So you know I know I know the struggle of students. Um, I was just curious, what if a student wanted to work on homework during their break and lunchtime? Um, what options do they have if it's like online for example? Like do they have any ways they can do it or they just don't? >> So for Morel, the students are able go able to go to the library um to do homework. We do encourage students to do homework at home because it is something that they should be doing at home. Um, but we do open up the library on a regular basis for students to go in just like the chill zone. Um, >> check out Chromebook and >> they use their Chromebook. But I would say when I've gone in there a lot of the times the students are not on their Chromebooks. They're actually playing the game boards um that are provided, the card games or even the activity worksheets that our LMT is um printing out for the students.
And of course, all students were saying, "Please give us more hands-on learning." Um and of course, if you think about uh junior high students and um what their um attention span is, they really do need hands-on learning. Sitting for 50 minutes is very difficult. Social-emotional learning, this is what's going well. They really talked up their counselors. Um I I really want to stress bullet number two. Counselors are good at checking in with students, even if students do not initiate the check-in. If you recall, last year, students were saying, "Hey, we would like it if counselors just checked in on us without us having to go and ask them for help or ask for anything of them." So, they heard. They listened. And so, this is a change. And I just want to bring that up to you. And the fact is, our counselors make all students feel important.
Uh, but we're going to do it sections at a time. So, overall the network will be down overall probably two weeks, but like the offices will be down one day. This office will be down another day. It won't be entirety for two weeks. We communicate way ahead of time. >> Probably when you said when we do the switches, there'll probably be a two to three day period. We would we would literally have no internet, right? For two to three days. >> Well, the main server is in your elementary the magic closet room what they call it. Um that is the only room that'll take out the entire district and that will be just one day. >> Oh, just one day. Okay. Okay. >> But then the rest of it's just peacemail and yeah, we'll give it one day at a time and we'll communicate very clearly when there >> you can think of it kind of like your car.
So, anyways, but it's nice to see all of you this evening. I'm a deputy with county sheriff's office. I've been there for now 18 years. I've been doing this job and my community. >> Awesome. All right. So, we'll start with the principles. Um, so in your role, what are things that you really focus on or specifically obviously at an elementary versus a high school, you have a pool, you have a weight room, different things. What are things that you kind of come to mind from a school safety standpoint? >> Sure. Uh, for me, I think it's, you know, school safety isn't one drill. It's not one program. It's it's honestly layers of of safety kind of all working together. Um, one thing we talk about all the time in education is relationships. And, you know, obviously a student learns better from someone that they have a relationship with.
You can also tell that Isabella's dismay because if you saw Jaden had some dog ears he was wearing some dog ears. Mhm. >> Alrighty. It looks like the enemy team is selecting who it's possibly going to be. Who's possibly going to be next up? And look at that. There's Jaden with the dog ears mentioned previously. He's taking this very seriously. >> Okay. Looks like he's got a plan. That little nod. Okay, he knows what to do. Reading all the text messages from all his fans because he's probably got a lot based on that last match. >> I bet so. >> All right, so it's the Kirby again. All righty. So, the Kirby ended up taking a stock on Jaden last round. So, that would probably be their uh reasoning. And also that upy that Kirby does, the projectile that can sent out by that immediately destroys the landmine.
Cubfest was truly spectacular. Um I'd like to give a big shout out to Sean Pennington. um he was the um person that did the vast majority of all the planning and organizing. So greatly appreciate Sean. No small feat. Um on top of that, the junior high hosted for the first time this year. They were extraordinary hosts and had everything well organized. Um and just easy to walk in and and volunteer because it was all set up. So great job to our staff. uh they had a very long day. So they worked all day, taught all day, um and then came in and worked until 7:30 in many cases or later, shuttling people back, cleaning up from the event. Um just a long day for them. And I greatly appreciate again just pouring into our kids and showing all of the things that we're offering in our school district.
Those are it's astronomical, but that's pretty consistent across education domain anyway. Um So, what's changed, right? So, this is What changed since February 25th? When I came in here and said, "I think we can probably look at a 2.55% increase and be comfortable with it." So, taking into account conversations with each of you independently and getting your feedback, but then also having conversations with our administrative team and our leadership group, we felt as though we do need to make and and have to make some adjustments to what we initially were looking at. And what I'm trying to share with you tonight is the um the process we've undertaken. And I see two mistakes on the slide already. Um the original plan is 20.6 FTE cuts and the revised plan uh is um reinstated is actually um 7.4 positions. Uh so it's 13.2 is still the number of positions that are going to be reduced no matter what.
