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they all held student council positions from huckleberry right through to graduation and each were presidents of their classes this stage hosted graduation speeches by my children and many school plays i'll never forget alex as connected along other roles i was always amazed and proud by their courage i could never have run for an office or been in a play at their tender age but fast forward in many years of volunteering i was the cub scout pac-5 committee chairman classroom helper at huckleberry and again at whiskey year library sunday school teacher deacon yankee fair chairman and business club president all of these positions have helped me to understand one person can make a difference but better yet a team seven years ago steve asked me to run with him the town was in need of steve's leadership finance background and management skills i said yes we can make a difference and we have we've moved the needle on getting four corners started after 20 years of stagnation after years of complaints and money thrown at hufflepury next year at this time our students are going to be in an art in a uh i'm sorry in a state-of-the-art facility even more important probably is going to return to eight to grades six through eight and no longer using the portals we look forward to that and putting much-needed ball field in this place going forward we've updated the town website to make it easier to navigate and learn what's happening in town our spotlight newsletter is sent over a thousand email addresses the code red system we implemented to keep residents aware during covid communication can still be lacking for some i propose a sign at the new school which will give our residents information on what's happening in town whether it's a football game there's an election there's something going on there's hope and shots at the town hall so please i would love to hear that if i get your vote and have another two years thank you thank you i would now like to invite third party candidate first selectman austin ontario to introduce yourself all right good evening everybody how are you doing tonight good good all right this is a good thing uh so i thank the youth commission first of all for putting this event on uh you guys are truly inspiring me i think the future of this country is gonna be better off with uh more folks like yourself getting involved in an early age i wish i did this at actually uh so with that being said we'll take a little different approach tonight i'm not going to talk about my resume or what we've done obviously i'm running as an unaffiliated candidate so i want to get into my why and why i decided to run before first celebrity i kept coming back to three goals in my mind that i that i wanted to accomplish that was of the utmost importance to me in this run the first one is to increase increased voter turnout and political awareness our debate the big news last week got 1800 views which i think is incredible for our first selectman debate in brookfield and i truly think on november 2nd we're going to have a record turnout four votes this election season which is awesome so that was my number one goal number two to redefine politics here locally to salvage democracy here locally i'm sure i know we're all here on facebook it's getting very divisive um a lot of things that aren't pushing us forward we're moving us left we're moving us right we need to move forward together right it has to stop now i could i couldn't sit around anymore and just watch and play from the sidelines we have to get involved i also want to supply our change and and these sparkles we bring more people younger people like the youth commission and people my age to get involved into politics i think we have a lot to offer we come from a totally different generation we grew up in a total different culture and mindset than our current politicians at all levels we need new voices we need a lot the same old same old just is not cutting it anymore and finally my mindset every day is to do what's right not what's easy this is the mindset that's driven me for the past 20 years during this campaign as of many things in life especially as a third party candidate people tell you you know you can't win people tell me you're splitting the votes people tell me you don't know enough people they just say you're just the gym owner they want me to be quiet they want you to be quiet they don't want change they want you to quit but if we quit when it gets hard we will have no progress and my answer to them is that it is that simple we can't make a difference and we're not stopped we're going to follow our heart we'll take action and we're going to do what's right not what's easy one click one quick platform piece like to get out there uh it's a lot of talk i'm going to be giving back the fifteen thousand dollars salary that the first election is getting is elected and we're going to give it to a scholarship for one of the brookfield high school students graduating uh starting next year if elected that'll be an every year thing we'll encounter the name with it and it's not necessarily for a four-year university it'll be for a trade school or any other kind of continuing education so we're all about the kids want to provide an opportunity for all the hard work that they do so thank you guys and uh thank you everyone for coming tonight appreciate it thank you um youth commission has come up with two questions per board that we would like the candidates to address and the first question you would like the candidates to address is what is the most important thing we can do to address the social and economic needs of the town's youth i would like to invite first block and candidate steve dunn from the democratic party to address this question for two minutes thank you thank you the board is selected and sets the goals policies and direction of the town and because of that and the work we're doing i'll give you a perfect example instead of just deciding how we're going to spend the money ourselves of the caspian harriet or selected media we formed a diverse group of 10 people to take in all the ideas of what we should do in town with advisors from the board of finance board of selectmen and board of education we try to involve as many people as possible in the process of helping our town move forward that committee is charged with coming back to us with the best ideas for what to do with the five million dollars in our money that we're getting i don't think three people should decide what to do with that money i think as many people in the town should be involved we've gotten dozens of requests and we've also gotten dozens of suggestions and a lot of them really good a couple of them were a little odd in my opinion but it shows people in this town care they really want to do what's right when uh this pandemic started the nights and the town started brookfield recovers we raised over 70 000 to help our neighbors it's all through donations from you from our residents it's not a penny from the town not a penny in grants it's all money from people in brookfield wanting to help their neighbors that's what we do in brookfield we help our neighbors we did it in the macroverse we've done it in a pandemic and we're going to continue to do it as long as you elect sue and i thank you thank you i would like to invite third party candidate austin montero to address this question for two minutes could you just ask that one more time for me question what is the most important thing the to board of social and economic needs of the town's youth so great yeah great question so i think i understand touched that in my opening with creating that scholarship program for brookfield high school graduates and again we're going to perform a committee and we'll try to find the right components to figure out who is best suited for but again it'll be a four-year school trade school or any continuing education uh to touch on what steve said the american wrestling plans funds money i'd love i brought this up during the debate to create uh some more public health here in town some real public health for the youth we need more activities for the youth i coach a lot of these kids here in town coach a few that are playing volleyball right now in the other room i find the activity and the physical exercise that they do will carry over to them being better people and being able to form better relationships and being able to just live happier healthier lives so i think that's a lacking problem i think the biggest problem in the world but that's something we need to focus on and we have five million dollars that we can do that with so again the scholarship is huge and using that money to help public health and help our youth as much as possible thank you thank you i would love to invite republican candidate in the first election tara carr to address this question for season so i'm going to stay seated i like to speak with people and not talk at people um i'm very relatable and approachable and that's something that i'd like for everybody to know so um in order to better understand the social social and economic needs to address the towns used there has to be open communication that's first and foremost if the senior leadership of the town is unaware of what those issues are we have a problem at the get-go right out of the gate so i think there is a lack of communication in town and sue elaborated on that that we could do much better in that area as far as being more transparent and having um a better understanding of what the needs of our town are so it starts with that mr dunn commented on the arc of funds um 2.5 million of which we already have in this town which hasn't been allocated they set up the ad hoc committee this money should already be distributed for those needs especially when it comes to addressing the problems that our youth are having um that payout isn't due in full to the town until 2020 so essentially it could be the 5 million dollars could be held on to for another two years which is horrifying because there are people in town who need it now regarding scholarship programs um yeah more of that would be fantastic like mr montero said but going back to my introduction i think study abroad programs for diversifying our youth and introducing more current foreign languages i don't know if you all know this about me but i speak chinese and it's very important to be able to relate to diverse cultures that occupy and live in our town we're lacking sports fields to include baseball fields mainly in part because the two fields at huckleberry were demolished a skate park was brought up and if that's a grassroots endeavor that's fantastic the greenway expansion and workout areas along that path are a fantastic idea for helping our youth and also employment postcoded if we can get our youth working and involved in our community that would be fantastic thank you [Applause] [Music] thank you uh first i want to applaud the positions that we do have available right now and that is brookfield cares uh that's been in town for many years now it's helped a lot of students as well as parents uh we also have the head of the youth commission and i want to thank liam for bringing that back to us in the last couple of years it's been a great you know mentioning coding i mean this is a real problem that we've had for our students um we know that it's been difficult for them to wear the masks it's been difficult for them to be you know learning this at home so i believe that we do need to invest in mental health for our youth that's something that has been lacking and something that's been very neat right now i do applaud the idea of a skate park i think it's a wonderful idea we don't have anything right now for youths in that age group so if we didn't put an outdoor facility for them to go out and get fresh air i think it's wonderful um this is school itself is fantastic i mean i'm the principal from landa our whole entire board of education is doing a fantastic job and i applaud them for all the work that they do and i i'm going to leave you with that thank you i would now like to ask republican candidate for selectmen harry shaker to address this question for two men socially and economically well i'll start with education i think it's no surprise to anyone that children today to me seem a bit more fragile a little bit more inhibited i think a lot of it is due to social media and different things that are going on in schools we need to make sure that our engine that they're not only educated well in the classroom i would like to see our education be more north and south rather than east and west i'm not a fan of teaching as much as we can i'd rather see them go deeper to where they are solid in their in their core horses um and as far as learning how to how to uh be successful whether it be as a parent as a brother as a sister in the work field you need to be able to have confidence and you need to be able to socialize and the extracurricular activities to me are as as important as the classroom we need to make sure that we also i when i was on board about i spent 14 years on the board of education before i was selected and one of the things i try to push is the life skills program where we teach as a core in our educational life skills uh teaching how to run a business how to run a household how to cuddle uh go out and look for work we have a full shot down below to trade so we're going to do the trades you know so many people look down on the trade too who are going to beat the tradesmen um you know they're going to move on there's tons of opportunities out there we have to get these children and kids ready to move on and again we need to go north and south as far as economically we need to make sure that grovefield is the town that they want to come back to we want to make sure that there is housing that they can go into that they will be comfortable in and that's one of the reasons why downtown four corners is such a vital project such an important product excuse me project thank you all right thank you so much i'm the second person to be speaking um so the second question we have um is going to be about sustainability now i'm on what's called the sustainability council which is a council of seniors at my high school and we specialize in well right now we're working with government documents trying to see what is our town done what is the plan to do um with mr dunn um we've met with mr w ford to work on sustainability um we wanted to do that going forward and to propose new initiatives to the school and also through the local government um this is my question um given the recent wave of new developments in brookfield how will you factor sustainability green technology and respect the environment and to your leadership decisions now i'm going to start with mr montero going first sure so the question one more time oh sure um given the recent wave of new developments um how do you factor sustainability green technology and respect for the environment into your leadership decisions sure i think it's very important especially moving forward uh you know climate change is a real thing clearly uh i'm all for green technology uh when it comes to development every every single project is different commercial real estate background and you'll learn that as you go every single project you encounter is going to be different so these things need to be taken into account on a case-by-case basis that should definitely be part of the decision-making process the green piece of it the sustainability piece of it and how it affects our environment and climate that should be a huge piece of it i am pro-development i don't want to see developments stop here in brookfield i think we have some other areas that we can develop correctly as far as the cornfield area and the berkshire corporate park i know we have 75 acres up there that we can develop i think growth is a good thing i think brookfield is going to continue to grow and i think uh that's natural that's what we want to have happen we can't go back on time like i said earlier we have to go forward in time and we have to do it the right way taking into account all these facets that were just brought up in this question thank you now we're gonna have um first election candidate for republicans um mrs [Music] respect for the environment is vital where nobody is denying that and it is obviously um a big part of the equation as your generation moves forward because all of us will be moving on and it will be in your hands youth commission and your children my children my grandchildren um as it pertains to brookfield [Music] sustainability is very important and i commend the brookfield high schoolers who are part of the initiative to work on the sustainability the name of the actual uh committee is lacking right now but um greg gambowski's the mentor of that program and i've sat at board of selectmen meetings where steve dunner has um invited them to pursue earning higher status in the town and working on their goals to make sure brookfield remains sustainable and can incorporate projects and programs i think that's an absolute fantastic program so i commend the high schoolers efforts in that regard regarding brookfield itself and green technology yes i'm a huge proponent of that i love going to the mall and seeing how they have the charging stations for electric vehicles and i understand that that's an initiative across connecticut i am a huge fan of that um i think if you go north into litchfield county we look at all the land trust they have in place and that to me is is very um important and unfortunately we're lacking that space here in brookfield while i am not anti-development i'm also very pro-good development and i think there's a fine line with what that means um for example there's a plot of land behind the new del primo shopping center if you look up back up on the ridgeline that's um could potentially be developed it's zoned for a large amount of units and that's just another plot of land as an example that will be trees will be torn down and we'll have more apartment buildings so we have to really take a look at what the balance is between protecting our environment what is sustainable and what's not another great example is candlewood lake um for those of you who don't know we're on the trajectory where the lake could be closed in seven years if we're not careful because we're ruining the environment in that regard thank you all right steve um thank you very much sustainability has been incredibly important in oakville and sue and i started in our and when we first started uh working in the town uh we created a group that worked with hrra we brought in electronics recycling we've done that twice for the last three years we brought in hazardous waste recycling in town free-for-all residents so that you can recycle just in the past six months i don't know if everybody knows this but did you know 25 of your garbage by weight is glass and that ballers pay by time so we put in a glass recycling center at town hall in the parking lot between town hall and the fire department and we can get 25 and glass is endlessly recyclable endlessly so you can take 25 of your garbage and recycle it just by bringing your glass down the town hall the hazardous waste recycling keeps these chemicals out of our storm drains out of backyards and it works really well we've finally two years ago achieved bronze level so the connected sustainability council we are now shooting for silver and i'm working on that right now and you have to do a lot of different things to get silver and gold and our ultimate goal is to become a goal we started to work with the students here at the high school who are really fired up and greg dembowski has been helping them working with the town so we have a good record of this town of people wanting to be sustainable and doing it so thank the town for doing that and i thank you and appreciate it bye um can you please have harry shaker speaker sure with all due respect to stephen so i don't want you to think that i was on sabbatical for the last few years i was part of the programs as well putting these in with recycle and the hazardous waste you know with the glass sometimes i do feel like when you read what's what's out there that i've been on sabbatical i have not if you take a look around there's more residents and there's more businesses using solar heat with the solar panels i think there's a group we have done well in uh with the glass getting the recycling another area which may not be needed as green but something that i think has a real effect it can have effect on our health and it certainly affects ecologically is the flight problem we have in town i think that we need to do a much better job in taking care of the blight we're not going to be able to remove the buildings that are vacant we can't put people in there but we can certainly make sure that properties are maintained that they're safe and they're not in danger to us uh in the middle of the winter i went around and i was able to look at a number of them and they were vacant they were broken open peter's imports every glass was broken out and uh you know i reported to grand valley and you know we have been able to get those cleaned up but there are things that we want to do and that uh terry and i have especially with the buck with blight and i think that we can control it much better as being controlled right now and uh they think that especially in that area where the uh where the uh the construction and the wood uh the street seats is going north of the four corners between four corners and the new milford line we do do a much better job on that thank you [Applause] thank you uh yes as steve mentioned sustainability has been very very important to us when we got into office we have a energy group third ad hoc group we've since raised them up and now they are a committee of many of several people in town and that's what they do is they just look at where can we improve we've changed all the lighting in our town hall libraries something about correct so we're working on that as well we also voted to become a part of the route 7 corridor well they will allow us to put in electrical systems that people can come and charge their cars so again that's something that's very important to us uh let's see we've done the glass you mentioned that um i know we've talked a lot about another thing that we'd like to do is uh bring recycling back over to where the grass cuttings are put and all that that is something that we're looking into we'd like to be able to do that and not rely on either the milford which started charging us way too much money or dan mary who i hear complaints are not very nice people down there so we'd like to bring it into our you know our own area see what we can do there we're working on that as well um [Applause] hello okay thank you so much for your answers um due to time we will not be able to do rebuttals so i would like to now invite the board of education [Applause] uh also during the time our introduction to the board of education will be limited to one minute for canada we'll start with republican candidates for the board of education um i would like to ask cheryl if she would like to introduce herself in one minute hi my name is sharon i've been an educator for at least 30 years i'm sorry sharon i'm sorry i dropped it it's going to be two minutes instead of the one i did that was a mistake okay i think the board of it is one of the most important boards in town because when schools are good your town is successful i think that we need to work on academics as well as the social issues children face even our very young children are confused with what goes on in the world they hear it they hear the news they're wearing a mask and i think that this is new to us it's new to parents it's new to teachers and it's new to the boards we have to start very early in a child's academic life to find out what their needs are and how we can go about helping them even if it means spending more time on the social issues as i said when your schools are good in any camp when your schools are good your town is successful and people want to move here and they want their schools to maintain the positive direction that they're going in thank you but thank you um i would now like to ask the public community candidates for the board of education when they're honored to introduce yourself or tune in hi my name [Music] uh my is and i have enjoyed our beautiful home here in brookfield in our beautiful community for the past 25 years our daughter son-in-law and three beautiful grandchildren live in nevada however we wish they were in the wakefield my background is in theater music and dance where i have been a performer choreographer director teacher and producer for very many years without the fine education and training i had during my school years and throughout my professional life the difficult career that i chose would not have been possible what was so very important beyond the technical scholastic and on-the-job training was the inspiration and impartation from outstanding teachers and of course my parents of a strong work ethic the love of learning and the appreciation for having the freedom to follow my dreams creating a successful life for being raised by my very special immigrant parents in a little town in ohio to the bright lights of broadway took a lot of hard work resourcefulness ingenuity and dedication beyond the arts i have become a successful real estate investor and somehow