the city council's intent was i looked at all the materials and so i you know we're we are quite comfortable in the conclusion that city council intended dominic's to be able to function right i mean he was coming to the city council to try and create the conforming um status for his property and so they knew that there would be those two curb cuts and he said hey i may eventually do this development in which case the curb cut the eastern curb cut on monroe and the southeastern curb cut on tapen would be the ones that would be removed but the the point of the whole of the language that was that they didn't have to be removed until the first pud site plan okay was approved for the district now mr leonard mr kwalski will confirm this that typically in order to do construction you have to have a site plan and so and until the and i'm pretty sure of this too is that the the marijuana um dispensary issue state law and city council in the ordinance notwithstanding that's the first time when you've had to provide a site plan without any construction so when the city council passed this pud back in and i've seen this in many city approvals the idea is hey the trigger for things is the site plan application okay it's not the permit it's not the building permit it's not the cfo it's the site plan and so the city council would have been thinking okay they're going to remove these curb cuts when they're actually doing construction when they're going to actually do the development as proposed by the conceptual plan so i don't think it's unfair at all to say that city council sat and said hey we're approving the concept plan when mr devarti proceeds then he's going to have to take out the curb cuts um thank you but so what i tried to do in drafting the supplemental regulations was just really reflect the reality i mean let's let's face it though the site plan has been improved since 2009 and there haven't you know those curve cuts have all been there but just very briefly on a couple other points one i know mr mccloud has worked at having no parking there um he's put cones up and he's really done it you know he's worked at having no parking there he doesn't need the parking a lot of his clients are walking by the planters are actually a better solution than removing the pavement i mean even if the pavement was gone you might have people drive up on that curb cut so we were really trying to address how do we stop anybody from using that the planters just like at the bloom marijuana dispensary where it was the solution we came up with um mr kowalski mentioned the trench drain we're trying to address the runoff created by the impervious surface not only of that lot but also the building by putting in the rain garden the idea was hey let's let's we're making a minor tweak to the language let's provide a public benefit that reflects the realities of 2021 as opposed to 2009 and we thought the rain garden to allow for infiltration was a better uh public benefit at this point in time thank you mr munzel i thank you very much all right um any other questions comments from planning commissioners all right mr leonard we can do a roll call vote please commissioner gibrandam no commissioner sovay oh commissioner abrams no mr dish no commissioner lee no commissioner clark no commissioner white no mr mills no uh recommendation fails it'll proceed to city council with a recommendation from the planning commission of denial all right um next up is tennessee this is 336 south ashley um thank thanks for your consideration sorry thank you um mr leonard this was rec this was crossed out on the uh on the agenda so can you suggest what the right order of operations is here yes my apologies uh as you are you know we do our best to make sure projects are ready to go we have to make a three determination a half weeks in advance of an agenda that we're going to be able to work through remaining issues and i was unable to do so on this particular petition but we had advertised it as an item so what i would recommend is you open the public hearing to see if anybody has comments and then i would recommend after closing the public hearing a motion to postpone consideration of it to the october 5th planning commission meeting all right we can do that so we will go right to the public hearing um if you have called in or joined us via zoom and would like to provide um participate in the public hearing for 336 south ashley you can press star 9 on your phone or the raise hand function in zoom if you are watching us and want to call in it's 877-853-5247 and our meeting id is 977-6634 12 26 um city staff will select callers that have raised your hand please keep your comments to three minutes and state your name and address at the beginning of your comments and someone on the line if you want to provide a public comment please either use the raise hand function or press star 9.
I'm not going to discuss masks as a negative because I realize the science behind them and the necessity of them to be able to attend school in person. However, masks add another level of heat related concerns. We add fans to the classroom to circulate air which adds to the normal noise level of the classroom. Will I be able to hear them if they're in distress? Thank you for your time. I hope you will consider some changes soon for the health health and safety of students and staff. Sincerely, Linda Greenwood, kindergarten CSK. Thank you. Next up is Sarah Valerio. Topic is also key. Good evening. Um I like Kathy am reading a comment from teachers at CIT Elementary since they have back to school night and can be not can cannot be here. Our district promotes future forward thinking and equity. Unfortunately, there are inequities among the schools within our district.
so we want to make sure that our students have a direct line to the industry so that they can practice the skills that's necessary to maintain good careers also we want to offer our students our high school students the opportunity to earn college credit while they are here at azusa unified so as you know we have the early college program over at glaston high school but we are off also offering dual enrollment courses at the other two high schools and so we want to continue that and we want to increase that enrollment we also want to start initiating the opportunity for our our teachers ausd teachers to teach these dual enrollment courses as long as they qualify with citrus college they should be able to teach for these courses so that our students are learning with those who they are familiar with and lastly we want to increase the number of articulated courses in the cte area our students upon taking these capstone courses if they are articulated with the community colleges they will be able to receive college credit as a high school student so those are the things that we want to do at main things that we want to do at college and career pathways i now pass this over to miss jenny lee oh i'm going to go back to karen kramer back on the line again so aaron would you like to yes hopefully i'll do an audio test very quickly i have traded offices there okay great thank you to mr creel for giving me this space for a moment so to continue with what i was sharing um in the special education department we are working with our resources to really support our students families administration and teachers to come back to really service the needs of students who are on ieps and all of our students in general we've expanded our school psychologist support by bringing back one of our wonderful retired school psychologists who has agreed to come work with us for a few months to support that our assessments are up to date and completed it was very difficult to provide assessment opportunities for our students during shutdown because our students weren't as accessible to us as we needed to have them be in order to do appropriate assessments for special education services we also experienced some difficulties with record updates because we were not here on campuses to update our records within our annex files so our expanded school psychologist support will support making sure that all of our records are accurately updated and filed and also to support our iep teams as students come back we want to make sure that we're providing their services and that they are having their iep meetings to meet their needs to tag on to what gary creel was sharing our ed services department is working together and collaboratively to develop and to really improve our systems to coordinate the breadth of services where we have in our district available to students and families in the area of mental health we have incredible partners um in our community we also employ our own mental health therapists and so our mental health supervisors will be working with ed services to really help us look at what areas we