Nesbbit. Thank you, Madam President. Members of the board, Dr. Smith, let's jump into the blue ribbon phase two. Uh similar slide you've seen here in recent meetings. McKenzie, uh our design work continues there. We're honing in on that. Craig Academy continues to move along. We'll look at some pictures of that. And then our CLA classroom additions of course at Crest View, Forest Glenn, and Mary Castle. Um, as we talked about before, the chillers are going in at Weininger Ridge and Weining Ridge LC and ELC Mary Castle. And then we're gearing up for our other work here this summer. In fact, we have a meeting later this week with the principles to go over the summer work for our guaranteed energy savings. Let's take a look at some pictures. Crest View, there's a look from the outside and then as you walk into the building and that's a bathroom there on the right, believe it or not, you can see the plumbing down there.
Board members have a responsibility to protect students learning environments. You know that the proposed opening of an immigration processing facility in Surprise raises serious concerns about community trauma, student anxiety, and the unintended consequences for thousands of children who already face social and economic challenges. You are charged with keeping our children safe. Our students deserve environments that foster learning, stability, and hope rather than fear. For these reasons, I strongly oppose the opening of the facility and surprise. Like the open letter you wrote in opposition to BSNF transfer facility, I urge you to do the same in opposition of the proposed ICE facility, which has far greater consequences. Thank you. >> Our next uh speaker is Tina Malikica. >> Good evening. Thank you for this opportunity. My name is Tina Malikica. I'm here this evening to also ask some questions about the future detention center at Daart and Sweetwater.
>> No, sir. >> Thank you. >> Hank, I'll turn it over to you. Item number six. >> Sure. Um good evening, board. Uh during uh reception of visitors, uh it can be protocol that one of the bargaining units requests some time of the board to be received and hear about an issue or a topic of interest. Uh this is follows the same rules as any reception of visitors. So it's our job to kind of listen. This isn't a a dialogue or Q&A portion of time. Um the SSA has uh requested to have a few folks come forward, introduce themselves, maybe share a little bit about their job responsibilities. It is a large group and very diverse in role. So um we thought we'd just take a little bit of opportunity tonight for them to say hello and and share a little bit about what they do.
Um it's truly a powerful reminder as these months se signal for us um about our history. Um [clears throat] last month I highlighted Ferdinand Smith and Mary Smith 1903 first graduates from Oswiggo High School African-American. Um and this past weekend we celebrated many of our upcoming graduates at the Black Student Gala and led by the Black Student Association. It was really such an honor. One of the comments uh the questions that came up was what is black excellence? And a comment was made that black excellence isn't about being extraordinary. It's about really celebrating the humanity and the excellence that lives within all of us um all humans and and for our students. So, it was really truly a special moment. This is also a period of renewal um a fasting across many world faith traditions. Um and so we want to recognize and we want to honor those who are engaged in that practice and we want to wish them the best during the season.
Uh I think it's really helping them gain their confidence, helps with public speaking, it helps in so many areas, I think, no matter what they do in life. And we do have students who will just sit and watch and hang out with us. And there are others who get up there and um just keep developing those skills. So we have a lot of fun again about 30 to 35. Then we start worrying about um auditions for the musical. We kind of help them through that because for sixth graders a lot of time it's their first time ever trying to audition for something and we do relate it to like a job interview. So we talk about what it's like to walk into a room, what it's what should you do when you're leaving the room and how you should talk and things like that. So a lot of good life skills I think in drama club.
The lines you see there, the red in the middle is if everything stays as expected and your enrollment is as expected. The line at the top is if enrollment is a little bit more than expected or predicted and the line below is a little bit uh less than what is expected or predicted. We typically trend at that middle line or just above. Actually, right now our enrollment we're anticipating for next year is 2460 students. So, we're actually trending very close to the upper line right now uh with our with our students. So, not that much uh growth into next year, but um it's interesting that we are trending just a little bit at the higher edge. I'm always amazed at this study because how close it actually trends even a couple years out to where uh we really land. Um I'm going to go through each one of the schools.
Um and I really appreciate you parents bringing your students to uh show off for us today. um because I I really feel like seeing in action uh we hear a lot about um our ice our um goal setting, but to see those uh folders and seeing our students really tracking with where they are and where they need to be has been enlightening. So, thank you for joining us tonight. >> All right. Well, you are all welcome to stay for a very riveting um continuation of our school board meeting, but you're also welcome to leave. So, um thank you students and parents for being here tonight. All right. We will move right along to item number five, update on on the civic center project. Dr. Wendham, >> thank you. Um, as we were working on this agenda, it's been a while since we've had an update on uh the civic center, which is such an exciting um project for our whole community and really just a great example of collaboration between the town of Avon and Avon schools um as as well as uh some other entities as well.