managed to balance both careers determination and hard work why money for the board of education is because of the youth i'm concerned about youth of america you must be given the support encouragement and the tools you need and it's deal with love of learning the ability to think on your own and with appreciation for freedom in order to achieve your dreams with a strong background in the arts and teaching as well as in business in the big apple and around the country i believe it's all about the youth and i'm here for you thank you i would now like to invite republican candidate for the board of education jointly designed to introduce yourself for tinder good evening my name is joy greenstein and i'm an elementary reading specialist and this is my 21st year of teaching i work with kindergarten through fourth grade students who struggle with reading and writing in addition to teaching i hold many leadership roles at work i've been assistant to the principal i've been head teacher and this is my third year being the district's english language arts curriculum coordinator through this role i write curriculum i align it to the common core state standards and benchmark assessments i provide develop professional development to the staff and i push into classrooms to model lessons and model best practices i'm the vice president of my teachers union and i'm on the negotiations team i run english language arts tutorials before school and i'm the advisor and creator of an after school book club for higher level i've been living in brookfield since 2007 with my husband matthew and our two children vanessa mason for the past 10 years i've been very active in the community doing a variety of different things i was a catechist at st joseph's church and led the children's choir i coached for the brookfield soccer club the brookfield basketball association and then lacrosse club i brought back squad patches of garden at huckleberry and we turned it into an outdoor classroom and we provided years of food for our brookfield residents i spearheaded the product of painting murals and positive themed things on the walls of huckleberry and last spring i led the charge and the spearhead of the eighth grade moving up ceremony and field trips i currently serve on the board of education after being elected in 2017 i'm the chair of facilities subcommittee i want nothing more than to continue the great work of the canada lake elementary school project the boys high school project locker room project getting rid of the portables at wisconsin improving our facilities district-wide and in addition to improving our sports facilities such as a new concession stand and bathroom facilities outside i'm a member of the cape subcommittee i'm a board of liaison of the youth commission and the brookfield education foundation i'm running for reelection because i have a vested interest in our schools and students i want to continue advocating and pushing our district forward in a positive direction i want to continue promoting providing more engaging and diversified opportunities and improving our current programs and studies at the high school we need to improve many things such as our social emotional learning program such as ruler and i believe that i i'm the right person for the job i have respect for the diverse points of view and approach each decision with an open mind i understand that anyone who comes before the board has the right to be heard not just to speak it's my job to build public understanding support and participation free of political bias i prioritize the need to be fiscally responsible while valuing the need to be competitive by hiring and retaining high quality teachers and staff most important i believe in complete transparency thank you i would like to invite democratic candidate for the board of education at the twitter to address them to introduce yourself for two minutes good evening everyone thank you to the youth commission for putting this event together for also for all of us my name is emmanuelish leader most people know me by camera i am originally from brazil i moved to the us in 2003 to improve my english skills then i met my husband and connecticut became my new home we moved to brookfield until 2016 i often say that i am out of my forever home i have three boys ages eight four and two my oldest is a third community revocabiary i studied business administration and finance however i've grown up in a family of educators my mom and aunts are retired teachers in brazil over the past couple of years i've become even more engaged in all matters that relate to children's education i have also worked in the foreign language field for 10 years and great value diversity and inclusion prior to college i've always attended public schools and i strongly believe that all children deserve to have the lasting quality public education my desire to run for the board of ed and help them keep up with the good work they've been doing not only zoom to the fact that my children will benefit from it but it also fulfills the need that i have to continue to contribute to my community in a positive way brookfield is an amazing town and i am truly excited with the opportunity to serve thank you thank you democratic candidate for board of education rosa fernandez to introduce yourself for tomorrow thank you my name is i have lived in brookfield my whole life and i'm now raising my eight-year-old daughter she's a third grader at huckleberry i'm also an adjunct professor at western connecticut state university and an entrepreneur my husband and i are in the middle of starting a company ourselves four years ago when i ran the board of ed my daughter was four and was nearing the start of her time in brookfield public schools at that time i asked myself how would we challenge students to be global thinkers and leaders or to use technology to spur innovation or natural curiosity and how would we inspire our students to be academically diverse and culturally aware how would brookfield remain an attractive place for young families now four years later i'm proud to be able to answer those questions and say that as much as anyone possibly could have done those things i have i can proudly say that i played an integral role in the creation and expansion of a stem department at the high school the addition of new technology courses several teaching positions materials that meet next generation science standards computers for every single student in the district and the broadband and technology infrastructure for our students to be the technology leaders of tomorrow in my four years two of which i have led as board chair we've added another world language to our high school offerings and a world language lab to the middle school and have begun work on a new equity and inclusion subcommittee we are a district that spearheaded social emotional learning in the state of connecticut have kept class sizes low and are for the first time ranked in u.s news and world reports among the best high schools in the nation we've researched and voted for healthy school start time and of course i mentioned the construction of a brand new elementary school i haven't mentioned covet much though those challenges have been presented they're great of course we never ignore them but our old challenges we need leaders who have the ability to keep calm and carry on with the work of governing this town and our school for anyone paying attention to brookfield's town governance it would be impossible to not notice the transparent and communicative way that i have led and represented the board of ed to other town boards we cannot allow covenant as many challenges to stop our progress or the ability to work together for brookfield we can't allow it to distract from the resourcing or change policy that permanently alters the values that we've always held four years ago i said it was becoming ever more imperative that our students not only begin to ready themselves for worldly challenges but also feel confident to meet and embrace them it is our jobs as parents as educators and as policy makers to equip even our youngest students with an educational experience that matches the professional arena in which they will one day enter i was then and still and now committed to bringing this to our schools and to our town thank you thank you are you violent to invite democratic candidate for the board of education buddy testing to introduce yourself for two minutes hi i'm bunny um i haven't lived in brookfield for very long but i have been in education for over 20 years oddly enough i feel like joy and i would have a really good conversation because it seems like our careers have crisscrossed each other um i have um taught in classes at huckleberry as a sub i have been very active on the pto and he was even pto president um i've taught every kind of learner from ninth graders with third grade reading levels all the way through to ap line composition and i've done many things with my career such as start my own school run my own staff have my own scheduling issues and situations work through curriculum development i've done a lot of things with my career that i'm very proud of this i've never done and i'm very nervous so i remember this um so my motto work for you or whatever as an educator is i always put students needs first and that's my number one focus whenever i enter into a school or education situation i like to make the statement put the students on the table and what does that mean it means put all the students on the table and assess where their needs are find where the real needs are assess those needs and then the learning comes naturally from there i really believe that if i'm elected i will do the best that i can to put students needs first to enter into a world of support for teachers whereas teachers are feeling very supported in the classroom and as a result the success in the schools comes natural thank you for your time and thank you for everyone being here tonight [Applause] thank you the first question that the commission would like the board of education candidates to address is what skills should a bhs student have after graduating and what do you believe is missing in their current education system that needs to be added um we will start with the republican candidates the board of education um administrator can address this question um for one minute yes oh my god um democratic candidate education administrator thank you so much um i think the more we can keep the kids involved after they graduate it will help them to help others i don't know if i want to focus on what's missing but i think it's adding value um so you know some and making sure they can they stay involved they they can contribute we can hear their voices um what i would like to see as well so not so much when they leave but you know starting early is for like foreign languages you know i speak portuguese to my children um i have a number of parents that i know who speak other languages as well and like to see their children speaking other languages so i think that alone would be um a bigger area of focus and uh you know could make them proud and to exercise it and you know bring that bring those ideas into play thank you um i would now like to invite democratic candidate for the board of education where the fernandez to address this question okay so um i personally think that as i was making my opening remarks um the fact that a stem technology engineering mathematics those fields are going to be critically important for our students graduating there has been a big push globally to have to have the ability to use computers and you know i know a lot of parents are not used to having their young students use computers at a very young age concerned about screen time but keep in mind that these students are going to be adults that are to improve and create brand new technology and they're going to need to know how to do that at a very young age and i'm very impressed with our students and what we've been able to accomplish so far but i do think there's more work that needs to be done we have been improving our mathematics and offering tutoring to students in the elementary level and i think that we'll also continue [Applause] thank you i would not need to ask democratic candidate for the board of education financial aid to address this question well i've always believed in the power of language and the power of being able to self-advocate so my goal for any of my graduating seniors is to be able to go out in the world and advocate for yourself and for those in need so i really believe that a graduating senior needs to be able to go out in the world and get themselves a job give themselves a situation that they're happy in and be comfortable and have a good life and one of the ways to do that is to to empower them through language teaching them the skills and the abilities to speak up for themselves and speak up for others who cannot speak up for themselves it's always been a huge belief in mine well as for what i think is missing i really don't look at it in terms of things that are missing i look at it in terms of how can we improve what is already in place i don't believe in piling things on top of things that aren't working i would rather look at the systems that we have in place and to see how to improve them or get rid of them if necessary so i don't like to look or even talk about education in terms of things that are missing i think that all the supports are there we just need to know how to access [Applause] what skills should a bhs student have after graduating and what do you believe is missing in our current education system that needs to be added they got a little old fashioned i think our students coming out of high school need to learn how to speak properly need to learn how to write properly need basic skills can you just speak into the microphone so everyone can hear it okay sorry um i found when i was teaching that we allowed children to go from grade to grade to grade who could not write a sentence i think that it makes us look bad as a country that the other countries cut students from other countries come here and they leave college or high school with the skills that are necessary to compete in the world i think i know that technology is important i understand all that but if our students can read and write and have basic skills then their success may not be as strong as others thank you [Applause] thank you i would not like to ask you candidate for the board of education in the department to address this question for one minute to me the most important thing for a student to have is the ability to think critically to think for oneself to be able to research to be able to see all sides of something and not just take anything for granted i think resourcefulness and ingenuity are most utmost important i'm an artist i have degrees in music and theater and that's been my life um and it is said that if someone knows music he is educated so i'm a big proponent of the arts because i think it builds the soul it builds the mind but the most important thing to me is the ability to learn critical thinking i don't know the school system here very well so i don't know what's lacking i hope there's theater i hope there's music i hope there's dance i will find out [Applause] i would now like to ask before we can candidate for board of education george greenstein to address this question for my life so i think one made a really good point and we spoke about this the other day that um we need to raise our students to be critical thinkers and leaders sometimes we just need to teach our students to go out and read go out and learn and do the research themselves i think that we want our students to appreciate music art literature nature they need to feel healthy in their body mind with wholesome feelings towards themselves and others they need to contribute as citizens with a sense of loyalty understanding and having an interest in their world at large one way i think that hookfield can improve this is through social emotional learning i think that um this is an area that we can focus on especially in the same day and age and in this day and age of covet we need to improve what we're providing as far as seo especially for our high school students i think that we could be better than ruler for our high school students we need to have stronger and more aggressive supports in place for our students that are crying out for help i would say that it's important as educators that we are sticking to the curriculum and teaching our students to ensure objectivity in the curriculum although teachers have the flexibility and creativity to deliver a lesson how they so choose no educators should be offering their opinion or have an agenda so teaching our students that there are multiple opinions they can have multiple opinions but both sides need to be presented and the students are encouraged to formulate their own opinions based on facts thank you thank you now um our second question for education is what types of investment would you want the board of vet to focus on that reinforces our core values and beliefs as a community now we're going to start with a republican candidate would you repeat um please sure what types of investment um you want the board of education to focus on that reinforces our core values and beliefs as a community well i have to go back to what i said before i think the most basic values are actual education but i also think today's students or young people need to be taught respect honesty all the skills and all the emotional things that we were taught as children sometimes i feel sorry for little children who are playing and they don't know how to interact with each other i think we should concentrate on teaching our young people a genuine love of education and an appreciation for all people thank you okay thank you um or yeah um all right what type of investment would you want the board event to focus on that reinforces our core values and beliefs i i would like to ask the students first of all what they think they need what they're lacking what they um are most interested in of course i go back to the arts i would want an orchestra i would want band i would want a good gymnasium um i would want proper facilities for the students be it restrooms or locker rooms or i would like to invest in in retired entrepreneurs to come in and talk to the students and teach them and inspire them to become entrepreneurs and to go on and and create their own living for themselves but most of all i would like to know from the students thank you next um yeah so just just like i said in my introduction um providing more engaging and diversified course opportunities um improving the current program of studies especially the high school like for example we discussed a course offering on drones at the high school more well-rounded and more engaging and motivating course opportunities for our youth also facilities is a huge concern district-wide so definitely funding into improving our facilities especially for our sports facilities such as a concession stand at the high school and bathroom facilities that are very much needed um in addition i'd say that um like when i spoke to it's important to find out what the youth would like and kind of working from there so that their voice is important and it's important to know what their needs are thank you very much this is a great question i hope to stay on focus um the so there are three things that i'm keeping that i have in mind one is going back to diversity including language related i think it's important to provide those tools to the students um one other thing that that comes to my mind to this who even mentioned as she was answering questions relate to mental health i think it's definitely important to support the students on any mental health struggles make sure they understand it's okay to ask for help and again provide the support of it before they ask um and the third aspect would be you know the high school i understand that um we have a great school that's being built right now but um i believe that the high school also needs some improvement so supporting that will be a major another major factor for the board of education thank you [Applause] um so i agree with many of the statements that are up here actually um i do think we need to listen to students and i think that we have a track record of doing that i have spoken to students and what i'm hearing by and large is that students want a robust academic educational experience in brookfield they want everything from languages to new sports teams we've been able to add both they want opportunities for clubs after school and we've been able to add that as well so that is certainly something that i think is their worthwhile investments and by mostly um i i will agree with the with a very clear sentiment that our facilities need a lot of attention um it's wonderful that we're getting a new school but we had a condition study that was done several years ago and it is very clear that a lot of our schools need a lot of attention and so that is going to be a very big focus in the upcoming years thank you [Applause] well it's hard to go last because everyone kind of said everything um i'm just gonna go back to my statement uh students needs come first and so i'm gonna start with the students i do like the idea of improving the facilities i want to hear from the students what are their needs there i do like the idea of adding more classes and bringing more arts and things to the curriculum and again i'm going to go back to the students what would you like to see what would you like to have happen and very much about empowering the youth and hearing what they have to say and putting a lot of investment in that thank you very much um unfortunately due to time constraints we will not have a rebuttal section um foreign [Applause] okay do you want to sit here thank you so um i'd like to start um with the democratic candidates for the board of climate um we'll have kaiser introduce yourself first for two minutes okay um then we'll have allen walsh introducing himself for two minutes good evening all and thank you for the uh for the support mission for the children i i really want to just say uh first off you know why do i want to be a member of the park field or to finance and also divide by people it's an excellent match of my skills and experience you know i think the answer to that is to really improve what i am i i only have a few minutes and you can obviously see there's no hair and a graveyard i have a much longer resume than would take the time we have but i guess while i like i've asked that question to myself for many years you know really for every decision i've made in terms of what do i do with my life and the principle has always come down to me wanting to be a part of something bigger and once making it kid and also myself better and i think the result of all this has been personal growth and a lot of experience you know i'll go back to what uh steve was talking about with his boy scout experience you know i think with them you know it's it really is you're taught to leave the campsite cleaner than you found it you know to work as a team always but also to gain your personal uh life skills and ethics on your path to uh you know to equal scouts so that you can share them with your community into adulthood the decision to go into the us navy was based on the same principle you know just to serve our country and shipmates and at the same time to grow personally you know through engineering through leadership and life skills such as listening appreciating differences in opinions cultural diversity and through travel to many countries you know service that allowed me the ability to live in four countries over many years to perform international telecommunication engineering sales management and adding valuable business and leadership skill set that included creation and management of multi-million dollar legends and i finally brought back to the us in brookfield 12 years ago we came back to family because that's where our family lives i also satisfied this enduring principle of being part of something through serving our company our community by sitting on the planning commission for almost five years and then the economic development uh commission which i'm presently as well my personal career financial services for me grew out of the strange i guess a dichotomy of engineering business people skills the engineering side of my character is meticulous it's figure based having the depth of financial knowledge and supporting licenses that include knowledge of municipal funding allows me to perform analyses and finances and the people's side of me and experience allows me to work closely with clients and really to align their plans to their goals making recommendations the board of finance is basically we're just going to ask you to wrap it up because we were at the end or two minutes yep so what a way i look at it the town is a 75 million dollar company and it requires a unique skill set which obviously doesn't include critical timekeeping aspects so thank you very much for your uh for your time and support thank you i would now like to invite democratic candidates for the board of finance marine corp yellow to introduce yourself for two minutes good evening my name is mary capiello thank you to the youth commission i'm so glad you guys are involved my husband told you i've lived in brookfield for 32 years our three children went to brookfield public schools k-12 and then