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welcome to the 7 30 florida bed planning committee meeting of the whole before we kick it off mr zenski can i have a roll call for quorum please here thank you i ask that we please stand for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all i can't possibly imagine why everyone is here tonight but it is so nice to see actual faces in the audience thank you for coming out tonight for those at home watching thank you for watching for those of you that are home and you do have questions you can email us at cps coven19 at cheshire.k12ct.us and uh dr solon will try to answer those questions as he gives his presentation before i hand this over to andrew martell the angel is our planning committee chair just saw a few ground rules this is a special planning meeting of the whole board that's why we're all here tonight it's the only way all of us could be in the same room and discuss planning activities uh together without being an illegal committee meeting uh the topic of the meeting is really to talk about where we are school modernization led by dr solin it is not an open forum however there is an audience section where folks out there if you had to speak to the board uh andrew will talk about the protocol for that but we can certainly help answer some questions my guess is a lot of questions we answered during dr solomon's update that being said welcome and andrew i'm going to turn this over to you thank you so much good evening everyone thank you so much for coming out as tony has just stated it's so nice to see so many members of the community coming out for such an important important discussion earlier we mentioned that tonight is the full planning committee meeting of the board of education tomorrow night town council will be taking up the issue of school modernization and town council chambers at town hall at 6 p.m and then from there there's going to be the full board of education business meeting which is going to be october the 24th at 7 30 at town hall followed by an open forum for further discussion on october 25th to be determined location but that will be at 7 pm i believe it'll be at town hall um so just going to give a little brief kick off before dr solon gets into the presentation well first we'll take public speaking and then dr solon will be going through really where we are in the process of school modernization um this has been a multi-year effort i've been on the board for two years this coming december before i joined the board under the last board they went through over two years of analyzing the school buildings interviewing folks and really taking a look and coming up with a plan what some people don't know is is that the board of education will ultimately make a recommendation to the town council town council is the only governing body in the community that could actually put a project to referendum so back the last time that this was taken up um a recommendation was made to the town council and the town council never put it to the voters and that was for 63 middle school so that kind of kicked off the new process where we went back through and analyzed the school buildings went out toward other facilities interviewed teachers members of the public had four public hearings at the schools last june um and kind of bringing us to where we are today um a lot of time has been put into this a lot of effort's been put into this i know everyone has different opinions as to what the plan is to be um so that's kind of why we're here tonight to hear what you folks have to say where we are today the town council is analyzing the preferred option which was the i'm just going to call it the two elementary school option which was the recommendation made by the school modernization committee so the school memorization committee was made up of 13 members of the community with various backgrounds that group over 18 months put together the plan that was then submitted to the town council so town council over the past several months has been really analyzing that plan um page by page detail by detail really put into the financial projections as to what it will be the ultimate cost for the community um so that's kind of the background as to where we are today dr solon will give a further update as to where um there's been some discussions between the board that i haven't been part of but also coliers is the colliers is a professional engineering firm that was retained by the town to help assist the school modernization effort and they have been continuing to do test fits of school sites of town-owned properties and some school sites in the community to potentially host these new elementary schools if that's the process project that goes forward so with that i'd like to we'll open it up for public speaking microphone is here when you come up please state your name and your street address we're going to keep it to three minutes per individual if you go a little bit over i'm not going to like shut the mic off but just try to keep it two to three minutes but also tonight's about school modernization so if you have another issue that you'd like to address to the board come see us on next thursday at town hall we'd be happy to uh to hear you there on the 24th so with that whoever would like to come up first welcome good evening terry terzakis 226 mcsville road uh two topics i wanted to hit one is the size of dodd and the site according to the report from the committee it's projected another 200 students will be in dodd by the end of the decade that's only about eight years away and that's also near capacity according to the report so what happens in year nine and ten or eleven are we then over capacity are those of you or whoever sitting in your seats in 10 years coming back to us and saying oops now we need a new dodd we need to build on that's not going to go over well with all these people when we want it now and if we're still in the process of phasing in what you're hoping to put forward and putting band-aids on this building at probably the cost of millions of dollars to in 10 years come back to us and say we need to add on or build again has anybody been here at school pick up at 245 it's dangerous the site is too small that's not my opinion that's in the report the state says they want 15 acres plus one acre for every 100 kids for a middle school that's about 22 acres who knows the site here i believe it's about 10 11 acres that's half of what the state is looking for so why are we ignoring that we're ignoring that the other thing i want to talk about at the last meeting i attended a couple of you said or supported silence from the public equals approval shame on you that is a dangerous stance if you're not getting it this is too important of an issue to not go out and get the information from us i'm just a parent with kids but i see hundreds of parents on a weekly basis all you have to do is go to mcnamara park on a saturday or sunday there's parents lining those baseball fields or to a cjf practice we are talking about it everybody has a strong opinion maybe you're not hearing it because it's tough for us to get here we appreciate that you guys are here every night but now that we're back to semi-normal lives normal lives for us mean getting kids to soccer practice to a baseball game to cheerleading to football to making sure grandma's taking her medication we can't get here but we are talking about it i have not heard from anyone who has supported the two middle school option everybody is saying they want new dot first and foremost and they're saying they are not going to support the two middle school option this report has surveys you guys took surveys somebody took surveys over the phone and email the committee did a great job at doing research and giving us two great options it is imperative that you now give us that option there are two great options and there are very strong opinions we talked about a pre-referendum a survey email phone if the opinions come back in different we'll go with your recommendation if they're 50 50 we'll go with your recommendation but if they are 70 80 90 in favor of option 2a you can't ignore that please give the tax paying people the option thank you [Applause] i'll jump up at once i'm matt johnson i'm at 75 west ridge court in cheshire and i attended the sessions this summer i've been following the school modernization i agree you guys have done a ton of research one question and i was highlighted this summer about collier's recommendation specifically around the lack of i guess the governing body of the state of connecticut and their responsible what they're willing to approve for tax credit or whatever you know basically what money would they put towards it and they're in favor of a much smaller middle school i believe is the recommendation and that there's only been i believe three examples across the state where they had approved a school that would be the size of the middle school that's being proposed one thing that i'm unclear on and i haven't been able to get an answer and i'm hoping somebody either could share the information or can follow up afterwards is is what's the failure rate of that because quite frankly one of the things that's really crazy in my mind in this day and age is the fact that there's a governing body that sits in across the state of connecticut that is quote unquote working with the towns yet we can only go forward with one option that's the part that i really struggle with because this is such an important thing i mean thank you for speaking up because that i'm with you a lot of time and efforts gone into this but i don't want to go forward with a plan that was going to put us back here eight eight years later and even eight years later is going to be too late we're going to be still catching up this problem has been ignored for way too long you guys have all heard me when i spoke before i went through the school system of cheshire cheshire high i went through doolittle school i went through this this school itself when i was 10 years old they tried to push through the middle school so that was 30 years ago now and here we are having the same conversation couple of other points that i want to emphasize is the whole fact that colliers when they when they come back with their recommendation have also stated when you renovate a school you get a 20-year school right that means 20 years from now you're back here putting your money back into a dumpy school no pun intended but when you build a new school you get a 50-year school you put the dollars out there that are talking about this middle school compared to the two middle to two elementary school options and it's a no-brainer from a dollar's perspective in this town and it's time that we get a new middle school thank you [Applause] anybody else so may i suggest that if folks are not ready to ask questions now maybe after dr presentation can entertain more questions are we okay with that if anybody else wants to come up now or there's gonna be a presentation done by the superintendent and then we could entertain questions again then do i reserve the right to come up again later this will go up right [Music] there we go i should have told you i was coming um so uh my name is jim jinx um 244 academy road um on the town council was on the smc um i just want to mention one thing as far as terry um i think made the mistake we said two middle school options that the two middle school options you meant the two elementary school option right two middle school option is no longer on the table we understand [Music] as far as a survey i myself did a pretty simple survey out to attempting to get feedback from my constituents in the second district i was able in just a few weeks to get over 300 responses to a simple google survey i'm not going to discuss the particulars of the results at this point i just would ask that the board of ed probably could do something pretty similar uh it's really no cost so it's an easy way to put the scenarios out there and get people away to get you some feedback pretty quickly even have you know have a professional firm write questions or design the scenario the sequence of the questions i think that would work out pretty well and could be done fairly quickly um the other thing i want to discuss briefly as far as this gentleman sorry your name was again greg matt matt brought up you know coming back here in a relatively short period of time because we didn't kind of do it right the first time um as i've discussed a few times before you guys have all heard this before you know one of my main concerns it's not so much um the educational aspect of the six state versus uh versus the elementary schools for me my concern has to do with the fact that um we're growing you know we got projections about a year ago um as the smc members know and you guys all know and we're already this year we've already exceeded those projections we got low medium high we're already seeing the high projections this year and those projections we got did not include a couple of major developments that are happening already in town um they also didn't include the um uh anticipated north end development which right now the first phase has been approved which is about 140 units of i think it's one and two bedroom units um but there's a second phase that's 306 units i think of two and three bedroom units none of that was included in those projections just a year ago so if it's um you know we may want to consider looking at our projections again perhaps to see where we we might be uh within the decade so um and if we're you know the state has a concern about the middle school being a middle school being 1200 students you know i guess we should ask how they feel about our elementary schools being 700 students or over 700 students should be a something they could let us know about um so i just want to point those things out again where we don't want to go down the track of of well my main focus has has been from the beginning we want a successful referendum the first first time out of the gate so one let's find out what people want and two let's make sure it's the right project thank you [Applause] all right jim thank you so i know tomorrow night at town council meeting colliers will be given an update on your own projections and they're probably going to address your home and confirm the numbers but i want to spoil that they get a preview so you'll get some stuff tomorrow night from the meeting so stay tuned for that anybody else before we get into the presentation i'm seeing none dr solong and turn it over to you thank you andrew appreciate that good evening everyone thank you for that warm welcome um i'm kidding i you know i maybe i need to get out more often but i'm so excited to be here tonight with you because i know and i'm not going to put everybody on the spot but if i were to ask all of you is not updating our facilities a viable option i doubt i would see any hands and um i think for me having worked 16 years in this school system seven of which were here as a principal and assistant principal at dodd middle school four of which were at a principal as a principal at cheshire high school i certainly recognize there are substantial needs for our facilities district-wide every every building needs to be updated and i also want to just take a second to acknowledge the fact that that's not the fault of the seven individuals and plus administrators on this table sitting up at the board today i want to commend them because it is through much of their hard work that we're at a place where the community uh the town council in the survey was was referenced people acknowledge that we need to update our school facilities and so well there may be consternation over a plan and it is important that we get it right the fact that we're here is something that you know i don't think i would envisioned would have envisioned 10 years ago so i'm excited to share with you this evening kind of you know where where we are very quickly hopefully address some of the questions and concerns that are out there identify the fact that we still do need more information on some things to be able to move forward and then also establish kind of like what's next so you uh in in our full community understands all right what what are the next steps here and what sort of timeline are we exploring um i you know i get chided by mr martelly if i don't mention this is uh 2016 this is our last district building project and if you've been to cheshire high school at the concession stand you you don't you go there if you were there before now i'll never forget is a high school principal taking my little boy to the restroom there because we've all been there dad i gotta go pee and he's at the football game with me and i take him into the restroom and he just turned around and walked out i'm not going in there dad now our facilities are something to be proud of and it's a quality of life issue it's a it's a community issue and you know our school facilities if that's the pride that we can uh engender from a uh concession stand i i look forward to the day where we can do that for a school building in our community so you know that school modernization committee and i give them a lot of credit too because there were countless hours over multiple years that this was study and uh the committee was given this charge when there was unanimous agreement on the town council and board of education unanimous i don't care what you throw out there it's very hard to get unanimous agreement between both bodies that we needed to do something about our school facilities i i'll throw it out to mr white because i know what a history buff you wanna i don't put you totally on the spot you know that is he's a haberdasher the haberdasher the pride of independence missouri harry truman was president 70 years ago when our most of our buildings were built it gives you a little bit of a historical context of our current ages in the buildings so the school modernization committee endeavored to collect facts for all school facilities and there is a lot of this information is available i would say all of it on the town of cheshire website and you can go there you can see the full school modernization report i know it was cited today that's great i think the more people that look at that it's it's even more compelling um that we need to do something we conducted a community survey as part of that process really about you know would you be willing to invest in school facilities and i have to say i was really pleasantly surprised by the positive feedback there um mr um parigini talked about colliers as a project leader group they help us tremendously uh put this information together and then we developed i think it was 13 different scenarios of which we whittled that down to a preferred and secondary scenario why modernization i'm not going to spend a lot of time on this slide because i think there's unanimous agreement that it's necessary but i beyond that i want to highlight the fact that it's it's not simply modernization uh for modernization's sake that's necessary but it's also fiscally prudent because you know we've talked a little bit already about the fact that you know we don't want to be throwing good money after bad in the community nobody wants to do that it's a terrible waste of taxpayer money how if we have a plan we avoid that and for many years and again i not the fault of anybody sitting here and i don't want to disparage previous i know previous boards have certainly worked on this and councils have but nobody's been able to come to agreement and that's why it's so critical to come to agreement now so that we can develop a plan and you know it's just fiscally sensible moving forward as part of our process we toured a number of different districts and in buildings guilford high school if you've been there one of the things i love is a dad with kids that are involved in different events that's the cafeteria at guilford high school on the left side is the gym on the right side is the theater and then there's the cafeteria servery here so at four o'clock at night they open up the cafeteria servery families come to you know wait for sparky to finish playing basketball or whatever the case may be you can hang out here with your other child there's wi-fi you can do work wait it's just really really incredible south windsor has constructed multiple i think they're on their fourth elementary school now in the last several years we toured those facilities meridian i think this is plat high school and meridian had a renovation is new so enrollment projections now this is a a key question for us over the last 16 years that i've been here we started i think when i was first my first year here at dodd middle school we had about 900 students and we saw we've seen a precipitous decline from the 5500 students we had them to the 4 200 and change we have now that is projected to rebound not to that uh you know previous high but substantially and um jim mentioned the fact that right now we're over uh enrolled you know 21-22 now slr or mylon mcbroom uh when this was done projected our k-6 enrollment at 21.85 it's like 22 30 right now um just today scott jeffrey at highland was telling me that we have five more enrollments that are we're anticipating and they've already come in and started to register um and so we know that that number is legitimate and that it's growing um and it the the question about what's the time frame for an enrollment projection so the state requires a 10-year enrollment projection uh they won't allow you to say well yeah but 11 year 11 uh you're 12 they fund on a 10-year enrollment projection uh and so this this projection was conducted at the end of 1920 and so we have 21 through through 30 that 10-year window there and so we are seeing significant growth a lot of that is not just what we've seen in turnover in our community with respect to residences and not just development a lot of it's predicated on birth rate so we get our enrollment projections from nasdaq a firm that does that for us and you know we had seen you know as it says here two 209 to 212 births in a typical year that's cheshire residences now it's over 300. so demographically things have shifted our birth rate's over 300 and what they uh the demographers recognize is we have something called the persistence rate of one and a half so every birth of a cheshire resident every cheshire student that's born in town one and a half kids enroll because we have children that move in so you know that's a lot of what's driving these numbers northward again i also like to think that it's the quality of our school system we've always had a great school system i if you've heard me speak before you know a little tongue-in-cheek i say people don't move here for the night life we have a great school system and that just underscores why how it's so important to take care of that school system it's it also underpins uh residential home value in our community um so that we really have to take care of that and invest in the the school system uh not only for our students but economically as a community so here's our 10-year projections with respect to space this is darcy school in the upper left-hand corner you'll see that last year we were encroaching on you know the target rate this is this dash line is the target for enrollment in the building the uh solid blue line is capacity in the building so this year this academic year which is the second bar in you can see we've far exceeded that we had to move kindergarten classes from darcy this year to do little and then we just didn't have space to do that i think one of my greatest fears for us moving forward is that nothing gets done in a year or two we're talking about what are we where are we going to put the portable classroom at school x y or z you want to talk about throwing good money after bad that's this chain this all this data right here what we've seen in the shift in in the town demographically answers the question you know why couldn't we just do a high school or you know why aren't we just thinking middle school first or we absolutely need to address the overcrowding issue with the elementary schools and there are various ways to do that we'll talk a little bit about that but this is what you know is on the precipice for us where you see schools um highland exceeding their capacity and norton the same chapman darcy already has with the shift of 100 students or roughly from darcy to doolittle now this graph looks different so that's where this is so scenario discussions the things that we've just discussed in that process you know we wanted to look at the at a holistic approach to the various scenarios that we have and you know i was having a conversation before this meeting there are so many variables that go into making a decision about what's the appropriate plan selfishly you know from where i sit the most important one is what's educationally in the best interest of our kids that's that's a critical you know variable that i think we all agree upon there are other variables you know finances uh accessibility of a site transportation location there are a number of variables that can be considered and the school modernization committee went through a variety of variables again this is on our website and looked at how do each of these variables weigh in to make their decision about the preferred and secondary option so preferred scenario summary just to bring everybody up to speed was two k through six elementary schools located one at the north end of town and one at the south end of town possibly on the norton site existing darcy and chapman buildings are taken offline i'm going to come back to why darcy is is highlighted and vin promised to remind me later norton would be demolished if we build the new norton on that site redistricting will be addressed later on in terms of how does redistricting in this preferred option versus the secondary option what does that look like and then we would have phases two and three where renovations to all other schools would be done over time now we as we do future phases are required by the state to do an enrollment study again the enrollment study is necessary for them to fund us at reimbursement our reimbursement rate for new construction at the state bin is i'm not great with exact numbers 46.

not much change there so next slide so the voter repurposed bond in 2019 the the bond was repurposed to these four columns in 2019. you'll see 11 million was allocated towards construction remodel renovate and approve school facilities uh 3.2 was allocated to technology upgrades and improvements 1.5 to pupil transportation and 1.4 was allocated towards administrative construction remodel renovate and improve school facilities that totaled 17 million but remember that was 2019 so what you'll see in the next slide is what we expended for 2021.

we were seeing benefits of the work as it was being done and so if we went ahead and went through the high school and changed out all the lighting in high school in september of last year well then obviously we start to see the benefits of the savings from the change out of the light bulbs throughout the uh throughout the whole year even though it doesn't count per se towards the measurement and verification because construction is still ongoing and the way the the contracts in the law reads is you got to have all the work done before you start the the comparison against the uh the three-year baseline period but so at this point because it's june of 21 we have essentially three months is all we have but we're going to give you some data on what's occurred as part of the year-long implementation plan and then the performance period would be june 23 21 through june 22 and that merit measurement and verification piece that they're required to come to us they would come to us next june july whenever whatever it is and talk about what are you seeing what are we seeing with it i will tell you that their initial discussions with us based on what we've done so far is they have no concerns at this point in time uh that we'll be meeting it again we'll see over the years that may change over the year i will tell you as i think you may remember but if not uh they haven't had it very often but they've had a couple times where they've had to pay the guarantee so it's not like they hit it perfect every single time but but uh we're that's where we're at with it next next slide please and so this is what you can see over the year in terms of the savings just based the percentage savings just based on the implementation period so you are seeing we started out in june of 20 where we were just starting the projects and on various months you're seeing a pretty consistent savings in some months better than others maybe just related to any number of different conditions uh you do have that that uh the baseline piece and again we they use 17 18 16 17 18 19 uh in some ways because of the the covert piece gets a little bit screwy and they were doing the analysis before covert really hit and the improvement was made before we shut down schools or any of that kind of stuff or the agreements were made before we shut down any schools but you can see that when you take a look at at what they're looking at they're seeing a fair amount of savings you're starting to see something in may where the savings looks to be a little bit greater and i think that's because that's when we're finishing all of the solar projects coming on board so you're seeing early on savings with lighting you start to see it bump up a little bit and that's probably indicative of some of the hvac that was put in place and and additional buildings coming on board with uh with water savings and or or light savings and then also it was probably i think december or january last year where we started to see the solar coming on board and so that's where you're starting to see some of these gains next slide this shows you some of the solar production you'll see in some cases expected versus actual if you look at the middle school example they're not quite on that's to be expected in the implementation of solar because you got to work the bugs out of the out of the system as it puts in they are are getting what for the most part now what we expect please note uh i know the question i brought it up will we ever get solar on the parking lot out here in the in the d.o and the answer is more than likely no because of the way solar works uh you do not want to over produce solar in this state because the buyback on the overproduced energy is pennies on the dollar and so when they went ahead and did the rough order of magnitude right at the beginning all they did was project for us to do about 60 percent of what could be the total solar that we could capture because that way it left the latitude to not over produce there are several districts when they did the original solar stuff going back to early 2000s where uh they over produced and what they were selling back to the grid was that pennies on the dollar and actually was a a negative drain on the um on the school district's budget and so when we move forward with this the question might be where did you put it and why did you put it where you put it it's because they priced out at 60 of what we could produce so that we didn't get in a situation where we overproduced and we had to sell back to the grid at a negative uh situation so uh if we look at this in the next couple months you will see more than likely actual production equal to or above now that they've gotten all the the solar projects done and they've been able to balance them so to speak with what they're supposed to do well actually when you look at it right now it's not too bad except for cta right which is the only one that really is far off right right it's not looking bad at all no no they're working on that next slide let's see so at this point time they're still working on water savings but we have 225 000 in electrical savings 18 000 in solar and 2 000 over 2 000 in rebates so we get the rebates for when the solar stuff came on board we have a very extensive uh fmx program uh that we will bring to you at a future time to show that you can get into as far deep in the weeds as you want to in terms of what solar is taking place uh we have a couple things where we're looking at putting some kiosks in our schools that talk about uh healthy buildings and what's happening relative to covet but we're also going to link it to some of the slides in the excuse me not fmx but orchestrate and the orchestrate program can tell you exactly you can go to any site any building and see what their savings is to date against uh uh against the baseline but but we have to get a little more data before we we do that next slide uh and this gives you a little bit of what orchestrate is uh and so we'll do quarterly updates throughout the performance period and you can see that that screenshot that they have of the 46 49 is part of what's in orchestrate uh we're also looking at futures at future stuff uh within the systems that we have to see if there's other projects that are available in the future fresh air intake and demand control ventilation just to address some additional concerns we won't do any of these and come to you guys with a with an energy performance contracting unless it meets the the letter of the law in terms of giving us the savings that we say savings that we have and i think the last slide if i'm correct is then really just any questions that we may have i'll do the best i can or bob can do the best we can to answer uh given that this is coming from verity but uh we've had a significant number of conversations with them so we think we can answer all the questions but just note you might go above my pay grade and we may have to get you an answer at another time well i just want to thank you i mean that's the kind of update i was looking for and i know that long term we're going to have more data coming our way so that that's fine okay okay any other questions okay all right uh 9.3 information and discussion on the capital bond expense report ms cook members of the board thank you for having me back again um today we're going to talk about the bond capital plan once again this is an arizona revised statute it's 15-481 and 15-491 that requires school districts with an override and a bond to present the information to the public in regards between i'm sorry between september 1st and october 31st regarding how we spent the funds in the physical year this is a quick summary that shows you based on what the pamphlet was that was issued out what our budget was for each bond and what was expended for each of the different series with our bonds being the 2017 2018 and 2019 it also provides you a total for the series of expenditures last year our expenditures for the three bonds was just over a million dollars so most of these expenditures were actually done previously you can see that based on all of our expenditures for the different items we still have a balance of roughly two million three hundred eighty one thousand it's a little bit to spend i was not here when the bonds started but when i looked at everything i thought it was important that we go back and we look at what that 34 million dollars has bought and provided to the school district you're talking the combs performing arts center the district office the warehouse and transportation buildings the field house at the combs high school and tennis courts middle schools basketball courts bus lanes at combs traditional academy concrete repairs classroom technology and copiers custodial equipment security cameras the comb high school gym floor was renovated and you also brought buses to the district that's a lot and when i looked at it and i've looked at how much you had spent i thought it was important that we go back and not only look at what do we do last year what is what are the benefits these bonds have brought to the school and this is being utilized by the students so this is just a quick reminder this past year what we did use the funds for were fencing and classroom renovations at combs traditional high school or i'm sorry combs traditional academy shayna's word i'm throwing high school students at her the renovations at the combs online center for success various indoor and outdoor furniture and equipment upgrades that were taken throughout the district additional chromebook purchases which is benefiting our students marching band uniforms for the combs high school and if i got the picture correct off the internet those are the the uniforms that you purchased the illuminate software for our students instruction we did weatherization and roofing throughout the district and we also purchased two new microbuses for transportation so once again all of the proceeds from the bonds are benefiting the students and the staff and the community of the combs district were there any questions about what we spent or where the furnitures further expenditures are going so the uh two point whatever million that's still available to spend do we have a plan for that yet since i'm fairly new i'm familiarizing myself with those bonds and one of my main goals this year is to sit down with dr wyman and look at the different categories that we have left determining what the variance is and where we need to make sure that those are expended in accordance with the pamphlet that was published to the community the other thing that we're looking at the the one nuance you have to spend the bond money by a certain amount of time so it's not unlimited time that you have it but the influx of the esther's dollars now changed things a little bit so it now becomes very similar to the 17 million we we worked on in the past year how do we leverage and maximize all the dollars and all the different funding sources are available us to us to get the most bang for our buck so to speak and so we'll end up doing that same thing but with the essers dollars it does it does start to slide things in so you may see some things that some people might say that's interesting that you're choosing to do that well the reason we're choosing to do that because between the 17 million we spent last year and some of the essers dollars that we're spending it probably frees up some capacity that maybe wasn't anticipated two three four years ago and we'll go ahead and take some things that that we can do to even further upgrade our uh our sites i'll give an example right now we're talking about uh including uh new uh marquis at all of our at all of our schools that are uh linked together so we can get a constant constant message out could we normally have bought that more than likely no but now when you're you're saying we're going to get uh additional dollars for more computers like we did through the rate funding you don't have to pick up those those costs if you can go ahead and pick up something else the wrestlers escaping me right now all of a sudden you freed up capacity that wasn't there so we're trying to look as broad-based as we can and leverage the dollars to the best of our ability to make sure that number one all the sites and all the departments get something but maybe we can pick on some things that were probably down further down the priority list but now we have more dollars available uh that we can go ahead and raise them up on the priority list so we'll bring those to you you'll start to see them at the next couple you know four or five board meetings as we're as we're moving forward uh we're looking at some things i'm going to give you an example something that we're looking at we know both harman and simonton have an issue with water retention in the middle of their campuses uh and so we believe that with the funds available we'll be able to come up with a system it may not happen until this summer that we can make sure that we don't have standing water sitting in the middle of the campus especially this time of year or at least the last few months could could bring mosquitoes and so how do we get rid of that again might have been a little lower on the priority list because of other things but now it's it's moved up and so those are the kinds of things we're looking at what are our real problem areas and how can we address those issues what's our beautification situation i know we've gotten beaten up quite a bit in the community with weeds and stuff at some of our schools can we put different dg in front of some of the schools bigger rock and not the smaller rock we don't know because we're just investigating it but we're looking at trying to take a look at what people have complained about and see how it fits in and again those would have been much lower level priorities and we probably wouldn't got them but with the new dollars i think we can leverage them uh in a creative way like we did last time uh to maximize what we're doing so we will be bringing that forward to you in in the near future all right good thank you any other questions comments on this item all right thank you all right 9.4 discussion and information on changes to policy i haq career transition to work education the first reading yeah this is just the first reading so um really it's just changing the the um uh career work uh uh internship experiences from 120 hours to nine to sixty hours uh take a look at it and if you have any questions you can talk to mr scrogum or myself uh between now and the second read second read will come in november and then it will go into into our policy manual at that point in time comments questions no okay um item 10.1 request for future future agenda items any input from any of the board members no all right then i think that completes the agenda so i will make a motion to adjourn at 803.

you know who that is sebastian number 19. oh um katie ritzer if you don't know number 19 you gotta gotta start to know it because this girl makes plays for days yeah senior this year oh juicy oh gosh wow that huge shave there from um caroline harvey [Applause] that was dangerous this holston team sure knows how to tilt the field right now [Music] this game is not over though you know we've seen stranger diaz can just get all their shots right now yeah gotta give credit to the holliston d though yeah seriously they have been pretty locked down all right let's see uh just the house and defense again just not giving them a ton here all right mayor's gonna let um bent take it [Music] try the center that number three nice stop there yeah hey man great play there [Music] i wonder if she is uh related to the john mayer probably not but yeah that's a stretch huh that's a stretch yeah totally [Applause] scoots it up here but wow this house and girl running hard all right abby wayne's gonna play it let's see what she does oh lucky there for the raiders not sure what the call was that hit off a foot perhaps i think so 850 left here in the game the sideline here is mayor and yeah she did something that the ref didn't think is okay so once again okay they're gonna give it the ball to her on like the 20-yard line i'm pretty sure and oh no more like the uh the 15.

yeah so 32 and 42. so 32 percent for new construction is the reimbursement rate 42 for renovation looking at the norton test fit and we'll make sure that this presentation is on the website because i know you you don't have binoculars with you but this is the norton or the north end marion and jarvis test fit they presented four different versions of what that would look like in terms of bus traffic uh pedestrian traffic vehicle traffic and what you'll see here when you you look at this in in closer detail later is that this the the entire perimeter here is the actual plot itself there's a line that you'll see traversing the site that outlines where wetlands exist there's also a dash line that highlights where there's a current sewer line where you couldn't dig through that so you know as much as the property itself is is rather large there's a fair degree that's not necessa you can't build upon so we had a firm outline four potential options for there now the town council had recom made a recommendation to consider moving hummuston and central office to that site i think part of the rationale is it's 109 years old the building and it's not uh handicap accessible has numerous code compliance issues um and to be fair just like i would say about our our parking and arrival and all that it's a lot like other buildings in our district um to be honest so there are four different plans that were designed by architects to kind of highlight what a layout potentially on that property would look like for a new north end middle school that would replace chapman be larger than chapman school and we would redistrict to alleviate the pressure that we're currently experiencing or that we anticipate really experiencing as enrollment increases now this is one phase of that the other phase that has to happen simultaneously is basically doing the same thing at norton where we would build a a new school behind the existing norton school they you know built put a wall between the construction site and the um the uh existing building and start construction behind that that building uh what you'll see here and this is a construction access uh to the to the rear and it's also um you know available for bus traffic potentially if this site were to be fully developed the architects came up with two different test fits for that site the costs [Music] when you look at the new north end school and new south end which also assumes a demo of norton the total uh cost there is between 72 and 87 million dollars that's the that's after reimbursement the the gross cost is 108 and 130 for the construction of those two facilities that does not include doing anything with hummuston to move that school and central office to a north end site that does not include that uh the alternate scenario phase one is the construction of a new six through eight middle school unfortunately to my surprise and this is what's different between 20 21 and when the board had previously moved forward a new middle school the construction of a new middle school in pulling six through eight into that school does not do enough on its own to alleviate the uh the enrollment issue that we're gonna have so you would then not only have to build a new six through eight element or middle school but you would also have to build like basically a replacement of chapman at the same time and a site for that would have to be identified in this phase the plan would be to take darcy offline in that process and then redistricting is required and like in the other scenario renovations are then done to other buildings one element of this uh that's not available in the other plan is that dodd middle school upon the opening of a new middle school would serve as what's called swing space so if we're working on another if we're working on an elementary school that wouldn't be a new construction in terms of how this plan was designed to be in renovation the preference would be to not have kids there when the renovation is taking place it can definitely be be done it's done every day all over connecticut but it's more efficient cleaner um a better scenario if we were to move students from that building that's being renovated to this building will we renovate that building just faster more efficient now what do you do when you get to highland highland just doesn't you know work well here it's too many kids so you know that probably wouldn't be a dodd wouldn't be an adequate swing space for that situation i don't think but that's just a consideration so what are the costs of that plan and i want to talk a little bit about how this you know what this ultimately translates to for the average taxpayer but you know gross total budget 154 to 185 million dollars for the two buildings uh net post reimbursement 100 to 124 million round numbers subsequently we would still have to you know work on uh updating our other buildings because as we acknowledge you know we don't have the luxury of saying well it's just this building that we have to worry about phase one is not the end of the story um there's still going to be other kids in this community no matter what we do that need facilities updated comparison of preferred and alternate scenarios and i think this is you know really kind of where the rubber met the road for our committee and i think it's good to articulate this for for the public so the point was made about the projected enrollment the larger projected enrollment of the middle school at you know roughly 1200 students you know is a former middle school educator assistant principal principal um i don't necessarily see that as the world's largest hurdle you know i was principal here with 900 students we did a lot at that time and we still continue to do organizational and structural uh things that make big schools small we put you know grade levels on wings we are floors we you know put them in teams students and teams it's much more intimate and it's a great model and it's been really successful for us in in cheshire and i think that we could do that with 1200 students if if need be um but it the state did say in all fairness that that's something that they don't like to see they didn't say it was something that we would never do never consider because there are other schools that do hamden's doing it right now um there are other districts that do it and i think we could do it but i would remind you again unfortunately that in and of itself does not solve our enrollment you still need to build another building at the same time so that's um one element that we we looked at um the projected enrollment for the two schools uh is you know within the scope 653 and 669 for the new norton and new chapman that does balance our schools a little bit better right now we have one school in highland that's substantially larger in this process the school sizes would be 653 669 612 and 780.

