Good evening. My name is Nikki Smith and I'm coming to you tonight directly from Carl Sandberg High School where I serve as a paraprofessional educator with our wonderful special needs students by day and co-direct the spring musical in the evening. I am also a proud graduate of Carl Sanber High School in 2010 with Miss Susan Dalton's daughter, dear friend of mine. >> when I was enrolled in honors French 3, honors German 4, and honors Spanish 5 all at once. I then took and passed all uh AP tests in all three languages. went on to become a pastor, studying Hebrew and Greek, traveling the world, teaching and preaching in all three languages. I should say four, including English. I mostly do English now. I also went on to learn Mandarin and a bit of Cantonese while working for four years in Chicago's Chinatown. I mention all of this because it has been brought to my attention that members of our community have repeatedly brought to this school board the topic of adding Arabic to our world languages curriculum and has repeatedly been met with deferral or obfuscation about the complexity of learning or teaching this language.
We want don't want to compare ourselves to other schools because their needs are going to be different. Their social economic stats is going to be different. Their ENL population is going to be different. So I think it's important to always um compare us to those top 30. I believe I have that I think um if I remember correctly the state average is 48%. And um one of our schools is at 40 and one of our schools is at 42. >> There was a question how many credits? >> Yeah. Like like >> n walking into high school with the Yeah. >> To get the credit I guess from the GPS that the GPS is measuring it has to be two credits. So for like each semester of a high school course and we don't want to our intention here isn't to push more kids into high school credits if they're not ready for it.
And what we have done with that was we started with our administrative team. And we began by doing some research and listening to some podcasts as a group and really doing some activities around unpacking the idea of if you go back a few years, people feeling guilty if they use chat GPT to get some of their work done. And then um we introduced it to teachers using a segment that was on CBS mornings. It was a clip about two newscasters who used uh chat GPT to plan a trip to Las Vegas. And so we got folks kind of interested in that and seeing how they could could do that. Last year actually a year ago tomorrow, March 20th, we had an entire professional learning day devoted to the impact of AI in schools. We had M Matt MVIS attend. He is from Ed Advance. He's sort of Connecticut's guru and runs the chat edu podcast.
>> That's further up. >> Okay. So, you're not touching any space near the javelin. >> You're not touching I guess >> field for the discus. I just >> Yeah. That throw area where the discus is. So, if if to orient you as you're coming down, you're looking at the concession stand. >> The first what we would call a practice football field or the first field there. That's where the discus >> the discus cage is. Got it. Okay, I see. I was thinking it was on your right hand side and you'll see that that is netted >> and right now we're grandfathered in because of with the age of the facility from when that project was last done. But um so when I had spoken to Kevin, I kind of my my big concern is >> it. >> Yeah. Okay. Okay. >> This is what you know got typical.
Are there any questions or comments from board members? No. Seeing none, then could I have a roll call, please? Mr. Yates. >> Mr. Dear, excuse me. On administrative items, Mr. Dearcy, >> yes. >> Mr. Fischer, >> yes. >> Misselli, >> yes. >> Mr. Conton, >> yes. >> Mr. Masson, >> yes. >> Mr. Peeleman, >> yes. >> Miss Moitz, >> yes. >> And Mrs. Null, >> yes. >> That motion carries. Okay, thank you. We'll move on to item eight, curriculum and instruction. I need a motion to approve items 8.1 through 8.5. Do I have a motion? Mr. Fischer, second by Miss Ber Mowitz.
Arabic can be successfully taught and learned. It is being done right now at Oaklan High School, one of our neighbors. Aside from recently ending the Latin program, our world languages curriculum has not been diversified or broadened in almost 50 years. But our student body and surrounding community has and our curriculum ought to reflect that. In my experience, the single most effective strategy in language learning is the opportunity to apply what you learn in the class in your community. I learned Spanish by applying what I learned in the class at local Takaras. I learned German through applying what I learned in class by going to Austria through Sandberg's exchange program. With so many Arabic speaking neighbors, local restaurants and coffee houses, we now more than ever have the perfect opportunity for our students to apply what could be taught in the class in their lives. But it needs to be taught in the classrooms first.