on to the top universities when they were young i worked at borders i still volunteered in their classrooms led two girl scout troops and helped coach youth sports eventually my family teaching middle school math this time in ridgefield when i left school's degree in economics and math i could easily gone down to wall street but in college i found myself tutoring peers who were losing their dreams of majoring in science and business due to their weight math skills i wanted to help young people keep their options open to help them at an earlier age middle school was perfect when my children got to college i was ready for a change in the last four years i served at the library board of directors and the zoning commission among other things on the library where we help the director decide what will be included in the budget we attend board of finance meetings when the director will be presenting the proposed budget i have seen all parties work well together to look at the real needs of the town and produce responsible budgets i advise chair of his own commission we cannot and would not tell a landowner that he or she is not allowed to develop their land but we have rules to guide what type of project can go where in some respects have i was part of rewriting the zone regulations for the first time in decades it's now easier for homeowners and developers to complete their projects for example the new greg's helped us to bring the emerson grants and headquarters to town that one project alone will bring in about half a million dollars per year in capricorn i was a teacher and i understand what i of an ed budget i've seen the budget process from a department's point of view and from a tax credits program i'm fascinated by how the department sports and commissions work together to create the best work field one that offers a variety of opportunities and services for all residents with responsibly sized budgets thank you very much thank you i would like to invite democratic candidate for the board of finance island code to introduce yourself for two minutes hi my name is edwin cook i've lived in brookfield for the past 14 years with my husband and we have two kids a fifth grader and a seventh grader i have been on the board of finance now for the last four years i ran in 2017 with a strong desire to make sure that the voters had a chance to vote on projects in the previous years they had been in town a lot of things got stopped at the board of finance and i didn't believe that that's what its purpose is his purpose is to make sure that we're bringing reasonable budgets to the referendum is to make sure we're bringing viable projects that improve our town to the voters for them to decide i've stayed i'm involved in the congregational church in brookfield um i've worked with during my tenure on the board of finance i've worked with the board of education finance committee to keep that line of communication open over the past four years our communication across the boards has been very transparent it's been very constant i think we've worked well and shown respect for one another and that's something i want to bring forward for the next four years so i hope that you'll support the brokerage candidates i think you've done a great job under the leadership of steve gunn the boards have worked well together and thank you for your support thank you and now let's ask some credit candidate for the board of finance john temple to introduce himself all right good evening everyone my name is john um i very very briefly um after graduating uh college worked in investment banking for a very short period of time a lawyer by trade became a prosecutor in manhattan da's office i wound up founding and being the chief of the human trafficking unit there and now i am very proud to be leading a 75 year old organization called guideposts whose purpose is to bring hope into the world and what we do there is really focus on people's spiritual well-being and how to control that spiritual well-being we reach about 10 million people a year there we have a budget that is of similar size to the town and so i've been managing uh budgets and dividing process for my time there and certainly my time before that um however i really want to just focus for 30 seconds on how my wife and my children wound up coming to brookfield we were in westchester i was commuting to the city and we were looking for a place for our kids to go to school a place that had a lot to offer and a community that was private and we looked at a whole bunch of different places in fairfield county and southern fairfield and brookfield was the place that made the most sense it was open it was inviting we went my kids actually came up for soccer trials before we even moved here and within minutes this community that overlapped its arms around us and as i think about what makes a great community that's where i want to give of my time and talents uh to the extent that they can help i think there's been a lot of good things that have been going on in this town i want to do whatever i can i think it's it's also incredible when people want to serve uh be public servants and everyone here that has really committed to doing that so i applaud everyone who's up here tonight i look forward to if you choose to support rawai and my candidacy to be able to work with you thanks thank you i now like to invite a candidate for the board of finance ricky romney to introduce this opportunity hello i'm ricky ramos i'm a corporate tax consultant with pricewaterhousecoopers my wife cove owns a law firm in brookfield and i have two children in the brookville school system i've been on board to finance for the last four years in those four years brookfield suffered through a microburst numerous long-term power outages and epidemic it was through effective communication between the boards of finance members effective communication with the other boards that we solidify trust while maintaining a healthy level of scrutiny for the items that came before us this allowed us to collectively come up with a transparent lean budget that upholds the town and the school's services and needs with a minimum tax demand a transparent and weak budget that through the microburst and the pandemic require constant attention i've recently an appointed chair of the capital projects committee which will assist in determining priority and funding for the past capital projects and how to best work them into the town's 10-year plan my goal will be to use away from borrowing and raised threshold on paying for cash especially for assets we know will need to be funded and years to come as a board we unanimously approved bringing the candlewood lake elementary school project to referendum and as a town we voted to bring that project into fruition i'm incredibly proud of the work we've done on the bill of finance and would confidently justify all action taken in the last four years i dedicate hundreds of hours of my personal time throughout the year in order to serve as an effective board member and it would be my honor to continue to serve this town thank you we will now move on to the republican candidates finance and we'll begin with amelia to introduce yourself over to you thank you and thank you to the commission for hosting this event so my name is amelia molanovi my family have been residents of connecticut for 28 years 14 years here in brookfield so when my husband and i built our home in 2007 we have three beautiful children all grown and married with their own families and all living in connecticut we have six beautiful grandchildren two of which are right here in brookfield schools so we are very blessed my sister as well and her family and my 90-year-old dad are also residents of brookfield so we are so blessed to have four generations living here so um my experience stems from my 30-year career at one of the largest property and cavity insurance companies in the world and so in my current role as the head of the north american head of our commercial insurance portfolio i'm responsible for the profit and oversight and governance and state and regulatory requirements for a 400 million commercial insurance portfolio so i'm looking forward to using those skills and helping the community here in brookfield as part of the board of finance thank you thank you republican reporter good evening my name is andy kane i'm a republican candidate for the board of finance i grew up in connecticut i attended schools here and i've lived in brookfield with my family since 1985. my children graduated from brookfield high school i retired a few years ago after about four years with the internal revenue insurance yeah those guys now i'm an enrolled agent representing taxpayers before irs i worked in many areas when i was with irs i worked in field audit i was in management i was a headquarters staff and i also worked in the it area my career allowed me to work with individuals at all levels around the united states of america in federal state municipal private industry and law enforcement analysis defining the facts and getting to the bottom line was a part of my job every day that's what reward finance does i volunteered at my church i was a boy scout leader i'm the eagle scout myself and i was an emt in new york i was also very proud that to be part of the team that brought k paramedic service to brookfield we did that through insurance buildings brookfield ems at the time was having a lot of difficulty meeting their state obligations in terms of time response time and we were able to improve that by bringing the paid paramedic staff and paid staff in and we funded that through insurance bills i'd like to thank the brookfield youth commission for inviting me and i would especially like to thank the adult members to this program having good mentors helped me be more successful in life and i know it will help you to be successful also like many volunteers in brookfield i'm here to help and i hope i can do so on board findings i'd like to close by saying go bobcats thank you i'd now like to invite republican candidate for board finance chairman my family has been here for 30 years and my family not as long as sues has been here for 80 years and i extended him as stephen sue said they've been on the six-year journey i've been with him on that six-year journey i've been a member of the board of finance for six years and you've made great accomplishments we just announced a triple-a rating uh for the town we've done very well with our general fund we've accomplished a lot of things we've fully funded the board of education this year we've done a lot of things and remiss if i thank me ricky dan and brianna as part of the team we really have done a good job we have really got this town on a solid footing and we're very proud of that what scares me though is what's ahead of us this is where we need decision makers and good choices of voting we have a debt level ahead of us we have a need for a new police station we have a need for a library we have a need for many things ahead of us we need to be responsible to get these needs i know let's see you want to see the library center school project as well what are we going to do with the center school so we need to make good choices that's why these votes are so important who is going to do the best job for brookfield again stephen said we were bipartisan with everybody i think we need to continue to submit civility in this process and we're a good time we could be better but we're a good time so we need to face these adversities so i'm more worried about what's ahead of us making good decisions continuing experience thank you thank you i would now like to invite a republican candidate for the board of finance daniel divorce to introduce himself well as always to follow but let me do my best my name is dan uh divorce wife three children and i've been in town for 18 years uh two of my kids are members of the 13 year club at brookfield and recent for graduates so i think some of you on stage might know so if you happen to upon them on social media please don't involve them um i have had a 25-year career in finance and investing i'm currently the chief investment officer chief operating officer of horizon technology finance a public trade adventure investment firm the fun part of my job is evaluating business plans budgets making investments the not so fun part is dealing with auditors and rating agencies and regulators but all of that is directly related to the job that we do here on the board of finance i'm running for reelection before four-year term the role of the board of finance is the uh overall oversight and guidance that all financial management's found that means preparing and presenting the final budget from both sides of the town uh determining the capital overseeing the audit and all that other things that i do every day four years ago when i when i decided to run uh the town was really in a critical place we were facing a lot of critical investment decisions that glennon mentioned and quite honestly the town was not in the best place to make those decisions there was not a great long-term plan in place and there was this trust among the board and that created a wonderful environment for decision making i thought i could help add a level of financial professionalism financial accountability to the process and as the client pointed out a lot of ways uh people who've been on working on the board for the last four years have done just that i'm proud of our team and i'm proud of what we've done and so why am i running again uh it's because the jobs happened we are once again in a critical place lots of important decisions need to be made that are going to impact not only near-term budgets of long-term financial flexibility for um for the foreseeable future and i want to be able to do that while maintaining um a calm and responsible and respectful presence thank you i would now like to invite republican candidate reporter finance thomas demando to introduce yourself for two minutes can you hear me okay thank you uh youth commission for inviting us here i'm holding this my name is tom lavonzo i'm running for the brookfield finance committee my family and i live in new york towns as far as hill chapel and arma 2017 we moved to a beautiful town in portfolio connecticut do i answer your question yes i am a new york state tax refugee and i want to take this opportunity to thank you for accepting my my family and to your lovely state and your beautiful town i've been in the financial services industry since 1982 i spent most of my career on wall street as a research analyst and risk manager and during that time i've seen a lot of good bad and ugly decisions in both public and private sectors i won't go into the details here now about all the tragic results of some of those decisions but i can tell you one thing after seeing those results i thought i should stop talking take action using my experience both professionally and personally i've been very fortunate in providing people with ideas so they can make better more informed decisions and with your help and support i would like to do the same for our town as a member of the finance committee thank you the first question the commission has for the candidates on the board of finance is on the job of creating the tax budget each year what are the cornerstones of how you make financial financial decisions we will begin with the republican candidates for the board so looking at the cornerstone of how we make pilots for decisions making financial decisions so when we uh when we are looking at assessing a situation whether it's an insurance portfolio or whatever what we like to look at is the historical we look at the historical and see what we can learn from that and when we're looking to the future we have to analyze prioritize uh prioritize what's important i heard dan mentioned a few things here and glenn we've got a dead bubble ahead of us we've got a police station we need uh would be to work or to rebuild we need a library there's a lot of priorities that need to be prioritized a lot of things we want to get accomplished in the schools on behalf of the children so i think you look at all the priorities you prioritize what those are and you you look at the analytics around it what are the finances what are the expenses and make smart decisions around that and of course it does require very strong collaboration uh definitely collaboration across you know all disciplines and every all stakeholders so that's kind of what how i would approach it thank you um would candidate andrew combs please take one minute to address this question thank you i think it's important when you're making any decision to have all the facts i think the second most important thing is that everybody who's in that process will be honest with one another brookfield has experienced the 10 increase in taxes over the last three years there's a lot of needs in this town and there's a lot of watson i think the most important thing is to prioritize um you know what we really need and work together in an honest way to accomplish that i think the important thing about anything you see in physical government cases the first time you see a proposal you know generally there may they need to be cut back somewhat so i think that the process of going back and forth while it may seem controversial a lot of people don't like that or seem to avoid controversy it's actually a technique for resolving and getting to a balanced viewpoint on a dispense that everyone can live with thank you very much [Applause] [Music] um think the importance trust i don't think the board of finance is here to set policies or set budgets it's here to see what the board of education and the board of selection bring to us analyze the numbers look at the numbers and see how they fit into the big plan in the picture the future needs that we have we have a 10 year model that we follow that shows the debt that we're taking on the expenses the annual expenses that we have and we need to address everyone's needs in the budget so it's not a matter of us dictating to the two boards it's a matter of us working with the two boards to find a way forward for the best budget that the taxpayers can afford and they fit all our needs i've done it that simple it's looking at the numbers making sure they're correct making sure everybody understands what we can do and working together that's what we did this last budget i think the budget before that we did that our budget was 1.72 two years ago increased this year's 1.52 so i think we've done that thank you thank you i'd now like to ask danielle to um address this question for one month sure so thank you so financial decisions for the town need to appropriately balance the near-term needs slice wants with the long-term financial flexibility of the county and balance all that out within the construct of the financial plan that has finally been put in place recently and it's constantly being updated that's really the poor um beyond that uh my colleagues who said it is right we're not interested priorities we're here to fit those priorities into the plan and finance them appropriately and to work collaboratively i make all of my business decisions and all the decisions or recommendations for the founders upon two core philosophies they're not unique to me but are i think important um those are assumed positive intent and trust prepare those two things if i keep those in the front of my upon my brain i can work collaboratively i can assume that everybody's coming to the table with the with the right intention trusts that that what's being presented is accurate but then verify facts and fit that into the plan thank you thank you i would like to ask candidate thomas you can address this question thank you very much that's a great question financial decisions are done by my career first thing you do for me is i look at i do the research i'll do a risk assessment look at the needs versus the cost look at the budget we get the facts and the last thing we do is the planning and the execution of the actual project or or before making the decision and then you get a consensus find out all the pros and cons sometimes that can become you know have confidence in it those people have different needs and wants but we resolve that and we go forward [Applause] thank um i think the uh the decisions that we make have to be uh based on historical plan versus what you're facing today uh and i think that the board of finance has reacted very well to some of the incredibly difficult uh situations as we that we've had in the last two or three years it really is based on you know i think basically you know we provide oversight guidance and i think that the responsibility for that has to cover every request the special appropriations additional capital requirements for projects budget transfers you know so i think that it's really it's a matter of balancing and i think it's been done very well through the board i'd like to ask candidate mary caviella to address this question for one minute okay um so i would review the last budget to see how it worked out and if we could learn anything from it better all right so review the last but last year's budget to see how it worked out and what you could learn from it uh look at any contractual obligations that are changing teachers unions usually have salary increases what else went up did anything go down um did anything change so basically gather all the information um crunch the numbers of course so we get everything from the departments um see where we are upkeep of talent assets i mean capital but it's a little different i'm seeing the normal budget here pull it all together work with all the boards and departments to put forth the best budget to maintain services while respecting taxpayers and then ultimately send it to the people to have the final site [Applause] and i like to ask can eileen code with your judge's question for one minute i think in the budget process we initially you know our first selectmen um and the chairman board of ed are the key members to bring us the budgets uh to the board of finance and when we're reviewing it we need to make sure that you know if there are investments are they sustainable are they what the talent and the schools need uh we need to look at the numbers make sure that they're accurate and supported and as has been mentioned by other candidates the trust that we have with the leaders of these boards has really led us to a really smooth budget process this past year is there room for unexpected we've seen that in the past with unexpected special education budget increases with macrobursts coming through and hitting the town of the pandemic are we prepared for that and can we sustain that and lastly are we keeping the future in sight we have a 10-year capital plan we have a 10-year budget planned budget and are we keeping that in mind when we're looking at the budget we want to make sure that we're investing in the town but we want to make sure that we're providing a reasonable budget thank you i believe i'd really like to ask to address this question forward i agree with what a lot has been said on both sides tonight and so rather than repeat that the only other thing i would add is to listen we talked a little bit about continuity and making sure we're building on things that are working and as somebody who's not been on the board of finance should i be selected or elected to get on it or i wouldn't want to go in and presuppose anything i would want to listen [Applause] [Music] yeah so in march during our budget cycle we actually have nine budget meetings six of those are dedicated to conversations with all the different departments on their budget tasks through those conversations we're able to determine um certain items that you know especially for capital projects then perhaps maybe there isn't an immediate need and they agree that you know these items can be pushed off either or these are items that are absolutely must have requirements um not that it's our release to set the priorities but we need to know directly from the department themselves exactly what their needs are and just how important these budget items are to them but we also look at you know just the revenues that hasn't been talked about but you know in the last few years have a lot of one-off revenue items that help keep our taxes low we also have to you know as part of this debt bubble make sure that when these uh one-off revenue items go away and it doesn't cause a major impact to the budget so you have to really be forward-thinking as well as thinking about the president when looking at this budget thank you all right our second question for finance our final question tonight is what are your two top priorities i'm going to start with democrats with allan [Music] board of finance but i i would uh would like to ask that uh you know that we look at budgets for uh veterans uh i think that this is certainly an underserved and need uh we certainly will have you know future uh let's say we're going to have issues with finance uh budgets in the future you know i i think that we we really have a great um uh ability to finance now what would the improvement in our our ratings and so i think it really is it really is going to be reduced in terms of the issues that are going to degrade them so thank you [Applause] um i would want to continue the good fiscal policy that has brought up the triple-a rating and that had us um be able to borrow for the school at a really low rate of 1.5 percent and then 20 years instead of 30.