and so those four categories that we just discussed you'll see how we expended them in 21 so 3.6 million was expended in construction remodel and renovate about 3.3 was for that william for our williamsfield field house so a little bit will carry over into the fiscal year 22 budget as we as we wrap up a construction project uh i believe we will be back to the board um in the coming months to to uh address some of the final costs for that project technology upgrades um the majority of these costs were related to the completion of the median centers uh those costs rolled over to the early 2021 or it'd be 2020 calendar year but 2021 fiscal year what we have budgeted is for what one of our upcoming projects which is going to be a school edition which i'll allude to a little later people transportation 842 000 was spent on four special needs vehicles as well as two 84 passionate buses and i'll have some pictures of those in a later slide and then uh what we have budgeted is 300 mr crosby has identified a couple of the white fleet vehicles that we'll be adding to the fleet uh those will potentially help offset some of the the bus driver shortages that we have and allow coaches to drive some of their students for those smaller sports teams to help alleviate the large transportation requests that instead of using a big large bus we can use a smaller white bus for some of the smaller teams and save some some costs there and then lastly um 141 000 was used for a deal renovation we also have budgeted um 150 for next year for some major sewer issues that we are experiencing and that's it so we expended 4.8 million in fiscal year 21 and in fiscal year 22 this is the remainder of the 2013 bond authorization 5.1 million is all we have left in that and i'll discuss a little bit about that what we have budgeted in terms of our construction project so next slide please so we've highlighted um this is our williamsfield field house again we we've expended a majority of our bond funds the 3.3 have been expended towards this project we are eager for this completion um yeah and we look forward to it being completed soon people transportation this is uh we added four special needs buses so those are the small buses uh to my right and then on the left is the 84 passenger buses that we've added to the fleet so those are replacing those high need those high mileage older vehicles um mr crosby shared with me the other day a very extensive list he has a lot of history within the district and he has a very extensive list of vehicle age vehicle mileage vehicle use he's very organized and as we continue to replace these vehicles i'm confident that these vehicles are truly on their last leg and that they are in high need so what we have looked forward to um through this process this new process that we've identified in our bond roadshow we we have identified higley high school as needing additional site capacity due to enrollment growth we just passed our 40th day numbers and those numbers continue to support the growth at higley high outline below is a potential timeline for this project so what we're looking at right now is is interviewing architects we have a proposal on the street for lack of a better term to several architectural firms we will be evaluating those proposals uh in selecting an arctic architect to help us build a scope for this project in november we'll issue a request for qualification rfq for a construction manager at risk ideally in november we'll we'll know where our current proposed bond is and we may address our budget accordingly depending if that passes or fails throughout the months of november december and january i will be doing the the rfq process is extensive it requires a lot of procurement there's evaluations there's interviews within this process so that it will take place through those months after that process is complete we will come back to the board with a contractor that is selected will come with you with a cost of that contractor to start the conversation to meet with our our public committee meeting so what we would do is as miss will meet with mr fields and talk to his constituents within his community and provide input into the project grant these meetings would be very structured in terms of we have a certain a dollar amount of budget uh we can't you know we can't build a cathedral we have a budget but it provides the community a chance to provide input into the project and stuff that maybe we we may have oversight on or maybe we may have not included after that process is complete we can come back to the board with a final guaranteed maximum price we would ask the board for approval at that time so that construction project can commence we would hope for that to start in may june ideally after school releases but with construction timelines that time that is very a tentative timeline so mr moore yes that is very exciting news for the higley high family and communities and i know they're anxious probably to hear more details and i know that they'll come as you have them but any kind of construction is this adding to this school is this we're going to be using land that is empty on the school and building do you have any kind of maybe a little bone per se to throw the community of what might be happening over there sure i think preliminary we've we've discussed adding an additional building there's a vacant plot of land um that could potentially be used i think it's adjacent to the field house yeah um but again you know maybe with conversations through our architect once we have that selected there may be other options that we may not be previewed to so again we'll do our due diligence through this process we'll keep the border price as well as the community and mr fields but right now we're very early in the spring we we've just selected uh through our decision process our next project so we are taking our time ensuring procurement is done correctly um and yeah president members of the board as you can see the timeline to do these kind of things decisions are made in its multiple years that these processes kind of play out and i would be remiss if we didn't take a second to thank the leadership of mr moore and him joining our team last year was essential stepping in as a director of finance and now being our cfo and the work that he and his team have done with the entire district administration our processes our procedures are the way we're rolling things out even today we were sitting in meetings mapping out every meeting from now to the end of the year of what we need to bring to you and the work that needs to be done ahead of time for major projects such as these so uh good work is happening under tremendous leadership and we'll be remiss if we did not highlight the skills that our talent that we our team has and we're thrilled for that dr foley thank you and and thank you for bringing up that point it it does take there's a process it does take time um not to go back to our bond stuff but that is a question that's been asked is why do we have to go out for such a large bond right now can't we do a smaller one and then go out and ask for another and another one it costs money for us to do this and two we're trying to be proactive it takes time for these projects to happen and when we know that we have secured funding it helps us move along instead of moving having to stop and wait depending on where we are in the year when the election could be if we wanted to go out and ask our voters for you know additional bonding capacity so these do these larger projects take time not to not to bring it up but i think we're a year and a half on williams field right now and some should not have taken that long but we are where we are and some times you run into some issues and problems that do take longer and we're trying to address the situation and an immediate need like you said the growth at higley high school and mrs kaler and mrs wilson i know you guys can attest to this personally that um it needs to be addressed and we need to do something quickly but we're doing it as quickly as we can because it is a process it takes time the procurement process is going to take time um construction is going to take time and if what's going on now says anything about what's happening we'll be lucky to start at the end of may with the delay in construction and and materials and hoping that we have the cost because we've seen those materials go up so greatly over the last year and a half so it takes time so that's another reason we're trying to be proactive with having the funding with our bond so that will help play a part into this so um and that campus needs to be addressed more than just the growth there's there's repairs that need to happen as well and maintenance and so thank you mrs reese to add to your point there are a few other schools we've also heard about in our superintendence report the bridges is one that comes to mind when i think that we're i believe out of classrooms over there as well and uh cortina and gateway i believe we're getting close as well and our superintendent's report correct me if i'm wrong dr foley um so those schools are at or near capacity and there's no more space for children um in those places and we're building in those pla the community is building in those places so those classrooms will get fuller and fuller and will not be able to stay within the numbers the board has put forward in our policies uh president reece vice president wilson you are correct one of the things that you saw that we worked really hard on and this was part of the work that we did last year was begin to truly understand our capacity and we also did facility index as you recall last year we had several reports done by experts to help us main get a real true understanding of what are our needs as a district not only now but as we continue to grow over the next several years the one of the things we've highlighted multiple times in our road show and here in our multiple meetings when we have these conversations is that we've identified a hierarchy obviously safety and security is a a big thing that comes to mind when it comes to to the cost of um capital items but also then our space uh the the the want the nice to have must have and the essential to have and there's a hierarchy of needs for decisions so obviously this information then helps us prioritize what comes first what we can what we can afford and what is our greatest most needed and pressing um need at the time for us to prioritize so yes those are our facts that we have collected and the decision-making process that we are utilizing to determine what happens when and and what comes next based on need dr pulley thank you for that and it will be important to and i know for mrs richards to continue to having the help that we've employed for support services and moving forward just knowing that we'd want to have anybody that's added to our team in the future here sooner than later when things start really starting to roll so that would just be my only um suggestion of sorts is to make sure that whoever joins our higley team in the future in that department is very much on board with everything we're doing the beautiful thing about processes and procedures is if we find the right expertise with individuals who have the right skill set they step right into those processes and procedures and have done great things to enhance the team and hence what we are seeking perfect does anyone else have any questions for mr moore thank you for being specific in that information and um as you referenced we did go back out to our voters in 2019 because we had extra bond capacity that we had not used that was a proof previously we needed to ask our voters to repurpose that because we had spent what we had said we were going to spend on and we had other needs so again that money is restrictive based on we can't just spend it on anything so when we had a need in a different area than what we had initially allotted or asked for we went back to our voters to ask them we're not asking for new at the time we were asking to repurpose what we had so thank you any other questions all right thank you mr moore all right we will go on to 7.3 which is our special education program overview mrs miller president reese members of the board thank you for the opportunity today to share a little bit about our special education programs in higley we're pretty proud of these programs and the work that we do in them and so any opportunity we have to share a little bit about them we are excited about and welcome that opportunity um this slide shows you our october first counts over the years kind of a history october first count is one of the few times in special education that we actually take a hard count number because our numbers are pretty fluid across the year as you can see we've been really successful in growth until we hit covid and we know you know we've followed the trend that we've seen pretty much in in all areas i will say that our um oh that's the old slide so i'll give you the new the new count is 1886 for this year which is a loss of 13.

do i have a second second okay in favor aye aye we're out of here marcus i'm asking chad hold on he had a question

outstanding play there from 19 and oh my gosh yeah it looks like i was like i was like oh my her ankle is a sideway luckily it was just a shoe this is the most grizzly injury i've ever seen oh her shoe fell off yeah it was kind of like if you saw say juan barclay's injury yeah oh my god oh drew took a tumble some of those injuries are just tough to look at [Music] when the whole like flood goes in the opposite direction oh gosh it's terrible [Music] [Applause] uh seven minutes to go here see holliston with another push goes by wayne oh great defense from ritzer but holstein gets a goal i think there might have been some kind of deflection in front of the net um but good goal there from holliston do you know who scored that one i know that i can tell you it's not number 12 though [Music] i think it might be number three because [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so now ds for sure has their work cut out for them in this less than seven minutes now yeah odds look pretty hard to beat but you know this holliston team has really showed up they've been playing apps absolutely outstanding radish team has looked good but just can't get it by the defense red ball yeah the center's the pass here gets it over here's in the whole field there but was unable to get the pass where she wanted and now it's raider ball here after the whistle yep 5 30 left here ds down by three odds look not great no not excellent it would need a whole team effort if they want to come back and win or even tie they really need a shot and oh hits off assad's legs that's just unfortunate yeah bad though bucket hat rap causing closer hollis did you get the ball at the 25 excuse me [Music] let's go here mayor with the big pass stop at 13 13 it's pushing it up the side there [Music] oh unable to fetch it up the side there under four to go now folks not looking great for the raiders no the raider clan needs to do something here something drastic [Music] [Applause] [Music] i'm not mistaken i think um this holliston team might have like seven wins so they're dead yeah they're in the same division as westwood who is very good yeah [Applause] so dear should not be not be taking this loss um too hard take it as a learning experience yeah you always learn more from losses than wins absolutely [Applause] oh this is good here we go friday oh had an opportunity there yeah that could have been a momentum starter yeah allison stuck with it and was able to get it before busy can the raiders get something on the board here yeah i know i would love to see it that's gonna be oh yeah two minutes folks two minutes a star coming out and so is el hilally [Music] yeah jv team getting ready saying izzy's subbing out we got number 14 and number seven number 14 aydah schwartz and number seven rachel wendell coming on yep diaz trying to get in the middle trying to get at least something on the scoreboard here [Music] yep under [Applause] gs just put in more people just one minute on the clock so got some fresh slugs in there yeah molly mcgill is playing some of the uh the lower classmen not lower class the younger classman under [Applause] you knew what i meant well gotta clarify in today's day though well under 30 seconds uh it was a great game austin definitely got the got the better of the raiders though yeah they sure did they really um really just had a lot more opportunities oh harvey going down um the goalies for diaz played outstanding both of them harvey and root so you know that's one thing you can take away from this game that you have a very strong goalie core and that's the game yeah holliston with the win here three nothing ds dropping again but not be ashamed of this loss they played a very amazing field hockey program today and hopefully they will win next time well for now i'm sebastian starr joined alongside brad crandall it was a pleasure bringing you to the game yup cam crandall on cameraman we hope to see you soon and we'll see you next time see ya

that it is somewhat you know easier from a staffing perspective um i i will go back to the the middle school scenario because i've been asked this number of times starting and i have to give our chair mr peregini a lot of credit because if he's asked me once he's asked me a thousand times like what do you think is is best educationally and my my answer is there's a one a and one b from an educational perspective you know i've openly shared with with him in the modernization that i do see some benefits to six through eight our teachers have said that um and i you know i went the first thing i did was ask them you know our middle school and our our sixth grade teachers who suggested that you know that was preferable um but it's not it like i said it's a 1a and it's a 1b um it's it's hard to argue that what we've done over the last many years has not been successful we have the fifth best performance in the state of connecticut on the current system it's not broken and so i'm not necessarily looking for a solution to a problem we don't have do i think it's preferred if all other variables are equal yes but as i mentioned earlier there are a lot of variables that go into this decision um and so that's you know just my my feeling on that so schools taken offline uh eliminate costly improvements uh you know darcy is an amazing program in a building that's not so amazing um chapman same thing you know it's shameful in my mind that we really have buildings that aren't handicap accessible in 2021 i know we can do better for our kids there as a community um so redistricting the difference between the two in the preferred scenario the two elementary 18 percent of our community would have to be redistricted in order to address the um situation with enrollment and in the alternate scenario um so it's you know it's again it's it's not a dramatic difference between the two the estimated co district share for phase one projects um differ by about 37 million so what's the tax impact on that so the this is from the accounting office at town hall the tax impact for an average taxpayer for phase one projects differs by 223.

while we have experienced a loss during this time it's minimal in comparison to our surrounding in comparison to our surrounding districts and we are anticipating that we'll recoup those fun or those students and the funds that they bring over the next um year so but we've continued to grow and we're excited about that i think that's a testament to the work that our teachers and staff and admin put into the programs so it's been great um the number that you saw on that previous slide our current number it is kind of tentative the way the state does their reporting we do anticipate that number to fluctuate a little bit so that's the only number that is not solid our sped eligibilities next slide please we in the state of arizona services service students under 16 different eligibility categories this is unique to arizona it is not these categories you will not find consistently in every state so because of that a lot of times when we have students moving in from other states our staff and our school psychologists spent a pretty good amount of time explaining to parents how sped works in arizona and so we do see some frustration in that area but again these are the areas that we and we have students in all those areas next slide please our special education programs these first three speech and language therapy is a service that we offer on all of our campuses for students that have articulation or language delays our preschool special education programs service our youngest learners ages three through five with disabilities and those can be found on our early childhood development center campuses we have several classrooms on each campus our resource and inclusion support is for our students with specific learning disabilities typically and those students those campuses are i mean those programs are located on all of our campuses so you can find those district-wide on all of our campuses next slide these programs are unique to certain campuses so our cross categorical classrooms um those are for our students that have an increased level of need increased level of support and an increased level of differentiation in the curriculum or increased accommodations and or modifications these programs were recently in the last few years moved to different campuses we did that to take into account space because some of our campuses were filling up but in that process we were really careful to take into consideration how many students on each campus needed that and we tried our best to make sure that those programs were placed on campuses to minimize the amount of students leaving their home schools as you can see cortina takes bridges and santan students as well as their own centennial and also takes in power ranch students chaparral is paired with hta and coronado is paired with gateway point the good thing is we're able to offer those campuses on all of our set or those services on all of our secondary campuses so as students transition to the next level they are able to stay at their home school with their community their neighborhood friends and all of that so we're really glad that we were able to do that our mdssi classroom supports our most fragile students that have an extensive medical need typically and a much higher level of need a lot of time we have medical staff in those classrooms and a lot of medical procedures that need to occur these programs in an effort to minimize move these programs are located on two campuses our k suit through seventh grade students are serviced at power ranch we have a phenomenal teacher there that does amazing things and at williamsfield high school they take our eighth grade through twelfth grade so that those students only experience a one-time transition our best program is a relatively new program in the district and it's our self-contained private day edp it services our students that have a high need for behavior and social emotional support those programs are located at power ranch for elementary coulee for middle school and williamsfield high school for our high school kids and again those programs have been amazing and really help support all of our campuses and another relatively new program is our htap program that's our higley transition and access program it is a one-year program for students who need some additional transition skills before they transition out into the workforce um and that's located at our old vest building right next to hta they've done an incredible job in remodeling it and really turning it into a program that is gaining quite a bit of recognition in the east valley and is becoming pretty pretty popular next slide another option that we utilize when a student's needs are so intense that we just can't meet them on our campus as a last resort we look at our private day schools um while we don't want our students to to leave our sites sometimes their level of need is just exceeds what we're able to do and they go to the private day school those students at those schools our ultimate goal is always to get them back on our home school campuses back with their peers and we work very closely with those sites to develop goals and and reintegration criteria so that they can't come back to the inclusionary setting that we offer there's a list there there's many more private day schools in the state of arizona but that's a list currently of what we are using right now and then that could change tomorrow it just really depends so questions i have a question you talked about the 16 different um eligibility categories and then parents from out of state come and we're not able to help them can do you have an example or is are there kids that you we i don't unders for example in the state of arizona a preschool student cannot have the eligibility of autism it's not a funding category and unfortunately that's really what eligibility is in the special education world so we have to remove that eligibility of autism and change it to what we call psd in some cases which is preschool severe delay explaining that to a parent sometimes can be very difficult because they think we're changing their eligibility and that's not what we're doing we just can't have that eligibility we can't report that student up to the state with that eligibility and getting parents to understand that that we're not changing it it's just the way we have to do it in the state of arizona sometimes can take a little bit of time so we're not turning kids away that might have absolutely been restructuring so that the state recognizes it okay that's what i wanted reclassifying okay thank you mrs miller could you just touch i know that most people um curtis can we go back one slide please um these private day schools are very expensive i don't think people realize the fees and the cost that goes with this can you i'm sorry oh and the and we and the transportation um could you just touch on that just a little bit like maybe an example of what one student may so for our private day schools they are very expensive um and a lot of the reason for that is because the increased level of services that those students require and so the increased level of training and specialization that occurs with their staff um but typically speaking you can see tuition for those students anywhere between forty six thousand and i mean sorry thirty six thousand and forty two thousand on average some are a little bit higher some are a little bit lower that's just the base tuition and then you have to add on the related services so there's usually an additional cost for any speech and language counseling occupational therapy physical therapy anything like that and that is tagged on usually to the tune of anywhere between three thousand and ten thousand dollars in addition to that tuition um we try really hard to um to make sure that students that that are placed at a private day truly need it and that we've exhausted everything on our end as far as interventions and supports for them to be successful with us before we consider that um but when making those determinations we don't look at funding we look at need so need drives placement not funding and so while it is a absolute hardship sometimes it's worth it to meet the needs of the student thank you so much and we have been able to grow our special education program in so many different ways on so many different campuses trying to retain like you say those kiddos that we can possibly reach so i appreciate that so much and over the years i've seen justin higley in general the appreciation that our special education team has gotten from our community versus years past so hats off to you and thank you for all that you've done in the special education department appreciate you board member taylor thank you i um i appreciate the praise but i have to say my team is pretty incredible the teachers that we have in higley that service our students are truly here for the right reasons and if it wasn't for them that would not be the case mrs miller i've also got to experience a lot of your programming especially htap and the best program i've gotten to see it firsthand getting to tour those facilities and just the work that happens in htap to see those kids at the beginning of the year versus the end and their graduation is it just makes me like so happy inside and i definitely cheer up every time i go over there because they're just so friendly and welcoming and the growth that i see from them it just it doesn't happen anywhere else so thank you so much and thank for the teachers and all the staff and how much they help those kiddos that really need their help we've been able to develop some really great partnerships as well with some outside agency for transition from those students into the workforce and stuff so it has absolutely been an asset to the district thank you mrs miller and thank you mrs kaler for um bringing that to light just a as a continuation of that um mrs miller for the private day schools the district pays that tuition correct so while we're talking about um the the cost of it and like you said it we don't take that into account we take into the students needs um they are very expensive and um that is a cost that the district incurs and that we do pay for that tuition so um when people have questions it's not we're not compensated for what we may be paying so it does cost the district some money it does typically speaking special education eligibilities are all funded differently and that would be another hour-long board presentation but um we do not re we do recoup money from ade and the department of ed to offset some of that cost but the majority of the time there's there still is a a deficit and the district is responsible to pick that up yes thank you and again everyone has said your team has done an amazing job and when you came in and and started reworking the program putting our students needs first and working with your team and our teachers who do a great job has really made a difference and like mrs wilson said the htap program and so thank you for all the work you've done focusing on the students who need more help and ensuring that we are trying to meet their needs and if we can't then we're finding a place that can so we definitely appreciate the overview thank you president reece one more little comment and this be careful with my words district public schools have these programs that our district charter schools do not have we have so many more opportunities in our higley unified school district in placing kids in the right places and taking care of them and so there's a big difference when it comes to special education in our public schools versus our charter schools and we do a great job here thank you thank you mrs anderson thank you i just have a question uh for the htap program so it's a says it's for selected 12th grade students so these are students that could have been outside the program in younger grade levels and then by 12th grade they're placed in the program or how does that work so the htap program is a transition program that allows students that have met their graduation requirements but still need additional life skills and job training in order to be successful out in the workforce so it's a program these students work out in the community they help at gateway point they come to the district office they work at some of our community businesses and developing those skills and developing those connections through vocational rehab and some of the other community programs for them to transition into that once they officially graduate from our high schools okay so typically speaking these students are all students that have completed their senior year and are returning for a second senior year to focus on transition skills okay that's it's open to odds assessor i was just stuck on this selected and i can add to that but like there's also an iga that we have with the department of economics correctly right yeah that helps support and offset some of that that cost to the district um so it's a it's a awesome program that miss miller manages and we do have some partnerships in there as well okay thank you okay and then for the private day schools um are there for students that are out of district that have come to our district does that happen to where then we would determine that the private day school is best for them has that ever happened and if so how does the funding work for that are they if they're not in our district but they come to their district but then they go are we so if we have a student move into our district that has already been attending there um we do one of two things we accept the enrollment there and continue as is and respect the the decision that was made by the former rep team and that placement but before we do that we review the needs and everything to ensure that it's it the needs aren't something that we could meet in one of our in-house programs when we accept a student on open enrollment that their needs intensify and the end result is the need for a private day we are responsible to to take on that cost but we also are also funded just as we would be with our own students through ade in the funding formula i do have one more question so i know that sometimes the as far as getting kids the help they need takes time as far as that some of the complaints that i know that parents have talked about how um that it takes a while and can you talk about the procedure that are like why it takes so long or if to be able to get kids help they need sometimes in identifying them so the way that the special education referral process and eligibility works is in order for a student to be found eligible for special education services in most cases and special ed is very gray i can't give you a hundred percent all the time um what first must occur is a a period of time in which interventions were tried and proven not successful so very similar to what we call mtss once we've put interventions in place and they have not been successful then at that point we can then move forward with an evaluation a lot of times we have parents that panic they see their students struggling and they want special ed intervention right away and so we'll get a letter or request the way that the law reads is we have 15 days to respond to that request we oftentimes may respond with you know what we've gotten your request but at this time we haven't put interventions in place so we're not going to move forward with testing but we are going to move forward with putting interventions in place we also have to look at factors that may rule out special education some of those are for example educational disadvantage covett is definitely falls into that category um attendance falls into that category so there are things that we have to look at and say you know we can't we don't have the data right now to determine that but we have some things that we can put in place once a team decides to move forward with an evaluation there are several steps involved that include classroom observations input and then the assessment piece there is a 60-day school day window for assessment so we have 60 days to finish that evaluation sometimes parents get very frustrated that it takes so long that 60 days but we try to explain to them that it's super important that we not over assess a kid we can't give a student you know a full day of assessment because they become fatigued they become frustrated or if they're really struggling that can be really defeating so we'll spread that out over time so as not to have them miss too much instruction but as well as to make sure that the results that we get are truly valid and a true representation of what that student is struggling with so that's how the process works thank you any other questions thank you for the overview all right we are going to go on to 7.4 which is our policy revisions um so mrs richards president reese members of the board tonight we are bringing you four policy revisions for consideration and support these are four policies that the arizona school board association has recommended your cabinet has reviewed these four policies and are asking for your consideration this evening bedh deals with public participation at board member meetings dh is purchasing purchasing ethics policy gdb is support staff contracts and compensation and gdf is support staff hiring so at this time do you guys have input questions or concerns any questions these are just additional policies as we've been going through them that have either changed based on on law changes or wording changes that we have received for update from asba no questions just it's interesting the bedh i think that's come because of what's happened to board meetings and called to public across our country so um i can see why that's being put into place yeah the unsolicited services was interesting have we ever have we had an issue with that here ever i don't recall anything but that was an interesting addition yeah not to my knowledge but obviously asba's seen it and recommends it before it gets out of control maybe it's time to put it in law or policy no questions okay thank you mrs richards you're welcome all right we will go on to our action items on 8.1 i move that we approve the instructional time model second and just as a clarification um what we approved before was the policy and so what we're proving now is um the actual model that we would accept any questions all those in favor aye aye motion carries 5-0 we'll go on to 8.2 i move that we approved the fiscal year 2021 sorry 2020 2021 annual financial report second any questions since we just went over that all those in favor aye aye aye that motion carries five zero all right we'll go on to 8.3 i move that we approve the policy revisions as they've been presented to us any again any questions on those all right all those in favor aye aye that motion carries 5-0 okay anyone have any uh questions regarding our future agenda items i have any questions but is it possible to put forward for an info item um on how the hiring strategies and successes and statuses for bus drivers and any other the lacking i areas that's something that you can update us on good evening president reece board member anderson um yes i think we can do that some of it might tie in with some of the things that we're planning and moving forward with so we can add in some of those discussions as we look at the long-term components that dr foley mentioned you know both mr moore dr foley myself um today's wednesday so yesterday and then again today um spent a significant amount of time adding miss richards and talking about what that plan looks like what we want to do and some of those tactics will help with identifying hopefully and addressing some of those vacancies some of those turnovers and some of those other items so if there's something specific board member anderson you'd like to add we can certainly make sure we address that when we do those things we're looking at a tentative component if i remember correctly mr moore november 3rd more detailed related to classified schedule as well as other things to address minimum wage at the november 17th meeting so sorry miss m barnes did you just say you said you'll have it in this it'll be in our status or did i say a reporter november 3rd okay sorry we are gonna i am though board member schultz going to add some of that preliminary in our status reports and then there will be more formal discussion and information session um during those two dates that we mentioned at the board meetings thank you i believe those two dates were the 17th and then or the 16th and then the december 8th meeting so the second meeting in november and then the first meeting in december perfect so we can look forward to getting some of that information all right any other future agenda items okay at this time i move that we recess into executive session pursuant to ars section a 38431.03a9 for the purpose of discussion or consultation with the designated representatives of the public body in order to discuss safety and emergency protocols right all those in favor aye that motion carries 5-0 we will recess at this time before going into executive session we will ask we will be using this room so we will ask if you're not part of the presentation if you want to wait then you may wait in the lobby for the board meeting to adjourn you