Um we also have our um what's new to us is our innovation career pathways that we've been working on. So with assistant superintendent Sullivan, we've been building um our team that's working on this new pathway. Um, and it's a way to to really kind of start finding some students that are looking for something that isn't necessarily um shifting to another school to find it, but they can find it here. So, manufacturing is the is really where we're heading with that right now with other options down the road as we build that. And so, that's where they would have that pathway that starts at 9th grade with some a concentration each year um that leads them to an internship and and then involvement. we we kind of have this close um relationship with local manufacturing so we can have students that that want that and again other options that'll come after that.
Did I forget any of them? Okay. And so, wind ensemble has it has their own time that they meet, but each band each grade level band meets every single day and they do lessons and they prepare for for their shows that you've all seen and students have two unified arts classes per day. I miss our band. I can't believe that. Our band is amazing and tomorrow night I hope many of you come out to see our district wide but they are amazing and have grown so much with with Hannah Cherry who has truly taken over so we have that as well. Any other questions? All right, I see member Goodwin with another hand. This really isn't a question but it's a response. I mean to a question. Is that a response to which question? About fifth grade. Or do you want to wait till the Can we save it for the motion?
I'm not afraid of something new. I have sit on this board for 34 years. We have tried many times to have board meetings at designated school. I'm not saying it will fail. I'm just saying, have we covered all the avenues? Number one, spotlight your school. Can the school accommodate what we have in here as far as microphones? It's not just going to going to intake 11 board members. We have other people that have to come and do presentation at those schools. Number two, parking. And I And And it has nothing to do with a certain school. I have been and seen certain schools. There is no parking. Teachers leave at 3:30. Students leave at 3:30 unless something going on at the school. The custodian staff leaves at 3:30 or 4:30. So, my question would be, who's going to do all this setting up, designing for us as board members to have a board meeting?
>> Gotcha. Thank you. And I'm also curious like what other education um is happening at the school sites um on cell phone use. I think it's great that Pedmont you're laying out for students like why it's important um screen time is decreased. You know, it's insane how much people use their phones nowadays. So I'm just curious if there's any other additional supplemental things we're sharing with students about the benefits of not using their phone if or Pedmont you can if you wanted to continue it on or is it just going to be the this year that you're doing it? Um we're I mean we're very excited to see if the education campaign has any impact on their um perceptions of cell phone use and whether or not they agree with the policy. Um I think moving forward um we would want to continue with little videos of students who can attest to their cell phone use and the detriment that it may or may not have had on them.
Uh behavior and safety, students feel safe on campus. Um students do not feel that there are safety concerns. They just feel that students make poor decisions. Um so, uh I I echo that. So, Staff are present interviewing promptly when issues rise, and student privacy is respected when something happens. Uh so, that is very key. I do want to stress that the last the these three bullets right there were shared with the Chico Junior Admin. Very important feedback, I felt. The students wanted additional safety drills. They also wanted to make sure that it was explained to every how important it was that students knew what to do during emergencies. And they also wanted explained to the students the seriousness of every single drill. So, um and of course our administrators took heed and are taking this into account. Here's the part where I was blown away because if you look at some of these responses, I feel they're very mature.
The the main server be like your engine, you know, it's so do you replace the engine this year and and I still have trouble with my tires and you know, everything else. It makes sense just to at some point just get a whole new car. Yeah. >> So, again, and we'll we'll dig into the funding a little bit more. I'll have that for you as far as where we're going to pull that money, but that was last conversation April and I had kind of that's where we would split the bucket of money. Um, we've still got um 50ish in the 23 geo bond um dollars left over. about 10 or 15 of that we know we're going to have to send back to the bank because you're only allowed to draw so much interest on that money because it's bond money. So, um we've drawn more interest than we were allowed to.
And I would honestly say that relationships play a super vital role as well when it comes to school safety. Um, obviously a student is a lot more likely to report something to someone that they trust and someone that they know. Um, and so I think that that strong relationships are are a huge piece of that as well. Um, and students when they feel safe, they they are going to learn better and it all kind of rolls together. Um, I think the next thing that comes to mind is just very clear procedures that all of our teachers know what to do and when to do it. Um, a lot of safety situations are not black and white. They're often very gray. And, um, as it's already been talked about a lot here tonight, I think what comes to mind when you hear school safety, it has a lot to do with intruders.