so and and as and as i continue to have conversations with with parents and other other you know members in the community i'm finding i'm finding that same thing through the case so i am i'm actively working to understand and better grasp that so any any additional contact i know we're gonna we're gonna look at some of these models but any additional context or information that anyone uh might have staff or otherwise would be helpful great thank you anybody else on the board you have a board member please gonzalez remember beau remember well i i just wanted to add also yes i i am interested in looking at what the stamina model looks like um because that was my first um choice but now that i know what the model was presented to us not what i expected so i would like to see it in another site see what the setting looks like and and um because i'm pretty much three or four or i mean i i have my own model in mind also but i will present that on the 26th because i know that you know they they gave us a three and four we don't have to go with three and four it's a recommendation we can either add or delete or make your own model i you know that's what we're here for so i i will bring that on on the 26th thank you would you do you have anything to add or the same board member mr thudo ortega right there is no discussion at this time and no additional comment we'll go ahead and move on to agenda item 11.1 approval and consent of calendar can i please get a motion to approve 11.1 board president board president yes um i'd like to pull item 11.5 for advocation of contract for legal counsel from the consent calendar um we'll go ahead and uh okay which one did you say uh poll 11.5 ratification of contract for legal counsel 11.5 moving forward with 11.1 with the exception of 11.5 now please get emotion i'm sorry we'll go ahead and again try it again 11.1 approval of consent calendar calendar without 11.5 and now please get in motion to move this i make a motion to approve 11.1 through 11.12 with the exception of 11.5 okay we have a first by board member rodriguez pena we have a second by board member rear if we can go ahead and please cast your vote and it passes 5-0 we'll go ahead and move to 12.1 the ratification approval of agreement between us is a unified school district ausd and begin friedman and fulfills llp can i please get a motion to [Music] wordpress and i have a motion um in the interest of maintaining transparency with the community and ensuring fiscal responsibility i make the motion to postpone the contract for legal services and to direct the superintendent to obtain quotes from at least four legal firms for a fixed fee contract for one two and three year terms for consideration at a future board meeting at this time um what what you are motioning is actually that was not on our agenda what you're asking is for us to to have an uh open open contract is that what you're asking i'm unclear to what your question is could you please repeat with what you just said so my motion is in the interest of making transparency with the community and ensuring fiscal responsibility i make the motion to postpone the contract for legal services and to direct the superintendent to obtain quotes from at least four legal firms for a fixed fee contract for one two and three year terms for consideration at a future board meeting can i introduce it is are you asking to table this item and then look for yes postpone that they caught the table approval of this contract as presented postpone it to a future meeting and direct the superintendent to obtain four quotes for fixed fee contracts for one two and three year term so that it can come back a little legal services contract and come back to the board at a later date right but what the first thing you wanted to be tabled you want to table with the item right this item yeah yeah okay and do you want just so i could be clear as well and you want for uh two years three years with ffb when that what that would look like are you asking for other firms i'm asking for four quotes so from four firms different firms four different firms or firm a to give us a quote for one two and three year contracts for a fixed fee and for firms b c and d to do the same and i'm presuming that began frostman would be one of those firms as they are our current legal counsel i i think that this this this right here this is not the um go ahead i i hear her making a motion so that's the motion on the floor i believe it's a matter of whether we have a second or not um there's a lot of discussion with others without us and a motion to postpone is not debatable for that is correct as we have a second we go ahead and speak about this and since i am present i'll go ahead and wait if you have some comment yeah so i'll say we um it would be helpful to hear from from staff like your your the perspective of you know the appropriate frequency of of switching out our legal council and what what that is like i know that we just went through a pretty robust process and selected um f3 was that when was was that last year it was less less clear when we did that so we just went through a very robust and sat in on interviews with multiple uh it was more than just a bid for for costs and services but evaluating what they had to offer and and and those off the congruence of those offerings with our with our district and it was a full-on process of weighted and skilled and first choices through fourth you know choices and and landed with f3 um and so i would i'm not i'm not sure that that i agree that it'd be wise to every year go through i think that it was a good process that we went through and i think that that it would make sense periodically to go through that process but because we just went through that process not that long ago i i would challenge if if there if enough time has gone by to warrant um going through that process again and just to clarify that we did look at three or four firms maybe even five were impacted quite a bit of them there was quite a bit and then we just narrowed it down so we did do a deep research on picking f3 just recently second it so arthur um this this is in terms of process why is this contract coming first now the contract was sent via email uh during the summer uh and it got it got buried and so that's why it's only coming right now so when did our previous contract fire june 30th so we've been operating with our attorney's firm since june 30th and no one has been aware of it that is correct from our side or from the attorneys from who's giving us legal accounts right i would like to go ahead and challenge that motion and return it back to 11.5 the ratification approval of agreement between the souza unified school district and and parade and culmore can i get it first board president i would like the opportunity to also participate in this session will you allow that i thought you were done i'm just waiting for my colleagues to speak and also to be recognized um the reason that i would like to send legal counsel the contract for legal counsel back to the back to the drawing board um or at least for a couple of reasons i do know that the the district and staff and the cabinet went through a rigorous process of selection in october 2020 and i appreciate that process um however it is it's concerning to me that it's gone free month with without contract renewal um and so that that gives me a little bit of a red flag in terms of who's washing the ball and if our legal team is supposed to be looking out for the district i really want them to look out for us um this is not personal but this is protecting the district and our students and our teachers and our best interests um secondly um i believe that exploring the possibility of having a fixed fee contract though in essence what that would look like would be a fixed term not an open-ended contract as as presented here but for a one two or three year term fixed fee meaning leakout dollar amount number one covers everything every phone call every consultation except litigation and that's that's a fairly common practice with with you know a variety of school districts so it's not as if we would be the only school district that adopts that practice um in the context of school organization and best allocation of resources and dollars spent i think since we're already three months into working without a contract i think we should go back to the drawing board look at how we're managing expenses and if we are going to continue our relationship if it ends up being f3 fantastic right and and we can build that relationship but i'd like us to take a deeper look and more critical eye through these lenses and that's why i made my motion thank you since everyone has been has spoken i will go ahead and i may add i think we're going to go ahead and move forward and one of the things that um i think we're just going around and one last thing i'm going to go ahead and allow but i think we're spending too much time on this go ahead so just i mean just just a point of clarification so it would be very um it would be the first time we ever had a contract with an attorney that didn't have an end date right every other chinese contract that we've ever adopted had a term whether it was one two i think normally there were three year terms that we adopted um so that would be very that's very i have not seen that in any any um contract with our attorneys that we've adopted um um there's no clear is there a clear the the piece about what we what we start what we're charged hourly rate that's also i think every other contract that i've ever seen with an attorney had a fixed rate attorney rate right where that they were laid out it wasn't you know then it was it didn't say that they were it could be changes with 30 days notice based on their rates i believe our previous contracts if you look at them had fixed rates for different types of services um so i think um i think there there's some there are some gaps in here i i you know i would personally i would i'm not sure that i'm comfortable going through a whole we it was a long process to find our new attorneys right so i'm not sure that i'm necessarily saying that we need to find bring another like do a whole process rfp across our rfp process again but i feel like there are a lot of gap in this contract seeing the way it's been um so i don't know if you go back to the drawing board with the attorneys um you know we have to we have to spend a lot of time having trust in them right instead of have to have a contract that's not really that's not complete it feels a little con i can make i'm so sorry i didn't know your perspective i started questioning your hand i'm done i'm done yes if i can make it on my first i want to take responsibility this was emailed to me while i was on vacation so it wasn't on f3 so they did send it over so i will take responsibility for that um second this is the exact same contract that was provided in the rfe they're honoring the same rates um the reason not having an end date gives us the opportunity to roll the contract over but they also have on section 9 a 10-day call so we can terminate at any time and my last plea is that we can't pay any of the current bills until we have a signed contract so right now we owe for the services that they have provided and we cannot authorize any payment until we have a contract in place so i would like to ask if we can approve the contract with understand if we still want to go out research analyze or revise but currently they've been operating under information that was on the rfp that was previously submitted and approved thank you thank you for that clarification um so one of the things that um that i i would like to go ahead and do is go ahead and motion to approve so it's a point of order but there's a motion on the floor we have to first vote on that motion and then you can do another one depending on what happens with it with the current motion on the floor if i'm going to go ahead and challenge that we still have to vote so i'm pulling i'm challenging that motion so a vote so a vote to postpone is not debatable so we actually weren't supposed to have it we're supposed to just vote on it right away so we need to vote on that you can't you cannot yeah you can't do any substitute motion with the vote to postpone our table you have to vote on let's go ahead and vote postpone i would just do a voice vote in case it doesn't you know you don't know let's go ahead and vote online let's cast our votes so can you clarify what are we voting for the first time the first time is the motion that uh board member beau put on the table which is postpone and direct four different different law firms that is for motion and it does not pass and we have two boats yes three boats no so now you're able to entertain a new merch we'll go ahead and motion i will motion to approve a 12.1 ratification approval of agreement between isuzu unified school district ausd and again and friedman and full frost llp can i please get a second i'll make a motion on um thank you any discussion yeah so is is there where is there some gray here so so again i'm i'm i vote i voted no because i don't i don't i don't i know that i don't want to the idea of going back to the rfq process is is something that again i i wouldn't want to do so soon but clearly there are still aspects of the contract that can be re-examined would there be space to maybe latasha can you can you speak to this so if there was approval tonight knowing that there's a there's a 10-day clause within uh you know section nine what what would that do if we were to approve this tonight what what room is there to make adjustments on the contract in the coming coming board meeting so we can approve the contract as is and then we can open the discussion with the current um legal firm of any modifications that we will like and then terminate this agreement within a 10-day notice or we can also explore other firms but we just have to give f3 a 10-day note there's another option as well um and again i mean just throwing things out um this contract could be amended and then an amended contract could come forward as well correct i mean that's again just throwing out all the different possibilities that's a possibility as well so if we amended this contract to this is an open-ended contract if we amended this contract to terminate at a subsequent board meeting where we would bring this back and have this and have this discussion and conversation that would allow us to that would that would ensure that the district is covered under a contract with our legal firm it would allow the district to pay out what is needed to be paid out and it would allow us to explore uh addition you know potential changes to our current contract correct but i would encourage us not to terminate until we have our decision of what we want to do so meaning if we're going to negotiate and explore the options to ensure that we have legal counsel until we come to those agreements of the terms of the new amended contract we adhere to the rates here and then we bring forth for the board the new admitted agreed upon a contract if that's the direction of the board and then at that time this contract will be terminated but otherwise from what i'm hearing lsa misunderstood we'll have a gap of time where if we terminate we will not have legal representation or contract to call on legal representation in area 9 when it says required by law upon 10 days written notice there's a law that says it has to be 10 days so that's just our decision within the contract their decision within the contract these are their terms that they have an rfe so some companies will say within a 30-day notice or 60-day notice they're only requiring a 10-day notice what what i feel comfortable is renewing this contract yes there is there is a gap and thank you so much latasha for for you know um but the integrity and sharing you know with us that it there there was a mix that they're there and you're willing to fix it and you take full responsibility for it thank you for that um i think we're so quickly to to judge um and i think we need to take a step back uh for us this this for us to go look for other other legal counsel took a long time and a lot of work and unless you go through it and go through eight different interviews and having to to to to go through it it took a lot and so i think we've already been through that so what i would like to to for us to see is to go ahead and renew the contract and to approach our um [Music] rf llp our legal counsel and you know what um and talk about those things i think that we are developing a relationship and it's a good relationship so since we've already gone through the legwork we've already gone through what we've needed to um i would like to go ahead and continue with this contract and like arthur said we can make changes and that's what i would like to see happen can we have timelines on on that if we were to but what specifics do you need from us and what kind of timeline could we have to make uh potential adjustments to this contract if i could receive clear direction of the expectation you'd like me to deliver back to the board and when you will like that then i will go backwards from there what i've heard tonight uh no open-ended so an end date uh typically that would be june 30th i've heard exploring a fixed fee concept [Music] and i've heard no malleable rates like the rates are the rates of the rate those are the three things that i have heard um that we can explore if there are others then we can we can definitely add i'm in support of um exploring an amended contract to include a specific end date so i would like to see june 30th 2022 um i would also like to see what a two and a three year contract would look like under a fixed fee so the meaning on retainer covers all the consultations all the phone calls all the workshops except for litigation of course and then having no variability in the rates no variable rate yes ma'am since there has been a first and a second and a discussion we'll go ahead and do a hand vote we'll go ahead and start with board member cruz gonzalez i will say board member career yes board member beau yes board member rodriguez pena yes and myself yes and it passes four one point of order it passes four with one abstention not four sorry yes four with one um abstaining moving on our agenda we'll go ahead and go we'll move on to 13.1 approval of change of bank for associated student body asb account for slauson middle school now please get a first move 13.1 second that we have a first by board member career we have a second by board member rodriguez pena then we can go ahead and please cast your vote i'm sorry i didn't ask um any discussions nope and i i'm sorry before we cast our vote student preferential vote yes thank you and it passes 5-0 moving on to item 13.2 approval of the elementary and second school emergency relief free expenditure plan now please get a motion to move 13.2 and take a motion to approve 13.2 can i get a second second any discussion seeing that there's none are we gonna have a presentation before we make motions and vote on things i know it's already on the floor okay because it just says action on here it didn't state so we will go ahead and go straight into the presentation at this time thank you for president board members tonight we will be presenting to you the sr3 expenditure plan this was done in collaboration between ed services and business services so here it identifies the 21.9 million dollars that we are slated to receive in sr3 funding uh 20 of the funding will be used for achieving learning loss and the remaining 80 would be used to help with the heating ventilation as well as um doors windows and shea structure you can see that we have until september 30th 2024 to expend all the funds but we have to have board action to approve the expenditure plan as we discussed in our previous board meeting these are the allowable uses for s43 funding and in the application process there are three sections of the plan that we're required to complete we have to identify the strategies for continuous and safe in-person learning as well as addressing loss of instructional time which is the allocation and then there's a category where we can use other funds for other sections like the district office that's not student based our school site related any questions so far and i'm sorry we're going to start off with the strategies for continuous safe in-person learning so to address this section we are allocating 16.1 million dollars of our sm3 funding so here we're going to start off with our heating and ventilation first i would like to start by saying you see the structure here where it has six seven schools which reflect seven elementary schools and two secondary schools and one sierra high school all of our models based on our spending plan is based on the models that's under the school reorganization based on the current two models all have seven elementary schools and both models have two secondary schools whether it's a middle school or the 7 12 model and additionally we're adding sierra high school as well so the cdc center of disease control recommends a layer approach for helping um come back over 19.

so we're proposing to replace hvac systems that were installed six years ago no so what what latasha was just saying is but we'll take those tools that were modernized in 2015 take those newer units and put them at the schools that will remain open um whatever the board decides to keep open we'll transfer those we'll take them off the train transform to pools that will remain open and so that way we just backfill whatever's left over so we won't need to invest in seven elementary schools hvac no we will we will but but it'll be it won't be all brand new units there so it'll be some of them will be um repurposed from the schools that are closed that make sense right so but then so are those cost estimate this estimates then because why would they why would the cost be the same across all the school sites if we're re repurposing some units okay so for here all the schools that based on the school reorganization they will have new units so that way we can have a uniformity we can make sure our team is trained on them we can make sure they're most energy efficient and vice versa but those units that have been recently purchased um under their modernization or that are not at the end of life that we can repurpose we will take those to the sites that are not going to remain open but are having functioning issues which we currently have been having day to day so for example no i'm not going to give us i just admit it's less so what i'm hearing is just as we phase out these schools they're the ones that are going to have um these refurbished data yes ma'am okay i understand so what are the let's let's take school three mm-hmm there's 400 400 000 what what is happening with those dollars that will change all of the hvac systems at school 3.

i i do it's in there yeah it's in there it showed all right just just said no changes that was all it had i had no change question i don't know if this is for new business or what but what what are we doing to hire and promote minorities is that i don't know i'm that that's what i'm asking i could bring that up as a maybe a new business item business yeah we've talked about it i think it'd be more of an old business but that's exactly what i'm looking to add to it because the current basically the current policy and again i'm paraphrasing the current policy said that the district will go out and seek minority people for possibly employment teachers and things of that nature but it doesn't say how it will they will convey it to the board we always have to ask so how did it go this year how did it go so i'm just looking for some very rewarding that part and let the board know what's the status okay that's what i'm not because i'm also interested not just yeah higher in both definitely yeah just not looking let us know it was it good was it not good okay this year next year was it good was it not good all right that's all i have and and for the financial report uh ken i'm i'm just a little concerned with our cash flow you know we're at 12 million dollars right now and you have it and i believe it's page 8067 and on the document that you sent us and our cash flow is showing uh steady steady going down getting better and it becomes in the black in may of 2022 and which is a good time to be in the black because we have our end of the year financial reporting june 30th right so i'm just a little concerned what's going on what's driving that and and then i looked at the working cash and i'm hoping that working cash one point we was we was trending at zero of working cash and i would assume that the working cash has been on our report that showing 16.5 million dollars right now that is 17.5 million minus the 1 million that we used to pay off the building the maintenance building is that what that 16.5 million is showing in working cash right now it is okay did transfer some more out of there into capital projects oh you did okay you did make a transfer of three million dollars okay so i'll look at that and see so yeah yeah how do we get that 16.5 okay i'm looking at that okay yeah i'll i'll look at that and i'll look at that thumbnail so the other thing i will mention on the cash flow to mr brown is that you'll see let's talk to mr albrecht about this too you'll see that on the revenue side we're short this month there's a deficiency of about 9 million that's from property taxes we haven't received however we did get another 12 million in already in october okay from which is a little bit of delay that we got uh it's just the way wool county was we will probably get another batch in in november because if you remember will county you're able to pay your taxes now in four different installments again so there's another one coming in november so after you'll see uh in at the end for the october financials uh you'll see a lot better on the cash flow side okay excellent thank you i appreciate it yes all right and i'll check on the working cash one too mr thank you sir and then just so everybody knows i had asked ken a question about i noticed that on salaries and benefits i i would expect at this point given that we are not fully staffed and that is an ongoing problem that we would have been had kind of a positive variance under um salaries and benefits actually it's a unfavorable variant so he's going to look into that and see if it's a timing issue or whatever it is so yeah get back to us at the next committee of the hole i will yeah i definitely thought that's what got me you know the unfavorable variance it was just a red red red red a lot of red there and it's kind of stuck out so thank you okay any other questions on the consent agenda okay hearing none roll call please uh brown and deny mrs galbert aye dr hall aye mr smallish aye mrs walters aye president vice president rupert aye president albert aye motion carries next up are action reports under business can i get a motion to approve a certificate of payment the amount of three hundred and eighty one thousand seven hundred fifty dollars and ninety cents to r l soho general contractor inc for the 2021 renovation work at talala elementary school in the early learning center moved second was that uh wild tourism there any questions or comments i do real quick how we doing ken with formalizing a final kind of action item leftovers you know again we said we need to put an end to where they are and the whole thing was paying this contractor off was that we got an occupancy permit but yet we got some lingering action items on and you was going to communicate with them to say hey we need to put it in i am i have a i talked to our director he said there's about 12 items left i have a construction meeting on thursday that i will convey that because i'd like to get all those things done by the end of these small departments by the end of this month yeah how much left money we owe them roughly uh i think we're holding back uh let me just see this real quick 454 000.