>> That's a lot of words. Thank you, Mr. Board members, you heard a recommendation of the administration that the board of school trustees authorize the administration to dispose of the curricular materials listed in the most economical manner that best meets the requirements of administrative guidelines 7310 which may include sale donation or deeming it worthless and disposing of it as normal refues. May I have a motion? >> Motion moved by Mr. Vasser. >> Second by Miss Basin.
And that's the importance of trying to look school by school when you're looking at policy decisions and administrative decisions to actually get a feel for what the concerns are, what the issues are, what's working well, and what recommendations we make. Uh school safety is a very emotional issue. Many of us if not uh most here have children uh grandchildren and other family members. And it's very easy for all of us when there's an issue or an incident or a concern, a weapon, a a fight, a conflict to become very understandably emotional and want to see something happen immediately. It takes restraint for leaders to take a tactical pause, if you will, and say, "Do a comprehensive assessment and then make good decisions based on data, based on uh an assessment, and try to balance that need of parents in the community to want the emotional instant guarantee that we'd all like to have with also making sound decisions where you get the best return on investment for what what you do." And one of the things that we've learned having worked as an expert witness on litigation from the mass shooting high-profile incidents uh from Sandy Hook and Parkland to other high-profile incidents to many things that you won't hear about uh that have happened in in schools uh as far as just many different types of crime and violence is that while the facts of each case vary, the common thread is they involve allegations of failures of human factors, people, policies, procedures, training, communications, systems gaps, not allegations of failures of hardware, products and technology.
Okay. So basically I needed to make up to make sure that we balance at the end. Okay. Does that make sense? Okay. So essentially I took January and I basically didn't make a payment. I didn't do any transfer to to school 800. Okay. We're going to have a minor one in February when when I do the February um uh transfer in March and you'll see that in March and I'll kind of go through this again and then we should be on par moving forward through June 30th 2026. Okay. But in the meantime, we did not have a school lunch transfer uh in January, but we did have that education ops and then we did have a transfer um you give me authorization to make transfer so I can pay bills timely out of certain accounts. So we do that. Um the total transfers for January was $689 and $75.
And so uh we'll have Mrs. Kitchen just share out briefly and then Dr. Vegas. >> Um so summer school for 2026 summer school proposal. Um um I am just requesting permission to hold summer school and then permission to post the positions. We're estimating we estimated 20 elementary teachers. Um um which is right around 92,736. Um but a lot of this is we um the state reimbures us for. So, um, hours are from 8 to noon, June 8th through 26, 15 days. Teachers will be paid for four hours of instruction and a half hour of prep, teacher prep, and it will be held at Flint Springs. And this again is for the students that did not pass I read or at risk for that. So, that's what I'm asking permission for for summer school for the elementary. >> Thank you, Mrs. Kitchen. Uh, I'll entertain a motion reference this.
And then here's a look down the main corridor. And that's one of the four classrooms. Uh, pretty similar looking most of them. One of them is a little larger. That's some music room that's going to be a little bit bigger than the others. And then Forest Glenn, we have the sheathing there, the outside. If you drove by here in the last week, you've seen the roofing going on. I don't think I got a picture of that on this day, but we do have roofing going on. And I think I have a few more pictures from inside there. Yeah, you can see the structure coming along. And you can really make out the six rooms in there. Now, Mary Castle, we could we could have class in there this week if we wanted to just about. Uh we actually have inspection going on um Wednesday um for occupancy.
As a dis longtime district parent, I'm deeply concerned about the impact of this facility on our schools and our students. I live just two and a half miles from where the facility will be. There are local parks, neighborhoods, and most concerningly, schools nearby. Desaert High School and Middle School are just a mile away. Surprise, and Elmarrage Elementary School two miles away. West Point, Riverview, and Thompson Ranch Elementary School three miles away. All of these are title one schools that serve high minor high minority lowincome communities. Since the beginning of 2025, the US has detained 73% more people than the previous year. Only 5% of them have been violent criminals. 73% have had no convictions. It's also been reported that over 3,800 children have been detained and more than 1,300 have been held for 20 or more days, far exceeding the benchmark for how long they can be detained.