That's not our intention. Our intention is to >> Exactly. make it make it more available. So we're obviously going to have to do that with the new requirements with math. So there's going to be more eighth graders taking high school algebra than in the past. And then we've had some discussions and there's, you know, a prediction that there'll probably be more students looking to maybe take Spanish and potentially French because that's a direct admit to the college, the colleges in Indiana through this new pathways. So, >> so it's more about providing the opportunity, we want you to have five hours. >> No, it's not that. >> It's not that. >> So, the next question kind of is, can the high school? Are we talking 10 students? Are we talking 50 students? >> Well, they would be taking course work at the middle school in most cases for high school.
Um they shared a number of tools with us. We tried to focus our understanding on durable assessments and talked about AI bias and and all that is incumbent upon teachers not using AI and knowing that AI has that bias and talked about hallucinations. um our technology coordinator who I think I've referred to at least twice tonight, Scott Conway. He has also created a plethora of quick quick bites he calls them, which are a live stream little live stream PDS that he does for teachers who can kind of self-pace on how to use Gemini and intro to AI. Uh we are using the Google workspace and so within our platform we are able to use Gemini and notebook LM. Some of our staff has also pursued an AI micro credential with Ed Advance and SA uh Southern Connecticut State University. Dodd Middle School division leaders Kristen Giuliano and Christristine Castellano have attended some workshops as well.
>> Yeah. No, that makes sense. I get that. Um so I'm just curious. Basically what we're talking about in terms of actual square footage sort of cuts off here and goes south for >> you're not touching the field up there. No, >> it's just you're touching E. >> Are you doing the you mentioned E, but I don't think you mentioned C. The long jump. >> So that wasn't re the long jump and the pole vault weren't redone in 2011. I think they just received new rubber surfacing. >> Okay. >> Um >> so you're going to do those projects. And so the only so where the javelin doesn't really matter what you said is not >> that that's newer construction. It used to be here. It was displaced when we which we also did this memorial plaza. >> Okay. So it's basically everything inside the correct >> driveway plus the discus spot.
Are there any questions or comments from the board on items 8.1 through 8.5? No. >> Okay. Mr. Yates, roll call, please. >> On curriculum and instruction, Mr. Dearcy. >> Yes. >> Mr. Fischer. >> Yes. >> Minelli. >> Yes. >> Mr. Conton. >> Yes. >> Mr. Massen. >> Yes. >> Could you say it again? >> Yes. Extension 8.3. Yes to everything else. >> Your abstension is to 8.3 is notice. >> Mr. Pman, >> yes. >> Miss Moitz, >> yes. >> And Mrs. Null. >> Yes. >> That motion carries. >> Thank you. I know this may be irregular to do, but I see Mr. Brie and Mr. Delasy. I know it's getting late. You have early morning, so it looks like you may want to leave. Oh, >> have a seat. >> That would be >> all. >> Now, listen, that would be perfectly acceptable, but I did not want you to leave without everybody standing up.
I would love to see us add Polish as well, but one at a time. I am not the first to bring this up and at this stage any further tableabling of this discussion without seeing progress is a result of either negligence or prejudice. But I know better. I know District 230. It made me We are neither negligent nor prejudiced. We are capable. We are committed and we are beautifully diverse. So, dear school board, your community has repeatedly requested that Arabic be taught in our schools. I ask you to put in the work and help make it happen. It will take innovation. It will take empathy. It will take leadership. But that is who we are. We can do this. Thank you. Our next speaker is AJ Kerr.
>> Go over. >> Well, no. Our teacher, we have teachers in house that can teach those courses. So, we already have teachers that teach algebra obviously, but they would have more sections. We already have a Spanish teacher in both middle schools that teaches three periods each and she has additional three periods that we could theoretically increase the Spanish one numbers. So, those are just a couple examples. >> Yeah. Another thing with that is when we start working with our our students and our stakeholders, you know, community parents and staff, um we want to look at, you know, are those opportunities being given to um all types of students, right? Um are we only offering those opportunities to certain students that can meet certain criteria? um have we expanded upon those courses to meet um different um you know different interests and and different types of students and so that piece right there is also to us and I'm sure we'll spend a lot of time talking about that with our families >> and in the high school Tracy will very much be a part of those conversations because we have to look at that articulation from 12 >> from perspective from a diploma perspective when we talk about credits earned and the seal.
And as of last week, one of our school psychologists and a math teacher from the high school also represented Cheshure at um a digital well-being conference. So, we have a number of centralized resources. We have a web page that was devoted to all of the tools that we're currently using. We are not using a student AI platform. That is not something that we're even pursuing at this time because of the exorbitant cost per student. That really puts guard rails around what students can do. And at that point, you can ask them to use a particular platform to utilize AI. That's that's not something that we can do at this point. Our um our focus has been on making sure that teachers understand how to use it and our next meeting with the committee is in May and we're really looking at student AI literacy and we plan to establish competencies for students at certain grade levels so that everyone knows what it is a student can and is able to do or should know.