can make better and to expand what is available for our schools and our community through our school district professional learning continues to be incredibly important we've learned a lot after shutdown and and from this experience and so really focusing on the needs of our students in social emotional learning as was mentioned before and how that applies in the special education setting and in special education programs and so working with our mental health therapists and our community partners to really focus on learning on how we support social emotional learning which began yesterday also behavior supports um really helping students regulate and come back to school to be successful in classrooms and on campus and to support our teachers and para professionals in supporting students to learn how to be back in school trainings for our new teachers we started that off of um last week and so really welcoming our new teachers especially those that are venturing into special education programs to support our our students in those classrooms and then professional learning on compliance because we do have a lot of guidelines and things that we are required and are needing to do in the special education programs lastly i will highlight our partnerships with english learners with disabilities we have a robust resource with the practitioners guide for students with disabilities or english learners with disabilities excuse me that was published by the california department of education and the ed services team has been working over the last few years to develop training model modules for our staffs for administrators teachers paraprofessionals to really focus on the needs of our students who are english learners and also are eligible for special education services and that is something that we are very proud of and we'll continue to work on to really get our students a successful restart at this point i will turn it back over to um i will turn it over to jenny lee our director of early childhood education thank you ms kramer good evening board i'm happy to announce that dalton and lee schools will welcome ausd's california state preschool programs to their brand new classroom starting this thursday dalton offers our am session and lee offers a pm session so we now offer csvp at eight school in azusa thanks to the hard work of so many people in our district in our continuous effort to improve as we grow as to improve us was to grow we partner with california education partners in preschool to third grade coherence collaboration or p3 p3cc p3cc brings together teams from 10 participating districts throughout the state in a joint effort to provide a smooth transition from preschool to kindergarten and beyond california education partner staff provides districts team the support that we need to plan to execute and to assess the effectiveness of real solutions to real problems that we face in aligning learning objectives research-based teaching strategies and assessment in preschool through third grade as ms camacho shared this year we begin a new partnership with seal this partnership will also allow our new preschool teachers and tk teachers who did not receive the seal training a couple of years ago to join in the new cohort and be trained in what we know as a highly effective teaching strategies that have made a great difference in our students learning especially in academic language acquisitions in preschool through third grades our teachers have the opportunity to receive professional learning in county collections which is provided by california education partners and none other than dr megan frankie who is known for her work in cognitively guided instructions or cgi county collection is a research-based instruction construction practice that provides opportunities for children to count collections of objects using counting strategies at their skill level it also supports students in making sense of a variety of other mathematical concepts this work aligns with the california early math initiative that we worked we pursued for the last couple years it also aligns with seals because as they participate in the lesson or the activities our students are asked to explain in detail ways how they sorted their or group their collections of objects in addition to these professional developments we will implement a maze work early childhood curriculum which is a which is a literature-based supplementary curriculum that fosters social emotional learning through the lens of anti-bias education for preschool and tk students the program will help our teachers to intentionally address our students social and emotional learning in the classroom at this time i would like to turn the presentation over to our director of mathematics and outcap dr jennifer edick bryant thank you ms lee good evening board members it's wonderful to be with you this evening and share with you uh what the el capitan metrics department will be doing this year as we continue to evolve and improve the work that we do this year we are going to be implementing a new pack plus selection process and we're hoping that that's going to lead to even more opportunities for all parents to participate and also make sure that we maintain and increase our equity in participation all parents have been invited to complete an interest form and we're sending out multiple communications with multiple modes district level site levels these communications are taking place now directing parents to the link where where they can um complete the interest form after the september third deadline we will 20 parents will be randomly selected to serve on the pack plus uh for this year and we will then do that with balancing schools in mind and and making sure that each school has site representation also selection of our specific student group representatives such as students who are learning english or students who are on ieps that will continue to be done through our district directors and we're also going to ensure that we have ethnic representation that reflects all of the student groups in our community our employee groups that are part of pac plus our teachers our classified staff our administrators will continue to select their employee representatives and so we're excited to see how this new process plays out and get feedback from our our community on these improvements we also are starting our first year of our brand new lcap this plan for our district with all of the goals five new goals 43 metrics measuring those goals that's a large number of metrics that really are going to help guide us and 52 actions and services that we'll be implementing beginning this year um we have uh the actual lcap document itself available on our district website um but we have our lcap overview which is uh available in both english and spanish and that's going to be made available to the public starting this week we will begin the tracking monitoring of implementation of our lcap we look forward to sharing that progress with you as well as tracking and monitoring our our metrics and the lcap is also a tool that we use to support our sites as those sites begin to develop their school plans we also are focusing on our improved balanced system of assessments this year we are starting the year with diagnostic assess assessments in both reading and math um we're going to continue with our district-wide common formative assessments in ela math eld and spanish language arts for our dual immersion students our school staff at sites will continue to have those opportunities to work on a grade level and content area common formative assessment and our focus continues to be on this actionable data that allows for instructional decisions to to be made by teachers and really helps us best meet the needs of all of our students we also will continue to gather the voices and experiences of our students we will convene our lcap student advisory committee which is is the student version of pac plus we'll get that group going this fall we will select 10 students from each of our three high schools who have a good representation of the different groups and they too will support the development tracking and monitoring of our lcap and uh will further gather student voice through our student listening circles with students in grades 5 through 12 the the input and information we gather from our students is is so important because it helps us understand their perspectives hear their voices and it's important as we consider how best to meet their needs that we actually hear from our students as we go into this new and unique school year so finally we are entering year two of our partnership with youth truth for our district annual survey and this survey provides data for many of our lcap metrics it also helps us track and monitor progress of many many of our district