the two elementary school scenario is 389 a year for the average taxpayer with a market value of their home of 303 or 304 and two cars valued at a total of three or thirteen thousand dollars that's over how many years have been 20 right 20 years so that's the average cost over 20 years some years a little higher some years a little lower as you know the the rates fluctuate 389 a year on the average yeah that's the market value 100 on the home yeah thank you the alternate scenario cost with the middle school and new elementary school is 612 dollars a year for the average cheshire taxpayer for for the next 20 years and i you know i don't make this decision i i weigh in on this decision i weigh in on what's best for our kids and our community i uh full disclosure i want to make sure something happens something needs to happen i you know i've been here as i said this is my 17th year in the district we need to move forward um and we're we're at a real you know crossroads here and i don't think that if we were to to pull the trigger on a decision now the last thing that we could be accused of is making a snap decision i mean seven years later here i mean yeah i this is not a snap decision there are a lot of variables and again no matter i want to reiterate no matter what happens and tony has repeated this a thousand times too sometimes to the chagrin of some others this isn't the end phase one cannot be the end [Music] because you end up leaving a lot of kids and families in a difficult situation i didn't i received the gong usually from vin but uh that i mean that is we're getting to the end here but uh this this is it's a phase it's the first phase of what needs to be subsequent phases so when you know i think when you consider financially that's a reality when i consider the fact that educationally we're not talking about you know apples and oranges we're talking about a nuanced difference that provides some some benefit absolutely as i see it but not dramatically shifting the course of life for our kids by any stretch so um based on the information here that that's where the committee came up with a nine to three vote to support the two elementary school options additional considerations that we still these are hurdles that we still need to cross things that we have not put a bow on that i really you know i don't want to speak for the i do speak for the board a lot but i i you know i'm not going to make this decision for them um there are some questions that i know i have i'm sure they have that we just want to try and tie up before they ultimately vote on a plan to move forward and i've tried to outline some of them here there's been a suggestion from members of the council that a new central office hummus in school be added to the north end elementary project i think that's admirable and ambitious um but we don't know the gross cost that we've been given an estimate to build that on that site is 12 million dollars to you know engage in a a full renovation of hummus and central office would be 7 million but the the trick there is that we're not so sure that the state will reimburse renovations on a 109 year old building we got to find out we got to know the estimated gross cost if we didn't do a standalone hummuston school in central office on the north end but did it as part of a wing of a building right so it's part of the same footprint different entrants things like that but it's it's like an extension on your home kind of thing it's just a add-on to the facility is nine million dollars that's also a lot of money um the other question that we have is the estimated cost of renovation as i mentioned would be 7 million for dodd but again that needs to be verified if the state would even do that but the the piece that i missed that i know vin will want to remind me of is is darcy school um when when we look at the the financial financial you know estimates provided by the town it doesn't look like darcy and those students are factored into the financial equation we have to make sure that that's the case if that they're indeed planning on closing that building and what's the cost there uh what is how will that shake out um is that something that money that's better spent in the in the immediate future on moving the darcy programs to the new elementary school on the north end you know my opinion on that is probably um you're serving a lot more kids by doing that it's critically important for darcy who if you don't know and not familiar that has a birth to three program we identify students with some of the most significant needs in our community birth to three provides coaching and intervention for those families that's run out of darcy school it's state contracted then we have preschool and we have a smart start program which is also a preschool program there which supports students with individualized education plans and their peers for transition into kindergarten we still have kindergarten there because it's so critically important the synergy that exists between those three programs is really critical for those students who have significant needs early in their life early intervention is paramount and so we can't split those programs up and put them in different places because we compromise the quality of our program so when i'm talking about you know educationally what are things that you know um are critical non-negotiables that's one of them the 6878 is not for me and for i know i speak for marlene and our team on that so you know that's something that we need to get an answer to i think before we really say okay this is the right because this is a significant commitment obviously when you look at those those numbers on the board um inventory of current space it dot or at the excuse me hummuston you know you can't read these i appreciate that we'll get this on the website uh immediately so that you can see this um it basically outlines the space that we have in that building we have about 30 students who participate in alternative high school program a number of other students who receive support tutoring there we also have in that building our central office team it's it's uh a lean team there's not uh you know relative to our peers we have myself marlene vin and then uh human resources director k-38 curriculum coordinator special ed director and then we have support staff and our finance department our food services department is run from that building technology as well i think that covers them all right man so you know that that group would need to be housed someplace and again as i i think you know it's it's difficult for me to worry about when i invite people to a meeting at that building if i know it's not handicap accessible so what do i do you know i've seen a student crawling on his knees up the stairs on crutches and i know our community can do better than that but i also know we have 25 we have needs everywhere that's the thing there's they're everywhere and we have to identify what is the priority need i i really feel like if i had to weigh out the two um supporting the hundred plus students at darcy into that new building and we we still could and should continue to do things to uh support our kids at hummingston i'm not saying that they're not as important but when you look at number i'm not as important we're not as important as as our students so just the something we we have to weigh out inventory current use of space at darcy those programs are a little bit bigger like if you if you have your child and a had your child in private [Music] pre-k program a preschool program they're larger rooms there are a lot of cool stations there that needs to be replicated wherever we go and the state has been very clear that they are very supportive of the additional square footage beyond what they would typically approve for specialized programs like that so you know critical questions again what are our critical priorities is replacing darcy a greater priority than updating hummuston we have to figure that out what are the costs of each again these are not just binary issues they're they're multi-faceted issues that we have to consider here state reimbursement on hummeston you know would they even do that uh we're still trying to figure that out uh definitive costs what what are we looking at definitively after these questions are answered um before the you know i think it's fair to ask the board to vote on this or the the council ultimately and then what are the implications for future phases what would that you know kind of look like at this point in time now again after we do any phase you know when we go back for another phase we need an updated enrollment projection that's required and then ultimately you know for for me it's it's really important to know does the board have all the information they need to make any sort of decision is a critical decision it's an exciting time for us um i i hope that come april you know that we are at referendum uh that's the timeline that that we are moving forward on a plan that works for our kids community um and then again no matter what it is it's it's to be phase one so finalized test fits for the north end um are what we've been working on to make sure that that works um before anybody says well this is predetermined so you you didn't do any any sort of look at all at a middle school we've already had test fits on the north end for a middle school we know that it will fit there and the the previous test fit for the middle school wasn't as thorough with respect to the wetlands so we realized that the wetlands are actually a little bit more of a hindrance than we had in that original test fit but it would still work we need to develop something called educational specs that's what we have to draw up for what the building would look like in terms of room spaces whatever the state needs that for our reimbursement critically important the board would need to vote to approve a plan and you know they're certainly aware of the expedience of this that this really has to be done as soon as we can you know feasibly do it because we want to make sure this goes to referendum soon april then town council vote to appropriate needed funding and then ultimately the voter referendum in april and then we have to submit a school school construction grant by the end of the school year so the clock's ticking i i'm excited because i know we all agree that we have to move something forward and i i hope that my presentation this evening gave you more context gave you more information cleared your sinuses and you know i'll certainly uh entertain any questions from the board sir taking down my master probably a meme on me um so jeff without getting too much ahead of toronto's town council meeting uh we've had some uh informal discussion with colliers or the test fits one of the things that came up was uh town council's question can we move darcy birth to three and even the pre-k to highland will it fit basically i heard tonight your preference is not to put a highland that if yes [Music] um it wouldn't if we were to move our darcy students to highland there just wouldn't be space for that um and the there would have to be a significant investment to create the space which isn't factored into the numbers that we're looking at here alternatively you know we need to confirm that any darcy space added to a north end what would that do financially um if we if we are prioritizing closing darcy in phase one so that was my second question in your opinion how critical is it that we address hummuston and darcy immediate phase one and that's something that can wait until after the first elementary school or telemetry schools or even sixth straight middle school's built where where does that fall in your prioritization process and sequencing sure i think from a an educational perspective the services that are delivered at darcy are you know they're second to none the facility itself though is in dire need of updating and you know just regular maintenance things like windows et cetera if we put off maintenance of that facility or if we if we put off doing taking kids out of that facility and doing something there's going to be cost incurred to maintain it until we get to that next phase which i really i don't know that that's a great fiscal decision i think it's a little bit you know like we talked about before throwing good money after bad um and then you know we also though have the consideration of hummus then the students there the facility there code compliance there as well and it's i think it's important that we get the data the information from the state as to whether or not they would support that if so what's the how much you know support would they give to that um and but educationally i think you know we're providing a great experience in both places it just we're run the clock's running that's all i have for now thank you yeah i want to piggyback off of something that tony said also so if we were to go with a six through eight middle school project would taking the sixth grade out of highland make it more feasible to put up the darcy program at highland yeah it's a great question and yes to a degree but when we talk to colliers and the demographers it's not enough to not build another elementary school you you'd still need even if we pull the sixth graders out of our existing schools with our trajectory for enrollment we still still need to build another elementary that would only exacerbate the issue right um my understanding also is though no matter what we do we we need a new chapman so um it's not just because of enrollment it's uh due to the ada compliance and all of that with that school as well i can't argue that that no no no i know you're not i know you're not but i would say you know again the point was made earlier about have you been to dodd for a rival and dismissal and yeah but that's every building and chapman is kind of like that everywhere too uh it's it's chapman is i will say probably uh one of the worst as it goes to that stuff but um none of them are winning the beauty contest time in question you keep saying you need to hear sorry [Music] you say you need to hear from the state um with regard to darcy and hummus and reimbursement and everything have those questions been submitted and when can we expect an answer and what can we anticipate what this is going to do to town council projections i i don't know these questions have been discussed and raised with colliers who is pursuing that with uh the state unfortunately i don't have an update on that as of today it is relatively new as we've started to make sure that all these things are working right um and so i know that chuck from warren uh chuck warrington from um colliers is is working to address that and we hope we needed an answer yesterday right so that's where we are we are pushing it um so oscgr the office of state grant reimbursement they're the folks who kind of balked at the idea of a 1200 student middle school have we gone back to them or could we go back to them while colliers is going through the process just to say like you know get something more formal in writing from them saying that they wouldn't support a middle school of that size to say that they would or they would not they would or they wouldn't um i don't think that they they would say we're not going to support a middle school of 1200 kids they're not they're not going to say that we know that that's they they do that there's other buildings in connecticut where they've done that not many but it's happened it would have to be you know clearly articulated how those services are going to be provided and how you're going to make 1200 kids work and but they didn't say no we're not going to do it um they just said it wasn't their preference they would want more a lot more information from us to be able to articulate how and why it was going to work and how it fits into the bigger plan for our facilities um which i mean could we could deliver that um so i mean they didn't say no but it's it's an additional hurdle um but if our community felt like absolutely this is the we have to do it this way i'm sure we could get it done but you know when i think as i've said is multi-faceted as i sit here trying to rationally digest all of these different pieces from educational enrollments to financial you know i can understand why the smc settled on the solution they did thanks andrew um is the test fit at norton did that include an environmental impact study then i don't think so right so so the only thing i'm curious about i don't know whoever has ever walked the woods back in norton is there's a culvert back there that could be 70 years old which is as i understand it that's kind of the age where something officially becomes a wetland yeah i do know that we did discuss the culvert they were certainly more than aware of that on the property they did walk the site yeah um they did review um all of the the information that the town has gis information on the site and we're very thorough in our conversations but that's a next layer i think they don't they have to do core samples and everything in both locations i mean that's part of a future process um okay once approved there was but there was nothing they're experts they have some knowledge and there was nothing that jumped out at them as being an obvious deal breaker it's a great calculation it did exist and they didn't say anything that it was a problem to us okay thank you um so the numbers that we're putting out there i i mean i i'm thinking i recall these numbers from a year ago pre-inflation i'm just curious does colliers have you know they're building models i'm assuming that they could pump in some numbers and give updated numbers yeah i think dude they'd be willing to do that chuck addressed that ben do you wanna that were modeled out by colliers do include a construction inflation as we go through the different phases of the plant and i believe they use four or five percent i don't okay so it's built it's built into the model so they can built into the long-term model yes yeah well no i think there was like a new cpi announced today and stuff so i'm just okay it could it could get put in and get updated numbers relatively quickly okay thank you um hummus then so these numbers those numbers you put out there they just surprised me the 7 million and the 12 million and the reason i say that is i'm just looking at it as a per square foot hummuston's 15 000 square feet so this is for the public correct me for around 15 000 square feet split half and a half between administrative offices and the high school it's oh it's thirty thousand square feet fifteen on each side oh fifteen ninety seven oh okay okay okay yeah all right then those numbers make sense because the numbers look like they're twice what they should be unfortunately you know we've endured the fact that the there it does cost more to update that facility at 109 years old you know that i remember several years ago when we had the slate tiles blowing off the roof which becomes a real damage when you have you know potential issue danger when you have flying rocks through the air um and it was expensive because we had to replace it with slate yeah um so there are definitely issues in updating a building is but it's still you know may ultimately prove to be cheaper to do that than to build another facility okay but you know i think these are questions that we we really need to get answered before we say oh yeah this is our plan and here's why well you know the number of the the numbers in my mind they make total sense now that yeah you said the building was twice the size than i what i thought it was right yeah yeah um let me see uh and the last thing so taking the buildings out of it just thinking from a programmatic perspective there's discussion about for seven years now we've been discussing this including a sixth grade middle school has there ever been any discussion of a seven through nine middle school uh no okay um and off the couch and i i think you know from an educational perspective having been both a middle and high school pr uh principal i i wouldn't recommend that okay uh i think that transition to high school where you have access to a lot more clubs activities for a lot of our students that are college bound having access to the breadth of activities and experiences at cheshire high school is really pretty critical um and in addition to just you know music arts the choices that our students have matriculating from middle elementary to middle school are enhanced that's one of the arguments for a six through eight middle school those are doubled when you go from middle to high school and so you know i think what we'd be doing is inadvertently limiting our freshman and i really wouldn't recommend that okay i'm trying to understand my head why it wouldn't necessarily be limited but i'll just take it i'll take it if they are in a different building on a different schedule and stuff that we would typically have to do for busing and then for a facility i'm assuming it would be on a different uh location than the high school that which i think right yeah ultimately yeah so when we went in front of them was it march april it's it seemed like it's so long ago the reason why i ask is back then we did not have our smc the formalized plans voted upon in the detail that we have today and whether this board makes a vote uh or the next board after the election i'm not sure how the timing of that will be possible thinking about the assault colleges on this based on these plans we have now based on your preferences i think it'd be worthwhile to go back and say hey this is where we landed walking through the plans and see if they have a visceral reaction in either one specifically darcy and hammerstein i really would love to know what their thoughts are on reimbursing a 109 year old building because it's cheaper to do that in my mind and it works for for for us that's you know another four or five million dollars i could put to phase two we're in phase one so everyone thought i know that question so i'll ask colliers tomorrow night the town council meeting if that's something that they would recommend it's a great question i i think it makes sense chuck uh our lead from colliers has repeatedly said continuing to connect with oscgr through the process really supports an expedient facilitation of our grant request and ensures that you know we have money flowing in during the project um the the hummuston location where it is is certainly from an educational perspective favorable to the north end for a couple of reasons first of all with our alternative high school program we have a number of students who split time between the uh school at hummuston and cheshire high and we you know five minutes down the road if that is really convenient for that additionally as we've increased offerings at hummuston we're splitting staff time between chs in hummus then and you know having that access in the center of town is very helpful to be able to say all right i can run an art teacher over for a period to provide that service to those students hummus then and so we've been able to expand offerings and business and other things that may have traditionally been limited or only available online so you know it is beneficial from an educational perspective to have it where it is as well but it's a great point to you know solicit oscgr on those issues um a couple of things so jeff you said that um when you were showing the um test fit for norton it said pending school end or south end location um i assume that means pending approvals that it would it would be a go right or what did you mean by that so um i think what what we're talking about is on the north end of the site um here are you is this what we're yeah you just had mentioned pending and my concern is i i'm just trying to interpret what you mean by bending like you're pending approval what happens if we do not if we're not able to make that work what's our alternative for norton is it or is it going to be renault as new is it going to be leveling existing norton right so i think we've got a plan for that yeah so access to the facility for construction isn't wholly predicated on this but this is definitely the the best way to do it and limit disruption to the existing site there is an easement back here that's town owned that exists we can access that so if if this site were to be approved um you know that that would be happening is the way i understand it vin any caveats to that as i i've just suggested or not but the belief is that we can certainly use that for construction access and then the desire would be to use it as a bus we could certainly control or dictate when buses would come in around that with a gate right so there's not perpetual traffic in the neighborhood but for bus arrival and dismissal to be sure you this is the plan i mean that they're we're we're one of two options yeah no i know but i mean it's there's nothing that's going to really stymie us from putting something in that south end as far as not not i would answer that with a bit of a qualifier not for seen you know there's nothing foreseen at this time that would hinder our ability to do that because i should think that would possibly affect the price of the project the cost of the project if we had to yeah there's nothing foreseen that would would not allow us to proceed with either of those two options and i i don't want to over i just want to urge one caution with regard to that inflation i you know i you mentioned that colliers was using a four percent four to five that was when cpi was in the two to three range now with it being at five um i'm just wondering could we ask them yeah absolutely we can ask them tomorrow we'll ask them you know immediately to see if they can provide us anything for tomorrow night i think what i would add to that is that colliers did provide a low and a high for each of the projects and each of the scenarios so you won't know what the cost is until you get this approved then go out to bid but there's enough of a range that you know if if the construction inflation increases a point i think you'll be covered potentially if it increases five points then that's a whole different set of financial questions that we would have to address but my only point is there is a range that's already been identified low and high we've been talking on the high end just to be conservative as we walk through the different scenarios thank you regard regarding norton property this i think colliers might discuss this tomorrow night but i'm not mistaken i wanted jimmy no one of town council owners asked about the cost difference between renovating norton uh or building new as being proposed so i think we're gonna talk about detail but i think one of the test fits they drew up that might be shown tomorrow night is what it would look like if you could not build a new parcel and learn how to use what was there it's not renovated as new it's uh keep in place and add on is new so you'll be stuck with the existing layout which has its pros and cons but that that would fit um the construction access we still have you know the one entrance from the front of the school i think we have more answers to one night about that i will say that it is a little cheaper to renovate norton but there's offset so if that were the case just think worst case scenario if this was the plan he could not put a new school on the back of norton for various reasons and he had to use some footprint that means we are doing renovation while the kids are in school which means portable trailers i think they estimated a cost of 1.2 million dollars per year probably for a couple years so keep an eye out after that last night tomorrow night ask that question get more detail so let me put that out there sorry no no problem in stereo maybe um so yeah that's what i thought hold on can you hear which one's on mike okay all right um so going back way back 10 minutes ago um the uh reimbursement rates for hummuston you have on here uh 42 for because i can't take my glasses off uh 42 for the school side and 21 for the office side is that for the new the new construction that would have that possibly could be in the north end or is that a reimbursement rate to do the 109 year old hummuston building currently and is it is there a difference if it were to be built as new then the answer is in both cases the central office reimbursement is 50 of what the school reimbursement is because it's a central office and not school space per se so if we were in that scenario that you see that was the renovation rate 50 percent of 42 of the 21.

if we were looking at new construction it would be 32 and then 16 for the central office space that's subject to confirmation you know by colliers with the state but that is the rule that the state follows for reimbursement of central office or non-educational new and renovation so the the 42 number here that's um that's just a regular renovation of hummus and that's we're talking about okay so then as new uh are building a new structure in the north end would be 34 for the school portion and not that much right yeah 17 for the for the central office okay and that's why you know when tony says can we go you know confirm this in essence with oscgr and yeah i think that for us to make a good decision it's important to have the right information and verified information and we're really close there's been a lot of work done i think we're really close it's just you know dotting eyes and crossing t's and you know again if if we have to be really conscious of this this isn't the end of the road um and making sure that we can afford subsequent phases and commit to the subsequent phases um just uh one last question um so um we were talking about the uh the secondary option the uh sixth or eight school um but then you also had the new chapman and the one thing that hasn't really been discussed here tonight is where would chapman go because there was talk way back when that it would be built at the chapman site but there was no really thought as to how it would be worked out or the traffic would remain the same essentially there's not a whole lot of room there the only way to effectively do that would be you know a significant multi-story because the building footprint itself first of all would have to be built while the existing school is there which you know confines space substantially and then if you are to address i mean i i know we've talked about being at dodd for a rival and dismissal chapman's no picnic um if you're to address that that has to come off the street all that traffic and onto the property you need space to be able to do that as you've seen in these other test fits so it's really not feasible on that site you know there are potentially some other locations but there aren't a lot of options there really aren't and that's another consideration thank you thanks i just think it's important if we're talking about renovating or relocating or building new for hummuston central office building that we also think that if we were to build a six through eight middle school we have this facility that could house um the homiston and and the central offices and be used for suing space and i don't know put parks and rec here so that down the road we can build a new high school on that property but i know i'm getting way ahead of myself but as we are talking about hummuston um we do have a scenario that would be a much cheaper than 12 million dollar renovation um right under our noses i feel yeah that's that's absolutely true to use dodd is not just swing space but an ultimate home for uh hummuston that would be many years down the road so the construction of a new school it would be roughly three years from you know the point we have referendum until we open um so that would be phase one if we start to use you know subsequent phases maybe that's ambitiously five to eight years down the road we're doing renovations that process is about two years by the time we get to to be able to relocate over here i really you know would love to see this space be utilized in that way if we were to do something like that but i also recognize that that is a super way long off a long way off in an ambitious environment it's a long way off so i don't know if there's a question for you or for colliers but as you know one of my concerns is consideration serious consideration of sustainable buildings all the numbers that we're looking at here i presume are all based on legacy processes legacy yeah construction yeah and that's uh you know in short that's initial the lowest i shouldn't say lowest the capital costs without considering the operating costs the cost of the fuel the gas the oil whatever is heating the heating the building i'm just wondering do you know right now at what point in the process assuming the process goes according to the way it's built right now at what point in the process do we look at a sustainable building rather than just looking at these costs that are based on historic models i i know that chuck from colliers has said that you know that definitely needs to be a consideration as we go into design and planning um i'm not necessarily obviously an expert in construction so i think that's something that we'll ask him to speak to tomorrow so just really simple then at what point right now in the process would design and planning happen before or after referendum um you know probably after i mean to have full design we have to design educational specs now which is like what is the building use uh what would we be looking at but then ultimately you know architectural stuff happens post referendum okay so i just want to say that i think that that from my perspective that discussion would need to happen before we go to referendum because the referendum number is the initial cost but we're getting the life cycle operating costs too right yeah so i just want to put that out there it's a good point you know operations are a factor and i think you know given the fact that our average building is 70 years old no matter what we build it'll be dramatically more efficient but i still think you know to your point that we should aspire to be as green as possible not just for environmental impact but for future operating costs as well yeah and so we'll ask chuck to speak to that tomorrow okay thank you on the north end property there is no natural gas service there so for it's worth you know the oil but i believe vincent yeah i don't know i don't speak for you but you know if that does happen up there uh it could be an opportunity to engage the gas company if they'll just want to service line to that area so put that out there in case you're wondering we haven't i don't know where the nearest gas natural gas line is but we would certainly prefer natural gas over oil but that said you know certainly when we get to building design which will happen after random after referendum that's where we would have to incorporate whatever additional energy improvements we want whether it's solar or geothermal those would all occur during that design phase which is going to be lengthy probably a one-year process to design a new school after a referendum is approved so there's lots of time and lots of discussion that i know will have to i don't i don't know detail that it would would go into it really but i i just have to i'm just going to say one time i really truly believe that that there need there should be some numbers on the table regarding that before we go to referendum i because numbers could be significant for the initial cost but not necessarily for the operating costs uh offset by the operating cost operating cost thanks yeah the point you made about life cycle cost is relevant all right so a lot of information here tonight but i'd be remiss to not open it back up to the public if anybody else has questions for the superintendent for any of us [Music] uh dr sullivan you uh tim white asked or ninth graders going to the high school you quickly answered that and i think with more excitement i've heard in your voice tonight for those exact same reasons is why so many parents want sixth graders to have a middle school experience so please remember that please remember what you thought of when you heard tim's question um you also mentioned we have a great system we do it's not broken we don't need to fix our educational system but are we advancing it are we riding on the coattails of a past reputation are we being leaders in education in connecticut and if we are one of i think 22 school districts that don't have a sixth grade middle school are we moving forward hampden's moving their middle school their sixth graders to the middle school are other towns going to follow suit are we going to be the last ones are we being leaders and proactive in our education or are we just sitting back is a professional athlete going to be happy with oh i got 200 i got 20 home runs this season no they're going to continue to advance themselves to be better we need to advance ourselves to be better when people like myself speak passionately about a new middle school we're speaking passionately about scenario 2a which includes the new chapman so a lot of times you keep mentioning the new middle school doesn't solve our our chapman issue well it does it that's in this that's in the plan we understand that chapman's happening in both plans we're on board with that we understand that that's going to help with the overcrowding because it could be a bigger school we also understand that it's going to take a grade away from every other school so that should certainly help with the overcrowding it may prevent higher costs from having to maybe add on to doolittle or add on to highland we've taken a whole grade away so maybe there's more space should help with the costs you mentioned using dodd as a swing space will that affect the costs of whatever buildings are being built i would think a contractor who has to work around an existing building and maybe only be allowed to do certain things at certain times because we can't be noisy or we can't do something while the kids are in school but if those kids aren't there does that affect the cost of building that new school so i don't know if that's been planned i didn't see it in here but we should factor that in if we're talking about coming down to dollars and dollars um we keep mentioning this obviously has to go to referendum we're begging you please put these two scenarios they're great scenarios in as much detail as possible to us get that information out to us give us the choice before it goes to a referendum get out to the people friday night there's a high school football game between six and seven o'clock there's going to be a thousand parents walking from that concession stand to the to the bleachers if you're free please go talk to the people speaking of that site i had laughed when you brought up the concession stand it's a beautiful facility i don't know if anybody here has been in that concession stand i cooked hamburgers in there for five hours on saturday i've been in there many times i have football player cheerleader marching band in my house it's pretty it has all the equipment it's too damn small whoever planned it just rushed through and put up a new building that thing is too sm you cannot pass two people without physically pushing each other out of the way let's not do that would that cost 400 000 i think to build that building 500 more it was done wrong so it must have been rushed it was not thought out properly anybody who's been in that building and cooked or was a cashier it was done wrong so please guys let's do it right thank you [Music] uh braxton kerrigan 317 wood pond road uh so a few of you have any idea who i am because i'm new to cheshire been here two years um i work at southern connecticut state um moved all over ben and how many states i don't know went to lots of different school districts uh i will say this uh i had a wonderful conversation without dr slum beforehand and that's why i didn't come up here before um my push is to please consider the educational aspect that's something that's dear to me i'm an educator myself um i'm pro the sixth sixth grade in the middle school idea i will tell you that i am also pro renovation to our school systems i will vote for the k through six two k through six schools i will tell everybody that i will vote for that what i want everybody to hear over the next three four five six seven eight months however long it takes is what is the educational cost because if you're gonna ask people to vote dollars is one thing educational cost is significantly more important to a lot of us the other thing i will say that has not been mentioned is what i was kind of waiting um no offense is the one thing i think you didn't do you keep saying we got to do a phase two we got to do a phase three has anybody looked at page 27 verse 32 i don't have it with me right now i didn't bring it i'm literally doing this off the cuff there's a two percent difference in cost if you do all three phases two percent the average cost per pay uh to a paying um taxpayer is 98.13 to 100 and 52 cents two dollars a month is the difference why i get mad about this is that i've gone to three different town councilmen in every single time it's a 30 million dollar difference we're not going to get that taxpayer it's a spun argument it's a spun argument please stop focusing on always finances that's that's a factor that is a factor if we're talking at 20 i'd be different it's a two percent cost that can be eaten up in a mis calculation of the increase in building costs by the way point two percent difference over the next thirty years in building cost and renovation cost makes up that money point two percent easily within the error so i i should have mentioned beforehand i'm a mathematician i love the numbers i do all that stuff i should have mentioned that beforehand but i think it needs to be accurately done and then explain everything to all of the citizens and then let us vote so i appreciate that aspect up to it um but i will say i will end with this i am voting for the plan that you guys come up with but i'm begging you that you consider the educational cost first because the financial cost is negligently different and i've heard you say you prefer two or three times you really do like the six day plan so that's that's what i'm hanging my hat on and i've done my own research and i personally prefer it but that doesn't mean it's i'm not the expert so i'll end with that braxton hey would you mind emailing the board the the statistics you pulled out between those two pages to present different so i will see that i will i send it to the town council members yeah please do i was going to say tomorrow night yeah please spa but if you want to email us we'll be happy to bring that to you okay since you asked me a question i'll say one more tiny thing i'm sorry uh i'm also the general education director at southern connecticut state and i can't share this for ferpa reasons but i went and did my own analysis if you adjust for cost of um uh socioeconomic factors and you do a linear regression there are 10 schools that lie above the linear regression of the 30 schools that are major feeders all 10 schools above the linear regression have six to eight models most the ones below the linear regression do not if you understand that you want to talk to me about it please do i can't actually share the data ferpa requires that so just since you asked i'm sorry [Applause] was going to say can we give that man a round of applause for getting to page 32 of the plan [Applause] excellent thank you mister feeling i'll be back up here um one thing i neglected to mention earlier was just to say we've all seen some recent rankings of the cheshire school so congratulations everyone on the good job you're all doing there um uh one one thing dr solomon mentioned was and this is something that on the school monitoring committee we were really concerned about was it isn't just one phase it is it is we do want to get to all the schools eventually so we all we talked a lot about and you can see tonight how long it's taken us just to talk about a small piece of school modernization you see why this is taking so long but we talked a lot about on the smc making sure the first phase does enough you know because there's a good chance we don't want to think this way there's a good chance we go to referendum we get a successful referendum that could be it for a while um so we want to make sure we're we're doing enough in the first phase so that's one reason why i'm so concerned about we go out to referendum or we have a successful referendum for we have the two elementary schools and we get to the point you know towards the end of the decade where we're you know likely to be exceeding what the projections are now and we have to kind of add a 1a on to this three-phase scenario where we're having to expand those schools so if we are going to go down that road what is that additional cost going to be but i'm also talking as we're talking about going back to os cgr you know i would like to know what do they think about us um you know given that they've confined us to this 10-year projection which i think for our situation doesn't make sense um you know we we don't have to take the risk of the schools being the wrong size we have a perfectly good scenario with the middle school and a new chapman where it eliminates that risk altogether we do that in the first phase schools are the right size and we have plenty of room to continue to grow no matter what happens beyond this decade because obviously you know theoretically we're all going to be here in the next decade as well rather than this just this decade so um it'd be good to know from our cgr how they feel about funding schools that are when we build them they're already too small or they're bumping up against the their preferred size of 700 students for elementary school and you know the notion that we may have to add on to those relatively shortly thereafter i mean it's something i could bring up tomorrow night as well for colliers but it's just something i think for us to all be thinking about okay thank you [Music] anisha dinsmore 550 wood pond road um so i guess my question is is why is this ultimate decision being left on 11 votes why aren't two viable options being given to the public because it's our tax dollars it's our children's education i think that this is such a big kind of question i think either choice that happens it'll be wonderful for the school district as a whole but i think the ultimate decision should be based off of the entire constituent as opposed to 11 votes because it sounds to me like nine of those votes were made on some things that a lot of us wouldn't care very much about my tax is going up 300 a year i spend more than that in target in one shopping trip so like for me i just look at that and i'm like i would rather my kids get the best education in the best environment that they can get it in rather than simply looking at a dollar sign [Applause] patricia kramer 189 south brooksville i just wanted to start off by saying thank you for all the work you guys have been doing for years and um i've been on top of this subject for as long as i've lived really in cheshire which has been about four years and i don't want to just say thank you to you guys but i also know the pressure that the staff has been under working in these facilities and the students and what they put up with with days off because of gas leaks not being able to be in school because there's no air conditioning simple things like that it affects them but not just the physical environment of gas leaks and temperature of air but our environments affect us learning environments change other schools can have you know a classroom this big to have group work done and it's collaborative learning your space really dictates what you can do how you learn our schools are doing amazing they're winning awards the students are excelling they're happy they're thriving imagine how well they'd be doing if our facilities worked as hard for our kids and our staff as our staff and students work to accommodate their facilities we would be so much further than where we are now and where we are now is amazing i moved to cheshire for the schools i did and they've done nothing but reward me with my kids happiness and how well they're doing academically socially even in sports it's time we give back we give back to the teachers we give back to the students and we reward them for all of their dedication and effort and creativity with an environment that provides the space to be creative and free and just a proper technologically advanced learning environment so besides environment with regards to the i'm on the record saying that i would really prefer a six to eight model there will be two buildings built regardless the difference over the course of these projects in price is negligible but that brings me to another really important point and as a group we need to decide how to engage the population in cheshire who really doesn't want to invest for the next few decades in the school system whether they their children already grown and gone and they're on a fixed income where they can't afford the 300 a year raise in their taxes this may be based better for the town council but maybe some sort of tax subsidy for people who are living on a fixed income retirees that type of voter now i know there's an angle there where property values are going to skyrocket the better our school systems are because who's buying my home when i move out of it somebody who wants to come here and put their kids in our school system if people aren't moving in to use our school system they're not buying our homes so in order to engage that group of voters we have to really reach out to them on a public outreach avenue because they vote just like we do and we are we're all here because we have kids and we're dedicated to their education and their safety that's not all of cheshire's population and i've been knocking on doors and that's what people ask me is this going to be a forever spend and how does it affect me so i have kids in 7th and 11th here they're not going to benefit from a new facility but i believe in the future of cheshire's education system and let me see there's one other thing we need to get this right the first time we really do people have mentioned to me this the pool and i'm i'm engaging people on that that prospect of the spend and not getting it right the first time you guys have so much on your shoulders it's an amazing amount of decision making get it narrowed down to as few choices as you can and give it to the voters let us help you make that decision give us the information we need to properly decide how we want to spend our money and let's help we'll help you by narrowing it down the voices the taxpayers i think that's it yep that's it thank you hi i'm eric gillis 245 south main street and i've been listening to a lot that was said so i thought i would just add my voice to some of the comments that had been made so the first thing i was just wondering we want you to to get something have people considered ranked choice voting on a referendum to make sure that if it comes down to between one or two options that the no school option isn't the one that we pick right maybe we have our first choice but we'd want to have something in the end maybe a ranked choice referendum would be a way to do it and then jim mentioned what happens if you don't get phase two that's a big concern for me right because we all i guess i've seen too many times this doesn't go right there's lots of change orders for example or you do your soil test and you find out that the cost is going to be way higher than usual right if the costs explode on phase one you're going to have a real challenge getting people on board for the next phase right and that's just the risk that you carry once you get into the design phase there always seems to be change orders so i think you're carrying sort of the trust of the voters into phase one that's a reason to make sure that if you if you can't get phase two that you got as much out of the process as possible right because you're kind of walking into unknown territory on that so that's really all i just wanted to offer but you know i think those are important points thanks ranked choice i believe that the referendum vote is entirely governed by the town charter and it would not allow something like that speak to it tomorrow i mean but i'm pretty sure that's what we'll bring up i'm gonna take this off there we go my name is chuck neth 1355 notch road so i just wanted to point out a couple of advantages of scenario six a lot of talk has been about the uh other option but there was a lot more that went into it than the price i know everybody wants to just point to the price but if you look at the full plan as dr sullin pointed out which is what we should be focused on there's only a 10.6 million dollar difference to the district on the high share that's three percent so it'd be crazy to suggest that three percent is what tilted in favor of one versus the other if you look at just phase one it's 37 million and i've heard tonight you know some people are saying that we need the full plan and then i hear well what if we don't get to phase two well then we've we've got that cost of 37 million but scenario 6 stands on its own so you talked with the other option you'd have dodd as a swing space well if you don't get this scenario or you don't get the phase two then you've got an empty dodd for however long that might be that's not ideal as far as the scenario six again stands on its own i think the other point with scenario six is the redistricting so redistricting redistricting is going to be required in either scenario i think as dr solomon pointed out it's 18 in scenario six it was 15 in scenario 2a the advantage of redistricting in scenario 6 is you're moving students from an old school to a new school in every case and you can look at the redistricting map it's in the report but every case where you're moving students they're from an old school into a new school if you look at it for scenario 2a it's split you've got kids that are moving from an old school into an old school and some are moving from an old school into a new school so redistricting would be you know it's never an easy decision but i would think it'd be more favorable if you're moving to a brand new school when you talk about the the school sizes scenario six again it'd be 653 612 780 and 669.

in scenario two they're 515 570 751 and 463 so with all the schools equal in size i think dr solon touched on this regardless where you live in town you got an equal learning environment at the schools and chapman right now is a small school there's not an equal learning environment to let's say highland which is the largest school and speaking of highland there's been talk that the elementary schools would be too big they're smaller than highland is currently so it's not any bigger than we currently have also in his presentation he showed the the dodd school so in the window of the eight year enrollment there's an ample capacity here at the middle school the high enrollment is 789 the capacity is shown as 906. so you're saying that we're going to be bumping up against the capacity i heard you got more than enough capacity in that eight year window at the middle school you know the when we talk about the um families moving to cheshire for the schools that's true so in 2019-20 there were 177 new to district students 62 percent of them were at the elementary school level and 40 percent of that was tied to new home sales so with the elementary school option scenario six you're addressing that right at the beginning and that's going to help families move to town families are moving to town when their kids are young and trying to get into the elementary schools and there's also been talk about the the right size of the schools the enrollment projections etc so at the end of phase one in either scenario if the actual enrollment was on par with the projection everything would be great but what happens if the enrollment is actually higher as has been suggested here so in scenario six you have flexibility you have an elementary school on the north end in the south end of town where you could add on to that elementary school without affecting the redistricting map if you did it with scenario 2a you'd have to redistrict a second time which would be unpopular um the middle school you'd also build say we had an enrollment increase now you're kind of stuck that middle school may be too small at that point as well so there's more flexibility with the scenario six plan and then there was talk well the capacity of the schools you'd be bumped up against it and i shared this information with mr jenks on the functional capacity of scenario six in 2930 and going down the schools for the new school will be at about 96 functional capacity too little we'll be right at 100.