>> Correct. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Saving. And so as I mentioned full depth replacement was our geotechnical recommendation. and and unfortunately just because it's usually a cost savings, we determine if we can mill the asphalt and blend it into the existing stone. They didn't like what they found with either. It was too silty. Um it'd be too dusty. Um so this is pull out I believe 8 in the track surfacing the asphalt and then 8 in 6 to 8 in of material and put in all new >> and that recommendation. >> What's the new material? The new material is process aggregate based stone. Uh it's probably I would have to check the recommendation. It's either three or 4 inch of asphalt in two courses and then a half inch of rubber. >> It's got to be expensive. >> It adds up. >> Yeah. And you know, we're we're obviously we do the multiple projects like this a year.
And I have to give sincere thank you to all of you in accepting, you know, different positions. And I believe every school is going to be much stronger for it. And I think you should all be commended. >> [applause] >> I didn't I didn't want you to leave without being able to say that. >> The bones. [clears throat] >> Okay. So, let me get back into it. Now, we are going to move to item nine, finance and operations. I need a motion to approve items 9.1 through 9.12. Do I have a motion to approve finance items? Mr. Conton and second by Mr. Peeleman.
>> Good evening everyone. Um topic I'd like to speak about is also languages being offered in schools. And while we have a wonderfully diverse community at District 230, um the Arabic language that is on the table while being offered as a language in district 230, I also know that and that there are large groups of Polish, Irish, Greek, and other other wonderful ethnicities in this district. And I feel if one of those wants from a certain community is met, then every want from every other community is met. So if one language is going to be offered, they all should be offered. And furthermore, I would hope if all of those languages are offered and certain groups get their wants and all the wants are met from them, I would hope it does not take from the wonderful curriculum and education of District 230. Uh, thank you all for your time tonight.
So it this is one small part of the conversation in a much broader 16 when we talk about what would be courses that we think are develop and we would want to offer for high school credit in a middle school setting. Also thinking through what are there programs that we want to build over time. So thinking about project lead engineering so are there that we would middle school that would expand that um exposure for students that could or could not necessarily always be high school credit as well. So, it's it's part of a much broader conversation that needs to take place next year throughout the school year to ensure that we're walking into that eyes wide open. What is what are students interested in? What are teachers interested in? What does the community perceive that a need to be taking all of those factors and looking at lure?
But before we can do that with the students, we need to make sure that the staff has an understanding. So, while our educational goals for students are clear, we really need to acknowledge the complex human element of this initiative, getting adults to embrace a rapidly evolving technology, especially one that they can can feel intimidating, is going to take some time. And we also need to um give acknowledgement to the fact that some people might feel opposed to this because of the impact on the climate and on energy. So, it's a it's a difficult sort of balance, but I think we we need to validate that resistance from staff and be able to make sure there's an understanding amongst all of the adults that AI is a tool. It's here to stay and it will be used by our students as they get into the workforce.
Design um and talking to all the contractors. We're tracking you know anything with oil produced products, urethane, asphalt. We're just keeping an eye on what's going on with that >> and we have been for actually much longer just because of everything else that's going on previously. >> Can I ask a question? >> Sure. >> So this is you haven't touched this but this is one thing that's been on my mind. >> So I feel this project should move forward. Mhm. >> Um, my view is I see this kind of like as a maintenance project, but it's, you've framed it, and I'm guessing you can speak to it, too, in terms of safety. So, I'm a dad. I don't use this. We didn't have it when we were in high school. >> Cinder. >> So, from a safety Well, I'm not talking about the track. I'm talking about the turf.
Are there any questions or comments on finance and operations? >> Oh, I'm so sorry, Mr. Pelman. Yes. Go ahead. the part where we would go to approve the budget. Um I just want to reiterate what uh Dr. Smith and Mr. Yates said earlier. This is a tentative budget. This is not the thing that will be presented at uh for our final budget presentation. In all of the last years that I can think of, there has been changes between the tentative budget and the final budget. Um there has been a ton of conversation in the last you know several weeks amongst the board about what this means and what this budget represents. There is a lot of work that we still have to do. Uh as they said earlier we have a meeting scheduled for us all to get together to continue working through these things.