in the last sprint of that marathon when you can see the finish line tape across we can go ahead as a board we will still all be here and this is what we're voting on today this is what we do or we do not want it's our job to make sure that that doesn't die and who's ever here in the new board that starts in 23 may not be all of us maybe who knows that's up to the people that are here that's what we wanted it's our job to take that with any new member and say this is the reason we voted for this this is what we're looking at this is this is what needs to happen in order for that to happen and i think that this board is very strong i think they're very intelligent they've asked the questions a million times of ken he's probably so sick of us he wants to just walk out the back door but it's because we do want to go forward we do want to do the right thing and i totally understand where you're coming from because when i walked in the door i was scared to death and all this stuff was coming at us that needed to be fixed or changed or built or plans hey they wanted to do this your wife was president she led all these saturday sessions on what could we do we broke down in teams what would work here what would work there we spent a lot of time and money on this project we need to begin following through we start and we never get to the finish line we need to end that here and now in this this board if we say this is what we want to do how do we get from point a to point b we need to follow through we need to hold each other accountable to do that to make sure that we have the information and it's solid information and that we can achieve it i think the addition of youth or athletics with your knowledge is amazing because i don't know if a football field should go north and south or east and west you know all that stuff that's going to make that planning so much easier and i'm glad that ken has already asked you to be a part of that because that makes a huge difference you're a part of it you can bring it back to us make us understand so i just want to throw that out there i think that as a team it's our goal to go forward with what we envision and if for some reason we can't get the money then we have to have a plan b so we can't always just have a plan a we need a plan b and a plan c and i think we've gotten in the habit of doing that for pretty much now and you know i i welcome your opinion i welcome mr brown's opinion god knows i was on the outside looking in a few months ago so i know exactly where you're sitting it is a tough decision but you live with it and you go forward and i definitely understand that and i don't know if you remember me saying a couple maybe a month or so ago i think one of the things that holds us back is you know the fact that sometimes the public doesn't understand what the long-term vision is right i don't want to bring that up yeah so that and i'm fine with you know change and moving forward but i'm just reiterating it is a tough decision it's a horrible decision you know because it's it's it means it does mean a lot but i also think that at the end of the day if though like i said if we move forward and i know he can't guarantee you can nobody can guarantee exactly it's a chance that we take um so i'm just saying uh hopefully we'll stay to stay the course move forward with the athletic facilities uh and hopefully we'll look like edwardsville if you've never been to edwardsville have you been ever yet but see you're an integral part of that so you need to hold the rest of us all accountable and say hey in october of 2021 ken threw this plan out where are we are we still thinking this do you think it's going to work here's my opinion i mean we need to keep doing that not just because it's two years away i guess is is what i'm saying the earliest we could really decide on financing i guess would be two years away but in that two years all that that ground work is done and we have a lot figured in the next two years yes a lot and again you have to have a vision and i think she knows more than anything i'm a plan a b and c guy i always make sure that if you want something out of life that you can find a way to get it but you have to be able to compromise somewhere down the road so we have to get through some of our biggest issues that this district has never been able to achieve and that's air conditioning and with some of that in renovating the buildings and giving our staff and our students what they deserve after that we move forward with a plan and we we work together on achieving that goal because again the other day what does that goal achieve better facilities for the athletes and for the coaches that definitely deserve it it's no different than a classroom sometimes athletics is what gets a child or an athlete through their life it's it is about education but it's just what we're what we're promoting here in the school that it's not always about college it's about career ready we need to make them better citizens better husbands better wives we want them to be ready for the workforce we want them to be ready for college we want them to be ready for military but at the same sense we have students here that can achieve the ultimate in in sports gets them there it gets them out of where they're at in their life and moves them on to the next step and it is a big picture thing but like i was telling ken earlier that this is a marathon this is not a sprint and if the long-term goal is that i'm here eight years or 12 years we can't achieve everything in four years it's impossible too much changeover but one thing i would like to say bill is i agree with you as a marathon but when we have talked about items we have talked about wants and needs of the district and we have placed certain ones closer to the finish lines than others but now i see this one the middle school edition i went over had a meeting with the principal as of yesterday i walked the building and she came to this board five years ago pretty much begging for additional rooms i think you were one that has been promoting these additions and all of that i agree with athletic fields and the importance of that bill i agree with you too and how it brings a mindset to our kids and help them out in different ways shapes and form i agree with a vision but most importantly i agree with now now and i feel that the middle school edition rooms is being pushed out and pushed out and pushed out when that need is there when you see those teachers on those carts you see that development role the professional development room that the teachers have and and how it's meant for three but it's nine and all of that and see our cmea president in there and things like that and again nothing changed and i know this is not a true topic of discussion but yet it's been brought up so we have to make sure when we bring things up and i'm not sure we said it maybe i'll get uh board member galbraith that when we have a plan eight the noun take care of the things that if we're gonna push the white at one time was it now to later as a vision we need to have the plan ready say this is what we're gonna do now and this is what we're gonna do here so i think we came a little late with this one i'm just saying ken with the developments of the sports complex when you presented the short term it's okay to present okay this is what we're going to do now but hey we're going to focus on this but i'm just going to let you know we haven't forget about this it just seemed like we was just out there in my opinion i should not have to ask questions about the sixth grade center not the sixth grade center but the middle school about the ten additional rooms when that was kind of high up we was talking about that mr brown i'm going to push back we were not because you were not that was one of janie's one of the main reasons let's let's let's let's we're way off topic of what what the motion is on the floor um i can i just say something yeah go ahead um i've been on the board now for about two and a half years and when i first got on board we did vote to tear down the heist the old high school and the talk of the dome at that time we were already in discussion about that so i just want you know i i fully understand i'm an alum of crete i have special memories in the dome and this is not a decision that is being made hastily it's been going on for about two years now two and a half years and there's just not been a viable plan there's nothing been that and and we have so many things that we really need to look at our girls softball they have to travel you know away from the school building there's safety issues there's a lot of things and and when ken just presented what he did um you know it will be sad to see the dome go but i just think we need to think about everything there's so much more that we need to consider here but i just want people to know this was not a decision made hastily i know mr brown had asked you know for delay and he presented some things and and we went ahead and we honored that as well and and now here we are two and a half years later and we still just there was never a viable plan so i i just want everyone to know that i understand it i i can appreciate the desire the want but you know unfortunately we're not this wealthy district that can just say hey resurrect the dome i mean there's a lot that need would need to be done um i think this vision makes a lot of sense and so i just i just wanted to add that so thank you i i definitely agree i just want to give a little clarity to something because i know mr brown mentioned uh he said about five and a half five years ago that the principal came i think that it was even before that um however long the sixth grade center has had the audition i don't and i'll say the names i don't care um mr tarayan uh gasparo who stopped the the um the expect the full expansion of it and then when she came back and said hey i need these classes then they said i was there you didn't tell us this before but yes she did she came before the board and said please don't stop the full expansion of it please let it go forth and they said no and then when she came back and it was proven that she was not lying they said well if you would have told us we would have never stopped it and which was not true so i just want to give some clarity to it's not we are fixing something that other board members stopped in the first place and i say it was out of spite um they may be friends with people but it was out of spite because of whatever reason um and it's unfortunate i don't want to be that bored i don't want to be the board that comes that people say we stop this because of an agenda against anybody an agenda um for our own selves or anything like that in a perfect world we do everything hopefully we get to a perfect world yes i agree athletics are just as important in my mind in my world as academics so which one have we been fighting longer we have probably needed athletic facilities longer than we've needed classrooms at the sixth grade center is that a middle school middle school yes um so which one do we do first well the principal has been screening for it i'm not against it but i definitely believe that we can even generate money by improving our athletic facilities to help so that's that's just my take on it um i do hate that it that we even got in this position but i don't want to be that bored that keeps us in the position i want to try to move forward try to look at the big picture we we want to we may not agree with which comes first but we do agree something has to happen and we can't just continue to uh have it the way it is so that's what i say let me let me just say you know kind of tack on a couple of comments that were made since i've been on the board for five years we've looked at numerous scenarios for facilities in this in this district none of those were incorporated the dome into the students needs none of them and so you know and we've made priorities we've made choices on how we want to move forward that's fine it may not include maybe not everybody agrees with those priorities but we as a board have come to the those decisions you know in terms of you know i'm always thinking about you know we don't want to hamstring future boards with you know make decisions today they're going to hamstring future boards i don't know what we'll do with that property eventually that'll be for future boards to decide here was a vision today that we saw but we have to give them that that opportunity and you know we've made along the line along the way here we've made a decision as a board we don't want to sell the property we want to retain it into the district so that's how we where we are today and i agree with sandy this decision it's a hard decision but we haven't made it lightly we've looked at a lot of different scenarios and that's where we are so are there any other comments or can we get to a vote well it came real quick if the boards decide to vote to demolish the dome again the sixth grade center is a done deal what about is there any funds to do any landscaping i know when you demolish things at the end of the day you know you still get this vacant space with not too slightly big open area without having grass so are we doing anything landscaping and minimum grass plant some seeds or what i would spend a lot of money and again i'd have to look at the bid documents and can see but i would assume that the ground will be leveled and that either seed or sod would be put into those areas for that i'd have to look to the midnight percent but i can i can make sure that that is done though as part of the country can you just at least let uh dr caron i'm sure we'll put it in an fyi i sure will all right appreciate it that's that's if if if it's voted okay all right any other comments add to it that again i'm not making a decision lightly either but i think hard decisions need to be made i think that's why we're in the position we're in because i'm not putting down any prior boards but they didn't make the hard decisions because they were hard and we just have to do it and so i'm not taking it lightly but i just think that we have to move forward and i think that's what we'll be doing tonight okay any other comments questions okay roll call please brown is a nay oh no mrs galbraith aye mr sawalis hi mrs walters aye dr hall aye vice president roop aye president albert aye motion carries okay next up can i get a motion to accept a proposal and approve a contract for the completion and installation of temporary air conditioning at balmoral elementary school crete elementary school coretta scott king magnet school and moani education center to talsma builders inc of alcip illinois in the amount of two hundred one thousand five hundred fifty dollars moved second second sandy give it to santa and bail motion right any questions or comments uh again i do have a question two hundred one thousand been awarded to this one particular person and janine you can probably help me out here the second memory serves me right the second lowest bidder was a contractor that i thought the district kind of said they could no longer bid and they could have easily won this bit i don't know if he wanted me to name it it was we we kind of we had some a lot of legal issues we had a lot i don't remember something good on this though they did they bid it i thought it was period as far as bidding on anything i could correct yeah i think you're correct that we were i don't think you could stop them from bidding but i think we decided so how do you do that i'm going to accept any bid from them right is that correct i just want to get clarity on that mr gleason is here if we need help um you cannot stop them from bidding however there is a clause in the bid documents that says the winner will be a responsible bidder and so part of that there are some stipulations within there uh that also uh define that and how it's defined as be by past work if there are any issues with past work and that so if there was a case where there was a contractor that was not a responsible bidder we could dis uh disallow their their bid but we can't prevent them conveniently okay so at one point at what point in the game will we know that the board know that because right now you're bringing the winner and you had all the other bidders there so if this per particular company was the winner that would have been a lot of energy i i don't want to sit here and again i would caution the board and maybe legal will sure about discussing you know what could happen yeah what happened is that tallsman builder was the low bid yeah we are recommending them as approval yes i would not even have discussion about anything else okay we can't have that discussion in the board so we can know the process we need to know a better process from legal whatever okay i will want to know that well there isn't mr brown there is a process in the bid documents there is a process where it talks about a responsible low bid yes and as part of that responsible it is defined in the bid documents and one of those stipulations are any uh past issues that they've had with the district so if a contractor does not meet that clause we can disallow that bid even if it was if it was a little bit so do in your office do you have documentation of companies that's considered not responsible okay in consultation with the architect yes okay yes i know that's all i just don't want things sneaking under the radar all right and mr brown i did quick tell mr gleeson what we were talking about because he had just come in yes so i think ken answered your question that you asked me correct right that you can you can oh you have a mic even if somebody's the lowest bidder if you determine that they're not responsible the board can make that determination and not accept it yes that's more determination as to responsibility okay but if again if the board do not know you get future boards that's all and needs to be somewhere where this particular company is known to have caused issues and not responsible so that's always saying for future reference how would a board know that this particular company is not on our radar to do business with how would they know that has not been responsible that's all normally you're getting advice from your architect they have that kind of industry specific information yes and and at this particular time this architect that we have right now was not aware because that was not the architect we use for the project that this construction guy firm was used so it's a lot of well that's why mr brown though i'm involved in because if he doesn't know that i know yeah and so between us we consult on that and make sure that they meet all of the guidelines and stipulations that the board would want and that's where my recommendation would come in also okay so any other questions or comments on item number four okay roll call please brown is an eye dr hall aye galbraith aye mr smallish aye mrs walters aye vice president rupert aye president albert aye motion carries okay next up can i get a motion to approve the personnel report including approved the certified staff employment leave of absence return from leave of absence and resignation and educational support staff employment leave of absence reassignment return from leave of absence resignation and dismissal move second okay all right um i just want to say something really quick um just i don't know any of the other employees i know only one of the employees she's resigning nothing negative toward the district of the board i just want to thank her anita franklin for her service um she's my aunt i know she cared about the district she cared about the kids she worked very hard every day this was a true passion for her to work with the children and work at the middle school with the with our district and i just thank her for her time and i wish her many blessings it was nice thank you me too thank you dr hall ice or lyle i saved up quite a few employees that abandoned their job and what it what's the definition of abandonment i know you can't be too personal being specific but i'm like okay what is that just not showing up to work or just most of the ones that you're seeing here uh they're people who didn't uh complete their paperwork and didn't show up work so we didn't get a resignation out of them we have to clear them from the rolls so we can fill the positions okay you say you did get a resonation we did not that's why we have to move to dismiss this yes okay all right thank you sir any other questions or comments okay roll call please dr hall aye brownings and i mrs wallace hi mrs walters hi mrs galbraith aye vice president rupert aye president albert aye motion carries okay we will have a need for before we go to all been in the business but we will have a need for closed session tonight uh in the old business yes no i'm going first because it's really hard to get a word in edgewise around here sometime back before the referendum um when we thought we would be possibly building some new buildings we had asked dr cara to do an ib program evaluation and actually a whole evaluation of curriculum but but focusing in on the ib program evaluation and i think given now that we're not building the new building so it's not as critical to have that right now because it was are we going to build a 300 student building or a 700 student building if that was a different scenario and also with everything going on with with covid and all the difficulties i would like to just suggest that we don't ask her to do that at this time and focus on all the other stuff going on i think it's still a good idea but to be pushed back to some other time so i just wanted to formally say that i know we asked that and she's very diligent about doing what we ask so i wanted to kind of get her off the hook for now while she concentrates on all this other stuff and then put that kind of somewhere in the future i'm also in agreement with that you've got enough on your plate for now it's something i would like to see done but at a further date yeah i i don't disagree so i mean i i do think there's you know some of the inequities that we identified between what the curriculum is at csk and what is offered at other schools isn't an issue that's going to go away that we have to address over time but you know there are other priorities so we have done some stuff right in that regard i mean we have a line curriculum things have moved forward with that so yeah i just want to make that clear i'm gonna be honest with you i want to work her she make too much already i had her out looking at some things today you know at the aviation world so she liked what she saw and if the board is interesting there's going to be something going on in both phil i'll send a flyer on november 13th so mark your calendar will be something good to see by the tuskegee uh chapter out there so get a chance to see a lot of airplanes and kids and things of that nature so dr uh dr coglini's the reason we ask you to do so much because you can so thank you is that an old business or new business item that was actually old business okay that was all business yeah because i brought up aviation at one point to this board mr dr hall all right um i guess i don't necessarily need an answer tonight but i would like something presented possibly so that people can know what's our process for process what processes do we take when looking for candidates or trying to find minority candidates as for as well as promoting minority candidates as well as providing awarding contracts to minority businesses so we do have a process and we can share that through the fyi you're welcome we do have a process for both of those and we can mention them in the fyi as well as bring it back to a formal presentation if you would prefer yes would you like a formal presentation okay we will write that down and uh our team will get that delivered for uh november all right and i just want to tell mr brown i hope he's not mad at me because i do have a background in aviation so he did mention that he did mention that no yeah you and i son my son graduated from the same program absolutely so again once the board gets more in tune on what's going on i think they will definitely be in favor of in some way shape or form the aviation world and i'm trying to similar to the rotc i think that's a big hit but i think when again the aviation world comes more out front to the board i think they will have a good buy-in that's just my opinion okay any other old business any new business yes okay new business um i guess i have a question i know that there was a meeting with um rich township in regards to the cte i know we've been talking about moving our cte program or creating one and moving it to the high school can you give us information on what happened there and what and what's your stance on yes on monday uh yeah yesterday we've been working with all the superintendents along with rich district to try to bring a a large career tech to the southland careertech and the idea is put together a 100 million dollar proposal that would create all sorts of aviation manufacturing all those types of things right now we are out there socializing the concept we are socializing it with our legislators with business owners with mayors i invited all the mayors to attend this as well so i did participate in the attendance every week i meet with all the other superintendents and we update what's going on and so forth where we're at right now is that again we've got to figure out how we're going to fund this 100 million dollar project so we're looking at grants we're looking at donations we are looking at ways to capture on some of our big box stores that are in the area to again look for donations to see what we can do to fund this project it's a very worthy project what's something that's very much needed in our area in in the meantime you know we are looking to do what we can at our high school level uh to further develop um our own career tech and like we've discussed earlier you know we're looking at expanding um by bringing over the current mec program but also i am working with lamont hollyfield who is the director of the careertech to expand and one of the things that we were talking about is again aviation we have a drone program that we would be further developing we're looking at some other kinds of programs that are out there again to further develop when i first came here i talked about future ready initiatives there were seven of them and just as a reminder technology equity cultural competency we've done those we've worked on those the other one was using global and local networking to help expand our students knowledge base and that's the one we're working on next utilizing resources in our area for example we need to again focus on resources we have moni has a wonderful agricultural piece we might want to go forward with that we may need to start looking at developing some first responders police fire ambulance we've got to figure how we're going to recreate our community and bring money back into our communities and a lot of has to do with the education we're also looking at growing our own teachers you know we have resources here we do have students that we could tap into so lots of exciting things as you know i'm working on developing a marketing initiative here in the district because we've got to get the word out we have a lot of exciting things that are just ready to be launched such as the southland career and tech but also for ourselves what we're doing here and we're really excited about the planning right now this is the things i'm getting excited about if taking the next step this board has been wonderful about getting us moving forward you know we've kind of settled down with the facilities and we know where we're going with this we can now start going full speed ahead on the things that really impact students career tech you know and providing opportunities uh for our students moving up so that was a long-winded response to you [Laughter] two more questions where what's the location and if it does take place and we build this addition to the high school with these cte facilities what happens to that what happens yes so if it is going to be here is it going to be somewhere else or are we going to build this and then it's rich each it's rich it's been sitting vacant as you know they did close it and that was the intent to basically demolish that site build a brand new site but even if we had the money today it's five years out for planning operations so we're looking very much a long-term piece we're still in the concept and the socializing the concept so i don't want to wait five or six years to do things for our students and even if hopefully it does come to fruition it doesn't negate the things that we are doing for our programming because the district would then send students and we would pay a tuition to outsource programs that we can't offer here so we are offering several programs but not everything would be offered at the the um trade center what other districts are on i call it our sister district so we have homewood philosoma we have bloom we have rich okay and then we have uh thorn fractional okay so thank you for bringing that up any other new business okay then can i get a motion to go into close oops let me get my handy-dandy reference card here i think this is all covered under litigation okay can i have a motion to go into closed session for the purpose of litigation when an action against affecting or on behalf of a particular public body has been filed as pending before a court or administrative tribunal or when the public body finds that an action is probable or imminent in which case the basis for the findings shall be recorded and entered in the minutes of the closed meeting yes and and we also second purpose for number nine student disciplinary cases so two purposes litigation and student discipline roll call please brown is and i this and this is so honest hi mrs walters aye dr hall aye mrs galbert aye vice president rupert aye president albert aye okay we are enclosed at 8 40.

and so with this the first layer is improving the heating and ventilation system which is the hvac so we're proposing that based on the school reorganization decision we would upgrade and improve and revamp all of our hvac systems at the remaining schools that remain open and then if we do a phased out approach what we would do is we will take the hvac systems that are currently working and the schools that will be getting the new systems and repurpose those and the schools that remain open until we do the phase out if that's the direction of the board any questions here yes ma'am mr mull um mr ortega um back in february i introduced you to uh an energy firm that would have the expertise to provide technical assistance on the ab-841 ventilation and energy program um and i think the response from our side was that we were going to have our grant writing team apply for those funds um do we have an update i think it was a may 1st deadline do we have an update did we receive those funds to help mr bryant hvac um has an answer can you please walk okay here we go all right so we just applied this now called instead of baby a41 it's called i'll shape all right um so we have just applied for 1.5 million dollars [Music] monday so we're waiting on approval for that if we do get a word of that of 1.5 million at 5.7 that's thank you for that and and the ab-841 are you are you saying that we did not apply for that or this was we didn't can we have our speaker introduce himself because i i don't know who he is oh i'm sorry i'm sorry yeah my name is brian allen i'm the mo i'm so sorry that's okay it's totally everything you know it's the suit it's the singer yes yes and actually when he was introduced to us he was on zoom so yeah i know i apologize it's because he's dressed up too yeah no it's not it's the night it's in my pajamas usually but you know tonight every night so um i do have a question specifically about so like so with the most recently modernized schools when when were those hvac systems installed so the latest uh modernization where hvac business probably please 2015.