highland would be at 94 and the new school in the south would be at 98. on scenario 2a with the enrollments as they are chapman would be at 98. doolittle would be at 94. highland would be at 92 and norton would be at 97. so you're going to be up against the percent of functional capacity at all the schools regardless what option you have but scenario 6 offers you more flexibility so if you're worried about not getting to phase two you're stuck in scenario two a you have to get to phase two if you look at the enrollments in scenario six you have the ability to add on during construction to address that and then finally the scenario six calls for about 188 000 square feet of new construction so to the front of the gentleman that just spoke about square foot costs and inflation and you know overruns you've got 188 000 square feet in scenario six scenario 2a you got 293 000 square feet so not only are you building a bigger building envelope you're also worried about the cost the overruns on a square foot for that project as well so it's more susceptible more at risk for those overruns which again would point to scenario six so the last point i want to make is it's kind of been turned into this while i'm i'm pro new elementary schools or i i want a sixth or eighth middle school and we should really be talking about is we need to modernize our schools i think all the facilities as we've seen all need to be worked on and the point should be to address the schools not to get what we want in phase one for personal reasons is to address the schools and a plan that makes sense overall and over the whole plan that's all i got thank you uh i'll remember the question i have for you in a minute but let me just say something i first i want to thank everyone who came here tonight and for your patience through all this so uh i appreciate i speak for the whole board when i can say this is not a simple process forget about the fact that's taken six years and quite frankly it's taken at least 10 years to get to this point and uh there's a lot of variables and i think someone i think was matt said earlier they got there and taught the folks and he didn't say i apologize i heard i heard that uh we have been i have been in fact as last night i was talking to the parent until 11 30.

um and i heard some of this tonight which is where can they go to find more information and uh it's hard to find i don't understand it isn't a town website the studies the meeting minutes the plan but even the plan from 2017 which contains a lot of the detailed physical needs assessment rebuilding folks can't find that and i bring that up because when we actually have these discussions like tonight and we talk about these the buildings it's news to a lot of people and i echo chuck's point trish and others we have to get the facts out there whatever they are your sentiments our opinions but point people those facts understand that it is not just about phase one and for me it is beyond that it's not even about a k through five or a six or eight parents no matter who you talk to in every school want something done in their school that's been very clear norton not so much norton's pretty proud of their school uh they definitely don't want more space so by and large everybody wants and needs something the challenge is parents are asking me we do phase one what happens to doolittle what happens to cheshire high school what happens to the rest of the schools hummuston darcy you can't stop at phase one i recognize i think we all do that close to a half a billion dollar price tag is a huge nut for this town digest but if we can get a large chunk of improvements on these schools now we're creating a more echo solution for all the schools i am more concerned about beyond phase one i had one parent tell me that tony that's great sixth grade middle school i get it but so you're telling me my kid's going to go through i want to use the word she used but a less than pleasant experience at the older schools for the first six seven years then go to a nice luxury school for three years then go back to another um less than stellar experience in high school i don't use the word the kind of sandwich she called that but the points taken you can't stop there i'm with you so folks should know that the current town council financial analysis and i am very happy because i've been on this war for a while i could tell you years ago it was difficult even to get the turf field passed and that was a drop in the bucket compared to this we have folks in town council including jim that are willing to bring this to the voters voters are willing to do something based on service smc but to echo dr someone's point we need to come together on what actually can be done so that being said please continue asking the questions we i take a lot of notes tonight i think most of the forums have too we'll bring some of these questions to the town council tomorrow i'm sure they're more happy to answer but i i can't emphasize that um you know i i was gonna ask dr solon you know what happens if we miss uh referendum next spring and i know the roman's coming vince mentioned earlier was a three-year from the point referendums passed to actually get the school built so that puts us right at the year where we exceed our functional capacity that is not a good thing i don't want to have portable classrooms at the cost of one point whatever that number is going to be it's it's it's not so i want to get past this um we need some more information on kind of working but i i believe town council may talk about deadlines and dates if they go to spring referendum um you know it's time between now and january potentially where they have to vote on february i'm not sure but for some reason the bodies can't get to april what does that do for us you know we're talking about now a potential november referendum and how far out does that put us from starting to make progress and i didn't talk about f from fails but as you feel the more that we this is prolonged beyond the spring the more in jeopardy we get within our functional capacitors coming and not being ready for it you know certainly the data that we have today around enrollment confirms the trajectory that was outlined by slr that we are growing at the rate i think it was jim brought up some of the developments that were around town that have subsequently you know post slr evaluation been approved and so we recognize that the likelihood that we continue on this path is is pretty high so i think as that happens it confirms your fear that we do run the risk of running out of space and having to be unpleasant um you know or looking at making investments that are just ridiculous to to put portables on and spend that money chuck and otters tonight uh in some emails i received earlier mentioned what is what is the communication plan not just between now and um when the town council has to vote and referendum but when that vote happens tim you were in a town council is there a period where the town council members were members cannot market yeah there's a it's called the blackout area right in advance of a referendum vote you can share factual information um you cannot lobby a position uh for those 60 days i believe it is uh in advance of the referendum so we might bring that up and andrew you had experience in this too but it's going to be very critical that no matter what goes the referendum we're going to need your help the public's help to make sure the facts get out there and i know other school there's like south windsor and others you've been involved with andrew uh use pacs uh but it's gonna be critical otherwise um i think the voters my opinion it's just and i don't have a crystal ball or i can't tell that horrible numbers were two weeks ago i wish i knew what they were for 600 million but um i it might have been gym or someone else's town council mentioned that you know the most recent largest referendum town had was the sewage treatment upgrade plant at about 33 million and that failed the first referendum and that's our you know it's always it's our wastewater system one of the most critical things we have so i i am worried about a hundred million dollar plus referendum going out there and our voters armed enough information to make a decision because there's a lot of folks that you know i i the fall festival some of us were there and you know we we have folks coming to saying you guys are spending money we don't have i can't afford to live here there's folks that i mentioned earlier they don't mind the tax set we hear from a lot of folks and i want to make sure that the information's out there so so i uh not minimizing anything said tonight actually has been very helpful your feedback but it is not just as simple as what we want i will tell you personally i would love to have first and foremost a brand new high school build it elsewhere convert this existing high school to a new middle school combined facilities but that's not the need you know we're going to get there hopefully in my lifetime in phase three but um you know we wouldn't be addressing enrollment the other physical needs so i i go back to those facts and uh so again it's there's a lot of variables this has not been a simple process i'm happy it's taking this long but there's more information about there but there's more to come so please keep sending us questions please talk to town council uh if anything was presented tonight dr sullin's gonna make this plan available online right andrew so read it ask questions um you know we're happy to help no one uh hasn't answered questions that's one thank you for being here tonight so andrew i'm sorry i know i went off of tangent but i'll turn it back to you thanks um so just to reiterate tomorrow night there is a meeting for the town council to discuss smc at six o'clock and then our next business meeting i incorrectly said it's actually the 21st of october um full business meeting at town hall without anybody else if anything yeah just one last thing uh jeff uh referendum fails does the federal government compel us in some way to address the ada issues at chapman so we've been compelled for many years to address the ada issues across the district when i first started six years ago i know that pre predates me but i remember first starting that it felt like a phone book the plan that vin shared with me about our ada compliance issues we've been making progress on that over the course of many years and as long as we're continuing to make progress on that um dr wood at the state has you know found it in his heart to allow us to continue to keep moving on that trajectory so you know we're yes compelled to continue to do these things but they're not going to come in tomorrow and say you need to close chapman or chs or hummingston because they're not ada compliant so it came about that the list came to us when i was on the council so that was more than a decade ago right and i thought at the time they said you can you know do this over the course of time but at least at that point they said eight to ten years and these things should be done right you know i mean just this summer we had a massive ada compliance project at chs with doors um they're just not wide enough for ada compliance and so it's a massive project and that's one of those things where you hate to spend millions of dollars to update a facility that you know i mean i'd hate to see that happen in a place like chapman or something we shouldn't be making smart investments at this point thank you anybody else all right well thank you everyone for coming great discussion tonight and look forward to continuing to hear from you as we move forward with the process with that kind of a motion to adjourn second second second all in favor all right thank you

Good evening and welcome to the second and final, excuse me, second and final Academy District 20 schoolboard candidate forum moderated by the League of Women Voters at the Pikes Peak Region. I'm Shelley Roars, spokesperson for our local league LWVPR and moderating this evening. Thank you for joining us in person at Rampart High School or virtually. Sorry, I'm not sure where we're at, but thank you. The League is a nonpartisan organization with three main goals: citizens education, good government, and voter education and outreach like tonight. And you won't believe this, but we are a member organization made up of women and men and open to anyone 16 and over. Something else you may not have known, it doesn't matter if you're a student at 60 or 16, student memberships are free. So, our goal tonight is to present the views of the candidates seeking your vote for school board in a fair, nonpartisan setting.

i'm mute we're live welcome everybody to the campus of dover sherburne high school here at norris earl field beautiful afternoon vastly soccer match between the ten one and one lady raiders of dover sherburne and the four six and one medway mustangs game's about to get underway both teams taking the fields special thanks in advance to the pride the fourth grade girls base soccer team that will be assisting today's match by serving as ball girls midway looks ready to go ds one more huddle up about 70 degrees and sunny no wind to speak of sun might be a factor as it sets sort of behind the bleachers [Applause] so be in the face of anybody playing the left side of the field for dover sherburne [Applause] [Music] looks like they're starting the sumner sisters up top the striker marty phillips out there courtney mahoney and net medway gets us underway [Applause] trying to work the ball up through midfield elise higgins can't possess it diaz works it across the back of their defense up to sumner the freshman now cycled back towards the goaltender ball is clear to the sidelines but possessed by medway emily landry trying to cross at camp landry again with a ball that's batted around rachel herman trying to find marty phillips on the wing herman again steps in there now wins the ball looking for a target and the ball went over the line but it's a throw to blue waverly sumner the junior having an incredible season goal scoring wise i had four goals the other night on senior night ball worked wide hello scout trying to put that ball through for the younger sumner who does win possession tries to center it in the middle but it's kicked away by the midway defense now medway with the ball at midfield chip lock trying to work down the sideline but the ball rolls over the line be a blue throw nice defense there from natasha seal [Music] abby desalvo with the throw find seal seal trying to go 1v2 and it ends up a midway throw ds defense working the ball up field seal up in the midfield now it's batted backwards now wide nicely under the feet of abbey de salvo playing right full back trying to work the ball up to herman can't long ball through for higgins the ds defender wins that race ball goes over the line for a throw in midway pushing up trying to establish something here in the ds end of the field the salvo heads up all the way out of danger very nicely that's going to roll over the line for another throw in looks like the captain ellis sense is going to take this one midway senior looking at her options ball coming into the box can't find higgins cleared away herman fighting for it still midway condon moving that ball wide to longval trying to work our way down the sideline gets past one defender but not the second one ds in an effort to keep that ball away from higgins plays it over the line but it's going to be a goal kick must have gone off higgins [Music] ball played forward now batted up and finds sumner her first touch of the game we really going wide for phillips doesn't reach her ds working the ball up to the midfield again herman gets knocked down phillips plays the ball backwards now gets it again looking to switch into the midfield doesn't like what she sees now goes forward herman herman switches moscow ball goes down the sideline for hayden sumner and it's wisely played over the line by alice sense midway regroups well played into salvo back to the salvo looking for a big cross right to the goalkeeper [Music] now it's being played as a goal kick skips over a couple of midway players to salvo just plays the ball over the line never replayed it before it went out but apparently not aware which line is out [Music] ball crossed in the middle by medway batted around a little bit but now herman's going to win it counter-attacking more white shirts in blue but there's a ball through the sumner goaltender way off our line beyond the top of our box plays that away from danger salvo for hermann moscow can't quite get that ball through but handball on midway gonna be a kick here for ds gonna get taken by tessa broderick rules over the left-hand side of the field there's phillips and ceo working the ball on the sideline now forward to sumner sumner working on victoria bullard can't get around her ball cleared away nicely by midway but the ds defense as they have quite often so far this game playing the ball right up to an open midfielder and ds is back on the counter attack now it's wide for sumner she's going to try to go down the line for abby's salvo but that ball goes over the line eva benani playing that ball forward he is trying to retain possession but now medway has it fall there on ds middleweight's going to take a kick it will sense booting the ball up the left wing that's not going to be caught by emily landry it's going to be a goal kick a couple substitutions coming on including a goal a new goaltender for diaz i don't know if courtney mahoney's having an issue i guess she was getting some treatment on her hand during warm up and wants to revisit the medical tent diaz will take this goal kick ball batted right back in by long ball diaz clears it up phillips phillips controls carries oh nice plane to the midfield i think that's herman herman's still carrying the ball trying to get off a shot but it's blocked by the midway defense batted around back there between bernani [Music] moscow de salvo now medway has it i played back the ball back to their central defense los cal again with the touch lily stocks trying to win the ball that ball goes over the line for a blue throw [Music] to salvo down to sumner sumner inside sort of a shot cross there yes ball goes wide it could be a goal kick for medway this is ella scott with that take never too early to test the goaltender ball's booty forward to midfield lead forward by reagan chip block down the wing long ball is trying to win it ds wins it instead trying to hold on to it but giving away there slightly to chip block chip block moving the ball to the middle higgins is all alone plays the ball back over here's the shot testing that new replacement goaltender she rises to the challenge [Applause] [Music] punching that ball forward phillips playing the ball to the center of the field but nobody there but white shirts now condon from midway big blast on the right wing intercepted by the ds defense now ds possesses the ball in the midfield long ball forward looking for sumner we'll just get through the defense no midway regroups plays the ball wide for nicholas phillips forces that pass out of play ds throw i'll plead to the feet of herman back to herman herman finds sumner so i'm trying to get past a slew of midway defenders now phillips buying herself a little room with a nice idea playing that ball in ball's getting batted around substitutions coming in from midway this will here by the referee gonna be a free kick for medway i think somebody uh somebody from that way kind of hand to the face or a ball to the face person explaining to me what happened put his hand to his face so i assume that's what happened uh now sportsmanship is played back to blue but cleared away by medway gonna be another blue throw herman possesses nicely place the ball back to the left full back now the ball's back in the ds defense now desalvo she's gonna help wide good step there from the midway defender but diaz still able to hold on with lascaux switches fields finds broaddrick [Music] and whistling a free kick for ds looks like that's lily stock's there at the left fullback position looks like broderick's going to play the stocks stocks with a nice turn into the midfield seal up for sumner summoner for phillips doesn't quite get through nice little build up there midway just able to clear it away and out of bounds ball nice nice play there by herman phillips seal stocks herman phillips ball forward for herman gets away from her perez now just booting the ball up field trying to connect with higgins almost does defended there nicely by the central defenders of benigni and broderick now de salvo up forward finds herman herman trying to get that ball through for one of the sumners intercepted by medway good step there from desalvo [Music] shea from midway trying to work the ball up oh nice back tracking from waverly summer wins that ball away now moscow moscow loses it to chiplock chiplock with the ball through goaltender's way out safely booting that ball up to midfield midway still has it but they give it away ball's put through for hayden sumner but way too far and scooped up by the cold hunter from medway [Music] midway now trying to move the ball forward for higgins batted back by the ds defense eventually midway chopping that ball out of play condom with a volley a bunch of subs coming on mario goldenian hammerness and catherine mahoney on for ds looks like hayden summers coming off oh timeout so both teams will come back to their benches strategy drives a little bit with the coaches i'll be back to live action as soon as it resumes yes both teams retaking the field still 0-0 here in the 16th minute play resumes i think it's going to be a throw for ds really no dangerous chances to speak of both teams still feeling each other out ds with the majority of the possession but not able to translate that possession in the back through the midfield to really good scoring opportunities just yet they throw that ball and play down the line and out again so midway throw sumner ball played for mahoney mahoney trying to reconnect with sumner can't rachel herman's there though now moscow and desalvo nice play there by megan tompkins in midway the ball goes out mahoney fighting for it with herman and desalvo gonna be a midway throw danielle smith playing the ball in mahoney trying to find help eventually finds the feet of moscow let's go with the big switch nicely to mario goganian you can't keep possession but does collide with sarah longval who's now down and referee stops play a little shoulder to shoulder action there and i think sarah long ball may have gotten a charlie horst or something she's coming off under her own power replaced by delaney condon it's gonna be a kick here for white that way goaltender's gonna play this [Music] nice boot forward that's headed by broderick kept in by ds down the sideline trying to find sumner doesn't quite oh ball ricky shades off the hand but no call ball played back to the goaltender who plays it out of danger [Music] higgins gets a turn plays the ball over to megan tompkins tompkins trying to put a ball through the middle but cleared away by stocks thompkins again trying to control that keep it in but rolls over the line moscow up the line paul finds mahoney i'll play to the middle of the field but nobody there except delaney condon for medway she gets pressured by hermann all now played forward by the medway defense see if kelly nicholas can keep that in and she can't stocks will take this throw go gaining up the line play to the middle of the field lust gown playing that ball forward ooh ricochets off a couple heads sumner now finds lost cow [Applause] salvo trying to win this ball back [Applause] good effort there from tompkins but she can't keep it in now higgins will get replaced by number 14.