So, >> yeah. So, both of these players got to be on their aames, outweitting each other as best as they can, trying to get all sorts of conversions. You know, goes from the uh Oh. Oh, and that dash attack destroyed the landmine as well. >> Mhm. >> The landmines are sneaky. >> The landmines are very sneaky. You have to be very strategic to use them properly. Oh, he wasn't. He's just pocketing them up and just sending them right back. Man, this Kirby loves this upbeat. I tell you that was like four or five in a row. Mhm. I wonder who likes their move more, Jaden with the forward air or Kirby with the uh or Kirby with the upy. He just did it in the opposite way. And another upbey. Oh my goodness. >> Okay. What did he just Jaden just throw at him? >> Well, Kirby Well, it uh Jaden started to throw down a landmine and Kirby kicked him in the face which interrupted his animation which meant the mine never got planted.
Quite frankly, I can't imagine why anybody would not be a Madison Cub. It's just a special place to be. So, thank you for that. Uh, we fed over 400 in the cafeteria. So, appreciate Judy and all that her team did um in the cafeteria and the many volunteers who made that happen. Frozen, as you know, was this past weekend, just outstanding reviews. Appreciate um all the work that went into that, all the kids, the adults again um that just worked so hard on that play. Um, as you know, the high school hosted the boys sectionals um this past weekend, and I wanted to read a comment um that we don't often get um aloud. This came in to our athletic director, Devon Brierley, and this was from someone who has worked as an official for over 30 years. And this was the comment they made.
Mike and I were looking at this. I I just missed it before. I The next slide we fixed it and um so this is all based on your feedback. The challenge is and I want to be very um up front here. The challenge is when we look at making adjustments, there are only a few funding sources that we can rely on to to reinstate some positions that may have been in the 2.55 reductions. And I'll get to that in a moment. So 2.55% This is what I presented in February. The 20.6 positions that would be reduced. Okay? Not the 21.6 that was on the last slide. Um I adjusted the others. I missed that one. Um but those are the initial positions. So if the board said, "Jim and the select board finance committee said, "Jim, there's no more funding." And you don't have the luxury of utilizing stabilization funds from the town and or school choice, we would then need to eliminate 20.6 positions to get to the 255 number.
So, a lot of good opportunities. I hope I didn't miss any. And then our our foreign languages I guess as well fall in that category um which is awesome. Both Spanish and um French. Um we have maker space for all three grade levels. We also um our unified arts department is is pretty diverse. So we have maker space, we have theater, we have graphic design, art, we have a PE health and our band. So we have a fifth grade band, a sixth grade band, and a seventh grade band. And wind ensemble. Did I forget any of them? Okay. Um, and so Wind Ensemble has it has their own time that they meet, but each band, each grade level band meets every single day and they do lessons and they prepare for for their shows that you've all seen. Um, and students have two unified arts classes per day.
Thank you. Any other other questions? Seeing none. I will thank you for your time. And for sharing your your experiences, your schools, your invitations with us. We hope to see you back. Thank you for having us. All right. Moving right along tonight we are getting many presentations and I love it. Next up we have our transportation study presentation given by Richard LaBrie. I will do another screen share but as a reminder this was a study that we commissioned to better understand our transportation program here in the district and so Mr. LaBrie's company did that study for us and has a recommendation. Give me just a moment to get my screen share set up. Who what? Yeah, give me just a moment and I'll have that screen shared. There we go. Can you put it up to full screen? I can. That is as full screen, but I can try to zoom in a bit.
Okay. Number three, safety. We are so comfortable coming in a well-lighted place. For many of you didn't climb up Beaver Brook's steps up and down up and down and around every kind of way. Then when we had something special, there was no parking. And I can remember when teachers came and supported the budget. You know, you had to get there almost two hours early to find a park. I'm not saying it's not going to work. I just want to make sure that all the avenues are covered. Do we have to pay the custodian extra for staying over if we have a board meeting that lasts a little bit longer than we think? And I'm just going to throw out an example. Many and many years ago, we had our board meeting set up at Broadview. And the custodian left. And we went into executive session and wind up staying till 11:30 at night.