so every school all the elementary schools on average to replace the entire system fence and all um to get a more energy efficient system to make sure we're all uh uniform across the board is 400 000 for elementary and for a high school middle school the average cost is 750 000 and that is including whether we need to purchase new systems or and or relocate systems from another site yes this is not the cost to relocate we will be relocating um let's say a school one if there were one of the schools that had a unit that was installed 2015 we will take that out so that school one will have a uniform system that is new and current and then the one from 2015 will be repurposed to a school that will remain open but that will be phased out over time so we are we are removing systems that were just updated yes yes sir in that case but not to destroy them but yes relocating so basically you're you're taking i know it's confusing but you're taking the older the five-year-old six-year-old unit from those schools that remain open you're taking those older units to a school that's going to still stay open but you're going to or that's going to close per se and then you're going to take that tool that you just removed it from and put all new units i mean yeah what is the life cycle of these units 15 to 20 years depending on their maintenance and preventatively so then my so then my other question probably for you with russia is so as we approve this plan is this like a set in stoneman plan are we able to amend this plan moving forward just depending on the evaluation of what happened yes ma'am we can always amend all right so i just want to say i mean i i understand the necessity of approving this plan tonight but i would i have serious reservations about going through a process of moving recently installed hvac unit to a different school site um and then put i think it just i i don't know how we would do that if they still have at least 10 years on the on their life cycles right at least 10 years so so i would just have concerns fiscal like just fiscal responsibility of doing that um so i just i i would appreciate having a conversation before any of this actually happens around what the action and we know which schools it is around what the actual plan will be so that we we before before anything if we actually do anything yeah and and with the plan and because when we say that this includes the what it would take to purchase new units for each tool but you you said it would be on us to relocate but i think we mean that's the staff time is what we're saying so we would we would when we go out for an rfp we would have a contract for whoever be installing the new units we'd include that in rfp to say hey we need a crane to move you know unit a from this school that would be included in the bid yeah it'd be helpful to know whether what is that additional cost in order to relocate specifically yeah and can i just get clarification so that will come back after we determine what schools because it could be that none of these schools have the modernized unit on there right okay and then i just i also want to say i i do think this is a very smart investment right because this i mean generally we have to use school bond modernization dollars to be able to do this upgrade work that we know needs to happen and so by doing this we're going to be able to leverage the current bond money to do other things that we want to see like performing arts center you know some something very nice for our students so i do appreciate the approach i just i concerned about i was concerned about shifting things and still usability i think completely understand thank you can i proceed yeah i i just want to say i understood what you guys are saying and i appreciate that you guys want to start or you know as we reconfigure and close down and go through that process the schools that will remain open i see i see the vision and i see that we want to start with with brand new fresh hvac and so that report that my colleagues i also agree that it would be great for that communication to come through but i i see it and thank you for that thank you and so going on moving forward um the second layer approach that cdc recommends is improving um natural airflow which means opening windows and doors and currently a majority of our campuses this is not an option uh most of um some of our campuses were actually built with windows that were never intended to open and then some were painted over time so this would allow us to install new windows which will also give us a nice curb appeal that would look like the image that we have here where the windows can actually be open and we will upgrade our doors again using the same model um this will be reflective of the school um the conclusion of the school reorganization process and can i ask you a question regarding the windows though so as you know and seen many schools that have windows they have they put on construction paper or you know cover them up so are the and i know i i hear a student like the sun coming in and the kids are there are these windows are going to be tinted or clear or yes they collect the glass yeah they will we have the option of tinted and we have another option um there is a new technology that we noticed when we went to the french shop um store or spent it on the outside and it could be the school logo that that's what you see when you're driving by but when the students look out they can see the beautiful trees and everything else so we have options with this okay i was going to add to that um so these are the double panes with argon gas in the middle so you get a thermal barrier there so that keep your heat back in the so there's the energy saving yeah thank you great yeah any other questions on windows and doors all right and then our third approach is to have outdoor spacing um for our campuses again going with the same model seven elementary two secondary and sierra high school um our first desire was to incorporate state structures those are the beautiful cells that you will see but that requires dsa approval um which requires architecture fees whereas our approach is when we're speaking to some of our site administrator just having the ability for our students to sit outside have lunch or have outside learning spaces these are the uh the models that we are proposing at this time it can be color-coded um the schools will have the option to put more on their campuses um you will also notice that the secondary amount has a lesser amount than the elementaries and that's because our secondary schools currently have already been purchasing outdoor seating so we didn't want to reinvent the wheel we wanted to invest in our elementary schools primarily but also give our secondary schools some funding allocation as well any questions here and of course these also come we'll stay for the secondary they're bigger than the elementary yes ma'am yes you know yes ma'am i mean this thing right yes and also um something they have that texture so they don't write graffiti on the seating and yes ma'am right yes or easier to take off yeah yeah and also you know they carve into them you want to think about these things that the good kids do yeah i was a kid once i know yeah and we've been noticing that the ones that have the i'm going to say like the bar approach they really can't carve in it's the ones that are flat first so we're going to do the bar approach to prevent that yes okay do we have a sense of the life cycle or life expectancy of these things because as i'm looking at some of these umbrellas and what the just preparing upkeep is so i know that if we went with with the tsa and architectural approval that imagine more of a long-term solution can we speak to the differences there yes i could take that one you want there's about a 10-year lifespan on those umbrellas material bsa you get involved when you start messing with structural firelight safety and ada access that's what psja covers so for those um structures there you wouldn't need the estate so that's why we would go down that road so those material what's that are they material the yeah they're materials you can get them also in hard top yeah but you just wouldn't have to do dsa approval because they're not structural member and so it would streamline that process if there's a with a 10-year life cycle does that mean it comes with a warranty so it should be yeah usually there's a year warranty on most materials um but the labor there's no labor involved in those and if i could just add so you are correct dsa is normally on approval means more sturdy more durability but with that um if you submit for dsa approval for any of your sites in order to do even just a sale you would have to bring them up to post let's just say for example a site did not have a ramp that was no longer that was not previously required but just to put up the sale you would have to make your site dsa compliant for all measures even if you didn't want to touch the a-wing but they're saying oh but you know this a-wing it was built in 1946 and so now we need you to bring it up the code you will be required to do that just to put the stella yeah it's called grandfathering so what what is the anticipated use of these space does this allow our students to eat outside as as well as have our teachers have the opportunity to have outdoor learning hub so i appreciate that second comment because that was my question around um how did we explore our ideas of outdoor learning spaces i mean i don't think that i would consider ben this type of this type of i guess benches tables like creating an outdoor learning space so have we thought about you know how do we can we create outdoor learning spaces that are that are not usable learning spaces i'm directing that to dana can i can i add a comment after before you see um kind of like what you're saying i i hear what you're saying but do you mean like during lunch or just open spaces where um students can go and do their homework yes oh no no i'm talking about so during during covert there are quite a few districts across the state in the country where they've created spaces outside where they can take a class and do a class either a lesson or something either hands-on or even just actually just teach outdoors and it was sort of a way to mitigate it again and being you know being in a closed space but that's what i'm talking about now i heard i i heard that also but i do i also heard pros and cons which is um weather i mean you know depending on the weather of course you you reach outside or do a class but then you know it's raining then where do they go or if it's too hot where they go right so there's there's frozen concept but we could probably just discuss it because i know i think pasadena does that i think i'm not i know i'm just picking in the valley but anyways i think it'd be a great discussion though on on outdoor learning yeah um yeah i would echo that i know that our library um received significant grant funding for an outdoor learning space so we could kind of look to see what those plans are and maybe adapt it to a district site i would like to speak actually on this outdoor seating um after visiting both of the high schools um and i saw that they only have four and i saw the students kind of standing around and you know they they actually um uh firsthand bases i know that the students at the high schools run to go get these spaces these and to go get the shade and go get the umbrella and so i this is needed in in our even in elementary the kids are you know they have those benches from when um i i mean from like 35 years ago and so they don't have spaces where they can congregate underneath the shade and so i i truly believe that this is a great asset to add to our our schools and i appreciate um because i know students have been asking for more benches and shade um to explore um you know outdoor uh learning spaces it's a great idea as well um i i think you know let's do both we most definitely could do that i think we're always interested in um innovative spaces uh we live in southern california and so um helping teachers and providing different ways to take the learning to the outdoor spaces is a is a tremendous idea when we do our project-based learning he did a lot of that over the summer and tested out lots of things and so it was really fun to see students taking their learning outside when they were creating art and all different kinds of things so yeah we're we we want to explore more of that um to see how we can you know utilize on different spaces so we look forward to that okay any other questions all right hearing done so next we go to the category of addressing learning um loss of instructional time this is the 20 allocation for here that allocates 4.4 million dollars so here's how we plan to address that so we will have reached um research-based skill model designated to provide high quality education for our english learners um starting in the preschool through elementary school we'll also have still instructional coaches to support the still instructional implementation in addition to supporting teachers with instructional planning and implementation the still coaches would also be supporting the grade level plcs with supporting how to use the data to inform instruction and provide differential differentiated and support throughout our instructional group ausd will also assign its sr3 and the elodp plans to provide targeted support for struggling learners through high dose high dosage duration implementation student achievement data social emotional learning as well as professional learning community will be implemented any questions here i do have a question just about the specific i do and i do want to say i do appreciate the way that we're really thinking about these like really a few buckets and going deep with them so it's not like we have like a million so i appreciate that but just i mean that's a pretty broad thing just saying we're gonna do steel right so what what exactly are we going to be spending that money on so this money in particular is for the seal coaches so each of the steel sites would have a steel coach and the coaches would be dedicated to supporting the teachers with their instructional implementation they'd also be working with the grade levels um again on the professional learning community as they're looking at that data to determine um what instructional practices we need to implement looking at data for instructional groupings it's very important as we are you know accelerating learning uh whether it's in any of our instructional programs or the seal model that we are really intentionally using the professional learning community as an avenue to um accelerate learning so are we is it going to be um is it going to be coaches across all our elementaries are just the pilot schools we're gonna start with the three pilot seal schools um then eventually as we expand seal we would be providing that to each one of the schools but that will come out of this funding well this funding in particular i believe we have 2.7 million allotted for uh the the three seal coaches over the lifetime of this you know particular funding and then we have uh 1.7 million that we are dedicated to a high dosage tutoring plan i'd like to start that um in the elementaries and then be able to expand that as well so that that this bucket of money right now is just for those three schools for those coaches for this um this grant and then where when would we have a conversation about sustainability once these funds run out yeah um so we would look at the lcap for that um so you know we've got we know that we will have some um you know uh some some funds that will be able to i i believe be you know move out of the lcap right with different things coming from the state and so this would be a priority where we'd be able to move that into there okay and then the okay so i have a question about the tutoring and we have questions about anybody else but still so with the tutoring how do how are we implementing that tutoring yeah so um i've been talking to different school districts who have been implementing this glendale unified is one of those districts they've been doing it for about a year or so there's different models this model in particular that we're exploring is to do during the day in classroom tutoring right so um based on um the different diagnostic or assessment data that we have we identify students who could use some extra support and so um the tutors would be assigned specifically with you know certain students um they would be working with them um with academics during their school day but also they would be really working on mentoring and building relationships with the students as well so that's what we're looking to do and what um yeah so who what type of person are we going to be hiring well we're we're going to um look at hiring college students so we have had a really great i think example with uh apu for example they've been doing azusa calculates with their federal work study program for quite some time we've had an opportunity to see that work where students are going in you know into classes in our integrated wine classrooms and providing you know additional support i think it's a pretty strong model um when you have college students um you know who are again working with our kids mentoring our students um that has worked well for us we've got another great example at powell elementary um federal work study students again who um you know are providing extra tutoring and support to our students so it will be similar to like our avid um right it's it is similar right so avid is a is is the way that we hire individuals to come and implement avid is that the way that we're going to go ahead and implement that that's what we're going to yeah right that's the goal i just want us to encourage us to maybe reevaluate that i think the research you know when you look at research around high doses tutoring and the the quality of the of the tutor and their background experience is a big driver of success right and they actually even say i mean i think what i've read is it's not good to just use college students because they come and go and they don't have the maybe they may not have the background so i just want us to think about how do we get really get high people in front of them whether it's aids have been trained and understand the work or defecated employees people who have a deep knowledge of understanding and how to teach and how to tutor and not just think we're going to be able to rely on college kids because from my understanding that's not the best way to implement high dose tutoring but i mean that's just that's just from my understanding i just want to put that on the table okay so now we're on am i able to proceed and i just wanted to go ahead and add um what one of the things that um when you guys go out and like you were saying apu and and uh just collagen and whatnot um um one of the things that i that i working in the high school and seeing the individuals that were hired um i did see a lot of these individuals that were hired were in education um and so they they were in credential classes and so um i'm just hoping to see that we continue to um explore those options um to make sure that they are you know um that we continue to go ahead and hire those individuals that have knowledge and tutoring um which they we did in the past for that okay so moving on to the use of any um remaining funds so we have 1.4 million dollars and we are proposing to follow the same free model from cdc but upgrade our district office so that would upgrade the district office hvac system and we would upgrade the windows throughout the district office where most majority are all paid to set we were also at state structure and seating for our faculty and staff utilized outside in the area and that would account for the 1.4 million dollars that we would allocate of the remaining funds to address the district office all right so here we also um receive community engagement i'm sorry we receive community engagement from our students parents and guardians as well as the youth um survey um so during the 2021-21-22 school year um there have been numerous um stakeholder engagement opportunities to gather and streamline feedback in form and development of the elo elogp grant as well as the um lcap plan um the feedback that was received was used to develop the s3 expenditure plan as well as receive community engagement for targeting following stakeholder groups such as our students parents guardians school and district administrators teachers support staff as well as elac and dlac and the partners and guardians of our students with disability with that i'll ask that we have any questions things that seem that there's none and we have already motioned a first and a second and we had presentation and we had a discussion we'll go ahead and move on to casting of the vote let's go ahead and cast our vote on electronically and i'm sorry let me go ahead and go to the student preferential vote yes you and it passes 5-0 we'll go ahead and move to the approval of the purchase of 10 maintenance and grounds of vehicles i make a motion to approve second we have a first by board member cruz gonzalez we have a second by board member rodriguez pena any discussion yes support president i have a question um ms jamal can you tell us a little bit more about the budgeting process because i know that this item is to purchase 10 vehicles but it also the proposal on the rationale is to take four hundred thousand dollars out instead of contributing one million dollars to our annual deferred maintenance instead contribute six hundred thousand and reserve the remaining four hundred 400 000 to make this purchase um can you tell me about the budgeting process then for transportation and around how we budgeted for transportation this year because i guess i was expecting maybe that this purchase would be in the transportation current year budget rather than taking it taking the funds from deferred maintenance or or reserving funds from deferred maintenance okay so currently the um for the budget development process there was no allocation to replace our replenished vehicles um so this was our opportunity to um explore um one we realized during this school year where more vehicles than usual broke down so now we have most of our um crazed men driving two to a car versus where they all had their cars before and this was the opportunity by doing the piggyback from the cmas that we were able to afford this without decreasing our ending fund balance and so instead of we're proposing instead of transferring the full million dollars to deferred maintenance and that we only transfer 600 000 and so that will take the deferred maintenance account i believe we have over three million dollars in the account right now and so we'll just be transferring another six hundred thousand you're saying when we're developing this year's budget maybe february march we didn't identify upgrading or replacing the fleet at all they're what it seems that these vehicles have they're really on their last legs but they weren't showing that six months ago no they were but at the time we did not have the budget allocation for them and so right now we're working on a process under the direction of brian allen where we're identifying all of our fleets and getting a replenish cycle and then going forward our adopted budget will reflect that in the maintenance operation budget of how many uh vehicles we want to replace every year and what is going to be that replenishing process thank you you're welcome any more comments for questions seeing that there's none since there was a first and a second let's go ahead and cast our vote but before we do that i will actually ask the student preferential vote where i guess line yes thank you and it passes five zero the next item on our agenda is 14.1 and it's the approval of resolution number 21-2207 red ribbon week can i please get a motion to move 14.1 to make a motion to approve 14.1 okay we have a first by board member rodriguez tanya we have a second by board member greer and we could go ahead and ask i just have a question so what is red ribbon we gonna look like um at the schools at this time we're usually outside of the crowd and the police officers so the theme this year is drug free looks like me we provide uh the sites with all kinds of different um opportunities for activities and um the sites you know choose the activities that they want to do um one of the things that we do in september is um we partner up with our um local health organization who provides us with contests their essay poster and video contest for the students so we usually have a pretty good showing with that great thank you now please get the student preferential vote yes thank you go ahead and ask our vote and it passes 5-0 we we're moving on to 15.1 but actually we did we have some unfinished business in closed session so we will not adjourn yet um our board will be moving into closed session to finish a matter that we need to attend to we thank all of you guys for being here in person congratulations again to you both um and we thank you guys that are watching at home for tuning in and thank you to all my board for this great meeting at this time we'll go ahead and move to our closed session you