thank you Carlos thank you so much uh marel I apologize for interrupting if you can help us with broke call now today is a regular board meeting of October 14 2021 at 5:30 pm members of the board and attendance president Corina alera present vice president Ando clerk anesto Beano here can you hear me thank you Carlos thank you so much marel I apologize uh oh we having some feedback um I think the YouTube sometimes lags a little bit so we'll wait for her yes we can hear you Ernesto okay just I already um fixed it so um member Linda Chavez member mimf present and members of Administration superintendent Dr Bower I know she's having connection issues uh yes I was just gonna say that so um I know she will be logging in pretty soon if not with her computer probably through her phone um so we'll go ahead and continue um we have Quorum so let's do now if you can all join me in doing the pledge of allegiance I pledge of allegiance Al to FL of the United United States of America and to the for stand nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you and uh today I would like to open uh our meeting in honor of uh the indigenous people's day that we just celebrated on Monday um and and um also want to do start off with a land acknowledgment uh that we are on the ancestral homeland of the M Malone um that's who uh we are um here that's the indigenous peoples the First Nations peoples of this land so I would like to uh open up today's meeting in their honor uh moving on to item 102 uh discussion Andor modification okay uh if I see please raise your hand if you'd like to make any changes or have any comments around the agenda uh trano now we can't hear you or I don't know if you're saying anything we can't hear you madam president uh uh I wanted to advise you that board vice president quo has just arrived to the district office and he should be logging in soon okay great and uh trusty fam can you hear me yes I hear you loud clear perfect I just want to make sure I know adesto just testing at nesto can you say something uh can you hear me now yes now I can okay go ahead um I apologize I had this written down and I forgot the paper at my office so I wanted to see if we could move [Music] item uh four .3 the energy solar Savings Program um to directly [Music] before uh if I can find it uh there Mr CA was going to be giving us a presentation and I wanted to do it right before trust can I not um and I I had a suggestion after reviewing the agenda and maybe it has to do with that can I can I give maybe some my suggestions I kind of saw 403 in relation with 502 um when we talk about that's the that's the one yes so if we can maybe hear those together uh it sounds like um 403 with 502 yes that's the agenda um would you like to bring up 502 or would you like sounds like you want to put 403 over closer to 502 a little later in the agenda is that correct yeah 403 directly before okay sounds thank you uh any other changes to the agenda please raise your hand you my screen I don't see anybody else with any changes I know andrees is logging on your full screen no more if you can please mute yourself if you're not um speaking that would help uh okay so seeing no others we'll go ahead and um is there any oppositions to the changes on the agenda no other okay great so we'll go ahead and move on to 103 welcome and explanation to the audience so just a reminder to the audience we are meeting virtually um today obviously uh and if you wish wish to speak on a specific item there will be public comment so um please make sure to stay on raise your hand I will usually give a couple seconds to allow you know people and the technology to catch up um to ensure that everybody has the opportunity to speak on the item um if there is um anything that you wish to speak to the board on that is not on the agenda you will have an opportunity to speak on that on item 2011 um so everybody has an opportunity uh to speak to us today um if you have a specific agenda item you're going to speak to we will have public comment for that and if there's an item that is not on the agenda we will open it up for uh General uh public comments on item 2011 so with that moving forward 2011 uh public members who wish to address the board um so this is for any items that are not on the agenda today uh Jose I did see you um if you can please help me find any members of the public wishing to address a board on this item hello Madame President yes we have two speakers first speaker is is Rand Randall barber Mr Barber you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin good evening board can I can you hear me testing one two we can hear you thank you okay I didn't see the clock okay uh thank thank you for listening today um I'm checking in to let you know that we need to get this contract done it's uh way way way overdue this really should have been accomplished last spring um of course it's been an interesting year of course uh but it's now time to get it done so please tell your bargaining team to start uh presenting uh communication that is Meaningful because right now it's not happening it's not happening and our hope as teacher is beginning to really really wne U we're starting to lose faith in the district bargaining team so please tell him pay attention be prepared for the meetings don't sit silently and provide please provide information that's pertinent to our conversation uh because this is just not good this is this situation is getting bad very quickly so I urge you tell your bargaining team do their homework put a reasonable offer on the table and let's get this thing done we've got enough work to do without having to uh to plow through this kind of difficulty it's really not necessary we're ready we hope you are thank you our next speaker is Miss Tanner Miss Tanner you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin good evening Bor and Dr Bower my Preamble is nothing that you can solve but to let you see a glimpse into why my amble is so important within seven days all last week I lost one of my dearest people in my life of almost 40 years to covid I had my mom rush to the ER to the hospital stay where I wasn't sure she would come home my house was burglarized and rans set I don't need your sympathy I don't want your sympathy it's life but working at Alam Rock right now adds even more stress to these difficult times I had to be out for a few days last week just to deal with my mom's situation and here's where you come in I prepared detailed sub plans I came to school at 6:30 in the morning to be sure everything was set up but guess what no sub the admin split up my class of 31 to almost every teacher on campus not only is this safe due to covid cies it's unfair to my colleagues and it's also unfair to my students who missed an entire day of academics each time how is it that you're supporting this practice is it really in the best interest of students wouldn't it bother you if it were your kids I've also added stress because my colleagues are complaining about the partial potential exposure the overcrowding in their classrooms and having assumed that this is okay we've been told that the admin would step in if there was no sub that's not reality when I had Direct contact of Co in my classroom I reached out to my administrator to share my concerns my fears and the impact of my isolation from my octogenarian parents the reply I got was this is hard for everyone you have repeatedly said to take care of yourself but create an environment where that is impossible please do what is right and best for our students and take and for us to be able to take care of ourselves it's difficult enough in this year without disrespect thank you our next speaker is Adrian B Miss V you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin hello um you know last year was a rough year as we all know this year is seems to be even harder and I'm at the point where it's clear you don't care about us um I am I've been a teacher for 13 years and it's almost impossible to live right now in Silicon Valley gas prices are at $5 a gallon just to commute to elmrock is a huge chunk of my paycheck we have teacher turnover because our our school district is in the bottom third salary schedule in the County teachers are quitting our schools right now to go to other schools I'm not talking about in the future they're quitting right now and this is not okay we we need some sort of pay increase that is not happening it's it's just ridiculous and I'd like to say also as far as safety our school I work at Joseph George Middle School our PA system is not working and that's not because our principal hasn't put a work order in she's put in multiple work orders from the of the year since August she has put this in it has not been fixed and we have had to shelter in place we've had the uh announcement of teachers please shelter in place already this year some of us teachers did not hear it this is not acceptable and if we go on strike we will be the laughing stock thank you thank you miss our next speaker is Sean s Mr s we have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin all right so like all my other teachers have said you need to solve this crisis that we're dealing with in Rays I'll make it nice and sweet I was going to be mean but I that it all be nice and sweet um I heard that your board meet your other bargaining meeting the other day was pretty silent from the district standpoint they showed a salary schedule they've been telling you guys about that wasn't agreed upon about the from the dist from the area about 162 days that's misleading you about what we agreed upon or did not we did not agree upon it to me that's putting on something on paper paper that's liable for them to be looked at so I don't know who in district office decided to write something up that wasn't agreed upon um you are going to lose a lot of teachers teachers who can't afford to live here anymore can't afford to pay can't afford to dip into their own pockets for these kids if we end up going on on work to rule or go on strike board members you are going to suffer big time the kids are already suffering enough I don't want to do that my kids are I have 12 kids leing at a first grade level there's no way if we go on work to rule we can't do intervention programs we can't do a lot of things remember I hope there are some parents out there because there are three to four seats up for grabs for next year for 2022 and so you board members are on it you better start fighting for us you're on that board for us in the community not for the the do people and I hope nobody in the doo gets a raise there should be no more conferences that you can go to if we don't have the money nobody gets a raise thank you our next speaker is Maestra Diz Maestra Diz you have two minutes to speak please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin good evening everyone my name is El Rodriguez and I'm a teacher at adante academy please demonstrate that you truly have your teachers in your best interest and settle on a fair contract now thank you thank you m yes our next speaker is Miss Lo Miss lo you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin hi uh my name is Miss lo I or Kathy lo I teach at Shephard middle school and I've been teaching in alrock for 15 years um yesterday I read an article about Campbell district and their troubles with the teachers troubles with their salary and I look happen to notice um that they were talking about you know starting salaries at different school districts in the area so I went and looked at some of those salary schedules um like I said I've been teaching in alrock for 15 years and my mom taught in alrock before me um we taught together at Shephard and when I was looking at some of the other um districts I was noticing in that I would be making tens of thousand dollars more if I worked at those districts and if I had been at those districts for all that time but instead I've stayed with all rock and you know I live in a garage right now um I've lived in a garage for the entirety of lockdown um since Co started it's been very difficult and I I put in thousands of dollars of my own money into my classroom and I I don't even know how much is it's probably $10,000 if not more it was the first time I've thought in 15 years maybe I should go somewhere else next year um I don't want to leave I love my district I I love my school I love the kids I love teaching you know siblings of younger of kids that I taught in the past cousins you know families means a lot to me but I I can't keep living in a garage and spending thousands of dollars that you know you you're not spending on me you're not investing in us thank you thank you m Lo next speaker is Michael py Mr py you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin yes my name is uh Michael polling I'm a teacher in Joseph George School District I've attempted to correspond with uh many of you during covid uh a very small number of you did respond to my uh emails those of you who did thank you I won't name names but I probably should because those of you that don't care enough about your teachers to send an email back to uh what are you doing why are you here uh Dr Bower thank you you have responded to me several times I truly believe that you as our superintendent have the best interest of our students and a teachers at heart but the members of the board what are you doing where is your effort to match the effort of your teachers who are we're fatigued we feel like we're in an abusive relationship with you be honest we feel like we keep coming back because you know that we care about the kids and you can get away with almost anything that will keep showing up you're losing teachers like that last teacher spoke just a few moments ago Talk of the faculty you know we don't have a faculty room anymore we have to sit outside and uh we don't have a tent over our heads we have to figure out how to keep the sun off our faces but we talk about where we might go how long we might stay with this District that is just so horrible to us you're losing good teachers veteran teachers new teachers they're going to go why should they stay they're not vested settle the contract now thank you Mr P next speaker is Menda Master mandosa you have two minutes please unmute yourself when we begin speaking the timer will begin good evening trustees and Dr Bower tonight I want to urge you to please set Federal Affair contract as my colleagues have said we have a lot to worry about already please help our social emotional as we are doing for our students we need to be healthy mentally and emotionally to do our jobs so please settle our contract thank you thank you miss mendosa our next speaker is Jessica leod Miss voting you have 2 minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin hi yes I also just want to reiterate what my fellow teachers were saying please settle this contract um we still don't even have a safety mou we're going to work every day without any sort of safety measures that have been agreed upon um the teachers are exhausted if it wasn't for my principal and the staff at Linda Vista I don't know who would be showing up to work our principal goes beyond anything ever imagined and our staff do too you know we are a family there and we're trying to literally survive day in and day out um without any sort of agreement by the do or the board steping in what are you doing about our covid sick leave uh our teachers left right and Center asking do I actually to take personal dat to quarantine or get tested or if I get covid at work do I actually have to use my 10 hard-earned six days for Co sorry excuse me um and the fact that we have no subs so then our classrooms are overcrowded every day because we have to split them up or our sub or our principal has to sub all day um for two classes um back for back and forth back and forth back and forth so please settle our contract invest in your teachers and staff because we are exhausted and I I don't know how much is left in us we are we have flyed the parents are we are we striking are we picking because we're at that point we are done so please please show up to the negotiating meetings prepared thank you thank you Mr our next speaker is elad re Miss re you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin uh hi there my name is f ruise and I'm a parent of a child that goes to Alam Rock School District and um it's it's sad to hear all these teachers and it's it angers me but it also makes me very sad because all of these teachers work so so hard for all of our students and I just want to say to the board that you're there your positions are elected positions you're there for a reason you're there to support our children who are the future of not only our commun but of you know of of San so it's important that you guys are being fair and Equitable and that you guys settle this contract um my child basically um has gone to school this entire Co she started from kindergarten through Co now and she is extremely behind and all this going back and forth and you guys not settling is not affecting not only affecting the teachers but ultimately is affecting the kids and remember your whole reason for being on this board is to be good stewards of alam rocks money for our kids not for you not for game not for anything else but for our children so I please I'm asking you to please consider that and you know the teachers and and as a parent again that had to go through this Zoom teaching throughout covid uh my respects to you the amount of work and dedication that you guys put into your work is amazing and you guys are not paid enough so I urge you guys to be fair and Equitable and make a vote and and make sure that this is resolved as soon as possible thank you thank you Miss Reese our next speaker is BAS missas you have two minutes please H me yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin hi good evening can you hear me yes we can hear you hi my name is Brenda syas I'm here today to sending solidarity with our teachers our teachers have been our Champions they've been resilient they've been everything they've been our heroes they've been our heroes and I keep hearing all the great things about our teachers but what I'm listening to right now is not what I want to hear I want to continue to hear all the good things that our teachers are doing but I don't want to hear the lack of support that they're getting from this District I want our teachers to have a safe environment to feel that they are not only wanted and needed but that they are respected they have gone above and beyond they put their body their health in front of the lines for our students and today I urge you guys to agree and give them a fair contract I've heard our teachers are exhausted and tired and I agree with them and I I cannot see how they wouldn't feel this way abandoned that's the word they are abandoned right now and a lot of you in this board have been supported and endorsed by them and the least you can do is half their backs stick up for them speak up for them don't tell them to go to the chain of command that's why they're here today asking you imploring you to listen to them to all our teachers I want to say thank you because my kids wouldn't be where they are without you guys continue to use your voice and speak I really do hope that you guys come to an agreement and stick up for our teachers if I can do it through my voice I hope you guys can as well thank you thank you Mr Indus our next speaker is Ron Mones R Mones you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin good evening my name is Rand Montes I'm currently teaching at Joseph George Middle School this year has had many challenges one topic that stands out to me is equity in our classrooms we have discussions about what Equity means and how it affects our daily lives as a teacher I understand not only the importance of this myself but in how I teach my students in our society we have to take care of how we you we have to take care of each other so why are teachers getting getting treated so poorly as for our salary I get paid about 64,000 a year as a third-year teacher I received an offer from another district for $11,000 something has to change teacher turnover hurts students performance and leads to long-term costs for the districts teachers want to stay if conditions are improved so I speak for myself too as someone who genuinely enjoys working at alen Rock but if I go down the street and I can get $35,000 more per year I need to act on that the cost of living in this area is crazy this is the Bay Area I love this community but with the way things currently are it makes it so difficult to stay please please please negotiate better terms for us teachers so that we can stay in this area thank you thank you Mr Montes next speaker is Danielle vandas Danielle vas you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin hello actually my name is Danielle de Ambrosio and I am a teacher at so my name is Danielle de Ambrosio and I'm a teacher at Lindale I've been teaching in alen rock for 21 years I am also part of the area's bargaining team so I have actually been in 11 all 11 of those meetings Yes you heard the number people it's 11 so board members I hope you're listening because we've already met 11 times and we can't settle a fair contract that is not okay it's also not okay that we are working without a safety mou in place it's not okay that our salary schedule is one of the lowest in the county bottom third it is also not okay that the district is claiming to offer area 3.4% raise when in reality it's really a 1.75% raise it is very misleading so board members please ask your District's bargaining team to clarify this for you so remember it is not they're not coming to the table with a 3.4 they are coming to the table with a 1.75 both are not acceptable but that's what's happening so board members I hope you're listening we need to get this done fairly with the money that the district actually has we need to not drag this on and if the end goal is and the end goal is for you for the teachers for the students for the families end goal to retain and hire teachers for the students and families in Alam rock thank you for your time thank you Miss D Ambrosio next speaker is Tanika Rod Fox Thana you have two minutes please unmute yourself when we begin speaking the time will begin Ana please unmute yourself I'm wondering if she's having technical difficulties if we can go to any others and then come back to her yes Madam president next speaker is sh director Miss director you have 2 minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin Miss W can you please there we go thank you I made it too complicated um I wanted you to share um something that went well at our school this week um and it was a quite a startling experience yesterday afternoon um just moments before our Upper Grade were to go in uh to finish their day after lunch we had an alarm a fire alarm that went off and um everyone did what they were supposed to do and we thought it was a student maybe that pulled the alarm at turns out it was some wiring that touched because of a spiderweb or something um we were given the explanation I what I want to say is that felt good to know that we were all working together what didn't feel good is that clearly there's some things that need to be checked I don't know if anyone said anything to you but we have ants in all of our classrooms um they crawl in my arms they're on my paper my computer they get in my lunch bring them home it's it's really an unpleasant experience we have ant tramps we've had our classrooms have been bombed but it's it's just not working um there has been a decision made at my site to no longer have the Disposable water bottles uh and I and I understand that but I'm concerned that water is still being delivered to all schools but not our school and I'm concerned about the equity of that our bell schedule have been off all year when our kids are at recess they can hear up to five or six bells and that seems kind of ridiculous I don't know why we don't have the the things in place that these things can be fixed we've also bought um the an AR program and we can't use it because it's not been set up and it's a wasted resource for all of our students um in gem we don't feel valued please settle our contract give us something to look forward to when we go to work every day thank you miss our next speaker is Tanika red fox Tena please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin I'm not sure if she's having technical difficulties this is the same person that we tried earlier yes yes mam president and her microphone looks uned we're just not getting any sound I'm wondering if she can call in um do we have any other speakers in addition to her we have one other speaker Mr Michael ping um Mr ping I believe he spoke already maybe he had hand up and S so maybe he just didn't put it down um um I'm hoping that the other speaker that were're able to get her um wondering if she can call in the option of calling in um do we have any other speakers we do we have uh D Gonzalez okay so um what's the other member's name who's having technical difficulties I hope I'm saying their last name correctly but it's Tanika life Fox if um T you can call in maybe on the phone I would love to hear what you have to say um for some reason we cannot hear you so I'm hoping that you're able to connect with us um we're going to go ahead and go on to daa and then hopefully during that time we're able to connect um so let's go to vaa and then we'll come back to Cha Miss please unmute yourself um good evening members of the board my name is Lisa Gonzalez and I am here as a parent of two students in the lra school district um I'm sad to hear how our teachers are feeling I wasn't gonna be talking today but based on a comment of one of our teachers said he said that he felt that he's like in a bad relationship and we know that when a person feels like if they're in a bad relationships our kids students have the effect on that too they feel that too I heard that there has been 11 meetings and we haven't have come to a a point where there's an agreement I want everybody here to keep in mind that when we don't have agreements our kids pay the consequences our students are the ones that get affected I'm not saying who's right who's wrong because I haven't been in those meetings but I know that when a person feels left out or not part of it or not heard it starts feeling it starts looking for other options we have a teacher shortage like go said we have families returning from a pandemic we have kids with Mental Health social emotional needs and our teachers do too let's try to work together let's try to find a common ground opportunity and let's try to think of what is best for our kids is it getting to an agreement and being able to have not everybody happy because there's nothing that's gonna keep everybody happy but at least content and let's ensure that we kids start and our teachers start focusing on the curriculum that they're GNA teach the next day not how they're gonna pay rent or how they're gonna survive hear our teachers out come to Common agreement I'm not I'm not saying there's a bad guy or good guy let's just think about that and bring everybody to that table for the sake of our students thank you and have a good evening thank you Miss Madam president at this time we have no more speakers sorry about that I'm wondering if tama's back and maybe on a phone um and I'm wondering if she can raise your hand via phone we do we see her uh I do see a phone number but not a raised hand and I'm wondering if I'm not sure how the phone number works but we don't know if it's the phone number is on the agendas correct yes but can they raise their hand from if they call in um I'm not sure but I'm just making sure that that she hears that the that's where she could find the phone number maybe she didn't know what number to call so the phone number is on the agenda absolutely but when she calls yeah when she calls I don't know the hand raising part um so to raise your hand it's usually star nine let me just confirm thank you Jose so T if you're on your phone if you can PR press star n and then hopefully we can get you on and if uh we can't get you on right now and you come on later in the agenda we're able to hear you um I'll go ahead and uh take you at any point when you're able to make it in um but if you're on right now on the phone if you can press star n and see uh Jose do we see her maybe I think uh there's a phone number on so yes I do see a phone number great hello can you hear me yes okay thank you my name is Tena Roa Fox um I apologize I have to repeat my statement again um but I did want to say that I am a firsttime kindergarten mom um I knew that sending my son to kindergarten was going to be difficult he was short changed a preschool experience pulling him out um when covid began um but I was hoping for so much more just some genuine smile some Joy like that experience that a kindergartener is supposed to have and I see in my teacher's face that she seems either really unhappy or really overwhelmed I mean my son got um uh what is it called um stitches a week ago and I and I was telling her oh you know Mason got you know liquid stitches and she's so busy in the front that she was basically not even able to like show any concern and I just was trying to find out if there was a Sandbox so that he wouldn't play in that to not get his eye infected it's it's it's down to the point where the parents I literally don't go a day I've dropped my son off every day at school minus this week because there was a covid scare and he had to be tested but I have dropped him off every single day and there's not one day that a parent like I'm I'm moving my child out of this class I'm taking my child out of this school and as a firsttime mom it's really sad for me because I'm still working on trying to let my baby go meanwhile there's all of this negativity on top of what we've already experienced and I I received this you know yellow flyer from someone at the school and I said I'm an involved parent I email my teacher almost every day I make sure that we're doing the things that are asked we follow her directions but I have also seen the principal you know taking over the classrooms and it's a very stressful situation at that school um it it's nothing like what I thought a first time kindergarten experience would be like it it really needs to improve I would like everyone on the call to know that I have seen our principal going way above and beyond and I don't know what pres um we have no more rais hands at the moment thank you um and I I um did notice uh like I mentioned Mr polling's hand up I'm wondering um I don't know maybe there's another teacher with him that maybe was going to use his phone so um can you put him on I just wanted uh to see if maybe there was somebody else other than his statement since he already had to minutes um that maybe wanted to speak maybe through his device just want to make sure can we um unmute him please yes Mr poing you're able to unmute yourself now Mr polling can you just please clarify if it's somebody else or um if your hand was up from earlier no my hands uh not up from earlier uh so just to clarify we uh you already gave a two-minute statement so um you can't get you can't give any more statement on this item but if you have um somebody else with you maybe or not sure you just one moment I I I might be able to get someone from the next room um I was just wondering right now why your hand was up my hand is up because I didn't know that we were GNA be silenced after only two minutes okay yeah and I apologize it is in our agenda and I do have to follow the protocols so thank you so much but there will be definitely other opportunities for you to come on um we have many items on the agenda and I look forward to hearing from you uh thank you Mr poing okay moving on I just wanted to make sure that um we didn't have anybody else and that we give everybody the opportunity to speak to the uh board on any um item not on the agenda today so with that we'll go ahead and move on to item 301 The alen Rock administrators Association report uh do we have anybody from AA to address board yes Madam President we have uh Dr Mones thank you good evening uh president superintendent Bower members of the board members of the community my name is Ivan Rosales Mones and I serve as a proud principal of San Antonio elementary school I also serve as the president of the alumrock administrators Association I want to provide a few updates for you all tonight uh specifically um start off by uh just recognizing the tremendous work that our administrators are doing in in the in our current reality um many colleagues are are are going above and beyond uh to to support our schools and our school community and I just want to recognize their tremendous work um I specifically want to highlight a few departments um from and the work of Administrators in these departments um I want to give a shout out to Mr Colona in our speci special education department for his the work with he's doing and his team to provide continued support with IEPs and and continued support to sites and principles on the on providing um fap and and in IEPs to the students we serve uh the work that Dr artigos and Dr Amazon are doing um particularly around social emotional learning and uh mental well-being is is very timely and very um critical particularly now during our return to full return to in-person instruction and I know that they have been supporting sites uh with um additional training around trauma and how to uh support uh students in um students who have experienced trauma uh within the school setting uh they have have um supported multiple sites with uh seal instructional programs that are are very timely in providing targeted support to students vapa coordinator denell finnen has uh been deepening the vampa programming across schools with uh additional opportunities for students to get engaged um specifically the get down dance studio program the Community School for music and art The Hip Hop for Change and science from scientists are supplemental programs that are also um deepening work in the after school space at adalante and hubard these schools started the Envision The Envision years program where middle school students are paired with uh mentors in the tech field to work on a project that they will be presenting at the wow Exposition later this year it is a great opport opportunity for students to gain skills in College and Career Readiness um looking at um some more um up updates and news many administrators as as frontlight workers have taken action to get their additional dose of the covid vaccine which we know is an important step um in the fight against covid and to ensure a safe uh School community and keep our administrators safe who are on the front lines um we are hopeful uh with the update on fizer um that will be taking place um uh in the approval of um you know additional covid vaccines being permitted for our more younger uh kiddos and we look forward to an update pending the panel on October 26th I do want to state that you know these are um these are unique times within our education landscape and as administrators we're we're wearing many hats in the service of our school and Community to ensure that our schools continue to run and stay open along um the people that we serve with in in our school communities um and I just want to recognize that our administrators our principles are are really doing a lot of work um covering classrooms uh and supporting because we want to continue to provide do everything we can to Prov provide a quality program and there's a lot of great things happening but um these are unique times and I just want to recognize the work of Administrators day in and day out for their service within our district thank you thank you so much Mr um Rosales um and now if we can uh turn it over to Teamsters uh do we have anybody from Teamsters here yes mad President we [Music] have thank you please yourself hi um my name is j Rees I'm hoping you guys can hear me I hope you guys doing well salutations to all to the board members to the community to the teachers and everybody there I'm so glad to be with you guys this is my first time um I'm representing the teamsters and I just want to let you guys know that we do our best and everything even in the kitchen um guys and Landscaping mot electricians everybody do our best to do everything to have everything running nice and smooth for having a healthy and safe environment for a kidos and for the people in our community thank you so much uh and welcome y hope to see you more often uh do we have anybody here from California School Employees association csca yes we have Shar good evening um can you hear me yes oh good good evening Dr Bower board president members of the board I'm not going to take a whole lot of your time but I did want to express my thanks to the um alen rock employees managers and so forth that sent um emails and cards and flowers during an extremely difficult time for myself and my family all the kind words were greatly appreciated Especial thank you to Mr fam for your personal email um your kind words were meant a whole lot to me since we've actually never met in person someday we will so moving on because this is very difficult for me but um anyway on in the on your board agenda and in the book is our um negotiated contract for the 2020 to 20203 school year and I must apologize for it taking quite some time to get it to the board um we were unable to ratify it until September given my situation basically and and um hopefully the board will be able to approve the changes we made in our contract and we'll be able to submit it for print and it will be then distributed to our members to management Dr Bower board members everybody that would be interested in having a copy and then soon of course we'll be starting on our 2122 negotiations and I also wanted to say we all know in our unit as everybody does the difficult times that every everybody is living through and I wanted to give kind of a shout out to everybody that the classified staff the management staff the teachers the district office that are really putting their best foot forward um to keep the schools up and running to keep the district office is buzzing I talk to a lot of people they're very busy new books are coming everything's you know at a moving at a rapid pace and we know there is a challenge especially in the as substitutes not only for teachers but for classified um and I attended a meeting the other night with other districts and they are having the same issues um a hiring getting Subs it seems to be Norm right now hopefully as the pandemic gets better we can move through it and um come out on the other side just better and stronger as I know that is the wish for everybody at the district and I thank you and once again thank you everybody for all of your thoughts that you express to my my family good night and have a good evening thank you Sharon uh do we have anyone from the elmrock Educators Association Joselyn or anybody else a representative J yes mam President we have M Jos lers great everyone first I would like to say Sharon I'm glad to hear your voice and we've all been thinking about you um I would also like to Echo the thanks and the great job that I know so many people are doing doing different you know I I I've heard many of the administrators that have in principal site administrators that have been um substituting in the classrooms and I know that it's got to be a challenge especially for those who may have not been in one for many many years um we appreciate everything that everybody's doing to chip in and and keep things going uh and as much as I would love to talk about all the other wonderful things that I'm sure are taking place throughout the district I would be remiss to not share the need and concerns of our area members some of which you heard tonight uh uh unfortunately I have in the position of hearing them on a daily basis and relating very closely to it um we have been in school for two months now and we still do not have a safety mou in place I don't know why it hasn't actually been brought up it was brought up in bargaining like we still don't have a safety mou in place and the district said yep and that was where it ended um our collective bargaining agreement expired the end of June and as you know we took a zero% increase on the salary schedule for the two years in a row um during that time the cost of food utilities gas rent pretty much everything has skyrocketed teachers as you've heard cannot afford to stay working in alumrock when they have their choice of districts throughout the county to go to and make upwards of what I thought was only like 20,000 a year more but from what I heard tonight from I know a reliable source upwards of $35,000 a year more in the same county since the school year began we have had 17 teachers leave and others waiting until the until there is a replacement for them so that they can leave as well the stress and burden that these last 18 months have put on our teachers has been too much for many to handle as I said I'm receiving emails or calls several times a week from teachers asking what are the options for me can I take a leave or can I quit how do I get out of my position and it's a it's a really sad State of Affairs it's not the challenges that come with being a teacher that are bringing the people down it's the lack of respect and the lack of value given to the teachers of alumrock specifically when we are constantly placed as the last priority when Administration builds its budget not only are we an a afterthought or uh whatever's left over but it truly appears that the administration will go to all lengths to create a budget to make it look like there won't be any money left although it never fails in retrospect the amount of money budgeted for certain line items is typically left unspent as evidenced by the increasing percent in our reserves just last month we learned from the presentation of the UN audited actuals that our Reserve had increased from I think it was 9% to like 14% or close to that speaking of that presentation and our reserves for economic uncertainty it really came as quite a shock to hear from our CBO during the presentation of the UN audited actuals that he responded to a question from trusty fam when trusty fam asked for clarification on the per percent of Reserve that we are required to maintain trustee fam asked if it was 3% for three years that must be in reserve so that it actually means that we must maintain a 9% Reserve he received an affirmative response which you can go back and listen to on the YouTube video right about our 2.40 rather than being given a clear explanation that the requirement for reserve for economic uncertainty is actually 3% the same 3% of money is that Reserve each year in other words that Al with Alam rock that works out to be I think it's somewhere around $3.4 million it's that same 3.4 million that would continue on and remain for each of the following three years it's not I guess you would call it compounded or added on top of that three million each year it's a the same amount of money that's set aside that's not touched whether or not that was a misunderstanding or a misleading response I don't know but the bottom line is that the community and you as trustees have a right to have that understood it makes a difference of over $6 million our teachers are tired of pleading for a salary increase we are tired but in spite of that we are also agitated we're irritated and we're organ organized to take whatever steps are necessary to re receive our cost of living increase the cola that the district is receiving for this year is 5.07% if you have any hope of retaining and or attracting teachers to our district you need to offer up our share even the federal government is increasing Social Security benefits by 5 .9% to keep up with a cost of living increase beginning in January our next bargaining date is scheduled for November 3rd that will be our 12th bargaining session in a period of 11 months please ensure that your bargaining team comes prepared with the authority to reach an agreement that shows the teachers that the district does value them if in fact you do and I believe I believe at least in words you do but in we haven't seen it and we're not feeling it so we can't go on much longer like this teachers are dropping like flies please get this done without any escalated action taking place thank you thank you Joselyn um Jose oh I we're done with the general reports uh superintendent Dr eladia Bower good evening everybody and I apologize um for not being not not being able to connect on time we all have the the connectivity bugs some one one time or another but but I'm here and I uh appreciate everyone who spoke tonight I Echo joselyn's uh comment about listening to Sharon fontaine's voice again is very reassuring she is a great partner so welcome back Sharon I also want to welcome Yad to her new position in our district she is our night lead custodian and for the first time it's a woman taking that position and a very proud to support that because it takes a lot of courage and Leadership to be able to do that Yad and thank you so much you know we're moving forward we're changing our district for the best I um I want to thank every staff member because everybody has been the very strong chain that has allow us to reopen our schools in the most difficult year um since I be since I've been an educator I had and I have been an educator for 37 years um this is a very nobody knew no none of us right last year we were hoping to reopen our schools to come back to health everybody believe once the vaccine is here we're going to be fine and we were not thinking that we still had to wear a Mas Mas to uh have so many different layers of protection to be able to be safe not only in our schools but as we walk around in our daily lives uh having said that I want to thank uh every Teamster every csca every area member all of our administrators congratulations because this is administrator week I know that what they have done is above and beyond the Call of Duty and we cannot do this by ourselves so I also thank um want to thank everybody who has made the accommodations because the sub situation as uh Sharon mentioned earlier is not only in our district but um Statewide and Nationwide um we are recovering from a pandemic we are recovering from many kinds of things that were put to a halt and none of us were able to predict some of the impact not only to our families and our systems but specifically to the job market with so many people rethinking about what they wanted to do in so many areas including education um so thank you everybody and and before I stop um my my comments I want to highlight uh a little boy in painter Elementary I had the privilege of visiting with trusty kto and trusty fam painter Elementary last Friday and while the principal was walking around I became the sub for um supervision during recess because um you know we all do whatever it takes to make sure our children are safe and little Frankie uh helped me uh reconnect one little boy that was crying because his friends didn't want to play with him and I know this is a very small act and this is a very you know in some ways I you know many people would have chosen not to say what I am about to say but I want to thank Frankie for being a hero for his unknown friend because he didn't know the boy who was crying and reconnect him to the group and I challenge all of us to be like Frankie because when people are crying and people are hurting there's there should always be a Frankie listening paying attention saying I'm going to help I'm going to listen I'm going to be the bridge that is going to connect people that are hurting with the rest of the group thank you Frankie for doing that thank you for reminding me what a good relationship is all about for being such a hero for that little boy last Friday and thank you everybody let's be all heroes for each other during these very difficult times thanks thank you so much Dr bow um and now I'd like to open it up for the rest of the trustees um if you have any reports during this section please raise your hand and I will call you as I see your hand come up anybody uh vice president kto and I see fam so after you can go after I just wanted to um thank all those uh the teachers the administrators that have been making the site visits real reward a rewarding experience we've been able to see what's going on in the school sites it's always exciting to be back on in person on the school sit to see the campuses alive uh full of energy I know that it's uh still uh people have to be socially distant and they have to um have the proper uh ma face masks but nevertheless to see uh the children active and engaged in using the technology that's available in the classrooms um as well as just you know hanging out and um being in the same place with other human beings it's important it's part of the the socialization that has to take place it's it's a massive learning experience that they're getting just by hanging out with each other so while still dealing with with the um remnants of this hopefully the remnants of this uh pandemic um I'm very I've been very excited to see the work that's been taking place at schools like San Antonio uh painter Shepherd uh Renaissance at Matson among uh a lot of other sites that uh we've been able to visit been able to take a very in-depth look at uh what's going on in the uh kitchens and and being able to talk to staff uh and so it's um it's been very rewarding and very exciting to see what's taking place in Al Rock I understand from the comments that have been raised there are concerns as always I remind the administration to be fair and provide proper remuneration um as long as we can afford it I'm I'm all for it and uh you know we do have to maintain fiscal solvency of the district but I want to be fair and I want to also make sure that we are being able to retain and attract uh teachers I understand there is a crisis it's been going on in terms of people not no longer joining the education profession and so that um puts the pressure on us to make sure that we are uh competitive so just just a reminder I hear you and I do uh support our efforts to make sure that we have proper and fair remuneration as long as we are able to maintain fiscal Sovereign thank you vice president trusty Pam uh can you hear me now okay first of all uh I I wanted to note that uh I am glad that Sharon Fontaine is back and I I uh you know I certainly do hope to to meet Sharon in person and I you know take this as my acceptance of her uh invitation to meet I look forward to learning more about uh cssea at Alan Rock uh on that you know uh segueing into that you know I want to make clear to to those who spoke in public comment um I hear your frustration uh you know I've always maintained an open door policy as a trustee and uh always open to uh suggestions from uh every member of the Alam Rock Comm community and uh I certainly hope to uh be a part in Bridging the divide and I remain optimistic that we you know hopefully we will find find find an agreement uh you know next on that uh I wanted to note that this is a I too wanted to note that this is the week of the school administrator so I'm in in the spirit of honoring those who serve Alam Rock I wanted to take this opportunity to to thank uh all the administrators as well as the teachers the classified staff who who make this who who make this District work every day uh as trustee I wanted to note that yes I have uh you know in keeping with my pledge to uh be an accessible trustee I have visited School sites uh I wanted to mark that I have today visited one half of our district anante Lucha San Antonio aptitude at gos Cesar Chavez Renaissance at Matson Renaissance at fiser brusso mckinty painter Shephard and Linda Vesta and I you know continuing to uh visit visit you know visit our schools and my hope is to visit every school at least once uh you know I am thrilled to see good things happening uh I'm very and heartened to you know see that uh you know despite the challenges our children are in good hands I uh I've seen principls interact near like family to be to our kids at Avante uh I was warmly greeted by the Vietnamese and dual immersion students at painter uh also got to be part of a math game and a uh impromptu class picture and thank you for having me as part of that class picture uh got to see the band practice at Shephard uh many many good you know uh even you know our school secretaries handling a school bullying problem at Cesar shavez I want to thank every you know uh those are just a few examples I wanted to thank you know everyone at at the schools I've visit visited for you know doing doing right by our students and I look forward to uh continuing to uh continuing to get to know our district better uh also I have the opportunity to visit the Alam Rock Jazz man auditions at uh on September 30th and I'm glad to say that uh those students that I got to see audition made it into the band The alen Rock jazz band is one of the highlights of our our school district's Visual and Performing Arts program and I'm hopeful that as in conditions improved uh you know I and I believe the rest of this community want to see our kids perform uh lastly uh in terms of schools I I had pleasure uh along with board president and board vice president and the superintendent of seeing our kids per being seeing the students of pter Vietnamese language dual immersion program perform at the Moon Festival at yba bua high school on the 7 19 of September uh you know from from kickoff to Center Stage I've never seen students uh go so far so fast in such a short time uh we were the uh painter was the only Elementary School that performed that night and I I I I'm proud to say it gave the high schools of run for their money in terms of the entertainment so I'm very glad to see our our district uh continue to build on the momentum of the 90th anniversary and I wanted to end one on one last note you know uh you know in regards to the school visits I want I want to make sure that the community knows that these are thorough School visits and as uh board vice president noted I check everything uh I went into the kitchens I looked looked at the air filters and the air conditioners and the walls and physical infrastructure of the school site and uh while we're doing good things I know that you know we we've still got plenty of work to do many of our campuses are are in their sixth decade if not their seventh decade and uh you know [Music] uh we we've got we've got a lot of uh work to do in keeping those facilities up and making sure that they continue to serve the needs of our children into the 21st century so on that note thank you very much Madame President thank you trusty fam and I see uh I saw trusty Chavez's hand up now I don't see it up uh would you like to say say something trusty Chavis uh sure um I wanted to speak to all of the staff thank you thank you for teaching and encouraging and inspiring the students at alen Mo your strength and dedication is much appreciated that's it thank you thank you trusty Chavez and I see trusty Vos up yes thank you can you hear I think so um okay I just uh I just wanted to make a couple of comments and thanks first of all I um want to this being the the week that we recognize School administrators I think it's especially appr propo in light of um the very recent efforts that that have been going on with administrators stepping in to address the challenges that we have in this very unique time as their um their spokesman said a few minutes ago this is a time that's very non-traditional that's no one has ever seen anything like and I I really want to since the beginning of all this recognize that our administrators have have performed Beyond admirably and just adapting to this reality and and making things work um in light of all the challenges that they face so I want to thank them for that um and the other thing I wanted to just say is that you know as everyone else has already stated we hear the concerns we hear the opinions of of you know those who provide comments and you know as as I've mentioned and a number of us have have mentioned we do take those seriously and and we do listen to them I sometimes hear um the comment that you're not listening or or listen to us and we do listen um and as we mentioned before we ask our our team and and we probe and we look for you know Solutions and and and press them on certain items and so we do take comments that we hear into account when we are um either meeting one-on-one with Dr Bower or meeting in close session or whatever it may be and just you know a an individual's what they may bring to public comment although you may not see always the answer or the response or what you wanted or hoped to hear it doesn't mean that it was not addressed or or attempted to be um part of the conversation at some point point and so I want to say that and along those lines you know I do also want to recognize and thank our negotiating team um it's for them also it's a very difficult and challenging time and they're in a unique position to try to find a solution to to where we currently are um you know in a negotiation by definition there are two sides to to you know that negotiation and the goal is to try to find something in the middle and so I know that our team takes um as as trusty kto mentioned the the fiscal solvency of our district into account um the priorities of our students and our children as first and foremost and so I just want to thank them and and knowing that that's their approach I'm very hopeful that we will um find a solution in the near future um but I think most of all I guess my last thing that I wanted to um mention is a couple of things I heard um in the in public comment from from actually parents who spoke um that really resonated with me because it's kind of the perspective that I take on on the situation as well and so one of the comments that was made was that the job of the board is to be and I'm paraphrasing probably I try to take as good a notes as I could but to be good STS of alam Rock money for our kids and I I think that's 100% true you know at the the end of the day whether we're you know looking at budgets forcl programs or budgets for Staffing or whatever the bottom line is our students in the district and you know that is what we have to keep in mind when we're looking at limited resources and ways to try to be creative is will our students at the end of the day have the biggest impact positively for that and so so I I really appreciated that comment and then another parent who said let's focus on what is best for our kids and so again you know everyone has their thoughts of how things should go and and where resources should be directed you know we offer a lot of programming in this District um from our sports activities to our you know music and band and and and those things are not free you know we have to have budgets for all those things and they directly impact our students and so you know I just everything is a priority from staff to students to programs to everything else and when your resources are limited therein lies the challenge that we all find ourselves but I just want to I guess finish on you know but I think there's room I do believe that there is room for um both parties to to be able to come to some agreement um and I won't go any further just because obviously I don't want to be negotiating in public but I do will say that I think that I I don't think I know I'm confident that everyone's um bottom line best interest is what's best for our students first and foremost so with that I will end my comments and um thank everyone for their participation even thank you trusty and thank you for putting all that so eloquently I was like how do I say that and you did it so cut my uh report in half thank you so much um definitely it's been a tough time for us all um you know from the front lines like I also heard you know some of the parents staff say um you know being at the front lines I can only imagine um day in day out having to follow mandates and masking and additional things that weren't there two three years ago um and then you know having to uh hear back from negotiations maybe um the team maybe not hearing what they wanted to hear I'm also a part of a union so I understand you know um that feeling where it's like you know here we are doing more and you know where is my compensation so I hear you I feel you um I think by now we all know somebody that either has been affected by covid or have passed away to due to it um you know it's it's been it's been a tough time it feels you know like that Darkness has like gone we've gone through so much I know um you know when I first came on as a as a board member as an appointed board member I remember somebody tell me are you crazy you know why would you do that you know it's volunteer and do you see how you know things are going on right now at alrock and I think now um you know things were hard then in a different way but I I feel like we're closer you know to that end of the tunnel where um you know I I get to remember um even though we have some of these hard you know conversations and feedback which is good um again like trusty Bano said to continue to ask you know uh staff ensure that you know um what we are uh having conversations with whether it's on oneon-one or um as a as a board as a whole to ensure that what we're saying you know is getting followed through right um and that everything um adds up right and that the information that's coming back um that that that it makes sure that um those conversations that we're having that are getting followed through um and I trust that we're all doing our best right I don't I don't see any M uh doing and any you know whether it's a staff or Administration sometimes it's a misunderstanding or a percentage or how we see it um and so just ensuring that there's Clarity ensuring that you know there's transparency ensuring that again we are being fair with the contract and that we are you know absolutely you know raising what we can for the teachers at the same time looking at the overall phisical solvency of our district not just today you know because we're in charge of it today but for the next year and the next three years and you know for future generations and so just doing all that um thank you trusty for putting all that in a in a way that's you know people can maybe better understand it without again getting into the details of the negotiation ations um in public which I look forward to do that is my job and we will do that and know public that we're doing that um but we obviously cannot do that in public um and so with that just wanted to end on a positive note um in our community there's a lot of good things happening um we do have a couple of uh theater um plays coming up um which we haven't had you know um one of them is the PARTA at the alumrock um I'm sorry at the AL Rock un Elementary School District at the Mexican heritage Plaza um it's opening up tonight and it'll be going on this weekend and next weekend um my daughteri Ortiz happens to be one of the actors so of course a proud mother there but um I assure you if you get to go you you know will love it um and make sure to bring your tissues because you will shed a tear or two um and then after that um thank you uh trusty fam for uh pointing out that we got to go to the Moon Festival and celebrate with our Vietnamese uh Community here um in our Silicon Valley um so proud of our Vietnamese dual immersion program uh students who were out there singing smiling dancing laughing it was so beautiful to see along with the rest of the Vietnamese Community um and I also want to point out that the Vietnamese American Service Center will be opening up on October 23rd so very proud of that here in our Silicon Valley um 12 to5 on the 23rd 2 in uh look for information if you're interested in that um very proud to uh work with the county and ensure that we're also servicing our Vietnamese community and then um as we know in our uh Mexican indigenous cultures we're celebrating the Day of the Dead coming up um so the Mexican heritage Plaza um also will be having Avenida the Alis so an alter walk um on the 30th of October here in our community uh the alter walk is at 7 and then there's a community festival at 7:30 so I think things that we haven't been able to do in the past year and a half we're able to start you know uh getting out there with our families to enjoy um so hope to see you out in the community you know smile at one another wave at least from afar um to remember you know that um we are still here we are still thriving regardless of how it feels sometimes um you know there is that light at the end of the tunnel and as long as we maintain strong and together you know we'll we'll get through this um and we'll see ourselves on the other end of this pandemic soon hopefully so thank you for that uh we'll go ahead and move on to item 401 uh superintendent um I'll turn it over to you at this time is that your item or I'm not sure if you have somebody else so this is something that we have to bring to the board in order to continue uh having access um virtually the the board meetings virtually so I have asked our legal counil to give a brief um explanation so that the audience is able to understand you know why we have to do this particular um item so uh Mr reys I think you are on the phones and can you help us see why we need to have this item 401 thank you I I can good evening can you hear me okay yes welcome okay thank you um so a couple of weeks ago uh Governor Nome signed into law assembly Bill 361 and this relates to uh the ability of public agencies like this school district and the school board to continue to to conduct meetings virtually through Zoom uh through telephone or through other electronic means recall that before the pandemic um if a board member wanted to participate in a uh public meeting the district had to satisfy certain requirements namely uh the the um the agenda had to include the fact that a member was going to be participating electronically the agenda had to disclose where the the member was going to be participating from the location wherever the board member was had to be open and available to the public um and there were there were several other requirements when the pandemic hit of course there was an emergency situation and so the governor through a series of executive orders um suspended those requirements under the brown act and allowed public agencies and this board to hold its meetings virtually uh which this district has done for the last 19 months or so through zoom and telephone and then broadcasting on YouTube um so uh those executive orders have expired but the governor signed a assembly Bill 361 this new law allows school districts and other public agencies to continue to hold public meetings virtually electronically provided there are two conditions being met number one there is a state of or a declaration of emergency circumstances uh and of course in this case the governor's uh emergency declaration declaration relating to covid is still in existence and the other requirement is that local or state public health authorities have either imposed or recommending social distancing uh in crowds and in public spaces or publicly AC accessible spaces that is the case again also because our local Santa Clair County Public Health Department is recommending social distancing under certain circumstances and so the conditions upon which uh an agency and this board can continue to hold uh meetings [Music] vir uh are met um but the board has to make those findings and so that is included in the resolution for this evening for consideration in addition the new law also other requirements um the agenda has to publish uh the the links um uh for the zoom meetings or or the telephone numbers your agendas do that uh the board meetings also have to allow members of the public to comment on agenda items on a realtime basis in other words uh the agency cannot require citizens to submit written comments uh which will then be read during a board meeting you have to allow realtime comments and the agency has to allow a reasonable time and opportunity for members of the public to comment um I will say that this board uh and board president in particular over the last several months has made a point of a waiting a period of time to make sure there are no additional comments and so you have met those requirements as well and then the other significant uh one of the other significant requirements is that if the board wants to go down this path and to continue to hold uh its meetings virtually then it has to make these findings every 30 days um and so if the board for example was to adopt this resolution this evening you would have to do it in another 30 days if the conditions still exist uh for you to continue to uh meet virtually um if you cannot make the findings or if the or if the conditions no longer exist for example if the governor resends his Declaration of a state of emergency then you would have to go back to full in-person instruction in accordance with the terms of the brown act and any telephonic appearance by any board member would have to meet those requirements so this uh the resolution before you includes all of these requirements and these findings uh but again if the board were to adopt this resolution this evening you would also have to do it uh in another 30 days uh to continue to meet virtually thank you so much um at this time what I'll do is I'll open it up for public comments and then I'll bring it back to the trustees for any comments questions concerns um and then we'll go for there so just a reminder to the public we are on uh this item and this item only uh that uh our Council just talked