initiatives because this is the second year that we are able to partner with youth truth we are now going to have an opportunity to look at year-to-year changes in our data and continue to be able to disaggregate all of the data in multiple ways to really dig deeply into equity and and ensure that all students and families and staff are are having positive experiences and showing growth and improvements so our partner with youth the truth also allows us to continue to see comparison data at the state and then national level so this concludes a brief summary of some of the things happening in the el capitan metrics department and i would like to now turn this presentation back over to superintendent ortega thank you um obviously this is a presentation um high level uh but i hope that um you share in my excitement um as we see um to you some of the words that were used tonight uh the evolvement uh the continuous improvement uh the innovative uh pushing uh to think about uh what we are being able to offer our students in our community it's a source of pride that we are pushing ourselves to continuously think about uh other ways other practices to really offer a high quality experience for our students i am thankful to not only the ed services team which rightfully so um took the the highlight but also to to latasha and to jorge for the work that's being done gary around uh health and safety uh as well uh so at this point in time i'd like to open it up for uh any questions or comments that we can follow up with thank you board members i just want to thank them for the great presentation it was right just one question um as we look forward to the first day of school in a couple of days how many students do we have enrolled in the district so we have our projections um who's like our project enrollment but i don't know the current enrollment as of today i was wondering if we have the current enrollment if we expect to show up on thursday we can we can get that and we can get that number and uh share that out any other questions uh yes one question regarding the vaccines do people need um appointments or they walk in and and what is the vaccine do we know um i can take that i believe it's pfizer i'm not 100 sure but i believe it's pfizer and there's an option that you can uh schedule an appointment but they will take walk-ins as well that the the appointments will be done online uh mercy pharmacy is handling the the clinic again and superintendent ortega organized their previous uh vaccine clinic that they had at gladstone high school so it'll be similar to what happened previously and do you know if the um website is the my term dot com or what is the website is that that's when they use it usually used i'm sorry would you ask that again if it broke up the website is it the my turn.com i don't have the website yet we just got the sites uh finalized so in the coming weeks i believe you'll be seeing uh our advertisement and promotion of the events no they were posted okay thank you yep and then board member cruz gonzalez yeah thank you i actually have a lot of questions but i think they're just more i'm happy to just give them to our tudo and writing and just get some responses for some of them but there's just a couple that i did want to ask tonight so first i just want to say i really appreciate us leaning heavily on the restorative restart brief that was that was put together by many organizations across the state led by pace so i think that's it's really valuable i did i just wanted i so i did want to ask a couple pieces so um dana you talked about integrated integrated social emotional learning right and so how do you anticipate um that's a you know that approach is the best practice but it's also very much intensive in terms of professional development because it really requires teachers to sort of change the way they interact with students so how do you see us really diving deep into that sort of integrated scl approach as opposed to thinking about it like as like a some kind of purchase project program that we're going to put in 15 minutes a day so that's my first question um yes i can address that that's a great question so um yesterday we the ed services team put together a social emotional uh learning module um that uh talks it's largely was um based on work from hazel or castle um as well as uh some research from uh fisher-free and hattie's work um around uh you know restorative restarts um so the work um that or actually the activities that were in um our participation guide included a plethora of different kinds of activities that teachers would be able to use right away so um and and many of the activities are things that teachers have been have been using for quite some time so that's one piece is to be able to give the teachers a quick start um our goal was to be able to really have a definition and a vision of what what is this what is social emotional learning and what does that look like um in our classroom practice as we integrate that but this is the first part of it so our plan is is that we will continue to integrate the social emotional learning modules throughout the year and we will be doing that with our with our principals our system principles our instructional leaders in our um il meetings so we will be developing some modules then we'll be presenting to principals and then principles we'll be providing to the staff that's that's really great to hear um so my my other question is around you reference accelerated learning so i what i would what i would like to understand is how are we building um how are we building common a common understanding or common definition of what accelerated learning is what it looks like how it is not remediation um and then two how are we going to be changing practice in our classrooms so that we really are truly trying to do acceleration and not trying to find do like a interventionist remediation approach yes excellent question um that that is the goal right because if we take a uh remedial approach or a remedial stance and we're going to widen the gap right we're going to um we're not we're not going to provide students with with that grade level um you know more instruction that is the goal and that is the vision that all students will receive grade level uh curriculum and instruction now there are times when uh you know as assessments will tell us uh there might be some areas in which students will need some you know some additional support with that and so when you're looking at a a multi-tiered system of uh support right what do all students get grade level content instruction some students might need a little uh extra support right so that could be um you know with uh within the classroom small group instruction right and then there'll be some students who will need a little more intensive support right and so that's part of that system as well and so um we have been also um in the ed services team we've been talking about um something called a high dosage tutoring uh support plan and so we look forward to uh telling you more about that uh we're really in kind of the beginning stages of that but um that's a system in which you really take a look at you know the assessments and then determine you know what kinds of support we can provide additionally but again the idea is is that all students grade level and then what is it that we can do to be able to scaffold that support so in terms of professional learning right our teachers on special assignment uh we'll be working with uh with teachers throughout the year we'll be working with principals again um and that's that is that is that is part of what we need to do yeah it is about that that learning acceleration piece if i can uh tag on to that just uh as a quick second so we had a microcosm uh or or a prototype or a an opportunity to iterate this beginning with our summer extravaganza and so i think dana's selling herself and her team a little bit short because for the first time uh we flipped the script on on summer programming uh we had a jar you had to put a dollar in every time you said summer school uh to to say we're not when you're not using that terminology uh i think uh board member rodriguez pena said uh she saw things that she only used to see uh when we were doing gait um at at apu and now that's something that every student has access to and can do and so as we as we as we looked at and we i don't want to i don't want to give um i don't give i don't put myself into that credit but um as the ed services team has been working uh to to kind of shift that mindset uh we we did get a preview with our summer program what can happen uh when we uh flip that script and say no uh this is grade level we're gonna we're gonna access uh grade level work and we're gonna focus on on acceleration and so just wanna kind of add a little bit to that yeah i