So, I will turn it over. I think Maria's going to get the party started. >> Get the party started. I hope you can hear me. Sorry if you can't. I'll do the best I can. Uh, good evening, members of the board of education and administration. My name is Maria Giorgio. I am the support staff association president and I have worked in district 99 for 28 years in the same role as English department admin assistant at North. Thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening. Several of my colleagues are here with me tonight to introduce themselves and share a bit about their roles across our district. The term support staff encompasses a wide variety of roles. We bring a collective value to the operation of District 99. We are often the first to arrive and the last to leave. We answer questions, troubleshoot technology, respond to health needs, support students one-on-one, organize information, and coordinate communication.
I also wanted to last week we celebrate Chinese New Year 2026 the year of the I think it's a flying horse I heard >> it's fire >> fire horse man as if we didn't have enough fire these days but thank you Chinese New Year all right here we go to all who observed and celebrated I know that there were lots of celebrations around the community uh we want to honor that to all those in the community you know we are living in a world and working in times where there are fears There are concerns that come up the board. I've been really thinking about a lot of our schools are really for many places of stability. There are places where there's routine predictability and at times it also is the call it the lightning rod for frustration. When we feel like we can't change things that are beyond our control, sometimes schools feels like the places we have to control and and many people come out seeking ways to improve our schools, which I love and I think that's important and they should.
And then we run a Dungeons and Dragons club and that's run by Mr. Judson who I don't believe is here this evening. So, um there's a lot of creativity that goes on in that club. And then we have a homework club which is run by Tama Astro. So, uh the homework club, um we don't have pictures of kids here. Uh we have different kids that show up every single week. We do run four days a week, Tuesdays through Fridays. we have an hour um and we do run two rooms. We have one room um in the library for just everyone is welcome and then we have another room that's specifically for students with IEPs. The IEP room is staffed by special education staff every single day and the general education room has certified teachers there every single day. Kids can come in to get help with their homework.
Um again what you'll see on most of these starting with Oaknull is most of the time now Oaknull doesn't have any changes for their programs for next year but um most of the time when you see a change it's typically because of a the just grades rolling up to the next grade. So, if you have a large first grade and it's rolling up to second grade, you're going to need to add uh to the second grade and things like that. Oaknull, right now we're uh looking at level staffing across the board and all the programs. You'll see the average class sizes there. Um just a note about some of those smaller ones, ECE uh in particular. Uh the ECE programs always start quite low and through the end of the year, they can only have up to 10 students. Those are classrooms that have only students with special needs who are that are three to five years old.
So, appreciate Ryan Cannon being here, uh, Avon Town Manager to talk about, uh, the civic center, as well as three representatives from Veridis, which is the owner's rep, um, that is supporting both the town of Avon and Avon schools, Hank Rose, David Rainey, and Josh Dvet. Um, when I told them about the agenda, they did say, "Really, you're going to put us right after those kids." So, yeah, that's a tough act to follow, but I know you guys are up for it. But um been a lot of really exciting prog progress at the the uh project. Mr. Rollinsson uh took us uh Mrs. Ald, Dr. Finley and myself over there uh just this past week and it was really exciting to see the progress that's coming along.
Are there any questions or comments? Being no question or comments, we'll move to a vote. All in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Nays. The vote carries 50. Thank you again, Mr. Ramirez. Moving on to item 5.04, policy updates, retirement of policy number 3540, teacher appreciation grant. Mr. Kiwa. >> Thank you, Mr. President and board members. Um, the issue in this area tonight is uh the language requiring school boards to adopt a policy on how it would distribute the grant funds has been repealed. This is due to the new tag grant uh that we hope to receive those funds coming up in April. Um so what we are being asked to do now is retire our old uh tag grant policy but we must keep it archived okay for future reference which we will do. Specifically, HA10001, public law 213-2025 is the teacher appreciation grant and section 19 of this act uh is where it uh repeals the former language related to teacher appreciation grants.
So any type of hardware, product and technology is a supplement to not a substitute for the people part. It should be there to help school administrators and their safety teams to address the concerns that they have. It should not be what often we see is security theater. uh there's a great deal of pressure to do something do something fast do anything and do it now uh to address the emotional security needs and if you do that then often times you do it and then something still happens after that and people are even more frustrated. So the technology, the equipment and products, there's a role for that. We support that, but we want to see where that aligns with what the needs are and that you invest in those resources uh that are there. We also like to see what works well. If it's not broken, don't fix it.