about um regarding the resolution to authorize remote virtual teleconference meetings of the board and District committees subject to the brown act for the period uh between October 14th and November 13 uh Jose do we have any members of the uh public wishing to address the board but before we go there I do see trusty fam uh hand up do you want to say something before we open it up to public comment uh you're on mute I can wait until the public is comment I perfect okay uh Mr Chavis do we have any members of the public wish to address the board on this item uh yes Madam President we have three speakers uh our first speaker is Rose Ramos Miss Ramos you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin hello can you hear me yes welcome hi uh good evening to everyone um I just want to let the board members know that the school my children well I've been a parent of my older son six years at Adelante uh we have the problem at school like especially the gate you know it's been six years that my son goes Rose um thank you for um assisting we're actually just make having comment on item 41 discussing this uh agenda item um so I'm sorry that we're not able to discuss any other items at this time um so please raise your hand up again if it's specific to this item that our Council just talked about um Jose we can go to the next H person yes our next speaker is Adrian B M you have 2 minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin all right so uh I have a few things um so I heard something about uh no text comments and so I would like to uh hear a little bit more about that um from my understanding from what was just presented is that we were allowed we should be allowed to text this and um also with the agenda we should be able to amend it as well or or make our suggestions so that's that's number one number two I have a a big problem with the fact that and this to me is a Williams Act sort of thing of not all of our families have Wi-Fi and if we are going to continue to do our meetings on Zoom we need to make sure that everybody all of our community is able to attend these meetings and that includes WiFi which is has been a problem for the past as we all know 19 months so this is something that we really need to and I know that this is something that you guys may not be able to get to do but this is a something that in all of California Wi-Fi should be utility that everybody has available and the fact that not all of our uh kids or families have Wi-Fi is ridiculous thank you our next speaker is Mr Michael poing Mr poing you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin yes uh a couple of things that I'm hearing here first uh can can you hear me I I don't see my the clock ticking oh there it goes okay the act as the your your attorney has has spelled it out seems to indicate that the general public should have ample time to comment I don't believe your two-minute time frame provides that ample time I would suggest that that be doubled if not extended or when there's not a line of people waiting that you allow people to return and make a comment as I had hoped to earlier but was essentially told to go away part of the kind of disrespect that I feel teachers have to endure on a regular basis the uh comments that Miss vain was making are also terribly accurate our kids uh have got limited Wi-Fi why wasn't that dealt with months ago okay months ago I know the Delta variant was a bit of a curveball but I don't think anybody really expected that we would all be back in September or late August with everything just being fine and you guys dropped the ball President Biden and the federal government have dropped millions of dollars into your laps and what are you doing with it what are you doing with it to help our kids get educated you're waiting for handouts from Verizon and other places Step Up get the job done and you need to compensate your teachers you need to pay us a fair wage so we can live in this district and continue to serve the kids we want to serve that we love and I'm about to be silenced again goodbye Madam president at this time we have no more speakers thank you um I'll go ahead and turn it over to the trustees at this time uh I know trusty fam you had your hand up uh yes Madam president so uh question to General councel yes yes thank you so so the board having to approve this declaration once every 30 days um now for purposes of this meeting I mean it's sort of Def fact it it's sort of a how you say a done deal because we're here and also the fact that the conditions are you know conditions are still quite serious but I noticed that the end date of this resolution is November the 13 uh if my calendar is not wrong the next scheduled board meeting uh regular board meeting is uh I believe the 18th of November so this so once the the board approves this resolution it would actually expire prior it would expire five days prior to the next board meeting so uh so basically does this mean that if you know we would have to return to divor have some sort of meeting prior to the expiration of this order and vote on another resolution in order to in order for it to take effect for the next board meeting so the quick answer is no uh and that's because um the legislature in their great wisdom in this instance uh included within AB 361 that the board can meet virtually for purposes of deciding whether or not the conditions exist uh to implement the virtual meetings so you will be able to do it again on the 18th even though the 30 days have expired um uh but on the 18th I would recommend that this item also be placed uh also be on the agenda as the first action item for for that meeting as well okay so uh I I so then you know let's play out the scenario now supposedly you know say the board does not approve that item on the 18th uh what happens then do we have to be do we have to immediately reassemble in in an in-person session in in the event that the board does not P does not renew the resolution in November so that you know whereas the the legislature had great wisdom uh with regards to the last question I think there was a there is a gap in the legislation uh you know relating to the circumstance that you described uh you just described so I would say in the interest of of approaching this in a conservative and safe way that if the board does not pass the resolution then and yes the the meeting should continue on an in-person basis with the boardroom openly available to the public um and uh you know otherwise complying with the brown act Provisions that may also require that the meeting be recessed for some period of time to allow for that but that would be my Approach oh okay okay very well and you know so I'll end with a comment that you know for for this month yes I I understand that the situation is uh as such that uh for the time being I am inclined to support this item however uh I you know I I uh but you know I would have to really consider it for for next for next month and you know in that uh you know uh the the zoom I I admit these Zoom meetings have been tough and you know I'm a little oldfashioned and great believer in in the in-person meeting so uh you know for the time being I I I would be in support of this item given given the import given the current situation but you know it it's not guaranteed uh you know I I am I am up in the air in regards to Renewal uh 30 days from now thank you trusty fam uh trusty Viano and then trusty Travis yes thank you um I also had a question for general counsel um with regards to like both scenarios at any point in time if this board chose to approve um this or to not approve it what would be the impact on the the public would it be that if it was obviously if we approve it then we just move forward as we have done so you know for the 19 months because of safety precautions and all those reasons but if we were to not approve it then and then I hear you say that we would be to come into the boardroom does that mean that the boardroom the public would then only have access because we're meeting in person they would they would have to come in in person as well to the boardroom to participate um in the meetings what would be the yes that that's correct except and unless uh the board decides to also hold to broadcast its meetings virtually so in other words uh the board could return to full in-person board meetings in the boardroom it could also establish capacity limitations uh to address the issue of social distancing uh which would reduce the number of persons allowed in the boardroom but then it could also choose to continue to broadcast its meetings virtually through Zoom through YouTube and also allow for participation telephonically okay um and so then I guess this is a question to staff if we were to do that are we prepared or would we would we be prepared to be able to meet in person and you know be brought broadcasting and take public comment in person and also public comment virtually and all these different scenarios would that be within our capacity realistically not yet we would have to really re tool our Board Room to be able to have the capacity to broadcast the way we're doing it right now because that's what you're asking right to have the the inperson and the broadcast simultaneously that and also you know the full menu the in-person meeting the broadcasted meeting the in-person comments the virtual comments like the full gamut of every everything is that we will have to invest in our boardroom our boardroom as you know you guys know it's it's also a little bit outdated in terms of the technology and the devices that we have there in terms of broadcasting in terms of all of those kinds of things that need to be uh in place in order to get the kind of uh event that you're talking about trusty Beano okay thank you so then I guess my comments would be that um I mean I think first and foremost I am supportive tonight and as long as you know our Public Health officials and everyone that that this is the safe route and um you know it it puts the least amount of people um at risk that uh that you know that's one thing just listening to our Public Health officials um but also I um you know not only within our own District which I think we have heard but also in general just nationally i' I've read and and seen things that um there's a strong push or a strong feeling by the public that they do appreciate the accessibility that virtual meetings provide to them because you know especially when we have you know we've had meetings in the past where we have kids in the boardroom and it's late and they have homework and and you know the virtual meetings do provide the opportunity for people to participate kind of more at their convenience um so I'm mindful of of that piece of the puzzle as well um and I do understand also just to some of the comments that you know connectivity is not perfect and there is certainly a digital divide that's a very real thing um and we I think when those things have occurred we've as a district we've addressed them by um you know I know we have our help desk that we've established and you know the the data that we received back if I'm not U mistaken was that parents um had felt that they for the most part in I if I remember right correctly in the 90% range that they were happy with the um distance learning and the connectivity and I I don't I'm not speaking specifically to that point but I know it's an issue and it can be an issue and we have the systems in place to address it so um if there's an issue of connectivity for anyone in the district wanting to participate I think that that is is within our capacity to address because we have already established um systems to address that during distance learning so for all those reasons I would be supportive of I will be supportive of this um tonight and in the future so long as our Public Health officials um that we staying on the same page with our Public Health officials so that will be it for my comments thank you thank you trusty I know I do see your hand up trusty fan but I know trusty Travis had her hand up first I don't see it anymore so I just want to give her an opportunity uh trusty Travis uh yes um I believe because we have gotten a good response from Zoom meetings I believe that it's helpful uh to keep the communication with the community and the accessibility for the community is helpful to families with kids because I remember at the board meetings they used to always say that they were there with the kids and they would rather be home and this is an opportunity as far as connectivity every single month I have an issue uh even though I have a district computer and a Hotpot now the connectivity is not good so I feel for the people who are not having good uh connections also uh perhaps we can investigate on some of the different hotspots that they're using because we know that certain hotspots work best in different areas and uh maybe that can I I don't know how the district would work that out but maybe uh we can offer the community uh that to make the communication better um that's it thank you thank you trusty fam okay uh two-parter uh again question general counsel you mentioned that the board does have the right to the board does have the right to set capacity limits in the boardroom is that correct yes in light of the public health concerns yes so you know to be on the same page with you know our our our Public Health officials so uh you know question to Dr Bower so you know given the problems with connectivity and the fact that you know if we return to an in-person board meeting uh that would all you know that would all uh we would return to to what they you know status quo pre pandemic which if I remember we had the in-person meeting but also the board meeting was televised on Create TV uh you know wouldn't it just be advisable to allow you know to to set to set uh capacity limitations in accordance with public health guidelines and resume in board meetings Well yeah if that's what the board would like to do of course you know we can we can do that in terms of creativ just to remind you trusty F those were not simultaneous broadcasts it was after the fact so people were not participating they were not part of the board meeting they kind of saw it after the fact just to remind you oh thank you trusty fam uh I do see your hand up again try Chavez uh go ahead and go and then I'll say a few comments and ask a few questions go ahead okay so I was watching the numbers on the participants tonight this is just an example of tonight's uh numbers so in at 6:15 there was 111 participants at 653 there was 84 participants at 659 881 participants and at 72066 participants and as of right now the participants is 61 at 7:34 so this does help the community to be able to connect with us and if they need to speak they are allowed and one of the uh teachers said that he was cut off so if there isn't that many speakers maybe we can allow if there's one or two speakers more than two minutes thank you that's it thank you um so I have a few questions um roio if you're still there in regards to the comments and writing um I know you mentioned something about not allowing and I know that we have so I just wanted to clarify um if somebody is not able to make it can they send their message with somebody else and is somebody else able to read that on their behalf ye yes I'm sorry if I misspoke so what the statute says is that the board cannot limit public comment to written comments it has to provide the opportunity to comment in real time um but the board can still accept written comments as long as the um the public member wants to submit them that way that's fine okay thank you and then um Dr Brower I just wanted to confirm uh because I know there was a a comment made um during public comment and I just want to ensure that all of our students all of our elmrock community all of our students and teachers and staff um have connectivity whether it's a Hotpot that they're able to connect to the internet now how strong it is that's another conversation but I just want to make sure that everybody has um the ability to connect they don't we don't have the same thing that we had last year because the City stop the service to a number of hotpots connectivities are very complex uh Endeavor and so we do have devices and the students and kid you there are some schools we that already have through the vs program the connectivity and we did keep some of our hotpots with um T-Mobile but it's not Ono one throughout the community because we did have a very strong partnership with the city and the city cut that service in July so I just wanna you know in transparency I just want to be very clear that everybody knows why that is the case we do have a cycle of replenishing devices so we don't only have Verizon or iPads that are provided by Verizon we have a multitude of devices to throughout the the system and there is a cycle through which schools order new replenish devices we are not yet at one on-one so that everybody can take one home and get one in the site we don't have like two devices per per staff and per kid and so there those are the differences that that people notice um the other thing that I wanted to say is that when we are connecting is not only the ability to have a hot spot or a district line in terms of connecting with with a WiFi there are so many other variables that get in the way including um the places where we live right sometimes the connectivity is not just that it's not that the the sign is is not the signal is not being able to be captured by the machine but the the sometimes the walls the trees you you guys know that when you're walking in in very close places like Alam Rock Park you're not able to get WiFi in the middle of the canyon but you're able to get Wi-Fi way up in the in the Hills so it there's a a a variety of of of of I want I don't want to say challenges but reality right in terms of connecting and thank you for clarifying that because I did not know that all of our students were not connected anymore like they were last year um and I think you know part of it is our issue and part of it's not right like it's a greater issue but at least as a leader in our community then we're able to Advocate whether it's with City or the county and bring in those resources because you know just like 20 years ago if somebody didn't have a phone they would not be able to be connected to a lot of other resources um so anyways that's another conversation so bringing it back here to uh board president may I say something very fast go ahead I just also want you to know that we are in conversations with the city to renew some of those okay good because I was I was gonna follow up with you I already had my list going because I know we're gonna have our one-on-one so so good um and I figured and I knew that you and I are gonna follow up on this later um okay so that's that and back to this specific item um I for the very same reasons that trust pointed out will be supporting this now I have a question for roio um if we were to have a special board meeting between now and our next scheduled regular scheduled meeting are we able to put it in there and would it you know give us another week or two um if we approve it let's say October 28th um let's just say we had a meeting then and we put this on the agenda um it's every 30 days from whenever we approve it is that correct yes yeah so you could do do that it doesn't mean that it has to be 30 days on the dot if you happen to have a meeting between a special meeting between now and your next regular schedule meeting you could put it on the agenda and adopt the resolution that way okay um okay that that helps me in uh the way that I'm going to support this um I'm with you know trusty in regards to the what the public health officials you know direct us to do where we're at especially in our community um I don't think we're at a place where we get to just open it up as pre PR pandemic yet um I think we're closed but we're not there yet so um I will be supporting this I do say trusty Chavez hand up so I'll go ahead and open it up uh Jus Chavis motion to approve resolution 122122 uh and for it to be on the board agenda for the next month and every consecutive month should we need to vote it in again thank you thank you any seconds second second by Trust okay um we'll go ahead and uh call for the vote as I see you on my screen uh we'll go ahead and start with trusty fam I trusty Chavez I trusty Beano hi vice president K hi myself I passes unanimously thank you so much next item 402 um approved uh District governance handbook um Dr Boward is there anything you want to bring up on this um this was something that the board has discussed you know and and the board agreed to bring back in October so we brought it back clean there's only one minor uh place that needs a little bit of direction from the board it's on page 11 and it's the protocols for um sending emails so that's the only thing that is missing and we are asking the board uh whether you want to send us some ideas and we put them together bring it back in November to um approve it completely you want to approve it as you know as it is and then with the the edits that that that you will send so I'm you know this is this is a board uh conversation uh Justin Travis approve as is with the edits um to follow motion I mean I I'll second just to continue the questions and discussion okay second by I I do have a question though um I thought that I did see several places in the handbook and I think there are just areas that we still haven't gotten to as a board um with regards to really finishing out the entire um you know long-term strategy type stuff that that's included in there and so if we approve this tonight Dr bow that you're still able to go back in and modify this is a living document in in essence is that correct yes and and and remember trusty Beano this was kind of adopted I don't want to you know as as it was and and the board did not go through Page by page so I just want to refresh everybody's memory there were some items that were the board but the majority of it was not discussed at length so it it was kind of it was brought back uh and and the understanding was that that you like the format that you like what it said that it align with what the board uh saw and there were some minor edits that needed to be added and yes this is a living document so the board is able to change anytime the board wishes okay thank you thank you and I do see um you know that one on page nine um in parenthesis to be considered by the board still um which is uh definitely there and then like you said Dr bar on page 11 um so I mean do we want to approve today or do we want to bring it back um once we've identified those do we want to talk about those right now do we want to send those to Dr Bower um and then bring it back to then approve any thoughts I know there's a um motion to approve as is um I guess maybe I would just add to like hold off on printing um you know I would hate to print even if it is five copies of this when it's not fully finished when we still have the to be considered by the board in there um but I I do have you know I I do know that with our board we it will be finished by November you know if we all get that uh to you I do see all the hands up I'll go with as I see you on my screen trusty Chavez Verano and then trusty fam approve we can put in draft on my motion thank you um trano I know you second and I don't know you have a comment to that uh just have a I mean I have a second I don't have a second to that one I I still keep my second to the original motion um but I the question the qu the question that I had was what is the um benefit or is there a benefit to approving it tonight or I I mean I would like to if possible default to approving it similar to what you're saying president approve it when it's actually completed um and just have a finished product completed and done um so I just want to make sure I understand if there's any particular benefit to approving it in its current State tonight can I yes please so um and I totally understand that we have to clean it up such as what board president mentioned and we will but one of the benefits is that that we will be able to respond to the state audit that ask us to have a a governance book it didn't say that the governance book needed to be perfect they just asked you know and and every six months I get a little reminder and I'm very diligent about it and I respond and then I respond to the stuff that we finished and this one we have not I have not been able to say because it has not been approved so for whatever is worth that is from my humble opinion it would be helpful so that we can you know it's not going to be perfect but at least I will be able to say this is a governance book that the board approved um and I do see all the other hands I know trusty F can I just just in relation to this if I can just add something trusty F before we go um I know Dr Robert you and I talked about some language for the um page 11 um I don't know if you captured it you know that maybe we can put it in if the board agrees you know that it would be a little bit more full um and it's just you know again in relation to that um I would feel better if we had it in there if the again the rest of the board agreed to it but I don't know if you have the language I know you and I just briefly spoke about it did you capture it I didn't email it to you either yet so in terms of the protocols for responding to emails um the idea was that the board May respond to any emails that they in in terms of events you know making your Sal available talking to your to the stakeholders and and then the second bullet will be if the board receives any complaints or concerns regarding staff regarding anything that has to do directly with the district that that email will be forward to the superintendent for the superintendent to follow up and that's just so that we can protect everything that you know needs to be covered in terms of confidentiality and things like that yes so thank you and then think about that staff if you are okay with that and that would go on um 11 and the under the protocols we agree for those two items uh trusty fam yes well actually I was about to address that so I think you know so I think that it my proposal is it should be codified as such that you know uh email uh board members may you know uh May reply to emails provided that it is some it is uh it is something within the privy of the board member uh as Dr B mentioned uh appearances it events for example uh now uh and to cify that if an email is uh regarding a district issue the board member should forward it to the superintendent or design and uh you know uh as you know as appropriate you know and the only other thing I was I might say is that uh that um board uh board members should not disclose confidential items uh in email correspondence thank you trusty bam uh trusty Chavis I would like to add uh on a need to know basis and you would like to add that to what just want to clarify so that when we do put that part in on page 11 on a need to know basis corre if you can just tell me specific speically where that would go because I know marel and Dr bar are writing down the language and I just want to make sure that so doc Dr Bowers said that we would um contact her if it had to do uh with a complaint about the district and you're saying to add what on a need to know basis I don't agree with that because I think it's at least in my understanding is it's very clear that we as board members are able to respond to any emails uh provided if it's something you know privy to us um and then the second item would be that any any um any emails received regarding staff or District issues should be forwarded to the superintendent correct but the only thing that I'm referring to on a need to know basis is the second part that you just read when Dr Bower said that not the first part okay and I don't agree with that because I think on a need to know basis kind of has each board member kind of pick and choose and I think all items regarding staff and District issues should be forwarded to um the superintendent that's just my thought uh let's see uh vice president GTO and then trust uh Madam president I would appreciate if we if there needs to be significant work on this then we should set up a work a workshop or some other time but to we Smith this out right here at this moment I don't think it's very productive given the fact that we have a lot of items on the agenda or uh board members should send their stuff in writing and work it out with the superintendent and then we can in a in written form deal with it at a future meeting by accepting or or rejecting written uh edits just my two s thank you and I know we have a motion on the floor um I just wanted to um ask you presidenta that a second ago you said you don't agree with um what trusty Chavez said but I was just wondering if you trusty laa could clarify your understanding of what you said because I'm not quite sure I still understand what that need to know basis means so that according to your understanding of it trusty can you can you explain what what your interpretation is uh so according to my understanding as to what uh trust Travis is mentioning is that on the second bullet point uh if the board receives any emails regarding staff or District issues then the board member should forward it to the superintendent and trusty Chavez would like to add on a need to know basis but so so she's meaning then that if it's regarding staff or that we get to do yeah exactly let's inter what I'm saying why not go to the what I'm saying is sometimes people want a vent and I wouldn't want to send that to her so she doesn't need to know that it's like the important things that are gonna be a reflection on the district the things that she needs to know those is what that is what I would like to pass on that's why I said on a need to know basis so of course the important stuff by all means she's going to get it right away but the other stuff that's you know maybe something that just needed to be vented out I heard it I listened and and that's it then I to would um then I I too would disagree uh presidenta because I think determining what is venting versus what needs to go to the superintendent is subjective and any one of us could have a different interpretation of that so that's why I I would not be in favor of saying as as needed or on a need to know basis because it's just too subjective based on the five of our um personalities or interpretations um and then I I see your hand trusty Chavez uh and I do want to take in consideration what vice president kto did mention I think we are doing the word smithing right now and maybe we do um save it for a special board meeting or um for November's meeting between now and then um I I saw your hand up again try Travis I want to give you that time go ahead so can we just approve this with the edit so that Dr Bower can say to the state this is what we got so far we're working on it is that okay Dr Bower she's she's waiting for our Direction uh let's see justo I know you second the moot motion so let's we have a motion on the floor so we'll work with that and then um we'll open it up for public comments as soon as we're done here trusty any thoughts uh the original motion was to approve it as it is correct and bring it was there any other piece to it in the original motion if M could clarify that with yeah it was it was with edits approve as is with edits that's what okay so my my second remains for that motion and Mar just to clarify when you say with edits are you do you have any edits as of now um no Dr bar wants to answer to that Dr bar uh I just want to make sure because we don't then right is what we're saying none no edits just as is and then we'll come back to it the I'm sorry po president the edits have not been approved right yes so you guys are going back and forth we're taking not and I just want to clarify words right now that we don't have any edits with because he said with edits but really then it's as is without edits and then we'll come back to it yeah okay we're good any we want to clarify something else trusty Chavis go ahead as is as a first draft or second draft is that easier for you guys to vote on if I I say it like that and no it's not okay just keep it the same and can we vote now not yet because we got to go to public comment so thank you for helping us move forward here thank you okay so uh seeing no other hands we'll go ahead and open it up for public comment at this time uh Jose if you can help us please identify any members of the board wishing members of the public wishing to address the board yes Madam president at this time we have two speakers first speaker is Adrien Bing Miss Bing you have two minutes please unmute yourself and You Begin speaking the timer will begin uh yes I'm very confused as to what you're voting on right now um I would assume it's uh uh 402 and uh 4.03 was I believe moved to uh the 5 02 correct I'm I'm just sort of confused as to where we are right now and so if somebody could please tell me that I would greatly appreciate it for purposes of you getting time to speak we are on item 402 I want to make sure you have your time to speak um is she done then then uh sorry I I apologize I I'm going back and forth with my phone so yes I have no problem with anything okay thank you I appreciate that our next speaker is Michael ping Mr ping you have have 2 minutes please send me yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin yes um I'd like to ask you guys to help Dr Bower out here it's like she's asking for pretty simple thing here she just needs to go to the state and be able to say that you're making some progress which you know come on you got to get some stuff done here and move on to the more important things I.E retaining quality teachers not losing the new good teachers that you have uh and it's this kind of you know round and round uh you just look disorganized and any you know prospective parent that's thinking oh maybe I'm going to put my kid into this alumrock District or maybe I'm G to go somewhere else or maybe I'm going to go to a private school watching the way you guys operate is is just kind of embarrassing sometimes and you know again get your act together and do things more professionally more correctly with more concern for the students for the staff for your teachers uh that we we bust our butts for our students we do our best to get things done we deal with illness and uh crisis our students are you know I I have our counselors for example you're thinking of doubling the number of of of students of counselors responsible from 500 to 1,000 that's insane we're talking about social emotional learning let's show them some love let's cut the number from 500 to 250 the recommended amount by the American Counselors Association uh again get your act together please support Dr Bower goodbye Madam president at this time we have uh no more public speakers thank you so much now we'll go to the uh vote I'll call you as I see on the screen trusty fam hi trusty wano hi trusty Chavez hi vice president kto Hi and myself I passes unanimously thank you so much item uh 40 I'm sorry 501 uh we did move 403 over after 501 so we'll move on to 501 at this time approv contract for Legal Services with uh Dennis Boliver Kelly Dr bow if you remember we had a special board meeting in at the end of September because we needed to uh uh secure firms that will help us with some more legal support specifically in the areas of contracts so um we sent an RFP back in July uh Late July early August and we didn't have anybody responding we asked the board permission to have roel and CA called uh three of the biggest firms to be able to see if that will generate more interest it that that's how we ended up with dwk responding to us uh one of the firms said that they no longer uh deal with this kind with um this kind of of work that we are seeking and the other one never responded so you have before you the a contract with dwk because they were the firm that responded and they talked to um roio and CA in in let letting us know that they're interested in partnering with us so I hope that you uh support this contract U just to remind you we have our program manager contract pending because we need somebody to review this um this particular work thank you thank you trusty B uh vice president kto uh move approval of the contract as recommended by the administration second second uh second by trusty wano uh at this time I'm gonna open it up for public comment first and then I'll uh come back to the trustees uh Jose if you can help us with any members of the public wishing to address the board on this item yes we have uh one person Miss Adrian V Miss V you have two minutes please unmute yourself and You Begin speaking the timer will begin hello again um my name is Adrien Vay and I am a teacher at Jose George middle school and well I frankly love the fact that we're looking into um solar paneling and all of this stuff I would invite you please tomorrow within the week the next two weeks come to our campus at Joseph George because my my classroom for the past I'm Sorry Miss way uh we are on item 501 and we are talking about approving contract for Legal Services with uh dwk um you mentioned uh that about the solar power that is item 403 and we will be discussing that next um so if you can please raise your hand up if you had something to say on 501 regarding this legal service contract with dwk please raise your hand if you're uh going to talk about that um otherwise I welcome you back on item 403 when we discuss the solar power Jose is she back no we do have two other speakers Mr Michael Mr ping we have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will be yes um yes I not sure what you're spending money on here for and then I think that's part of the problem so many of the teachers have with the board and the the way you operate you're hiring a law firm to do something about contracts yet it takes you 11 meetings to basically come up with an impass that you have no contract with the majority of your employees your teachers and yet in few moments you're like oh this these people don't do it anymore these people will do it let throw the money um I'd like all of you to attest that you have no connection to this firm in any way shape or form that none of your family members have any connection to this firm in any way shape or form because frankly there's been a history of corruption within our district and you know I know many of you are new uh but contracts just seem to go out the window really quick to anybody that's not a teacher and uh explain what this is for you need a law firm to help you figure out whether you can sign a contract with somebody or not I don't get it I really just don't get it and if you're hearing the frustration in my voice it's there and you know frankly I probably could be better spending this time looking on Ed join for another District to work in because the more I try to engage the more frustrated I get and you're about to lose a teacher who's been with you for seven years who has got 30 years of experience of teaching 25 of which in the Santa Clara County area seven with you plenty more with other places you're going to lose good teachers get your act together pass the contract our next speaker is Rachel Lopez Miss Lopez you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin thank you um my name is Rachel Lopez I am a first grade teacher at San Antonio which I love I was at aptitude before that um I think Alam rock is one of the best communities I've ever had the pleasure to work in but I spent the first 20 years of my my career in real estate and finance I understand contracts very very well and I want to understand how well vetted the this Law Firm is it sounds like they answered their phone so we're giving them a contract um maybe before we approve it we could do a little investigation maybe um find out um a little more about what Prov what services are actually being provided how long is this contract going to be um for what exactly are they going to do for us um and like the previous um teacher was stating that it would be great if we could have some sort of like um agreement where everybody signs that they have no personal um tie to anybody in this company for for transparency because the best way to earn trust of the teachers the community the parents is is through transparency and everything that you do be overly transparent and I believe that this is a great example if we could do that thank you our next speaker is hild Ree Miss ree we have two minutes pleas some me yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin hi M re please please unmute yourself I'm sorry can you guys hear me now yes yes okay um I don't know if you guys heard anything of what I said but basically what I'm saying that I'm in agreement with both of the teachers that uh talked a little bit earlier uh for me it's important I'm a parent um so for me um I just have been um I've had kids that have been in the alen Rock district for many years but for me it's important that there's transparency from this board it's a new board yes but you guys have to earn our trust um there's been so much corruption with the previous um board and I think it's important that we vet um you know we go through a a very um detailed background of this firm ensure that they're not related to anyone that's on the board and that there's no Kickbacks to anyone on the board of why we're giving this contract um so again I I definitely like to agree with uh the last teacher that there has to be transparency and that's really the only way that you will earn the trust back of the community because um I'm sorry that that there's really no trust on this particular board so we want to make sure that we are being transparent and that we really do our due diligence and that we're getting the right firm on board thank you our next speaker is miss brendas missas you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin hi my name is Renda SAS good evening to everyone on this board um I did have some concerns um I was at the previous meeting and I do remember hearing that you guys did not send rfqs to all firms it was a certain amount of firms um that you guys had sent I just want to ensure that you guys did put a recent request and these aren't the same ones that I believe I could be wrong um you guys didn't get any answers back from and so I do remember Miss Chavez mentioning if there would be maybe more requests for more firms and make this a bidding process where you have actual people that want to come into this board and you can do the proper questionnaires and ensure that this is a transparent process that it isn't something that somebody wants that one person wants this firm and make it get um an open process so we can see who they are and maybe even have a an uh interview right that we can also um participate in because this isn't um something that we should just go with because this one person responded I would like to see that there was a recent request made and ensure that this is transparent we've been through a lot with this district and yeah there is a lack of trust I'm not saying that you guys are the reason just saying this is something that takes time and if the public like the previous speakers were saying this um then I think we should be listening thank you next speaker is Adrian B Miss F you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin thank you for uh letting me speak again for this specific thing um you know we we need to really look into because you guys keep on looking at our finances and you guys don't want to give us prises yada yada yada there all these other things and you're one company [Music] that than one we should be so we could get the best price th this is not the best way way to do things come on most of the people on this you you guys have so much experience that you would never take the first and only thing and that's what you're doing with our district right now and that's not okay treat us better treat us equally than you would treat yourself thank you Madam president at this time we have no more public thank you so much um at this point i' would like to open it up to the trustees any questions comments concerns on this item all yes second yes trust each uh vice president G can we have uh the administration go through the process of that we went through that was announced this happened over the course of several meetings um and then can you can the administration please disclose those folks who vetted this uh and went through the process of of confirming that this was a firm that was going to work for the district um can we please have a thorough explanation for the benefit of the public that's watching out there thank you vice president you said go through the process I said oh my God we went through a th process you're gonna have him go through it again I mean provide an overview of the process for the benefit of those who are watching I appreciate it thank you uh superintendent Bower if you can uh please go over our process that we how we got to where we're at today um I'm gonna ask uh Mr Chang to uh help explain the process and then I'm gonna ask a timeline yes yeah I mean we've been through this since July so uh Mr Chang would you please help us yes good evening thank you Dr bow and good evening Madame board president uh members of the board um yeah I can give a brief timeline in terms of um what we did uh up to the point until we got here uh you you may recall that the district did Issue an RP for Legal Services um around the scope of work to review contracts that were related to um Public Works bidding um constructions related issues um and so the scope of work for that legal services was very limited um we did Issue the um RP the RP was sent out to five reputable firms um after a survey that I conducted with uh various cbos um in this County um who have worked with um other legal firms who have the expertise in this area um unfortunately um we did not get a response um from the um from the RP that we sent out and um as a result of that um the administration um asked the board for permission to contact directly um those firms that did not respond um and the board fortunately approved that process um Council Ros and I did um uh reach out to the firms that that the RP was sent out we also reach out to an additional firm which is Orbach huff and Henderson and they're also well known in the areas of uh Public Works and also constructions um as Dr bar mentioned previously um the other firms did not respond um and um dwk did respond uh Council Ru and I um had an interview um with dwk um and felt that they were able to provide the necessary support to the district surrounding the scope of work um and that's why um we're here today uh recommending that the board um provide the support and approve um the contract with dwk thank you Mr Chang uh any other questions comments on the board trusty Bano yeah and just to go a little further uh with Mr Chang um so then I I heard you say that your yourself and Mr Ruiz um did interviews and and the vetting process so can we safely assume and I think you've answered this previously but um that you yourself and Mr Ruiz have experience in the area um of of vetting these types of firms and you understand what is needed um you understand the types of contracts that are necessary in order to move the district forward in this area and things of that nature that the two of you um have the experience and qualifications to have been able to done the process process that you did to get us where we are tonight yes I believe it did um you know we did some due diligence in terms of I mean on my end um you know I reached out to um cbos in this County um just to get their experience um and also um get some feedback in terms of um you know their their their experience of working with the various vendors um surrounding this type of work um it's very specialized and not a lot of law firms are able to provide the necessary support and so that's why the RP was limited to a small number of firms who uh we found to be reputable and yes uh to your point um Council brius and I did um sit down and interview um the leading partner or one of the leading Partners at dwk just to get the background and the level support um that they they would be able to provide um and based on our discussion we feel comfortable that um dwk would able to um provide that support okay and is this something that um yourself and Mr D have have done in the past similar similar things to this process um I mean we talked on just not necessarily uh anything like this but in terms of up having dialogues um with the professions that we as a school districts um work with and partners with um yeah there there has been those type of discussions um because he is familiar um on his end in terms of being able to um you know vet his um I would say counterpart yeah counterpart of colleagues um that he has networked with and also um that that has also worked with you know other school districts okay thank you um and I don't see any hands right now I have a a question on Mr re um I think you're still with us if you can come on um I think in the past we've had forms signed by our committee members that um you know none of the committee members have any ties or and I don't I don't I can't remember the name of the form but I personally don't have a problem signing that you know I wish that you know somebody close to me owned a legal Law Firm but I have nobody close to me that does or I'm not related to this Law Firm at all um so I personally have no problem signing it I don't know I think it's a great idea moving forward I know where we've been as a district not with this uh board um but I know where we've been and I would hate to ever go back um to that um and so I don't know Mr re can you remind me of that form um if if you're on there's a name for that but I have no problem signing it and I don't know anybody on the board would have a problem signing it um I see okay Mr Chang yes I believe the form you're referring to is form 700 which is a declaration of a conflict of interest um for all the board members to to sign yeah to disclose any financial interest um with anyone I think that would be great and I'm wondering if we can even implement it as a board and I don't know if it's now or in the future um I see go ahead it's it's a form you have to fill out every year already so there's any oh then I would have to say it okay that makes sense I mean I signed already I just I just want to clarify that you know none of us have any ties with this one um okay yeah we've signed it there you go um okay trusty yeah I mean I think I was just going to confirm um trusty kto that is something that's publicly available um that we all sign um and I personally I understand the sentiment obviously what the district has been through over the past you know number of years however this board or the majority of this board has been together for three years now and to the contrary I think we've done we've gone above and beyond as has been mentioned in many instances with regards to our transparency in all areas um we have you know we to we have eliminated or addressed those past issues of lack of transparency and all the different things we we addressed those and and we've eliminated those things and made very big decisions early on and so I'm personally given the fact that we all signed the the um the 700 form and ually I I would not necessarily be in favor of doing something separate for this one because I think that the implication is that there's reason to doubt our um transparency or our conflict of interest and I think very clearly that this board has demonstrated to the contrary that um that in fact we have been very transparent and trustworthy and so for to single out this item without any to my knowledge um justification or or rationale I don't know that I would be in favor of that given that we already signed the um conflict of interest form I agree know so I just needed him to remind me uh because we have nothing to hide and yes I'm in agreement we don't need to do one specifically for this one trust you fam I too would like to add uh I signed my form 700 earlier this year and uh you know I I before the board meeting I went to the uh d K website just to make sure I didn't know someone who was someone there and uh you know uh you know let me be clear I I know no one who is in any way shape or form connected to the firm or working for the firm in any capacity so I wanted to make that clear that I I have no relationship to anyone associated with dwk thank you trusty P um I do see trusty M's hand up and I also I think I saw Mr Reese's hand up um so if he has anything to add but we'll go to trusty veano and then um Mr Reese if he is I just forgot I forgot to put it down sorry okay uh Mr re did I see your hand up yeah yes I'm sorry I I got I've been getting bounced out of this meeting I don't know why but I'm I'm participating by telephone um but with respect to the conflict of interest form so there's there's two different uh aspects to it one is your form 700 which you all fill out as elected officials every year the other aspect is that in connection with Bond programs um when the district retains a vendor in connect to provide services in connection with the bond program there is a standard form of conflict of interest form that the vendor is asked to fill out uh affirming that they have not had separate independent Communications and have not offered or or promised anything in return for uh the contract or the the opportunity to provide services so if the board approves uh the selection of DW The dwk Firm they will also be asked to fill out a conflict of interest form which will be a part of the contract file for the district this was a specific recommendation that was made by F back in 2017 which the district has implemented thank you Mr re any other questions comments concerns from the board before we move on to the vote okay seeing none then we'll go ahead and move on to the vote uh I'll call you as I see on my screen trusty wano hi trusty fam hi trusty Chavez no vice president kto I and myself I okay moving on to item 403 District Energy savings solar power agreement followup information only um Dr bow or Jano I mean I don't know if Dr had anything but I'm I'm open to I just want to remind everybody that trusty Beano had requested to bring the solar uh Power conversation back to the board and that's why this item is in the in the agenda and I know that I missed earlier on because I I had my own connectivity issues um that uh CA uh and I place the um the bond update um information because we are seeking direction from the board about going to the the next step in in us reating our bond program so with that I know that trusty Beano wants to to share some ideas around um this concept thank you thank you um yes so you know for those who who have been around for a while and been paying attention um as was mentioned I brought this particular concept or this idea um I think more than a year ago now um but it's something that I had been kind of talking to people and working on on even prior to that probably another year and so this is something that we that we kind of put on the back burner because we had a lot of a lot of things in front of us that were you know immediately needed attention and so um we you know we put this on hold for the for that particular time um and just again for those who don't maybe have the background so um since the time that we brought it up and even during that time the large majority of the public at least that either contacted me or took part in forums or things like that or or um Community discussions um were very supportive of the concept of a solar energy program for the district um one of the things that I think maybe people are don't quite um have the knowledge of is that these programs it it would seem on its face that the that it's a money spender like we need to spend money a significant amount of money to set these programs up and indeed tonight we I think we heard comments to that effect and that's quite possible that there would be money that you know it's one of the options that other districts have taken is investing in um a system like this however there are a number of different financing options a number of different options available to districts and public entities that many many districts all over have taken advantage of um that in fact do not take any upfront money um from the district or very little a minimal amount and that was a discussion we were kind of getting into at that time but it's a minimal if any amount um Upfront for some of these programs and in return the district um stands to save in the neighborhood of $500,000 per year I believe it was and that's very ballparked um but it's very realistic and in talking with other districts we Alam rock is kind of like an island in our area that doesn't have a solar energy program every almost every other District around us has invested in solar energy and they're saving like I mentioned to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars every year that can go towards you know the needs of the district and so this on its face the people who may not be familiar with these program seem like maybe it it's something that we don't have money to invest in but there are many options that um in my estimation and many in the public are worth looking into because it's it is a very likely or strong possibility to actually get money into the district coffers on an annual basis for you know 25 30 years out every single year um and so that's kind of just the background on it the reason why I wanted to move it up and kind of have it in conjunction with or or close to the discussion on on the bond program is that since the time that we put this on kind of on the back burner um as a district I think we have really put into place a more strategic um methodical process as to how we're going to move the district forward with regards to our facilities and things like that and so that's you know the hiring of all these things we've been talking about with hiring of legal firms and hiring of program managers and all those things it's part of a bigger picture and so I I would like um I guess I'm throwing out there for discussion with my colleagues um the concept of kind of rolling in these um energy saving programs as part of the overall picture of our um you know our facilities discussions and work that can be um possibly put you know as part of what our program manag would PR manager would do my understanding at the time when I agreed to kind of put this on the back burner was that we needed a program manager to manage any potential impl implementation of this because it's not just something that our staff could take on and so now we're at a place where we're close hopefully to having our program manager our legal team in place everything in place so that we can move forward and potentially and we can realize these annual you know multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings every year to our district um and so again that's that's some that would be part of the program manager is to look into that and bring us back options and see what's available but it's a very um you know it's it's a very good possibility that those options are out there so I kind of just wanted to give an update um maybe get any updates and have the discussion about you know bringing making this a comprehensive approach to to our facilities um work that we're going to be doing in the coming years so with that go ahead thank you and I just want to clarify because I know you mentioned um that and then maybe combining it with the bond program conversation and so I want to ask Roo if we can like at this time if also maybe CA can give an update on that um are we able to do that uh roio are we able to bring 403 and 502 together yes I I think you can but you should make make clear when you're getting public comment that you will still when you get to the next item or to the item on the bond program you will take public comment there as well I guess what I'm saying is if we hear both of them together are we able to take public comment together too no on for information only both are since since there's yeah but since it's a separate agenda item you would have to open it up to public comment when you get to that item as well okay so then we'll keep it separate because I think it'll be too confusing um all right so back to 403 and just staying on 403 for now uh trusty Chavez I see your hand up I would like to see two things done first I would like to see the contracts with the teachers resolved first and the repairs on the safety issues first and then we could possibly move forward on the solar thank you uh vice president Gino um I I feels like we've been here before about holding off sometimes people would even make comments that hold off till December because there was something coming up an election or something like that at this point the fact of the matter is that we need to um start realizing savings and if this can realize savings and that means that it leaves more money for us to be able to go ahead and provide the proper remuneration so I'm I'm all for moving forward to investigate to get some good information and then ultimately make a decision once we have the right information and uh so I I would encourage us to direct staff to begin the process of putting forward an RFQ that allows us to go out there and find out what our options are uh in a very transparent way that's available to the public uh to go ahead and hold this off simply because want to make a point it's counterproductive if we realize savings allows us to to be able to have more resources to one of our colleagues point and like I said I'm the fact of the matter is that this we've been here before people were calling in asking us to hold off until December not sure why something was going to happen in November I guess they didn't want this to to move forward and so it's very unfortunate that it gets conflated with other stuff we need to start moving moving on this now thank you vice president and then uh trusty fam and then I'll say something okay uh first of all you know I I you know I of all you know um I would too would love to to resolve contract with the teachers and the issues with the safety uh but at the you know but at the same time you know I'd like to remind my colleagues that uh you know one does not have to come before the other we are in a position where we can work on two tracks uh simultaneously you know I say this because I you know for the last couple weeks I've visited half this District so far and you know we have real infrastructure needs that need to be taken care of uh as uh trusty Beano mentioned you know if a solar program is able to save us hundreds of thousand dollars a year that certainly will give this District extra room uh down the road uh you know to have even more flexibility with compensation in the future uh I also wanted to mention that uh you know Bond programs also mean uh resolving some of the safety issues um it means means uh newer and Modern Heating uh ventilation and air conditioning systems possibly down the future uh that would certainly help deal uh with you know uh covid is a respiratory virus and it would certainly uh allow our classrooms to operate a lot more safely in inclement weather so I I certainly do Ur you know uh believeing when I say I know I'm trying you know do in my own way trying to help bridge The Divide but at the same time Bridging the Divide does not mean that we can't work on uh fixing our real immediate physical infrastructure needs at the moment and uh you know I want to make it clear you know uh solar H you know we are open to ways to improve Alam Rock facilities make them more sustainable for the future at the same time saving money so that we can provide a safer environment for staff and students and uh have more flexibility for staff compensation in the future thank you very much thank you trust P I see trust me have those hands up but I'll say a couple things um and so you know really at think at the end of the day um after hearing some of the teachers speak earlier about uh some of the wiring uh that sparked that caused an electrical issue and you know um the response from the schools I think that all has to do right with what we're talking about um and I also agree trusty Beano that uh this is combined with the bonds program where uh maybe some of that work could be done in collaboration with so I look forward to eventually bringing those two together um even though today they were on a separate agenda items um and like vice president said that we can't wait any longer there will always be a reason to wait um and I think you know the sooner we start the sooner we can start saving money to then exactly with what trusty fam said we can address some of our you know issues at hand um but we need to start and so um I look forward to also hearing the update about the bonds program and where we're at with that because as we also discussed um as I'm also and all of us I know are very concerned with the safety issues I think all of it aligns um and at the end of the day we will be able to identify all these needs that were all in agreement with the teachers the trustees you know staff um so I look forward to to moving forward on on these items um that I think go hand inand um and even you know I'm hearing about ants you know and you know I'm sure it's not an overnight issue I'm sure it's been an issue of over years um you know I'm thinking and you saw trusty fam when you went to the schools you know I also went to all the schools of these old buildings right that I mean as much as you clean maybe or you know there's just Corners you know cracks and spaces and places that you know unless um somebody that's in that um construction and and is able to maybe dig deeper than what we can see right those of us like me like okay let me just clean this area but if we still continue to have an ant issue for example um you know which that teacher shouldn't be taking ants back home or anything like that um and that means that our children are also dealing with that you know that also something as simple as that can be dealt with when we look at this entire um uh the picture um anyway so with that um I know I heard some direction from um from vice president Kinto um and I don't know if uh somebody wants to second on that direction um I do see trusty Beano's hand up so maybe um he's gonna guide us with that so I'll go ahead and open it up to trusty Beano at this time yeah thank you I think um because it's agenda as information only it's we can't make a motion on it but I think trust kto does is able to provide direction as he has um which I think is a is a good direction that he provided um my comment actually was that I two things number one I want to make very clear that um this board has been very clear on a number of fronts that there's lots of things that we would like to do um you know that we just don't have the the monetary resources to do and and so if we were our program manager were to come back and say Here's your options each one of them you have to Shell out x amount of money I'm confident and I personally would say that given our current scenario our fiscal scenario we would not that's not something that we would be able to do but because of the fact that I know at least at the time and I believe it still to be true there are options where we could realize these savings and not have to put money up front um you know I think that's why it's important to look into it so to ensure anybody in the public who's you you know worried about us spending money that we don't have I think we very clearly have as a board have taken that stand that we're not going to spend money that we don't have and in fact this money um that potentially could be generated would actually go to resolve or could potentially go to resolve many of those issues that people bring up all the different things that they question why would you know people may question why you want to put the solar program in when you don't even have money for x y and z well the answer would be that theoretically given the availability of programs that are available the solar panels would in fact pay for those things that are the concerns that we need to pay for first um or would be able to so that's kind of that piece of it um and I think I had one other part but I think that so I'm comfortable um I really would like to see myself personally I would like to see this solar um work that we may do to be rolled into what we have as part of our work for the program manager obviously we can't make a um put a motion to anything tonight but I think starting to move in that direction again this is not any decision being made but it's just taking the information that we have which seems very obvious that we should at least investigate It's Our obligation to investigate in fact as as stewards of the district if there's an opportunity for us to generate money or save money for the district we have the obligation to do that and so um I'm comfortable with the direction that trusty chetto has put forth so we can get the ball rolling and and get started in that direction great if I don't see any other hands up I'm going to open it up for public comment at this time uh so uh Mr Travis can you help me uh identify members of the public wishing to address the board on this item uh yes Madam president at this time we have uh four speakers uh first speaker is Adrian B Miss V you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin hello uh once again Adrien ban um at Jus George Middle School um uh first off I love the fact that we would be going to solar I think that's awesome and I think that's in a step in the right direction but we still have a few things that we need to figure out before