appreciate that and i think i mean i think you sort of i appreciate you just really sharing what in terms of our district what we see as a as a common definition of what accelerated learning is and should be um i think really what i'm asking and this is maybe you don't really have an answer for me right now is really around like how are we going to ensure that this is going to roll out across the district that that principles are really going to be this is going to be the belief system with our principles and our teachers because it is very much a change of practice and mindset right and so that's all you know that's a lot something that needs a lot of support if we really want to be successful so i think that's why i was asking and i and i look forward to seeing it in an action and seeing how how um and when it transforms the way we interact with students so i so that's i really appreciate that um and so then just i just have one last um question or comment um but before i say that i just want to say i really appreciate all of the really focus on additional staffing for especially around the social emotional supports and counseling i think you know a lot of times a lot of districts are very leery of spending one-time dollars on staffing but we know how important that is to be able to create this relationship so i appreciate that that being said um when i look at the restorative restart brief from free from pace and i look at what the what you're talking about the pieces that i see missing um and maybe they're just missing this presentation are really around the one-to-one relationship building and interaction right so the the pace restarted restart brief talks about creating a system so you can have a one-on-one connection with every single family um developing individualized learning plans for each student creating dedicated space for relationship building and engagement and so those are the pieces that i didn't see in this presentation i'm not going to assume that we're not finding not working on those but i think that those are really critical pieces of this idea of a restorative restart because um that's really that because that's really the relationship building part right so i just want to know like where we are i i know you've delved deeply into the to the brief so where where are we on those pieces are those pieces that we see bringing into our district um those ones we decided not you know that we're not going to focus on well i think uh is jennifer um gonzalez yesterday in the um in her keynote she talked about um you know relationship building as the key especially um you know as we're as we're planning this you know restorative restart um i can't really point to anything in terms of like a specific program um however that is part of it right in terms of how um what are we doing you're right to be able to build those relationships um you know with students um we have been working um with our on track team which is another california ed partners team on some of the areas so there are a couple of tools that we have been exploring um and so there has been some conversation around that which is tied actually to the ninth grade on track um we're going to be testing out uh some of these things in kind of a prototype uh manner um to see uh to see how it works and so we're gonna look forward to testing it out and trying it out and so that's that's actually something that we're doing in in that realm as well okay yeah i just i'll just say that i mean i there are some good examples from other districts where they're building in systems so they're gonna that they're they know they're gonna check in with every single family when they come back to school they know that they they're like creating schedules time space so that that that they're saying in the beginning of school we are going to do this um oakland's a good example of this we are going to we're going to dedicate this time to create relationship building not necessarily focus on diving right into the academic standards right so there are some good examples out there districts that have already decided to do this or already have started doing it that we could maybe look at and think about how do we embed and be proactive about it i think training is very important but i also think structures that that enable people to do this work is also important too so i'm happy to to maybe point you in the direction a couple of those but um um i think that it's those pieces are so critical post pandemic right post post hybrid distance learning um so that's all i have adrien thank you i i have one last question regarding the social emotional well-being um our well-being centers they were open at glaston high in azusa in february 2019 are they going to continue or return i should say have you guys remember yes that is the plan big parade and then in march 13th we closed and and after dr ferrer he was there right he was there yes the plan is to continue and pick that back up again who would have known yeah yes i'll add just a little nuance to that the answer is a hundred percent uh they are committed uh to re reopening um originally we were completely on track uh to open uh right after labor day um we're not 100 sure if that's going to happen um they they reached out to us to the principal specifically to say that they're working hard to make sure that that that happens but they cannot commit to a particular date just yet uh because of schools reopening delta variant and those kinds of things and so they might be busy with other a task before they they can they can move to that so adriana do you have one more quick question um that's sort of related um you know i really appreciate talking this focus around like our metrics and how important it is to track and focus on youth truth data i also i also think that um if we're refining that that assessment data that we're doing internally i think that's wonderful right you know we all hear too much about how much overtesting we do and how maybe it's not aligned with the outcomes we want to see um but i am curious and just in terms of you know we've talked last year arthur you talked about your data dashboard and focusing on certain key metrics that are going to drive our work right that would be shared common understanding at school sites and you know at all levels around what this is the data that we're focusing on because we know it's gonna this is this is telling us the certain outcome um so where are we on on getting like an initial look at what that data will look like so that you know so that as we start the school year everyone can be on board in terms of even if it's a pilot approach right so that we have some common data points that we're all talking about yeah absolutely i can uh definitely provide some insight on that um we have not landed on something but i can tell you that we have begun to have robust conversations around uh focusing on on one or two things versus focusing on all of the metrics and so again don't hold me to it but let me tell you some of the things that we have discussed uh in terms of impact in terms of high leverage so we know that we have been working we started a journey and so one of the things that we thought might make sense although all the metrics are important and you will get the two uh alcap updates that we have grown accustomed to that highlights where we are with that uh one of the things that that we are contemplating or discussing and having lively conversations around is maybe this is a perfect opportunity to really focus on number one dnf rates especially at the ninth grade level and so that's something that again we're chewing on and we're talking and really trying to to make the best decisions possible and then another area that we have been discussing or talking about again for for consideration we're not done yet um is k3 uh numeracy um and so those are two areas that again we we we had conversation around we've been having conversation around uh the conversation's not done yet but those are two uh two considerations that that we are thinking about in terms of um being specific or being intentional even though we we have to look at all the metrics in the outcap being intentional about raising this to a kind of you know a different level uh if you will so i just wonder in terms of timeline when do you anticipate coming to the board with something um that is a good question that i haven't wrapped my head around uh let me put some thought on it and i will supply you with uh with that but um i do want you to know that uh we have a made space uh to have this very important conversation and discussion around um you know what what what's going to be our foci in terms of this this up and coming school year i appreciate that and maybe maybe maybe some of our follow-up my fellow board members went away and i just feel like we've had