okay so subject to them completing that work that would come back next month for approval to pay yes okay okay any other questions on this item not roll call please brownens and i mr wallace hi dr hall aye mrs walters aye mrs galbraith aye vice president roof aye president albert aye motion carries okay the next up um i have a little bit of a script to read on this um let me just ah this is bigger buddy just looking right here that's the same thing okay got it messing with my eyes i'm looking for a i'll get the motion in here so okay uh the next item for consideration is a resolution for the issuance of not to exceed forty five million five hundred thousand dollars in general obligation debt certificates limited tax series 2021 to be issued by the district pursuant to section 17b of the local government debt reform act and that the board of education would consider the adoption of a resolution providing for an installment purchase agreement in order to improve school sites and alter repair and equip school building facilities authorizing the issuance of said certificates evidencing the right to payment under said agreement providing for the sale of said certificates based on the advice of bond council the entire resolution does not have to be read aloud since it was posted as part of tonight's agenda in accordance with the open meetings act therefore mr brown as secretary of the board of the board of education would you read aloud the title of the resolution a resolution authorizing and providing for an installation purchase agreement for the purpose of paying the cost of purchasing real or personal property or both in and for community unit school district number 201u will county illinois and for the issue of not to exceed 45 million 500 thousand dollars general obligation debt certificates limited tax of sad school district evidency the rights to payments under said agreement writing for the security for the means of payment under said agreement of said certificates and authorizing the sale of said certificates to the purchaser thereof thank you so as a summary of the parameters included with the within the resolution the following pertinent terms are summarized the board has agreed that is in the best interest of the district to improve school facilities based on preliminary plans and cost estimates presented to the board and discussed at a public meeting the amount of money borrowed at this time is not to exceed 45 million 500 000 and authorizes the president and secretary of the board to acute and attest to the issuance the money will be paid back through installments not to exceed 20 years the following facility projects will be completed in their entirety or in part with the 45 million five hundred thousand dollars being borrowed temporary cooling rooms at balmoral elementary school crete elementary school monie education center and coretta scott king magnet school demolition of the sixth grade center demolition of the dome if approved by separate action heating ventilation and air conditioning at balmoral elementary school crete elementary school coretta scott king magnet school talala elementary school and the early learning center and electrical upgrades at the balmoral elementary school crete elementary school coretta scott king magnet school talala elementary school and the early learning center also plumbing upgrades at the balmoral elementary school creed elementary school and coretta scott king magnet school led lighting at the crete money high school in addition at crete monee high school and finally cosmetic improvements at belmont balmoral elementary school crete elementary school and coretta scott king magnet school talala elementary school and the early learning center so based on this information i'm going to ask mr cirma to give an overview of the complete financing of the short-term facility plan that will result in the district receiving 67.4 million in bond proceeds thank you president albrecht [Music] so mr robert asked me to just kind of give an overview to try and simplify this whole financing and what is going to occur so i'm going to try and do that uh to the best of my ability the first i want to start with are some type of the types of debt when it comes to school finance and some of these we've experienced before you've experienced before actually some are a little bit new to you one is work cash bonds you know these are bonds that are sold and may be used for capital projects and operating expenses currently we're able to sell our limit is 21.9 million dollars working cash bonds that's the limit we have and if you remember we sold working cash back in december to finance and pay for uh life safety projects and also to put as uh money in the bank and to hold as our fund balance okay so right now we could sell working cash bonds up to 21.9 million dollars then there's life safety bonds life safety bonds are bonds that are sold and they have to be used specifically for life safety projects as defined by the 10-year services that are happening we've talked about those that we have surveys from 2012 2013 and all that but currently the district sold bonds working cash bonds in december of 2020 to pay for life safety projects so we really don't have a need and can't use life safety bonds to do any financing because we've already earmarked money for that already and that's part of the resolution of december so so so can just real quick since you're on that so you're saying that the working cash bonds that we borrow 17.5 million dollars last year in december could you tell me again and you're this is kind of rhetorical for me but i just want to make sure i'm hearing it from you what was the purpose of that 17.5 million dollars the purpose of that were two purposes one is to complete life safety projects within the district we earmarked i believe 10.5 million dollars of that okay for that and then the other seven million dollars is put as fund balance well one million were used to of that seven one million we used to pay the building off right uh i believe you use that to play the building off i'm not i'd have to look at that for sure but i think we did mr brown but i do know that we've set aside according to that resolution money was uh allocated for life safety projects and and again i i i know i'm seen in a different way i'm going to ask you the question and either you're right and i'm wrong or i'm not seeing this right it's probably the latter oh that's all right okay so it looks like are we borrowing doing this time around here with that resolution that was just red are we borrowing any money to address life safety issues we are done i know so this time around so i don't know if i'm looking at this wrong when it comes to the renovation project sure and and things are calculated it says total cost so the project is 48 million dollars okay what exactly is that number then i'd have to look at that page let me mr brown because it's kind of correlates with what you're saying here so i just want to make sure things is right i can't i can't go further until isn't it all added up to that no okay this is separate all this adds is this okay so that's a separate thing tonight yes yes separate life savings the life safety all that's already been funded yes all the life safety has been found so there's no borrowing no borrowing whatsoever no what's being proposed is not to address life safety and again as part of the resolution that you are approving tonight yes only those projects that mr albrecht has read are involved and none of those were life safety okay being said no they were not a demolition of the dome the demolition of the sixth grade center i thought we had fun for that i think we was gonna borrow for that we were looking at any time to do that and pull the trigger we got the bid and we had money for that so why are we borrowing it now well again you can go ahead and use fund balances okay so so so that's so this i mean just give me a reason that's all i'm saying mr brown at the time we approved the demolition of the sixth grade center and we put the hold on the dome we we hadn't provided the board had not provided for the funding of that we were looking at that as part of the financing of a a future school project that got all put aside so we never we never borrowed money we didn't have money in the bank we didn't fund that project it was all to come and then put on hold good and i'm good i'm just so this is just looking for explanation though i'm looking at this you're like oh you know what dv8 and that's all right i'm looking at it sure and just just a simple explanation i'm good with that i'm not being combative i'm just trying to get an understanding sure all right thank you sir sure the third type of bond is a funding bond and a funding bond is a bond that's sold to pay off a debt that the district has an example of that is a debt certificate which is over what we're talking about tonight are debt certificates and then it's very similar in uh i'll say in your home finances if i take out a loan or a lease on a cop now i decide to get a home equity loan to pay that off and bundle that all together that's kind of what a funding bond does it pays off a debt that the district has if they don't have the capability in their operating funds to pay off and then lastly there's something called debt certificates and debt certificates are issued by a district of evidence of payment of an application or a liability an obligation of maybe building something a liability of like a lease or something like that it could be so it just gives the district the opportunity to spread these this obligation out uh instead of with one entity like one bank you can go out and do it to a lot of different banks and offer it at different levels let's say of five thousand dollars so i can really sell 45 million dollars in debt certificates at five thousand dollar increments to a whole bunch of investors that's what this allows you to do and not so it creates that liability so those are the four types now again what happens is we can't use life safety so what we're going to do is use all three of these and now the financing so the question comes up is how do i do that all right let's go through this so step one i need to create a debt to pay off using funding bonds so i'm going to sell 45.5 million dollars in debt certificates and do that in november which is next month you're voting on the resolution to start that process so the death certificate is issued by a district as evidence of payment for an obligation liability and that's what we just talked about that's what um president albrecht had talked about and as he had read our liability is the construction of these buildings that's going to happen in the future we don't have any contracts on that yet but that's going to be the future all right so i'm going to create that debt then what i'm going to do is i'm going to sell 52.4 million dollars in bonds in february 45.5 million are funding bonds to pay this off okay because remember i can use funding bonds to pay that off because i don't have enough in working cash bonds to pay at all so now i'm going to do 6.9 million dollars in working cash bonds to pay those up so that that gives us a sale of 52.4 million dollars that's going to happen in february so first we issue the death certificates and then we go ahead and pay them off and we borrow a little bit more and there's a reason why we're doing that okay and it has to do with debt limits and all of these other things that come into play step three which is going to coincide with this is i'm going to restructure our current bonds that we have right now because what i want to do and again remember we talked about this board is we want to reduce the annual debt payment that we have from 12 million to 10 million because it's going to save the taxpayer about 140 a year on their debt part of their property tax so they're going to save some money so we're going to do both of these at the same time we're going to restructure so that we can get the annual debt payment down and then we're going to sell 52.4 million the last part of this then is i'm going to sell we're going to want to sell 15 million in bonds in the spring of 23 for working cash bonds because remember i said we had 21.9 million 15 6.9 21.9 million dollars in working cash bonds and why i'm doing it now is because i don't have the debt limit to put all of this together so i've got to do two separate bond scenarios the reason i separated this out into 15 million dollars is because the board talked about making sure we go down parallel paths on our projects to make sure that if i'm going to do crete elementary i'm going to do csk and i'm going to do balmoral so what is this 15 million that up to the edition at the high school so everything will be done on a parallel bat it doesn't mean i'm not going to start this work i can start the work i can start the design and all of that stuff by 23 we've got the money coming in and all that so we'll be fine but that's why i separated this out so that there's no perceived that we're we're worried about one school over another it at least the first step two will and and step three will have enough funds to do all of the elementary school work you're right yes exactly because within these also within this amount here the 52 is also all the cosmetic improvements which we're not doing until like 23 which is we'll be open already so we'll be all right so we can use that money to fund it then we move this around and that's why again using working cash bonds is good because you've got more flexibility okay so how does the math work out here we go so we have death certificates in november 45.5 million dollars but then again i'm going to take out funding bonds in february plus a 6.9 which is 52.4 million i'm going to add in working cash bonds february of 23 of 15 million animal together 67.4 million dollars test tomorrow [Laughter] on it i know it is it is very confusing you know and uh again a lot of like craziness but again it's it's doable it's uh it's within the scope of the illinois school law and accounting okay okay and so going back to the initial borrowing of 45 million 0.4 45.5 million you're calling those funding bonds and you said that there was a period of you're going to pay off those funding bonds and you're going to doing a restructure i didn't hear the phrase refunding bonds no it's the about i see the funding but you said we was going to like refinance our own self that's what refunding bonds are like a refinancing we're refunding our current our current bonds that we have to structure them so that we lower the debt payment down to 10 million dollars okay at the same time when we do these new bonds we'll make sure they fit under the 10 million dollars also so that beginning in i believe it's 25 or 26 i'd have to look at the chart the annual debt payment goes from 10 million from 12 million dollars down to 10 million and it stays 10 million all the way up okay and i think this going back the number that you have here again that you gave us this document the cost of the project is 48 million dollars and we're going to vote on tonight the frank the funding for the demolition of the sixth grade sin and the demolition of the doll and we got 1.4 million dollars it says oh what this oh where's the new one i got two here this is what is this what you gave us last week i have two of them that's the same date maybe it's got the same date on it i'll try it too it does not let me see here look at that okay all right you don't have your question no no no i'm looking up here oh that's what i'm looking at here sorry that's what i'm looking at no the dates on top are saying because it's the same okay um that's what i was looking at let's see the revise okay here's mr brown well just one number i want to look at here and i and i want to put my guys just real quick okay so okay there's some changes okay i got it right and then so this is the one mr brown this is the 67.4 million one got it so that includes the addition it doesn't include the work done at ems at mec okay so this yeah i thought i was looking at this that's been the same book that's all right with the date all right good that's all right i won't i won't beat you up too bad you're okay okay any other questions for ken i want to clarify something that mr brown just said he said we're voting tonight on the demolition of the sixth grade center that is not a correct thing we're not voting just the downfalls the sixth grade center has already been voted upon okay just wanted to clarify that just the demolition of the dome is what we were voting on yes but we're voting on the funding of paying off the demolition of the high school center i mean high sixth grade center aren't we wasn't that yeah the demolition of the sixth grade center i know that's what we're voting this funding not right the funding funding the funding to pay to get that particular action item completed right correct if approved that's so yeah we already voted we already voted on a demolition two we already voted to enter into the contract right and we're voting tonight to pay that off got it okay any other questions so are you done yes sir okay so i are we uh still don't appear to this we don't have a motion yet okay thanks ken you're welcome okay so now formally i have a motion to approve the resolution providing for the issue of not to exceed 45.5 million dollars general obligation debt certificates limited tax for the purposes of improving school sites and altering repairing and equipping equipping school building facilities providing for the security for and means of payment for said certificates and authorizing the sales said certificates to the purchaser thereof so moved second oh sending move yes okay any other questions or discussion uh i just would like to make a statement real quick unfortunately for me i am definitely on a core with 99.9 of what we're voting on for obtaining the funds necessarily to complete so many of the tasks with the exception of the demolition of the dome so being said my vote will be indicative of that particular item only and it's unfortunate that it's tied in with this overall package to complete the work i am totally in favor of paying for air conditions and the other things again that's the one exception that i have and unfortunately i cannot vote as i really would want to vote on this that's just a comment i'd like to make okay okay um so we're voting first on number two then three then four correct that's correct okay um i guess i'll make my comment on number three when we get to number three i guess any other comments questions and and and terry i don't know if you can when i vote or something like that because i'd like to be entered it in for the record somehow written on how i vote and my reason why i did just right thank you i appreciate it okay roll call please brown is a president mrs galbraith okay i'm clarifying again we're voting on number two oh yes yes i dr hall aye mr swaalis aye mrs walters aye vice president roof aye president albert aye motion carries next up can i get a motion to approve a contract to omega-3 llc of elgin illinois and the amount of negative fifty four thousand dollars for the demolition of the dome moved second can could you explain again why this is a negative fifty four thousand dollars well not really that is that is a contractor's move like i said you know like no tomorrow well again perception is not reality here well again this is according to the documents that we have so omega-3 when when we asked them or the bid documents were sent out we asked them to give us a price on the demolition of the sixth grade center as an alternative if you were to demolish the dome at the same time what would be an additional cost omega said if you demolished at the same time the additional cost is going to be a negative 54 000 so it costs less to demolish both together than it would to do the sixth grade center yes okay and we already approved the contract for the sixth grade center alone yes so at this point we're appropriating fifty four thousand dollars less if we vote yeah affirmatively yes you are okay yeah and just just from my experience you know contractors do that and guarantee you if we go and ask this particular contract to go tear down the dome and they're going to give us 54 000 only that would not happen so you see in your cost your justification for it it says we'll do for a negative 54 000 only if you give us the 1.2 a 3 million dollar contract and then you have one contractor that was very close to them they were lower in the big part i think maybe lower a little higher then they came up with 58 000 to tear the dome down so you do that you go low here but you go higher there and then there were some contractors that was way out and you know what what i what i found ironic was the contractor that we're paying we're going to approve the certificate uh the payoff i think we already know coming up or whatever they were like five times four or five times higher they bid in on this project i don't know if you caught that they bid in on this project to tear the dome down how they were so high i know i'm mixing apples and oranges but yet they won the bid for doing the work that we're looking to pay and what they did over the summer so they was just way out there so you know i i saw that i saw that 55 4 000 and it was some talking points among the board say hey you know they're going to do this and give us 54 000 back i said oh that's just the skills of those contractors to have people talk like that so they can just bring them you know bring that issue up again and say hey this contract is not going to charge us anything they're going to give us money it's just a mental psychological thing that contractors i won't speculate what they were thinking in the bidding process i mean the reality is here we've we've already approved a higher dollar amount yeah than it will the contract demolition at the end of the day so it's really an accounting entry here then then we're not getting money back yes absolutely again on the surface when it comes down to it you know we we will not be pruned if we're just dealing with dollars or cents not to do this this is the right thing to do you know four dollars and cents and if you all agree to do it and vote this is the right thing to do with and select this contract at the end of the day is dollars and cents but i'm just telling you from my experience out there in the construction world in some capacity from my experience you know i have an mba in in project management and things like that so i see how they do things i will learn how to do things okay okay any other questions or comments on this motion dr hall sorry here we go this is probably one of my first difficult votes um and if we do and really push to do what what was presented tonight i feel comfortable the part that i don't feel comfortable with is will we actually push forward for doing that during our time or will it happen at all i understand the sentiment of the dome i do but i also understand the need to improve in a different way and move forward um i wish that we could keep the dome and still improve the athletic facilities and incorporate the dome and it somehow i don't know if that was presented or if that was looked at or or what have you but i do know that this is a difficult decision for me as a board member because of the fact that while some people may say there's only what was it five public comments in regards to versus all of the people we know that traditionally we don't get a lot of support not just not i won't say support but involvement not just here but many places when it comes to certain things school related and i know i'm rambling on but i just i don't know that i feel excited about this vote i'll say that and i apologize i think again i focus on a contractor itself but not how i really felt about the dome voting to demolish the dome i think all of you know the way that i have been been pursuing this and supporting not to demolish the don't again way back months ago it was brought to us and i believe our president said last week you know that's been on the table for quite a few years i know the plan prior to many of the board members here today that was presented to us that board back in 2016 was to build a new elementary school on the existing sixth grade center it did not include demolishing the dome and there was no issues conveyed to the board at that time about the dome then the new board came came up you know when you get new board you get new ideas and i'm cool with that and the new board said you know what we got to remove this dome and dot it out of that and that plan kind of went and fell by the wayside for various reasons then we have this board and it came up about demolition or demolishing the dome and it was basically i thought was cost justification and i do commend the board at that point with a 43 vote the table to vote table to vote to demolish the board because i had some qualms with some of the numbers and one of the big numbers was life safety we had three point two million dollars for the sixth grade center and her life safety and unbeknownst to me that that 3.2 million dollars included life safety for the dome and one of the big ticket items under the life safety for the sixth grade center was 2.34 million dollars for replacing the pipes and for some reason that 2.2 million dollars came over to the dome as being life safety issues and that was my reason say i saw an issue there's something going on and the board gave me time to look back that's the statement that bill sewallis read out for me i was out of town i was still on the meeting and can't agree there was that was not a good number for life safety for the water pipes you corrected that but you made some changes and added things on dotted and i said well this is a fight that i chose not to enter in and then the board came back and said on a meeting it was a virtual meeting the board came back and said you know what the real issue is that the board is in the footprint of the proposed new elementary school and i took a step back i said okay i'm okay with that i chose not to fight the battle and then i asked last week i said that is not an issue right now the dome is here we have no plans prior to tonight's hearing we have no plans to build anytime in the near future a elementary school on that site i believe i was the one that even recommended that site when way back to build an elementary school after we were going around around around trying to find it i said strategically that property should stay within the district so being said i hear it apply to the people me i have no sentimental values tied to the dome other than never forget who was at one time my daughter was probably one of the smartest kids here at crete bowl new at the time but she was not an athlete but she was on a basketball team and she was sent out to play on the court she stole the ball from the opposing player and she ran down and made her only two points in her career and i was in the wrong basket that's how i remember the dome and i'll never forget it okay so again i know i'm talking here i hear the plight i that's amazing tim you got one points i don't know almost 1100 signatures regardless if it's people living here in our taxing district or not but they had a tie to the dome i looked at it strictly as a financial essence and i'm gonna say this the last thing strictly and i think cost justification does not warrant to demolish that building if we don't have any good strategic reasons and plans to do so that dome has a lot of life we have buildings that's here today that we're going to invest a whole lot of money in it's a lot older than the dome and i'm going to say this i behind the scenes when i saw i said how could we and i looked at myself what's in it for me as far as if i was a business owner i had to structure what would i do with it i said i would not condemn it so i did behind the scenes that you can if you want you know two years ago i get emails and conversations i had that i talked to someone that said what would it take to move the dome 250 thousand dollars i had a site readily available for within the district 250 000 just to move the dome with a couple you know maybe sixty thousand dollars for a foundation no basement all of that but i didn't bring it to the board because i just knew it was a lot of red tape there again you know where i feel with this dome and i thank you for the chime for listening to me appreciate it board okay dr hall can i just address one thing with you um you're right there is no guarantee that that's going to happen but i came on this board in 2015 with all the the from a previous board their ideas there were many things we're still dealing with the middle school been dealing with the middle school since i came on this board we've got to fix it it was it was whatever i don't know i don't know who's i don't know the back story i don't want to know the back story but we've got to hope that we as a board are going through ken's telling us 22 23 we're going to have some funding power is that correct ken somewhere in there we could start looking at spending some money again i think you can start looking at uh some financing options beginning in 23 around and start looking at that for the future yes so this project that we're entering into now is going to take us to 23.

i have a motion to adjourn second all in favor all in favor say aye hi so you were first junior second okay 954 motion

so we're proposing to replace hvac systems that were installed six years ago no so what what latasha was just saying is but we'll take those tools that were modernized in 2015 take those newer units and put them at the schools that will remain open um whatever the board decides to keep open we'll transfer those we'll take them off the train transform to pools that will remain open and so that way we just backfill whatever's left over so we won't need to invest in seven elementary schools hvac no we will we will but but it'll be it won't be all brand new units there so it'll be some of them will be um repurposed from the schools that are closed that make sense right so but then so are those cost estimate this estimates then because why would they why would the cost be the same across all the school sites if we're re repurposing some units okay so for here all the schools that based on the school reorganization they will have new units so that way we can have a uniformity we can make sure our team is trained on them we can make sure they're most energy efficient and vice versa but those units that have been recently purchased um under their modernization or that are not at the end of life that we can repurpose we will take those to the sites that are not going to remain open but are having functioning issues which we currently have been having day to day so for example no i'm not going to give us i just admit it's less so what i'm hearing is just as we phase out these schools they're the ones that are going to have um these refurbished data yes ma'am okay i understand so what are the let's let's take school three mm-hmm there's 400 400 000 what what is happening with those dollars that will change all of the hvac systems at school 3.