we can go into solar and unfortunately my school just George Middle School we don't have what the other schools have um apparently tomorrow uh uh board member Cano uh fam and Bower are going to be visiting our school tomorrow please come to my class come to our school and look at how our school is so behind all of the other schools it's absolutely ridiculous for the past five years whenever it rains my classroom drips water rain comes through my classroom and I have brought it up every year things don't get fixed at my middle school and I we feel like we're the redheaded step child that nobody cares about us because it's just really sad how much nobody cares about us thank you for listening to me our next speaker is Rachel Miss Locus you have two minutes please unmute yourself can you begin speaking the timer will begin hi thank you for again for taking um my question or comments um I'm Rachel Lopez at San Antonio um I want to applaud that this effort is moving um forward that we're having the conversation that we're being forward thinkers and not um backwards thinkers um I do have a couple of concerns that I would like to address is um I would like to say thank you to trusty Chavez because she um understands that there is no support for teachers right now um in negotiating and addressing our concerns um and I also want to address um something that um trusty fam um said that we can do both things you're absolutely right we can do both things but the problem is is that we don't and we're not and I support moving forward with this agenda because in air quotes potentially this has money to be a revenue and not just a cost um but I would like to um caution that the conditions of many of the schools it is going to be a huge Money Pit to bring all of that electrical up to code to make solar even possible so I think that whatever the cost of the solar is we really need to think about the the cost that is then not The Upfront cost not the installing cost it's the other it's the other hidden cost you know when you remodel a bathroom it's not just about getting a new toilet and a new sink it's everything behind the walls that we need to think about so um I just want to caution you as you're moving forward to think about all of these hidden costs that are going to be with many many many of the schools and um I just want to stress that we can do both but we need to do both thank you our next speaker is Brenda SAS missas you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin hi good evening again my name is Brenda SAS um I do want to say that I do agree that solar panels will save a lot of money but I want to Echo what the previous speaker said I couldn't have said it in a more better way than what she said but thank you we do need to also look at the buildings uh electrical panels um they're not up to date in many buildings um I want you guys to know that that we have a lot of roofing problems a lot in our district and to have solar panels you have to have good foundation not only that you have to have electrical outlets that are up to date because more modern solar panels require electric still they're not just fully solar you still need electrical outlets and I believe one of the presenters did State this and so I know that this can happen but I I want it to happen that I just want to make sure that you guys are cautious that it's not only about the insul ation price like the previous speaker said it's also about the cost to update our buildings I'm sure we could strategize and find better ways uh to avoid these costs but I do want you guys to be mindful that not everything is as easy as it said and um maybe uh strategizing and finding options would be the best thing I do support having this because we do have to start bringing Revenue into this District I also want to um comment we we did close or repurpose some schools and I want to know if we do this and this happens what happens to these buildings that have these solar panels um do they just sit there until we I don't know we rent them or I don't know what's going to happen in the future with our schools as well right I don't want to think about that but I am going to be um honest because we just went through that last year thank you our next speak speaker is Michael P Mr py you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin yes um I'm not sure which of you said it uh but you mentioned that that our District's a bit of an island uh behind the times in terms of getting solar updating and uh I'm glad you're recognizing ing that you're behind the times and solar and I agree that solar is a good thing I'd also throw in let's be forward thinking like at least six or seven of the teachers at Joseph George are we've invested in electric cars and why do teachers do that perhaps more than other places because we're looking at the future every day in front of us in our 30 seats in a classroom 32 in my case for several classes um so let's think about what we can do for our students as well as what we can do for our buildings uh we need uh the solar yes that's a good idea uh I'd have you throw in there put in some solar some uh car charging stations for the teachers that are doing the right thing and driving solar cars the other issue that I want you to think about are these other basic infrastructure things that um we need to deal with uh again I'm a Joseph George as Miss V is saying please come visit um our school I'll show you dozens of things little annoying things big things that need to be taken care of um and they've been there for a long time the the staff the maintenance staff had again 16 17 months with no one in the buildings to fix some of these things I'm talking about obvious warping of bathroom tiles you know the the lolium is warping because there the wood is wet underneath it and it's out of place uh George needs Equity too every other school has got these beautiful fresh colors of paint we have been prison gray for as long as I can remember and it looks like a prison and it's how's it going to attract a student if we can't get that cleaned up our next speaker is Rose Ramos miss ronal you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin hello um good evening everyone um can you hear me yes Mr speak okay yeah my main concern about the adelan school is their gate you know um since the they the student came back to school this year there's few episode already that somebody came in that they had to lock down the school and the students were terrified and it happened couple times already so I don't know if uh the district or the board members can do something about it because my little one is you know all he talk about after the lockdown it's like mama you know the the bad people came to the school and we have to lock down and we have to hide we have to lock the doors for the safety of the children so I think we need to do something about it because it's been going on for so many years I have the older one too that it's been there for six years and until now it's not gated around it's very easy to um have access for The Outsiders to come the bad people to come during class so I think we have to uh do something about it and also the field there's a lot of holes and um a lot of children trip during PE and some children fracture their bones and I think we have to do something about it too uh those are my main two concerns thank you our next speaker is Sandra Rivera Miss Rivera you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin good evening members of the board my name is Sandra rera teacher at Chavez um I would love to applaud the move towards solar um when my mom passed away and I inherited her house that was actually one of the very first things I did was replace my roof and put solar panels on and then buy an electric car so that I could save in my own personal budget but I would like to please point out that while we're investing in solar we did just repurpose or close two schools rename them um what would happen in that case if we lost another building um can we think outside the box Maybe cover the district parking lot with solar panels in a parking structure type setup kind of like I believe James lick high school has done as well if we're going to be putting them in installing them at the different School sites in per se like parking lot areas and such I would just also like to caution that things like yard work and maintenance in that aspect should be taken into account because recently all the trees at Chavez in fact over the last two days have gotten their haircuts and so I can actually like see in the parking lot and see across my campus now but if we're going to be installing solar panels where there's a lot of trees and maintenance isn't getting done on a regular basis it's kind of counterproductive to install solar panels where there's trees and our parking lot and such so please take into account those kinds of decisions when you're looking to install and do these contracts thank you madam president at this time we has no more public comment thank you uh trusty witho I see your hand up yeah I'm mindful of time and and that we need to kind of move forward and um I just want to say I appreciate the um the support from from the public speakers and also the mind the thoughtful questions um that people have and and suggestions and I in the interest of time I would just um encourage people I want to say and Dr b or anyone could correct me it was June of 2020 a me the meeting when um there was some information that was provided by our legal council and our district team at that time um there was also there's also a Facebook uh presentation that you can find online I think it's on might be on my Facebook page that also talks about and answers and addresses some of the questions that were brought up um because I think some of those concerns are addressed in those presentations again and things could have changed and as we move forward potentially we'll we'll get better information but I think that's the point of this is moving forward and getting the right information to make the right decision so thank you everyone thank you and I see uh vice president hand up yeah um just wanted to say that I appreciate all the comments I think those are great uh points that people brought up and raised and so part of the process is to go through and um go out there and get answers to the questions to the concerns because this should be a thoughtful process that takes into account all of the the the possibility the variables all that's out there U before we move forward uh one of the things I do want to remind everyone is regardless of what happens if you place panels they produce regardless of where they're at they continue to produce and so there's electricity as long as the sun's out they continue to produce energy which translates into savings for us thank you and then just uh to clarify and before we move on um to the next item um I know that uh vice president kto um directed staff and so I look forward to hearing more about that um in the near future um and uh I don't know Dr Bower if you need any clarification or we're good to move forward she's there Dr Bower we're good nice all right moving on to item 502 uh Dr bow or Mr I'm gonna turn it over to Mr changen thank you Dr bar um good evening um in regards to this item um I will be providing a brief update um and now that the board has um provided support and approved um the contract for dwk um we can get that started um with reviewing the contracts for our program manager um which leads us to um next steps in terms the bond programs um the next steps that the district is working on is developing um RP for both financial advisor and bond councel um to facilitate with the issuance of the measure I Bond and so um that should be ready in the coming week or weeks or um to be able to release those RPS um and then we'll provide a board and update and also we'll need some further directions in terms of um the election process for both financial advisor and um Bond Council um yeah so that that concludes the update thank you thank you Mr chain um I'll go ahead and open it up for public first and then bring it back to the trustees uh question comments concerns uh Mr Chavez can you um help us out with the public wishing to address the board on this item yes uh at this time we have uh Mr Michael py Mr py you have two minutes please send me yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin yes okay so can I can you uh clarify so you you've just approved the the law the contract with the law firm can that's I'm correct in that I see Mr Chavez nodding um thank you so you're you now have you're going to have that law firm approve a contract for your operation person you're muted MZ I think Dr Bower should answer that but and just to clarify we're not allowed to have a conversation with public unfortunately and Mr re our attorney something else i' have you consider revising the bylaws so that it can be more natural instead of talking and cutting off and talking and cutting off all right then well I guess um yeah I like solar but that's great go for it but how about some fresh coats of paint how about a sprinkler system that works at our school I've been trying to revive a a garden that the citizen school people started uh a long while ago it went to seed and is a mess of weeds right now but we're making some progress on it all with the help of my students and myself and we could use some water I'd like to just plant some flowers out of my own pocket but our Gardens you know our Landscaping isn't even irrigated and I'd like some basic things like this to be considered in address too appearances matter when a parent Drives By say St John viani just down the road from us they see a beautiful maintained facility okay why can't we do that at our school if I was a parent driving by and thinking oh I could could go to this public school I've heard a few good things about their program they've got music they've got art they've got some experienced quality teachers there but then they look around and they see our gray colors that haven't been updated except to cover the graffiti let's clean up Joseph George our next speaker is Rachel Lopez M Lopez you have two minutes please s me yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin hi thank you again for indulging me I really appreciate it um I am fairly new to the school district so I um kind of came in after the fact so I just want to go on record saying when we're asking for transparency it's not because we don't trust you specifically it's because we want to um enthusiastically support Alam Rock we all are on the same team we all want the kids to come back to school there's nothing sadder than empty classrooms and we are filled with them and we also understand the business of school that we are going to be underfunded until our schools are full and so we would like to attract um students to come back that have left for Charter and part of that is our kids telling their friends and their the parents telling the other parents how great our schools are and how much we've grown and changed and all of these new programs and the new looks and things like that and with this Bond program it would be really um great for transparency like I I've said before um if we had a hierarchy of needs so that we could say these are the needs that we're going to address in a b and c order so that people know what to look for they know how our money is being spent I know that we're going to hi have a bond manager and things like that that will be disclosing yada yada yada but it be would be really nice to know oh this school's supposed to get this this and that and as you're driving by seeing these things happen in a natural way it really does Foster a lot of um support because I have to believe that the charter schools are not doing it better than us they are just the alternative because we have failed them so I would like to re establish trust with those families mam president at this time we have no more public comment thank you Mr Chavez I just see vice president gto's hand up first and then truste M Madam president um I just want to remind all folks that we we are this is part of the transparency having public in open meetings we go to some of our competitors at Charter Schools and they make it nearly impossible to get access to their agendas to public information uh quite the opposite here we have everything on our website and I'm very proud of that you know and and that is exactly what everybody should be doing who's managing public funds for the purposes of the public and uh those viewing uh I would request Madam president that Administration go over a timeline and overview of the process that we went through to get to this place uh with our our our program managers which was part of a very transparent open process where people were interviewed it took quite a while ago but then I would remind folks that uh the dwk contract is getting the way we needed the attorneys to review those contracts to allow us to come on board but if you will indulge me and allow our Administration to go through an overview or a timeline of the process that would be great I think it would be beneficial to the public overall great idea yes um Dr Bower uh should I just turn it over to ca or would you like to address that I think Mr Chang can help me where should we start Co I know Mr I know that there's a number of people who are new to the district I just want to say one thing um and then CA can help us with all the the facilities and the timelines and all of that but for those of you who are new if you remember the well we went through very challenging times with the bone program um and right when the board changed and we cleaned up so many things including um yeah so many things that's all I'm going to say then covid hit so we are sort of like a year behind in terms of the process because obviously you know this the all of these things take time but um the whole notion of going back to having a financial advisor a bond counsel all of that was because um the county of Santa Clara declared um alumrock cannot sell bonds until um some things were addressed and we have been addressing them one by one um a long history and I'm not going to revive all of that but just for those of you who are new we are now resetting the program things are clean things have been addressed and um there is a process so Mr changen um if you want to start with a facilities assessment which was done a long time time ago and we've been waiting because that's something that the public requested about five years ago four years ago thank you sure I'll piggy back on I'll start with the facility assessment which was done back in 2018 which identified um some urgent uh repair that needs to be done unfortunately um the district hasn't had a program manager to oversee the bronze program um to be able to to um work on some of those projects that were identified um and just recently back in um I want to say either March of April of 21 we released an RP for a program manager uh we did receive four proposals um and as a result of that the district um set up a special board meeting which was on July 22nd 2021 um to conduct interviews in person VI invited all those four firms um to the district office um and all those four firms were um interviewed um by the board members um in the the firms were in person but the interviews were broadcast um via zoom and also I believe on YouTube TV um where everyone could see the process and what the questions were um and ultimately at the end of the night um the board did select coming um as our program manager um unfortunately um you know as I mentioned before in those type of work it's very complicated very specific and so we felt that we needed a legal some additional legal support to vet and review the contract between the districts and coming um and fortunately enough um at tonight's board meeting the board did approve dwk um to be able to do that work in terms of reviewing um the contract uh with dwk and the districts in order for um the parties to move forward um and bring um Coming which is our program manager to be able to um work with the district um as a part of the bonds program The Districts then would need to um secure a financial advisor and a bound counsel um to facilitate and assist the districts with the issuance um of measure ey bonds and um as I previously um shared with the board earlier um the district is in the process developing those um RP for both financial and bond Council and then we'll bring that to the board later for um an update and also to get further directions uh regarding the vetting and the selection process um for financial advisor and bond program I mean so Bond Council thank you great thank you so much I mean I was like ah you know to relive relive some of that so I like the way we did it and focusing where we at now because we're in a very good place you know even though sometimes it feels like you know it's a little painful but you know we're getting it done and so um very proud of us um I do see trusty's head up and then trusty fam um but not before I see vice president kto St still up do you still wanna no that was from before perfect trusty yeah mine is just a very quick clarifying reminder um that it's for the for the Public's understanding of the meetings here that we unfortunately we're not able to um change bylaws that allow for dialogue during public comment because that's part of the brown act and we are not allowed can't change the brown act and so just you know it's it's a common thing that people have questions and um if they're not familiar with the process maybe they they want an answer and it's just not um necessarily the way that public meetings are required to operate under the brown act so just that reminder to people I appreciate that because it's hard to be the facilitator and have to you know cut people off but facilitate in a way that it's um lawful um and ensure that we're doing things right um thank you for clarifying that okay uh trusty Pam okay Madam president you know just you know I I want to State clearly because I I've have some history with the bond prior to to my appointment to the board I was vice chair of the uh Bond oversight committee and uh talk about uh uncompensated I'm GNA be Ser this uncompensated heartache on certain uh on certain days uh we have moved uh very far uh you know the bond committee is also an open public meeting uh you know in in in in the three plus years I was on that committee we asked serious questions uh you know from getting to the bottom of Dela and on the associated um fiscal control issues that were identified in in the audits for two straight years to see it resolved in my last and final year on the bond committee uh this is you know I I want to make clear that you know we have come very far and this is a this is an opportunity that this district has been waiting for in a long long time to address the the real infrastructure needs uh of the many school sites we have uh I also wanted to note that it looks like the cat is out of the bag yes I'm going to be visiting uh Joseph George middle school tomorrow and I look forward to having those candid conversations about the state of our facilities that's part of the reason why I'm I I put in much time on the bond committee and on the board of this District to see this to see us be able to provide uh the best possible learning environment for our children as well as the best possible working environment for uh the teachers the classified staff and the maintenance staff who work in our district and in and you know at the school sites um you know uh I am you know I certainly am I certainly look forward to seeing George and I certainly look for as well as the other schools I'll be visiting tomorrow to and just like as I mentioned earlier when I go to the school sites I am looking at the physical infrastructure I mentioned that I visited the kitchen I v I checked air filters heaters air conditioning units the black top uh um I know that we've got we've got real needs and I'm very hopeful that we are we are coming to a position where these needs are going to be met and resolve and as always uh you know I wanted to act Co board vice president that we've you know we've been more trans uh you know we've been more transparent than the charter school I remember someone in in public comments saying that you know we uh I know that Alam Alam Rock has gone through a rough patch but I am you know I'm determined to see us uh get to the other side get to the end of the rainbow and be in a better place and I I and I hope that uh I know that you know we're you know just like just like ice you know sometimes some some of us like strawberry others like Rocky Row but I think we all agree that yes it's time for ice cream it's time to it's time to fix our schools for the 21st century and you know again I encourage everyone in this community from parents to teachers to share their concerns their opinions with me and you know hopefully we can we can get to that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow together thank you thank you was just going to move on but I think uh trano your hand is up go for yeah um I guess just kind of quickly I wanted to I guess Echo a comment I believe I heard I don't remember if it was even on this to topic or maybe a previous one but there was some discussion along the lines of thinking out of the box being creative and so as we continue to move forward with our bonds program I know that we have had a facilities assessment and you know potentially may need a new one to address things um uh you know I think that it's going to be it's going to behoove us to be creative and think out of the box with regards to our bonds um because I know that kind of a a structure or an idea or some thoughts about how we should abro approach um our facilities was set forth at one point in time in the past several years um but the environment has changed many things have changed since that time and so I think as I mentioned it will behoove us to just maybe think out of the box and be creative as we look at how to best utilize um Bond monies moving forward so that at the end of the day we're able to offer the best most modern up dated facilities that are possible to our um you know to our community so just wanted to throw that out there as a reflection of comments that I heard at some point this evening thank you absolutely thank you so much for putting that all um in a nice way I look forward to having those conversations as well so if we're all okay we'll move forward on this item since it's on for information only and uh more to come on this one more thing I see Dr Bower maybe wanting to add I just want to make sure that we're clear as a staff that we're okay to move forward to be looking for financial advisor and for Bond councel and then we'll come to the board with you know a recommendation I just wanted so that we can start the process yes that's my understanding uh board anybody else on the board anything different no yes um please move in that direction and we look forward to continuing this conversation thank you Dr B okay moving on to item 601 approved quarterly report on Williams uniform complaints uh Dr bar anything specific on this no the just we just need for the board to um approve this it's um you know the concerns are uh public information and everybody has an access to that we will be addressing them thank you move to approve move to approve by second by vice president GTO okay um opening up for public comment at this time uh Mr Chavis any members of the board wishing to address of the public wishing to address the board on this item I see uh yes one uh member Mr Michael ping Mr ping you have two minutes please sub mute yourself when you begin speaking that timer will begin uh yes um I just I've been reflecting here a little bit and I I'm thinking I've sounded a little harsh a little uh Angry and I want to let you know that I know you all have a tough job too and I'd like to see you guys a lot more as partners than as adversaries and uh I don't know I don't want to say I'm apologizing because a lot of the things I said are heartfelt uh I don't think that any of you in particular the corruption comment I made earlier not directed at any of you the history of corruption I hope is the phrase I said I can't recall if that's what I said but there have been s in the past as as you all delicately refer to it uh and I I want to be uh meeting with you as partners as with people who I can say hey here is this problem and this problem how can you help us to fix that here at George here is my vision for planting just a few flowers back in the front space of this school so someone walking by goes hey that looks like a nice place to visit uh and I know that you can't wave a wand and make money flow to us uh but it would be a good thing if we could see each other as as partners and uh not as adversaries and I just want to let you know that that's how I see this I feel I have that relationship with Dr Bower and uh I look forward to meeting with you Mr fam um you know I don't I don't know if I should announce my school address to you what room to come see me but ask it's Mr polling ask uh whoever you come see and and Madam president at this time we have no more public comment thank you okay uh bringing it back to the board any questions comment comments concerns from the board uh trusty Chavez yes um here on the Williams report it says aptitude so I believe the the uh teacher who spoke earlier was that a different school and if so is there a reason why it's not on the agenda uh could you answer that can you answer that please Dr Bower could you please repeat your question okay so here on the report if you look on the book it says aptitude so there was another teacher that came from another school I believe um could you could you tell me which school that was from when she said that they had the ant problem because this one says what I don't believe that she said that she was from aptitude is this is she from another school I believe so was she from what school was that again please I think he I don't think the teacher mention the school she's from I think her name is Sher DTE what school is she at I think she's in Russo mcke I'm trying to remember every you know we have a lot of teachers and it's hard for me to remember what school they teach and Trac can you point oh oh I don't know if you were I wasn't sure where you saw um I don't know exactly what part of the Williams you answer okay yeah I wasn't sure what you were referring to T Chavez but it sounds like you first line on the page it says to whom it may concern after that are you looking at uh hold on on the Williams report right 601 item 6 601 that's what I'm looking at and you're looking at oh got it the letter in the back the last P got it I was looking at the first two pages okay thank you um okay thank you for clarifying that trusty Chavez any other members of the board wishing to ask any questions comments or concerns all right see none I think this is um it is on through approval so uh please it's 9:30 so help me do we make a motion and do we second already yes right motion to approve it was did already we did already thank you trusty um marel I'm sure got it down if she didn't she would let us know all right let's go to the vote I'll go ahead and call you as I see on my screen trusty famam hi trusty Chavez so I'm a little bit conflicted before I vote so if it's not if the other one wasn't on there and that was a complaint should it be put down as two or we just voting on this one now because this was the only one that was on file could you answer that Dr Bower please miss trusty Chavez we can only address the ones that are officially submitted so there will be throughout the year if there's another complaint the person can submit a Complaint Form officially this is an official document and and we have have to follow the process thank you iano I vice president g i and myself I Madam president yes um sorry to bring I would encourage us to be careful because that letter that was submitted with the Williams complaint was unsigned it didn't have anybody's name on it and so attempting to connect a per a speaker here with the complaint that was UN signed is bad form and it may discourage people from coming forward and and raising complaints and so Madam president I'm just raising that as a concern that we may want to avoid here at this public meeting attempting to connect who spoke and how it may connect with the complaint or anything like that just just a thought thank you vice president GTO uh trusty Travis thank you for that that wasn't my concern my concern was uh with the school if that also in addition needs to be taken care of thank you though for pointing that out right and then just moving forward um not to point out names thank you okay moving on to item 602 learning communities for school Success program lcsp information only Dr Brower I'm very pleased to introduce Dr almasan and Dr artigas and they have the first first report of our newly uh established uh socio emotional learning Department with that I'm gonna turn it over to Dr almasan uh good evening uh president era loera H Board of Trustees Dr Bower and our alrock community uh I'm Dr alazon and I serve as the Director of social emotional learning and I'm joined by colleague Dr Ana artiguez and she serves as the coordinator of uh mental wellness support services and we will present a brief update on uh a grant that arusd was awarded from the state of California which is the learning communities for uh School Success program or lcsp and am I able to share my slide deck um by chance um I'm not able to you should thank you do we give our ACC already Yes okay thank you very much our agenda tonight is going to hit on three points that we would like to um bring to you which is uh reviewing the background of the learning communities for school Success program and we would like to also give a status update for year one which was last year and um our next steps so in 2014 um California voters uh passed proposition 47 which is also known as the safe neighborhoods and schools act and um within this legislation there was an important provision related to K12 public education and so um this provision created um The Learning communities for school Success um and so through the lcsp um the California Department of Ed administers grants and um coordinates uh support to local um educational agencies uh to assist their efforts in uh identifying and implementing evidence-based non-punitive programs and practices um that are aligned with the goals uh for students contained um in uh the local control and accountability plan so which in our case um this aligns to our district alcap goal number three which is sorry to interrupt you are you um sharing already because we can't see uh yes I am uh I see it on my screen see um yeah we cannot see it okay um um I am on I am I'm on present mode uh maybe share or click on the share uh yeah button again I'm sure you did already there we go okay thank you I should have double checked to make sure everyone saw it I apologize thank you all right I'm going to triple check now I can can you see my screen yes we can all right perfect thank you um so as I was I was saying um you know through through the lcsp uh you know the these are the goals um that are contained in there and it does um align and connect with our ELC cap goal number three which is again uh to provide all students um and families a safe welcoming and caring environment conducive to learning and so therefore um in January uh 2020 uh our district was awarded the lcsp funding um in the amount of uh 1,100 uh100 $349 over the three years so last year was our first year we are currently in our second year and our third and final year will be next year and um but for tonight we are going to be reporting on uh year one only um so to dat um we we uh want to share our accomplishments um with the funding that we had received from the state of California and of course um we created the department um which uh was part of our uh application narrative um it was really important for us uh to bring forth um you know a department that was going to be concentrating mostly on the social emotional learning and well-being and mental Wellness of our students um and staff um many of the activities that fall under the SE Department include but are not limited to um the development of social emotional learning restorative practices as well as uh PBIS districtwide um overseeing um Grant activities aligned tocl um as well as the uh implementation of the uh ofcl curriculum um that is in our uh elementary and middle schools and um of course coordination of professional development for staff and families and so um it just highlighting just uh some of the professional development that you see there um you know we we uh introduce theal framework through Castle which highlights the five SEAL competencies and skills of self-management M self-awareness social awareness uh relationship skills and responsible decision making we also spent uh a considerable amount of time um with our uh management team in training uh in training last year um using the um onward and uh transformational seal uh framework to uh bring uh building emotional resilience um to our to our uh management which included uh you know improving our well-being preventing burnout and reflecting on actions that we take every day to cultivate resilience and um we are currently also uh part of an mtss trauma competency series that um a group of Administrators and um site staff uh participated in last uh year in 2021 and uh we are bringing that um to to to our district this year actually um and so um and so uh another another piece of coures that you see there um that came from last year was uh the development of our morning meetings at that time and it was utilized to build connections and relationships among uh students um and their teachers so uh this is um uh uh some of our accomplishments and now moving on to um our accomplishments in our m mental uh health and wellness um I'm going to turn this over to Dr artiguez Who will give us a brief uh overview of that thank you very much Dr Alazan good evening um so in terms of the one mental Wellness component we wanted to talk a little bit about the accomplishments that we had in 2021 uh and so through the 2021 year we were able to serve approximately 400 students uh actually 2019 2020 we were able to serve approximately 400 students during 2020 2021 um we did uh provide uh comprehensive support to different schools that were dealing with various crises um throughout the school year and we were able to provide those supports in real time um you know we were able to organize and structure bringing in support within 24 hours of finding out you know uh what may have occurred uh and then we were also able to work with staff and faculty and connect them with resources like the center for living with dying um to provide individual as well as small group support uh we were able to serve approximately 165 students with one-on-one counseling through 2021 and this is the school counselor intern program I just want to be very clear about that um and approximately 264 students and these are not duplicated students were supported via guidance lessons during 2021 and a lot of the guidance lessons we were doing were of the psychosocial emotional variety so we were doing a lot of things on Stress Management we were also doing things in the classroom around grief and loss um and so there were a number that were served through guidance lessons we also provided grief Crisis Support for approximately 206 students out at aptitude uh provided grief counseling support for approximately seven of the faculty and staff from optitude uh provided grief counseling support for entire Madison staff and conducted multiple assessments for families impacted by the laala incident leading to service referrals Dr next slide please perfect and so um what in terms of the 2021 uh budget expenditures for mental illness you know there was expenditures around staff salary uh also expenditures around extended Duty um some expenditure for curriculum materials and supplies and also contracted services with Community Partners so next steps for us moving forward because we're always looking at how we can grow the amount of support coming in for our students as well as for our families and our staff uh we're looking to build more Partnerships with community- based organizations to expand the services that we have uh and to create more linkage in terms of resources for students and families we're also currently facilitating parent trainings on the salal competencies um we're also uh working on developing uh self-care series for parents we're going to be piloting that through the mayfer um Mayer quadrant to begin and then development of self-care series for staff we're actually working on that as well uh continued seal implementation support at both the site and the district level participation in the multi-tier system of support training um and coordination of professional development opportunities for both staff as well as parents and we do look forward to continuing to advance you know the and mental Wellness work and continuing to grow the uh resources and the linkages moving forward so that not just our students but also the adults throughout the district are able to benefit from the support thank you thank you so much wow this is great especially with the need um huge need that we currently have um thank you for this uh great presentation uh what I'm going to do is I'm going to um open it up to public comments and then I'll bring it back to the board um and you answered a lot of my questions I was reading it but uh I had specific questions so thank you for answering some of those um and I might come out with others but for right now I am I'm so glad that um that this is happening I I know you all doing a great job and it's always nice to hear the details that go into all the amazing work that you're all doing so I'll go ahead and open it up to public comment Jose if you can help me with that if we have any members of the public wishing to um address this item at this time we have no public comment okay I'll wait a couple of seconds maybe they're running to press the button uh yes we have one person okay Miss Rachel lope uh two actually I'm sorry uh Rachel Lopez Miss Lopez you have two minutes please unmute yourself and You Begin speaking the timer will begin okay can you hear me okay thank you so much um I promise this will be my last comment tonight but I also just want to go on the record saying this is 100% exactly what alumrock needs um this is a I hope that when the grant runs out we can either get an additional Grant an extension more money more funds this is exactly how um the support teachers need the support students need the families um when you are talking about reducing toxic stress and um um you know secondhand trauma for for teachers um for parents um how to deal with you know stress especially during the covid year um these tools have been absolutely invaluable um I've been the recipient of um being able to attend classes my morning meetings have been huge um game changers in terms of relationship building um where we are you know destigmatizing talking about our feelings and um I'm just really really proud to be associated with um this school that this program that we are um promoting secl this should be like as important as curriculum in my opinion so thank you so much I really appreciate all the things that you've done our next speaker is Jessica Navaro you have two minutes please un yourself and You Begin speaking the time good evening everyone I appreciate um Dr Aras and Dr amazan for speaking today on this very important topic I am one of the uh newly elementary school counselors that has come on to board with the district and I can tell you firsthand that this is an incredible need um and I'm very excited to be part of the team and I can see already in many of the schools in the district with their students and with the staff that this is going to be very beneficial um and I as well as uh Miss Liz was mentioning hope this can continue um not just for this year and next year um but making steps in moving forward the right direction to helping our our students um and adults is incredibly incredibly important so I appreciate everyone for uh letting us be in the district and helping everyone as best as we can and appreciate your patience as well with us as we're working with students and families thank you our next speaker is Michael py Mr py you have two minutes please unmute yourself and You Begin speaking the timer will begin uh yes uh the social emotional learning is necessary is a great benefit and I'm glad that we are bringing these programs to our school uh schools plural uh our counseling staff needs to be supported uh so much more so than they are now there are too few of them I know you've hired a few new people but you really need to consider hiring more of them I would have you seriously consider getting bonuses to the people who have been with this district for a long time who have uh in the case of my school Joseph George uh our counseling staff have been there as long as I've been there perhaps uh well definitely more years I can't I can't be sure but they' both been there a long time and they deserve so much better they need support they need to have the number of students that they're uh assigned to reduced not increased and uh they like the teachers are also waiting for uh a salary schedule for uh some reason as another teacher said earlier give us some reason to be happy to come to work in the morning besides the feeling good that we're helping students of course that's what is a major motivator for most teachers but we also live in the real world we need to pay our bills we need to be able to uh make it in this crazy Valley where the prices just keep going up and up and we see no change in our salaries over the course of years and years so help out the counselors help out the teachers we can't be emotional support when we're emotional wrecks our next speaker is Sandra Rivera Rivera we have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin good evening members of the board I would just like to say that during this unprecedented time these counselors have been a tremendous help to us and I would like to see a way for us to move forward to keep unit members and the counseling staff um as regular as possible especially in the the elementary school level and in all grade levels if you don't have somebody that's consistent it's very hard to build trust and so to have the consistency of not Contracting this out like we have in the past every year we saw new counselors coming in and while it's great to have the support that we had had in the past if we can have regular staff counselors and support staff that are part of our school district that are hired and our actual alumrock employees that this program has brought in it is tremendous in what we will be able to conquer and accomplish together that way the kids not having to build that trust every year with a new person coming in so please continue to do this work please continue to bring staff in so that we can get lower student to staff ratios and please continue to do it so that they are part of our our school district and not contracted out thank you so much our next speaker is brenos missos you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin thank you um hi again my name is R Dez and um I just want to thank the for this presentation that gave uh really good information on what our students go through and I love the next steps um something to look forward to to see that we will be looking into Partnerships with community-based organizations and most importantly I think self-care series for parents we don't often think about them or our staff um it's been a tough year there's been a lot of Mental Health crisis with our students and I think that we really need need to focus on this area as the top priority for our students even our teachers and staff um consistency is one of the things that I will say and agree with that we do need and not only that we need full-time counselors that are in one site when we have counselors that go to to three sites it takes away that dedication to that school because they're having to go to another school and our students need full-time counselors so I really I really want to urge you guys to think about that just having someone that is in all School sites full-time I know that costs money but if we can get Partnerships and maybe programs that can help us do that um I think our teachers and staff and students will appreciate that again I want to thank you for this and I I do think that this is a really important subject um for our students who've been at home for a whole year almost two years coming back to school um and we don't know what situations they were at home so this is something great and I just want to thank you guys for this and I look forward to seeing all the great things that will be happening in our schools thank you now president at this time we have no more public comment thank you Mr Travis um okay I'm going to go ahead and open it up to the trustees any questions comments concerns on this item uh trusty Travis I'm glad to see that the teachers and the students most of all are getting the support and I heard one of the teachers say that if they can continue this um I for one will be asking for that later thank you thank you uh trusty with yes thank you I want to um first of all thank the team for the presentation um which gives us a very good background or understanding of what the work has been to this point and where we're going with this um and I want to remind everyone I guess in some sense that what we're doing here I mean there's other districts that do similar work but I feel like a lot of what we're doing the the things that have been um put into place the strategies and and and protocols and everything that staff and everyone has put together are in many ways groundbreaking um you know there's not a lot of districts that have this extensive or this robust of a program that we have and and I hear a lot of the comments of how it might even be better and I think that you know we're definitely can move in that direction and I want but I also kind of want to kind of remind people that um couple things number one typically the charge of a district obviously is to educate students and so traditionally you know the emphasis would be on those academic um Pursuits which obviously we want to do but we know that in our district it you can't it's almost it's very difficult to proceed forward with the academics when there's so much socially emotional I'm I think I'm preaching to the choir for our our whole Community we know that and so you know the fact that we have put this stuff in place it it's it's just a reminder that the there are resources that we need to devote to this we love doing this we love moving in this direction um but it takes resources it takes Partnerships and it takes all the hard work and strategy that we've been doing but resources go this way so this you know just to kind of fill in the picture of the where the challenges come for us as a board and a district team when we want to you know invest in so many different parts of our district and this is one example of a of a high priority for us that takes resources um and the other just last thing I wanted to say is that you know I've I've worked for the county and and mostly in child protect services for 25 years now and most of that time I've always advocated for our Eastside kids and families because ever since I've worked there there's always been a disproportionate number of children that come into the child welfare system from our area um and a conversation I had with Dr bar this week kind of had me reflecting on on the work that that we're doing here in the district with our department is that we're not only by doing this work we're not only impacting first of all just the day-to-day lives of children and parents and teachers even um but we're we're not only at um impacting in their academics because as they take care of themselves they can focus on their academics but potentially we're impacting generational cycles of involvement in the child welfare system because if we can address at this level um and from a preventative approach some of the issues that exist in our community we can prevent these children from coming into the child welfare system where outcomes are quite often not good for our family and children are are traumatized in many ways in that system so I just want us to recognize that this work although it certainly is having impact on our directly on our on our district and academics it's bigger than that the work that you're all doing is is in my opinion much bigger generationally in terms of Children and Families being safe in this Eide community so I want to thank everyone that's worked on this for all those reasons and I look forward to where we're going thank you trusty veano and just as a probation officer who hasn't been silent about about this and also breaking that pipeline to prison right and um knowing that it starts at a much younger age um similar to what you're saying you know just adding to that that they're not just keeping them from this you know your the social services but also keeping them from you know uh going into juvenile and eventually prison I mean it really directs them and I know they know this but I also just want to you know thank them for everything they're doing um as Leaders you know both of you who presented today and then everybody that's there I'm glad that some tuned in for the meeting um who are doing the work you know every second that you spend with that child you know um that impact that it has so I just want to reiterate that you know thank you from uh the bottom of my heart um somebody who's in in law enforcement and is working my way out of a job you know that one day I get that call that there's no more crimes being committed again you know no more youth being um detained uh because we've learned how to heal at a younger age so thank you so much um I'm gonna go ahead and uh turn it over to trusty fam okay uh first of all uh I want to thank the social and emotional learning team Dr Amazon Dr artigas for for moving so far so fast uh I actually work in a educational counseling position so you know that the Maxim in the education is it's better to intervene early than to intervene later because Miss uh mistakes are a lot more costly to a child as they get older it it it's but it's sad that it's but that that's how you know how life comes about you know kind of like in academics I'd rather have a student mess up in high school go to the Community College and then transfer rather than flunk out in college because that's a much financially that's a much more damaging life event than at the high school so you know you guys are in a sense changing the direction of the lives of our kids for the better you know before you before these problems get bigger and just a little anecdote uh for Dr alazon uh you handle an incident the day that I did my site visit aptitude at gos and when Dr Bower told me about it prior to arriving that oh my what you know uh you know that that's you know and believe me gos is you know I started out Goss the the Cubbies in the kindergarten rooms are the exact same Cubbies I used 30 years ago so uh I I wanted to to commend you and your team for handling that situation uh so very professionally and in a way that it did not dis it was not a larger disruption uh to the school site that day so uh uh thank you for what you've done now and I I want to keep up the good work and you know hopefully where this where we have the wherewithal you know yes we we should whether it be getting a grand extension or trying you know hopefully if our fiscal condition improves find Space so we can continue to support this very important priority thank you trusty famam um and sening other hands I have one question um I know that uh the schools that you've been at are um outlined on the presentation um I'm wondering if in this funding is it going to allow for other schools are we looking for um additional funding I know we talked about Partnerships and things like that the next steps in the back um but in this specific one are we looking to adding schools we actually um in our narrative um president Etta Letta we included all schools these are just a snapshot of what which schools we were able to serve in in you know in in such a um in a time where the need was was great and we wanted to show you the response um that we had taken um because the need was so great but uh we we have all schools included in this particular Grant and it is not it is not just Elementary or juste middle school it's it's our entire District entire District okay um and I'm I'm you know because the need is so huge right and um even if we had I think one full-time staff at every school it still wouldn't be enough um I'm sure um but are are we looking at because I know this is for three years right this specific Grant is for three years um are we looking at uh whether it's if it's a possibility of extending this grant or bringing in additional grants so that we don't have to to end it after the three years and we can keep that going according to this particular Grant um we uh must use all the funds by the third by the end of the third year um there is no extension however um we we have been uh looking and applying actually as we speak uh to additional grants and the most recent one uh that we had submitted was to the Department of Justice for another Grant and uh we will not be hearing from them until probably closer to maybe December um is what I was told so keep your fingers crossed that we are awarded that Grant so it will uh help continue the efforts that we have started okay thank you so much and that that was all the questions I had um if I don't see any other hands we'll go ahead um and uh move forward I know we're probably in middle of our agenda so maybe a bio break would be good thank you both for your presentation and thank you for your work and your leadership um and please thank the team on our behalf as well thank you thank you um so we've been here for a long time I think it's good for uh to get a little bio break water break whatever you might need um fresh air break uh but maybe we should extend the time already because we'll definitely be here past 10:30 um and since we can only extend it once I think it's uh proper to extend it a little bit further than what we think we might go to and if we need the time we'll use it and if we don't then we won't I know I've been doing pretty good about trying to keep it under you know at an early time but this one I think we'll go long um so any suggestions as far as time before we take a vir break 12 Dr bar you think that's sufficient time um we I'm sorry I missed the time the time 12 midnight I think so yeah okay so that's as late as we can go anyway isn't it 11 actually I think it's 115 1159 okay you're okay uh Chavez with 11:59 I just remember going till 3 in the morning you know back in the day so 11:59 sounds good um um trusty Travis if I don't see any opposition to that we'll leave it at 11:59 um let's take a 10minute bio break so we'll be back here at 10:17 we have to take official action to extend it oh can I get a motion motion two second second that's for the extension correct motion for the extension to 11:59 all right second by trusty Chavez um and we'll see you back here at 1017 we need to vote oh God yes public comment sorry okay um let's open it up for public comment uh Mr traveis anybody wishing to uh address this item I see no public coming I'll wait a couple seconds any now still there okay so we'll vote uh trusty B hi trusty hi trusty Chavez hi vice president GTO hi and myself I okay now we'll take a 10 minute bio break 10:18 I we'll see you back here at 10:18 thank you welcome back welcome back all right looks like we have Quorum looks like we're all back not sure but hanano is probably there in the background somewhere um let's see we need to call uh roll call oh we just moveed forward it's you already recall Ro at the beginning of the meeting correct can you hear me uh vice president GTO I can't hear you I can hear you check our audio too good I'm sry we're checking our audio can't hear you you can't hear me no hello can you hear me no so maybe your audio your speakers or something I can we can hear him we can all hear you can you say something I can hear him yeah we I think you're the only one who AIO I can hear yes sorry about that okay I just saying that you called it was me I hardly wear my earphones but since I'm sharing room and uh we have some private matters to discuss today I decided to wear my earphones okay my fault I we're back all right and I see all of us back um all right moving on to item 701 approve ratify tentative agreement between the Elam Rock Elementary School District and California School employee Association chapter 305 for the period of July 1st 2020 through June 30th 2022 move to approve by Vice second I just see Mr fam raise your hand and say second um okay so let's go to the public comment first and then we'll come back for any questions comments concerns uh Mr Chavez can you help us with the public comment yes M president at this time I see no public comment we'll wait a couple seconds do we now still now okay all right uh coming to the trustees any questions comments concerns all right seeing none uh we'll go ahead and uh go to vote trusty Bano hi trusty fam hi hi vice president GTO hi trusty Chavez hi and myself I passes unanimously next item 702 approve classified substitute rate fees move approval second move to approve by Vice pres second by trusty fam all right uh we'll go ahead and open it up for a public comment at this time Mr Chavez this time we have no public com okay we'll wait a couple seconds do we now uh still none okay seeing none uh we're go ahead and move on for trustees questions comments concerns see none we'll go ahead and move on to the vote trusty Verano hi trusty fam hi vice president GTO hi trusty Chavez hi and myself I passes unanimously uh 703 resignations only uh for information only um I'll go ahead and still open it up for public comment Mr Travis uh yes Madam president at this time we have no public com okay I'll wait a couple seconds do we know still no okay seeing none uh coming back to the trustees any questions comments concerns all right right seeing none it's on for information only so we'll go ahead and move on to item 801 um and Dr president it's listed as consent it's advertised consent so I would ask that we approve the consent uh contracts over $100,000 okay and we're talking about 801 through 803 correct correct yeah so move to approved by vice president GTO second second uh uh I'll trusty Chavez because you both said it at the same time so second by trusty Chavez and then I see trusty Beano hand up I just I just want to confirm that I saw that too I just want to confirm that we can do that I don't recall this area having that before but want to make sure we're good okay yes we're good uh Mr Dre yes as part of the consent calendar that's fine okay even though it's separate from the actual consent calendar on 10 item or section 10 maybe I just maybe we have seen it before and I just don't recognize it but okay well if it's good it's good thank you sure no problem uh we'll go ahead and open it up for any public comments on any of these items 801 through um yes Madam president this time I see no public comment okay we'll wait a couple of seconds do we know still not okay so I'll go ahead and bring it back to the trustees any questions comments concerns right seeing none we'll go ahead and uh take it to the vote uh we'll start with trusty Bano hi uh vice president kto Hi trusty Chavez hi trusty men hi sorry my screens keep changing and I don't know why but myself I passes unanimously all right moving on to uh 901 approve contract extension for 2021 uh with achieve kids move approve approve second move to approve by vice president GTO second by trano all right we'll go ahead and open it up for public comment Mr Chavez uh no public comments at this time okay we'll wait a couple seconds any now still none okay we'll go ahead and bring it back trustees any questions comments concerns seeing none we'll go ahead and take it to the vote uh trusty Beano I trusty Keno I trusty Chavez hi trusty fam hi and myself I passes unanimously 902 move to approve approve was that Chavez second you moved you moved to approve thank youo and then I heard everybody else second but we'll go ahead and go with truste Chavez uh second um all right uh let's go ahead and open it up for public comment at this time Mr Chavis any members of the public wish to address support on this item uh no public comment at this okay well wait count a couple seconds any now uh still none okay uh we'll come back to the trustees any questions comments concerns on this item seeing none we'll go ahead and take it to the vote trusty Beano hi trusty fam hi vice president GTO hi trusty Chavez hi and myself by pass unanimously three contract 2022 2122 being together sound really garbled is that just me or I can't hear her either for me am I back or no you're back now huh okay all right get ready uh vice president GTO because you might have to take it on if I go out okay next item move to approve 2122 think together Mo approval second move to approv by vice president GTO second by sounded like everybody else we'll go we'll go with Chavez thank you for speaking for me you can be president again one of these days Chavez you can be I just want to terrify it was actually it was actually me but I'll defer to trust each other thank you all all right for purposes of moving forward trusty Chavez this time second the motion we'll go ahead and open it up for public comment uh Mr Chavez yes pres we have one speaker all right you have two minutes please unmute yourself when you begin speaking the timer will begin can you hear me now yes yes so and behalf of all the um Union guys Teamsters I'm very thankful for um the opportunity to to do more for our subs I know the money is going to be increased for the subs um now we can have more subs we need it in the district thank you and the money is going to go for theot we really need all the equipment is going to be by with that money and I really thank you all and then honestly the bo is very entertaining I like it I like it thank you we have uh no more speakers at this time Madam president thank you Mr Chavez uh thank you yes y we like having you here too is all right um so coming back to the board any questions comments concerns on this item in relation to think together all right seeing none we'll go ahead and open up for a vote uh starting with trusty Chavez hi trusty Beano hi trusty famam I vice president GTO I and myself I moving on to 904 approve extension for 2021 with some belt Staffing motion to approve 904 please everybody I heard everybody all right second uh we'll go ahead and move to approve by trusty Chavez second by vice president GTO uh we can uh open it up for public comment at this time Mr Chavez can you help us with public comment on this item yes no public comment at this time all right I'm gonna uh count a few seconds any now still none okay coming back to trustees any questions comments concerns on this item all right seeing none we'll go ahead and go to the vote trusty fam hi trusty Chavez hi trusty Beano I vice president kto I and myself I all right consent calendar okay M the hold on one second u i see uh trusty F raising his hand yes move to approve the entirety of consent calendar items 10.01 through 10.08 second it was second by trust St kto is the okay so let's go and open up for public comment at this time on items 10:1 through 10:08 Madame President I'm sorry yes Dr b i I just have to remind the board that this amend this agenda was amended to add item 109 it was amended on Monday and just to remind everybody that um we alerted everybody and so I I feel that we're not you know following the on board dogs so that's okay we just want to make sure that 10:09 is the school field trips for the year for the science camps for two schools adante one and adant two uh I I'd be willing to amend it to include 10.09 second person person and second vice president I think that was you you're good all right I see a thumb up all right thank you Dr Barber for that reminder yes we do remember and I only have one screen so yes thank you for catching that uh all right so open it up to public comment at this time Mr Chavis any members of the public wishing to address the board on 10:01 through 10:09 no public comment at this okay we'll wait a couple seconds any now still now all right bringing it back to the board any questions comments concerns from the board I see trusty Chavez with her hand up trusty Chavez whoops sorry I didn't put it down okay no worries um anybody body else I don't see anyone else we'll go ahead and go to the uh vote uh trusty fam hi vice president kto Hi trusty Chavez hi trusty Bano hi and myself I passes unanimously all right so close session um Dr bow how long do you think we'll be in closed session um before we um yeah break I think about an hour no more than an hour okay hopefully less so be back here by 11:30 or should we say 11:15 11:30 okay so 11:30 um any uh announcements that need to be made before breaking just going down the public comment on the items in close comment okay but no announcements on our part before I open it up for public comment okay all right opening it up to public comment Mr Chavez any public comment on any items in close session no public comment at this time Madam president okay we'll wait a couple [Music] seconds any no still not okay all right so we'll close to public comment and then come back here at 11:30 p.m.