we've been talking for a while um about you know this data and we want to look at um we're starting a new school year i would hate for us to go deep into the school year and then we start deciding it could because you're really then pushing it out to next year right in terms of what we're doing so you know for me the even if it's pilot and it's like okay this is what we're gonna try this year like for me coming to us with something by next month before if you're looking especially dnf grades if i before the first trimester so we know we're talking about to me is more valuable in moving us forward then worrying about do we have the exact right ones that we need to focus on thank you for for that i mean that gives me a little bit of context so let me um definitely assure you that it will not be deep into the school year and i definitely foresee within uh within a month's time for sure that's thank you i appreciate that any additional questions from the board thank you um mr tigger just briefly i i echo the urgency i hear in board member cruz gonzalez's request for uh something i know we've been talking about it for several months and uh there's been a board request at board meetings a couple of times and um you have our full support to do it but we want to see the it and we want to work with you on it um so i'm i voice my support for you and support for the project but we want something i understood thank you okay and i will echo those same those those same comments and not not to beat a dead horse here but it would be great to uh uh yeah to stick within that that month's timeline to be able to get something in i would agree the only uh other comment i would have is uh to jennifer edith bryant dr bryant i would first of all thank you for all that i see that you are doing here and all that you continue to do one of the things that that kind of put out to me and that excites me that i see here on your uh slide is the the revised and improved pack plus election process and so i would be interested as we have as we see here listed that the intentions behind this is to increase kind of increase opportunities for parents to participate and also increase equity i would love to see if it were possible to to kind of gauge what this intervention does by way of of either representation or or or just uh you know demographics as we're comparing what was and what will be after this yeah so i don't know that i have a whole lot of thoughts on on the exact specifics of what that would look like but but if you were able to provide some type of snapshot um that's something i would appreciate being able to see yes yeah i'm happy to do that we've had fairly improved uh representation of student groups but one of the things we've heard from our community and perhaps you have to board member greer that you know more parents want at least opportunities to try to be part of pac plus and that's that's one of the things that we're trying to address so not only is it looking at the configuration and increasing the equity but it's also hearing our constituents uh our parents and families responding to that and then gathering feedback from them then uh hopefully on the the increased opportunities as a as of today and and the info has been out since friday i have 33 parents already interested and i think that's far more than we have schools so right there that that shows me some real promise uh but i can come back to with some other data as well as we finalize the process thank you this is you know more than a notion here easier said than done and the fact that that you are taking this you know head on i i applaud and appreciate any other questions or comments from the board okay then we look to uh item 11.0 consent calendar and specifically 11.1 approval of the consent calendar all matters listed under the consent calendar are considered by the board of education to be routine and will be enacted in one motion there will be no discussion of these items unless requested by a board member if a board member requests discussion that item will be removed from the consent calendar and considered separately is there a motion on the floor in regards to our consent calendar i make a motion to approve the 11.2 through 11.10 we have a second so there's uh the we have a it was moved by board member rodriguez pena and seconded by board member bo any discussion then let's go ahead and move to a vote and the motion passes five to zero we now move down to items uh 13.0 curriculum and instruction and 13.1 in particular ratification approval of the contract between azusa unified school district and the los angeles county office of education for school-based ovid 19 testing is there a motion on the floor make a motion to approve 13.1 all second moved by board member rodriguez pena and seconded by board member cruz gonzalez any discussion yeah board member rodriguez kenya we used to have an explanation personally um so we as this unified is going to receive a little over 1.2 million dollars from the centers for disease control and prevention epidemiology and laboratory capacity for infectious diseases they allocated grant funding to the los angeles county office of education we applied for it a few months ago and we are going to we are receiving it um so the purpose of the funding is to support any expenditures that are related to our school-based cova 19 testing so for example uh this would be contracting with some of the healthcare agencies that would be providing the licensed vocational nurses this would be supporting our covid testing program this would be supporting the coordination of that so that's what this funding would be for so on the lvns um are they taking the place of the um our health aide or are they only working with students there first question the second question is if they don't have any students that day that they're working pertaining code 19.
and again if you're watching us this will come back so you can if you're interested in this item uh october 5th is another opportunity um seeing no one joining um would a commissioner like to postpone would move wait first we need to move the item and then move the postponement can you um i would just take action to postpone consideration of 336 south ashley to the october 5th 2021 planning commission meeting all right so the motion is to postpone actions moved by commissioner white seconded by commissioner gibb randall any discussion all in favor of the postponement please that is everyone great all right we are on to item 11a which is a revised meeting schedule mr leonards yes um attache is the current meeting schedule i'd like for you to consider modification to it to move your october 12th meeting working session meeting to october 13th the reason for that is that monday is indigenous people's day that means city council is moving to the tuesday it's not something we picked up when we first set the schedule so i'd like to propose moving the working session to that wednesday the 13th okay can i have a commissioner move to approve the revised agenda moved by commissioner weich seconded by commissioner sovay any discussion all in favor of the proposed motion please raise your hand or say yes said was that a quick hand commissioner lee yes awesome that's everybody sorry i wasn't catching you quick enough um item 12 is oh commissioner give randall could you please ask our wonderful mia gayle to resend the invitation so it shows up magically in our outlook calendars that would be great thank you thank you item 12 is public comment this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about any item of interest if you wish to address the planning commission at this time please press star 9 if you're listening by phone if you've joined us through zoom you can use the raise hand function if you are watching us and want to call in the number is 877-853-5247 and this is the bazillionth time you'll hear it tonight but our meeting id is 977.
We are not the unified equitable district we need to be. It is 2021 and several of our buildings have no air conditioning, no working water fountains, and one bottle filling station to service the entire staff and student body. These buildings house some of the district's youngest and most vulnerable students. How can we have equity when a student attending one of our district schools is learning in a classroom with a temperature of 72 degrees while students in other elementary buildings are struggling to learn in a classroom that is 90°? We are told to warn parents of the heat so they may bring a water bottle and dress their students accordingly. We are told that we can keep the lights off, teach with them sitting on the floor, keep the blinds drawn, and encourage them to drink more water. We are thankful that refreshing cool water will be available, those strategically placed water coolers throughout our building.
yes so what are they doing got it so their primary uh function would be to support the testing program but also um when you contract with both agencies these individuals can perform any nurse related duty so they would they would be assisting the um cal state um no not necessarily they they so for example we are going to continue to uh do our temperature check uh in the morning when students are arriving on campus and so uh the lvns would be uh stationed um at the temperature scanning machines and then they would be assisting uh with any students who you know were perhaps showing any symptoms of povid they would be contacting parents regarding that they would be offering uh testing to families and if they're interested in having their students tested we could we're able to do that at school and that would be for one year that is correct yes okay great thank you welcome uh board member cruz gonzalez that is wonderful so do we anticipate having and then a part-time lvn at every single one of our school sites is that what you just said dana yeah yes we do we're we're bringing forward contracts from uh two health agencies today to be able to um recover that that's wonderful um just a couple other questions then so um how are we gonna ensure that our families know that they have an opportunity to be tested if they want to um at our school sites and that that that that would be available to them and their families how are we going to get people so um part of the funding for this is also to have a program specialist that will help to coordinate all of the lvns and the school-based testing at each site and so as we are um putting this together we will definitely include a communication plan um we uh we partner with a state testing agency right now and so we um i contacted them just to get more information but we are we are able to not only provide cover testing for students but also for families as well so we do plan on uh communicating that out um but once we once we get our plan in place we're definitely going to do that so that's why so my last question is just around the actual testing so if we are going to have somebody face at each site um is there a way that we can explore surveillance testing i understand that it's not required by the by the the state guidelines at this point or the county health guidelines um but you know you see other examples like l unified where they are have rolled out and they plan to do surveillance testing um so i'm just curious about whether we can and i and i heard questions about it on the in the spanish town hall last week from some of the parents so i'm just wondering what the what is the feasibility of us starting surveillance testing with both our staff and our students at this time we don't have we don't have any plans to do that it is possible um that is something again uh because we do have our coveted testing um that uh we're part of that the the state laboratory um it we could do that we don't right now we do not have any plans to do that um right now we are going to uh you know offer testing uh to uh to families if uh if their students are symptomatic right or if the families are symptomatic so that's where we're starting so i would appreci i would like to request at least an understanding of what it would take to be able to implement surveillance testing i'm not sure dana i don't think this is probably going to be your purview but maybe arthur i would like to request that we investigate what it would take for us to implement surveillance testing okay thank you excuse me still what is that kind of is it surveillance testing surveillance testing i don't know if you want to explain what that is what does that mean uh yes um so um what that means is that in a systematic approach we would have some kind of cadence where we would be testing either students and or staff members whether you are symptomatic asymptomatic vaccinated not vaccinated it's just a layer of protection that um that we would be doing testing on a on a cadence right in a continuous uh manner uh to help in our coven 19 kind of safety effort thank you any additional questions on the board okay then there is a no further discussion we'll move to a vote and the motion passes five to zero moving on to item 13.2 approval of the contract between azusa unified school district and collaborative learning solutions is there a motion to approve 13.2 make a motion to approve 13.2 moved by board member uh rodriguez pena is there a second high second seconded by board member bo any discussion hearing nothing let's move to a vote and the motion passes 5-0 moving to item 13.3 approval of the agreement between azusa unified school district and maxim healthcare staffing services incorporated is there a motion to approve 13.3 i'll make a motion to approve 13.3 moved by board member rodriguez pena and seconded by board member cruz gonzalez any discussion i just want an explanation on yes this is one of the um health care agencies that will be supporting us with the licensed vocational nurses for our site-based testing any additional questions then let's go ahead and move to a vote and the motion passes five to zero moving to item 13.4 approval of the agreement between azusa unified school district and row health incorporated is there a motion to approve 13.4 make a motion to approve 13.4 moved by board member rodriguez pena do we have a second i second seconded by board member bo any discussion i hear cricket we will move to a vote and the motion passes five to zero for those who are at home listening there are literally literally crickets that we hear in the room and now we move to item 13.5 approval of the memorandum of understanding between azusa unified school district and california association for bilingual education we have a motion to approve uh 13.5 make a motion to approve thirteen point five i'll say boy rodriguez pena by second and seconded by board member bo uh any discussion hearing none we'll move to a vote and the motion passes 5-0 i said a quick question adrian how many how many school sites will this be at or is it going to be virtual and across schools how is this going to be rolled out well let me go ahead and ask for oh norma go ahead i'm sorry um it will include all of our schools um and we are going to be rolling it out in cohorts of 25 um so we'll have four cohorts of 25 going simultaneously um um in order to be able to utilize their trainers that they're going to be sending out we'll have some trainings um that will include all of their admin team they'll start with admin team community liaisons and then you know continue to roll out but it's going to include all of our schools this will be a district-wide um initiative are there any additional questions okay then we'll move on to item 13.6 approval of the agreement between the azusa unified school district and the city of azusa is there a motion to approve item 13 points i make a motion to approve 13.6 is there a second i second uh so it's moved by board member rodriguez pena and seconded by board member beau is there any discussion i i have a discussion regarding um i know that we have it this i will like reaching in this agreement we have on our board policy that states if a student is being detained or interviewed by the police department or an sro that parent or guardian will be contacted prior to the interview so maybe they need to be present but especially the students that are under 18 years old is that possible um mr stega uh it's definitely possible that we can broach that conversation uh it is a memorandum of understanding with two different i mean right now we're talking about one agency but the next item is with a second agency so i'm going to assume that that request would be for both yes uh so it is possible to broach that conversation um i would just need clarity if we are approving with that caveat or if uh if we're motioning to table this uh to move uh i would need clarity on that our next board meeting is not scheduled i believe until september step well i personally like to see it written on here um before i vote or label it rodriguez pena is that a motion to table this item until yes she wants to mentor motion right isn't there any emotion on the table do we already make a motion there is a yeah that's very true there's a motion for approval so uh board member rodriguez would you want to amend your emotion to table this yes i would like to mend my motion to table this item