[Music] so [Laughter] so [Music] wow [Music] no no no no [Music] hello [Music] [Applause] [Music] boys [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] down [Music] so [Music] now [Music] uh [Music] so [Music] okay we will now reconvene the meeting of october 14th from closed session i would like to ask our student representative to the board of trustees abdullah fatah he to lead us in the pledge of allegiance and then give us the moment of put silence right hand over your heart ready begin i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all right hello everyone just a few years ago our entire community came together closer than we ever have but this time virtually a lot of people lost their jobs communities and support systems in a matter of days i'm sure every single person here or watching has been affected by coven 19 in some way shape or form as a community we have fought so hard against this new reality that it has be it seems will continue to be our new normal it is now october 14th 2021 and just in anaheim we have lost 965 amazing souls to this awful virus we will continue to fight against this just like just like the students of our district do every day and with each day that passes we will remember and cherish their lives and how they impacted our city and our district i now want to take a brief moment of silence to honor their lives and the lives of their loved ones who now carry on their story thank you now before we go on to our closed session report i slipped up and i failed to say good evening everyone and thank you for coming i was slipping up on my manners here okay mrs smith would you read the uh actions taken during closed sessions 4.1 no reportable action taken regarding public employee performance evaluation superintendent 4.2 no reportable action taken regarding negotiations 4.3 no reportable action taken regarding personnel 4.4 the board of trustees unanimously voted to dismiss employee hr-2021-22-04 4.5 the board of trustees unanimously voted to appoint karen orr as executive director of fiscal services effective september 27 4.6 the board of trustees unanimously voted voted to appoint patty neely as executive director of facilities effective october 15 2021.

so that you, the voter, can make an informed voting decision. Again, if you're interested in being a league member, we're not paid people. We're all kind of just love this. This is what we do for all our side time when we're away from our families um running forums like this. But if you are interested, please see one of the ladies, get one of our membership brochures, sign up, or go to lwvpppr.org. Thank you to Academy District 20, Tina Matson, the communications department, District 20 Security, the League of Women Voters at the Pikes Peak Region Voter Service Team volunteers that you've seen several places tonight, the Liberty High School AP government students that are collecting your questions and checking those cards. And of course, thank you all for just being here tonight and all of you for volunteering. I have a disclaimer. Actually, we've added to our disclaimer since last week's forum.