into ending the addition of a language language change addition yes is there a second that motion i second the amended motion moved by board member rodriguez pena and seconded by board member beau with that said is there any additional discussion or question hearing none we will go ahead and move to a vote a vote that we're going to table the item uh yes it'd be my understanding that we still would need to vote the table this is a vote able the uh 13.6 not to approve thank you and the motion passes 5-2-0 which brings us to item 13.7 approval of the memorandum of understanding between the azusa unified school district and the city of covina their emotion on the floor well i like to table despite him also for the same reason 13.7 so for remember rodriguez payne i hear you tabling 13.7 uh until we we make the added changes in language that you mentioned 13.6 yeah that is your motion is there a second on that motion to table this i second the motion any conversation hearing none let's move to a vote and the motion passes five to zero which brings us to 14.0 uh in 14.1 adjournment adjournment and uh due to no more items on the floor i are there any other questions or comments from the board before we adjourn then we will go ahead and adjourn at 9 36 p.m i make a motion to adjourn and we have a second one i second the motion any discussion on how we will adjourn bye let's go ahead and vote and the motion passes five to zero thank you everybody for joining us tonight um have a great night and again look forward to seeing you in a couple days as we as we kick the year off bye-bye
6634 1226 um staff will select those who have raised their hand if you decide to call us you press star nine to raise your hand uh there is somebody who's joined on through zoom at least if you'd like to provide a public comment please use the raise hand feature to indicate that now see no indication all right then we'll move on to item 13 which is commission proposed business is there any i'm going to do the thing that i always do when we see something in our code that's a little broken and actually i think that all of that discussion over the mill creek proposal suggests that no matter what happens we need to revisit the ev ordinance because the idea that you do not need to put ev infrastructure on extra parking that it's only required on the required parking is extremely problematic in my mind that the extra parking you can build without that is problematic as people on the orc know i have been pushing in our in our rewriting of parking to as at an additional um incentive to not build parking is to require ev parking ev infrastructure around anything that you built um and so but even if that doesn't make it into our overall parking changes i think i would um mr leonard like this is a quick fix that we need to definitely not have that just apply to required parking explore what that means yeah it's in the parking section that you're going to be looking at for you comprehensively so i don't think it's an inappropriate time if you want to address it okay great anything else is the removal of parking minimums um is that in the subcommittee is that a part of an rfp process it would just be helpful because i'm i even asked mr leonard today for like a visual representation of our planning code so that we can look at a parcel know what the building heights issues are the setbacks and the parking minimums it's all in the udc but it's just too much text to synthesize and so to be able to see it visually would be helpful because um i'm just really struggling with how we're how we are intended to meet our housing goals if we have to have so much of the land use be dedicated to parking it it actually feels farcical right now like we're on one side we're saying this is an important part but our zoning makes it nearly impossible to implement it i mean a full third of our land use from what i understand is dedicated to car storage so just just helping figure that out as we look at these new developments and then with this infill project this is another 50-year development that we won't have any more input on once they go to the construction phase and the estimates for ev vehicles is that by 2030 a four-third of all new cars will be electrified so while today we're only at 3.4 percent the estimates to get the fleet uh to meet the um the um gas reduction sorry i'm going to stop losing my access to words emission reduction is going to go through the electrification of our fleet so um i do i do want to figure out how to balance what commissioner dish said today in the conversation about you know let's not put an owner's sort of requirement on a development you know but let's figure out how to get ourselves ready for our goal and take into consideration what commissioner lee talked about um with all of that so it just feels it just feels complicated unnecessarily complicated i think is the way that i would describe it and so i don't know if there's a way is there is it only in the subcommittee that we talk about this are there other conversations where we have these conversations around how we're going to address our planning objectives especially as it relates they to zero so and if i got something wrong commissioner dish i'm sorry so because your hand went right up after i called you up preemptive apology do you want mr leonard to go first commissioner dish or do you want to go okay mr leonard yeah so um i think those are great questions commissioner um i think one of the as was i think the the petition this this evening was a great example i think one of the one of the policy decisions that you and the city are going to have to come to is i think frankly the heavy-handedness of that balance i think one one part of it is um a lot of communities are doing this is they're starting to say well at a minimum why would we prescribe a minimum amount of parking if somebody from a market rate perspective thinks that they can um function without that level to that to that imbalance of land use why would we say no no no no you we are forcing you to contribute to that so i think i think you know i don't want to say it's easy because there'll be a lot of perspectives about even that aspect in our community to just say no minimum is required i think the sort of more significant policy decision is the maximum side of things when you and so tonight is a great example where you have a property owner saying that in order to achieve this infill from a market perspective i need more parking than the minimum and so the city could um get to a policy framework that says no we we're going to have we're going not only are we going to eliminate minimums but we're going to uh prescribe maximums and but i think the policy decision there is that in that circumstance you might very well have property owners in that circumstance say well i i'm uncomfortable then making that investment because i'm concerned about it that my marketability might be lagging the city's aspirations as it relates to vehicular miles traveled so but you're i just want to say that that is absolutely apropos for the just the coming discussion and then generally um one of the things that we didn't get to with the orientation orientation and i'm going to send you is we have a series of subcommittees on this group and so on one of them is the ordinance revisions committee um group they tend to meet the fourth tuesday um of of the month because three are not enough and they help staff with sort of the um [Music] nuts and bolts of crafting language to ready it for presentation for the whole planning commission as a whole but with something like parking we have put together sort of a work plan um in that regard but we might decide that that weren't some working session conversations at mile post along that rather than waiting for it to be more full so um i hope that helps respond to some of those questions yeah thank you and then the only other thing which would be helpful and we can talk offline about it is a process standpoint does it originate in planning commission and go to council or does it originate in council and then comes to planning commission and then um are there protocols when council picks up a public hearing that we have already discussed so this is going to go back to council they'll have another hearing about it are there any protocols that would preclude a commissioner from commenting on it when it's before council so that's it and you can answer that whenever so yeah i can follow up with you on that i think it's i'll follow up on the second part in particular but just to say both of these things happen we have our own work plan of things that of of ordinance changes that we as a com planning commission think need to be taken care of and honestly parking has been on there for years like but it's been the one thing that like see has been really hard and we've decided we can't punt it anymore that was decided before you got down that you're interested in it awesome because that's the kool-aid that you know that's what we had collectively put on our work plan this year but there's also we also have a box and recognizing like we rely you know we're all volunteers we rely heavily on staff um that we need we make space in our work plan for the things that council sends to us to be responsive to that because they do send us things um often with a time with a with a due date so those things are the ones that get often bumped some of our own priorities quite frankly just out of like there's only so many hours but it but both so commissioner dish i just wanted to say that i appreciated uh commissioner how starkly you put the insanity of our affordability goals alongside our parking minimums and uh there are members of council who are who are also initiating the could we revisit this idea of parking minimums so it's not it's this is a case where it's coming from both and so i you know we and i i do think that tonight's discussion showed the need for revisiting it and i i think this project was a little bit unusual we don't i don't know how often we see infill projects and so what struck me as weird about it or like hard to get my head around was they were actually proposing fewer parking spots than required for the new housing but the the thing the the the the site overall with its leftover two purrs averaged out higher and so it just and it just made it really hard to think about it and it does put it in where mr leonard said it puts it in the discussion between minimums and maximums and i think maximums are something we want to explore but we wouldn't but but this discussion tonight shows us a project like this could fail if we put our maximum somewhere where someone who wants to do an infill says uh i can't and there's they're sort of too remote to assume that there's enough public transportation right so it yeah but anyway i i just think you put it really really well and i'm grateful for how you put it anything else during commission proposed business we got like another hour yeah all right that then we're on item 13 uh which is a adjournment anyone move to adjourn moved by commissioner abram seconded by commissioner sovay all in favor raise your hand that is all hands and you can wave good night see you what what is this this is the third week no so only orc meets next week
Last year, due to COVID restrictions, the coolers were not available. Encouraging students to drink more leads to loss of instructional time as they are continuously filling their bottle at one of the accessible stations in the school and use the bathroom repeatedly because they are drinking more water. Excuse me. More instructional time is lost when students become sleepy, distracted, or feel ill in the excessive heat. How are we to keep students engaged in learning when the heat is telling them to take a nap? What do you tell the kid who feels sick because of the heat? What do you tell the kids when you, the teacher, is sick from the heat? According to the plans that have been shared with us, we get fans. Only 15 though, not enough for the entire building. One, please let that sink in. How are we to cool an entire classroom with 20 plus students with one fan?
What do we do if a classroom does not get a fan? Let us also add on these days when there is no outdoor prep or recess for fear of heat exhaustion. Our real fear is heat exhaustion inside the building. According to the EPA, indoor environments division, students are more sensitive to the effects of heat compared to adults. They have higher physical activity levels, higher core body temperature, higher metabolic rates, larger surfacetobody mass rates, limited ability to communicate thermal sensations, and rapid growth at incomplete development of certain functions. Our building administrators are doing their best to be considerate and create a cooling plan, including water being brought to our rooms and cooling periods in an air conditioned part of the building. We appreciate the concern and care they show, but we lose more instructional time to transition back and forth to the cooling area. Some classrooms, due to limited cooling areas, must wait in the heat all day for their 30 to 45 minute cooling in the afternoon.
Others get their cooling time in the morning before the heat sets in. and no relief in the afternoon. Classrooms that are connected to the library with no exterior windows get no cooling breaks. These interior rooms are extremely warm and have no circulation. These classes are asked at times to close their doors because the learners in the library can't hear because of the classroom noise. Once the door is shut, any hope of circulation of cooler air is squashed. What are the teachers at doing to help? We buy our own fans and point them in as many directions as possible. We adjust our schedules to get as much curriculum in before the oppressive heat kicks in. We teach in the dark. Yet, it is not enough. Students and staff remain miserable. Students come back from the extremely hot lunchroom with sweat pouring down their faces. As an educator, you know they can't concentrate, so you try to do more handson in the heat.
The papers we pass out are curling because of the humidity. Some students just want to put their heads down. Some want to go to the nurse. and some get hot and cranky. Students cannot learn or concentrate in the heat. Temperature in the classrooms range from 80 to 95 degrees after lunch. There are numerous studies that show that learning cannot play take place in the heat like this. So, we would like to share a couple examples found on a quick search on this topic. According to PBIS September 2019, extreme heat lowers a child's ability to learn. From the article titled, "When the heat is on, student learning suffers by Professor Joshua Goodman, the findings were clear. Students scored lower when they just experienced a hot school year than when they had just experienced a cool school year. Lowincome and minority students were impacted by heat more than others, and air conditioning in schools all but completely eliminated the impact of heat." In closing, the teachers of Cree Elementary invite you to spend the day with us in the heat.
Please be sure to dress professionally, be prepared to learn new material, and do not forget your mask. We look forward to the dismantling of oppressive systems, the removal of barriers, and witnessing your commitment to eliminating disparities within the organization. Sincerely, Cree Elementary. Thank you. Next up is um Sarah Mockimer. Did I say that right? Okay. and the topic is air conditioning in schools. Good evening. I'm reading on behalf of Christine Quinland, a fifth grade teacher at Belmor Moral, who could not be here because she's at back to school night. Good evening. I am Christine Quinland, a fifth grade teacher at Bmor Moral. We need air conditioning in all our buildings. I could speak endlessly about how miserable it feels in the building. Tonight, I would like to focus on how it affects our kids. The air quality in the building is so bad the kids with asthma have attacks triggered.
The kids with allergies become so inflamed their eyes are red and itchy and they can't concentrate. All kids are drained, have headaches, and just don't feel well in the heat. They feel miserable and truly struggle to stay focused and on task. By 100 p.m. all rigorous learning stops because of the heat. I have spent many years working at a day camp in southern Spain through the month of July. Spain is a very dry heat. The temperature is usually in the 90s, but often breaks 100 and has hit record highs of 115. I have a classroom on the second floor of a non-airconditioning on in a non-airconditioned building in Spain. It is hotter at Bmoral in my first board classroom than it is in Spain. Thank you for your time. Thank you. And next uh we have a comment from Ann Rodriguez and the topic is non-airconditioned buildings.