in the last sprint of that marathon when you can see the finish line tape across we can go ahead as a board we will still all be here and this is what we're voting on today this is what we do or we do not want it's our job to make sure that that doesn't die and who's ever here in the new board that starts in 23 may not be all of us maybe who knows that's up to the people that are here that's what we wanted it's our job to take that with any new member and say this is the reason we voted for this this is what we're looking at this is this is what needs to happen in order for that to happen and i think that this board is very strong i think they're very intelligent they've asked the questions a million times of ken he's probably so sick of us he wants to just walk out the back door but it's because we do want to go forward we do want to do the right thing and i totally understand where you're coming from because when i walked in the door i was scared to death and all this stuff was coming at us that needed to be fixed or changed or built or plans hey they wanted to do this your wife was president she led all these saturday sessions on what could we do we broke down in teams what would work here what would work there we spent a lot of time and money on this project we need to begin following through we start and we never get to the finish line we need to end that here and now in this this board if we say this is what we want to do how do we get from point a to point b we need to follow through we need to hold each other accountable to do that to make sure that we have the information and it's solid information and that we can achieve it i think the addition of youth or athletics with your knowledge is amazing because i don't know if a football field should go north and south or east and west you know all that stuff that's going to make that planning so much easier and i'm glad that ken has already asked you to be a part of that because that makes a huge difference you're a part of it you can bring it back to us make us understand so i just want to throw that out there i think that as a team it's our goal to go forward with what we envision and if for some reason we can't get the money then we have to have a plan b so we can't always just have a plan a we need a plan b and a plan c and i think we've gotten in the habit of doing that for pretty much now and you know i i welcome your opinion i welcome mr brown's opinion god knows i was on the outside looking in a few months ago so i know exactly where you're sitting it is a tough decision but you live with it and you go forward and i definitely understand that and i don't know if you remember me saying a couple maybe a month or so ago i think one of the things that holds us back is you know the fact that sometimes the public doesn't understand what the long-term vision is right i don't want to bring that up yeah so that and i'm fine with you know change and moving forward but i'm just reiterating it is a tough decision it's a horrible decision you know because it's it's it means it does mean a lot but i also think that at the end of the day if though like i said if we move forward and i know he can't guarantee you can nobody can guarantee exactly it's a chance that we take um so i'm just saying uh hopefully we'll stay to stay the course move forward with the athletic facilities uh and hopefully we'll look like edwardsville if you've never been to edwardsville have you been ever yet but see you're an integral part of that so you need to hold the rest of us all accountable and say hey in october of 2021 ken threw this plan out where are we are we still thinking this do you think it's going to work here's my opinion i mean we need to keep doing that not just because it's two years away i guess is is what i'm saying the earliest we could really decide on financing i guess would be two years away but in that two years all that that ground work is done and we have a lot figured in the next two years yes a lot and again you have to have a vision and i think she knows more than anything i'm a plan a b and c guy i always make sure that if you want something out of life that you can find a way to get it but you have to be able to compromise somewhere down the road so we have to get through some of our biggest issues that this district has never been able to achieve and that's air conditioning and with some of that in renovating the buildings and giving our staff and our students what they deserve after that we move forward with a plan and we we work together on achieving that goal because again the other day what does that goal achieve better facilities for the athletes and for the coaches that definitely deserve it it's no different than a classroom sometimes athletics is what gets a child or an athlete through their life it's it is about education but it's just what we're what we're promoting here in the school that it's not always about college it's about career ready we need to make them better citizens better husbands better wives we want them to be ready for the workforce we want them to be ready for college we want them to be ready for military but at the same sense we have students here that can achieve the ultimate in in sports gets them there it gets them out of where they're at in their life and moves them on to the next step and it is a big picture thing but like i was telling ken earlier that this is a marathon this is not a sprint and if the long-term goal is that i'm here eight years or 12 years we can't achieve everything in four years it's impossible too much changeover but one thing i would like to say bill is i agree with you as a marathon but when we have talked about items we have talked about wants and needs of the district and we have placed certain ones closer to the finish lines than others but now i see this one the middle school edition i went over had a meeting with the principal as of yesterday i walked the building and she came to this board five years ago pretty much begging for additional rooms i think you were one that has been promoting these additions and all of that i agree with athletic fields and the importance of that bill i agree with you too and how it brings a mindset to our kids and help them out in different ways shapes and form i agree with a vision but most importantly i agree with now now and i feel that the middle school edition rooms is being pushed out and pushed out and pushed out when that need is there when you see those teachers on those carts you see that development role the professional development room that the teachers have and and how it's meant for three but it's nine and all of that and see our cmea president in there and things like that and again nothing changed and i know this is not a true topic of discussion but yet it's been brought up so we have to make sure when we bring things up and i'm not sure we said it maybe i'll get uh board member galbraith that when we have a plan eight the noun take care of the things that if we're gonna push the white at one time was it now to later as a vision we need to have the plan ready say this is what we're gonna do now and this is what we're gonna do here so i think we came a little late with this one i'm just saying ken with the developments of the sports complex when you presented the short term it's okay to present okay this is what we're going to do now but hey we're going to focus on this but i'm just going to let you know we haven't forget about this it just seemed like we was just out there in my opinion i should not have to ask questions about the sixth grade center not the sixth grade center but the middle school about the ten additional rooms when that was kind of high up we was talking about that mr brown i'm going to push back we were not because you were not that was one of janie's one of the main reasons let's let's let's let's we're way off topic of what what the motion is on the floor um i can i just say something yeah go ahead um i've been on the board now for about two and a half years and when i first got on board we did vote to tear down the heist the old high school and the talk of the dome at that time we were already in discussion about that so i just want you know i i fully understand i'm an alum of crete i have special memories in the dome and this is not a decision that is being made hastily it's been going on for about two years now two and a half years and there's just not been a viable plan there's nothing been that and and we have so many things that we really need to look at our girls softball they have to travel you know away from the school building there's safety issues there's a lot of things and and when ken just presented what he did um you know it will be sad to see the dome go but i just think we need to think about everything there's so much more that we need to consider here but i just want people to know this was not a decision made hastily i know mr brown had asked you know for delay and he presented some things and and we went ahead and we honored that as well and and now here we are two and a half years later and we still just there was never a viable plan so i i just want everyone to know that i understand it i i can appreciate the desire the want but you know unfortunately we're not this wealthy district that can just say hey resurrect the dome i mean there's a lot that need would need to be done um i think this vision makes a lot of sense and so i just i just wanted to add that so thank you i i definitely agree i just want to give a little clarity to something because i know mr brown mentioned uh he said about five and a half five years ago that the principal came i think that it was even before that um however long the sixth grade center has had the audition i don't and i'll say the names i don't care um mr tarayan uh gasparo who stopped the the um the expect the full expansion of it and then when she came back and said hey i need these classes then they said i was there you didn't tell us this before but yes she did she came before the board and said please don't stop the full expansion of it please let it go forth and they said no and then when she came back and it was proven that she was not lying they said well if you would have told us we would have never stopped it and which was not true so i just want to give some clarity to it's not we are fixing something that other board members stopped in the first place and i say it was out of spite um they may be friends with people but it was out of spite because of whatever reason um and it's unfortunate i don't want to be that bored i don't want to be the board that comes that people say we stop this because of an agenda against anybody an agenda um for our own selves or anything like that in a perfect world we do everything hopefully we get to a perfect world yes i agree athletics are just as important in my mind in my world as academics so which one have we been fighting longer we have probably needed athletic facilities longer than we've needed classrooms at the sixth grade center is that a middle school middle school yes um so which one do we do first well the principal has been screening for it i'm not against it but i definitely believe that we can even generate money by improving our athletic facilities to help so that's that's just my take on it um i do hate that it that we even got in this position but i don't want to be that bored that keeps us in the position i want to try to move forward try to look at the big picture we we want to we may not agree with which comes first but we do agree something has to happen and we can't just continue to uh have it the way it is so that's what i say let me let me just say you know kind of tack on a couple of comments that were made since i've been on the board for five years we've looked at numerous scenarios for facilities in this in this district none of those were incorporated the dome into the students needs none of them and so you know and we've made priorities we've made choices on how we want to move forward that's fine it may not include maybe not everybody agrees with those priorities but we as a board have come to the those decisions you know in terms of you know i'm always thinking about you know we don't want to hamstring future boards with you know make decisions today they're going to hamstring future boards i don't know what we'll do with that property eventually that'll be for future boards to decide here was a vision today that we saw but we have to give them that that opportunity and you know we've made along the line along the way here we've made a decision as a board we don't want to sell the property we want to retain it into the district so that's how we where we are today and i agree with sandy this decision it's a hard decision but we haven't made it lightly we've looked at a lot of different scenarios and that's where we are so are there any other comments or can we get to a vote well it came real quick if the boards decide to vote to demolish the dome again the sixth grade center is a done deal what about is there any funds to do any landscaping i know when you demolish things at the end of the day you know you still get this vacant space with not too slightly big open area without having grass so are we doing anything landscaping and minimum grass plant some seeds or what i would spend a lot of money and again i'd have to look at the bid documents and can see but i would assume that the ground will be leveled and that either seed or sod would be put into those areas for that i'd have to look to the midnight percent but i can i can make sure that that is done though as part of the country can you just at least let uh dr caron i'm sure we'll put it in an fyi i sure will all right appreciate it that's that's if if if it's voted okay all right any other comments add to it that again i'm not making a decision lightly either but i think hard decisions need to be made i think that's why we're in the position we're in because i'm not putting down any prior boards but they didn't make the hard decisions because they were hard and we just have to do it and so i'm not taking it lightly but i just think that we have to move forward and i think that's what we'll be doing tonight okay any other comments questions okay roll call please brown is a nay oh no mrs galbraith aye mr sawalis hi mrs walters aye dr hall aye vice president roop aye president albert aye motion carries okay next up can i get a motion to accept a proposal and approve a contract for the completion and installation of temporary air conditioning at balmoral elementary school crete elementary school coretta scott king magnet school and moani education center to talsma builders inc of alcip illinois in the amount of two hundred one thousand five hundred fifty dollars moved second second sandy give it to santa and bail motion right any questions or comments uh again i do have a question two hundred one thousand been awarded to this one particular person and janine you can probably help me out here the second memory serves me right the second lowest bidder was a contractor that i thought the district kind of said they could no longer bid and they could have easily won this bit i don't know if he wanted me to name it it was we we kind of we had some a lot of legal issues we had a lot i don't remember something good on this though they did they bid it i thought it was period as far as bidding on anything i could correct yeah i think you're correct that we were i don't think you could stop them from bidding but i think we decided so how do you do that i'm going to accept any bid from them right is that correct i just want to get clarity on that mr gleason is here if we need help um you cannot stop them from bidding however there is a clause in the bid documents that says the winner will be a responsible bidder and so part of that there are some stipulations within there uh that also uh define that and how it's defined as be by past work if there are any issues with past work and that so if there was a case where there was a contractor that was not a responsible bidder we could dis uh disallow their their bid but we can't prevent them conveniently okay so at one point at what point in the game will we know that the board know that because right now you're bringing the winner and you had all the other bidders there so if this per particular company was the winner that would have been a lot of energy i i don't want to sit here and again i would caution the board and maybe legal will sure about discussing you know what could happen yeah what happened is that tallsman builder was the low bid yeah we are recommending them as approval yes i would not even have discussion about anything else okay we can't have that discussion in the board so we can know the process we need to know a better process from legal whatever okay i will want to know that well there isn't mr brown there is a process in the bid documents there is a process where it talks about a responsible low bid yes and as part of that responsible it is defined in the bid documents and one of those stipulations are any uh past issues that they've had with the district so if a contractor does not meet that clause we can disallow that bid even if it was if it was a little bit so do in your office do you have documentation of companies that's considered not responsible okay in consultation with the architect yes okay yes i know that's all i just don't want things sneaking under the radar all right and mr brown i did quick tell mr gleeson what we were talking about because he had just come in yes so i think ken answered your question that you asked me correct right that you can you can oh you have a mic even if somebody's the lowest bidder if you determine that they're not responsible the board can make that determination and not accept it yes that's more determination as to responsibility okay but if again if the board do not know you get future boards that's all and needs to be somewhere where this particular company is known to have caused issues and not responsible so that's always saying for future reference how would a board know that this particular company is not on our radar to do business with how would they know that has not been responsible that's all normally you're getting advice from your architect they have that kind of industry specific information yes and and at this particular time this architect that we have right now was not aware because that was not the architect we use for the project that this construction guy firm was used so it's a lot of well that's why mr brown though i'm involved in because if he doesn't know that i know yeah and so between us we consult on that and make sure that they meet all of the guidelines and stipulations that the board would want and that's where my recommendation would come in also okay so any other questions or comments on item number four okay roll call please brown is an eye dr hall aye galbraith aye mr smallish aye mrs walters aye vice president rupert aye president albert aye motion carries okay next up can i get a motion to approve the personnel report including approved the certified staff employment leave of absence return from leave of absence and resignation and educational support staff employment leave of absence reassignment return from leave of absence resignation and dismissal move second okay all right um i just want to say something really quick um just i don't know any of the other employees i know only one of the employees she's resigning nothing negative toward the district of the board i just want to thank her anita franklin for her service um she's my aunt i know she cared about the district she cared about the kids she worked very hard every day this was a true passion for her to work with the children and work at the middle school with the with our district and i just thank her for her time and i wish her many blessings it was nice thank you me too thank you dr hall ice or lyle i saved up quite a few employees that abandoned their job and what it what's the definition of abandonment i know you can't be too personal being specific but i'm like okay what is that just not showing up to work or just most of the ones that you're seeing here uh they're people who didn't uh complete their paperwork and didn't show up work so we didn't get a resignation out of them we have to clear them from the rolls so we can fill the positions okay you say you did get a resonation we did not that's why we have to move to dismiss this yes okay all right thank you sir any other questions or comments okay roll call please dr hall aye brownings and i mrs wallace hi mrs walters hi mrs galbraith aye vice president rupert aye president albert aye motion carries okay we will have a need for before we go to all been in the business but we will have a need for closed session tonight uh in the old business yes no i'm going first because it's really hard to get a word in edgewise around here sometime back before the referendum um when we thought we would be possibly building some new buildings we had asked dr cara to do an ib program evaluation and actually a whole evaluation of curriculum but but focusing in on the ib program evaluation and i think given now that we're not building the new building so it's not as critical to have that right now because it was are we going to build a 300 student building or a 700 student building if that was a different scenario and also with everything going on with with covid and all the difficulties i would like to just suggest that we don't ask her to do that at this time and focus on all the other stuff going on i think it's still a good idea but to be pushed back to some other time so i just wanted to formally say that i know we asked that and she's very diligent about doing what we ask so i wanted to kind of get her off the hook for now while she concentrates on all this other stuff and then put that kind of somewhere in the future i'm also in agreement with that you've got enough on your plate for now it's something i would like to see done but at a further date yeah i i don't disagree so i mean i i do think there's you know some of the inequities that we identified between what the curriculum is at csk and what is offered at other schools isn't an issue that's going to go away that we have to address over time but you know there are other priorities so we have done some stuff right in that regard i mean we have a line curriculum things have moved forward with that so yeah i just want to make that clear i'm gonna be honest with you i want to work her she make too much already i had her out looking at some things today you know at the aviation world so she liked what she saw and if the board is interesting there's going to be something going on in both phil i'll send a flyer on november 13th so mark your calendar will be something good to see by the tuskegee uh chapter out there so get a chance to see a lot of airplanes and kids and things of that nature so dr uh dr coglini's the reason we ask you to do so much because you can so thank you is that an old business or new business item that was actually old business okay that was all business yeah because i brought up aviation at one point to this board mr dr hall all right um i guess i don't necessarily need an answer tonight but i would like something presented possibly so that people can know what's our process for process what processes do we take when looking for candidates or trying to find minority candidates as for as well as promoting minority candidates as well as providing awarding contracts to minority businesses so we do have a process and we can share that through the fyi you're welcome we do have a process for both of those and we can mention them in the fyi as well as bring it back to a formal presentation if you would prefer yes would you like a formal presentation okay we will write that down and uh our team will get that delivered for uh november all right and i just want to tell mr brown i hope he's not mad at me because i do have a background in aviation so he did mention that he did mention that no yeah you and i son my son graduated from the same program absolutely so again once the board gets more in tune on what's going on i think they will definitely be in favor of in some way shape or form the aviation world and i'm trying to similar to the rotc i think that's a big hit but i think when again the aviation world comes more out front to the board i think they will have a good buy-in that's just my opinion okay any other old business any new business yes okay new business um i guess i have a question i know that there was a meeting with um rich township in regards to the cte i know we've been talking about moving our cte program or creating one and moving it to the high school can you give us information on what happened there and what and what's your stance on yes on monday uh yeah yesterday we've been working with all the superintendents along with rich district to try to bring a a large career tech to the southland careertech and the idea is put together a 100 million dollar proposal that would create all sorts of aviation manufacturing all those types of things right now we are out there socializing the concept we are socializing it with our legislators with business owners with mayors i invited all the mayors to attend this as well so i did participate in the attendance every week i meet with all the other superintendents and we update what's going on and so forth where we're at right now is that again we've got to figure out how we're going to fund this 100 million dollar project so we're looking at grants we're looking at donations we are looking at ways to capture on some of our big box stores that are in the area to again look for donations to see what we can do to fund this project it's a very worthy project what's something that's very much needed in our area in in the meantime you know we are looking to do what we can at our high school level uh to further develop um our own career tech and like we've discussed earlier you know we're looking at expanding um by bringing over the current mec program but also i am working with lamont hollyfield who is the director of the careertech to expand and one of the things that we were talking about is again aviation we have a drone program that we would be further developing we're looking at some other kinds of programs that are out there again to further develop when i first came here i talked about future ready initiatives there were seven of them and just as a reminder technology equity cultural competency we've done those we've worked on those the other one was using global and local networking to help expand our students knowledge base and that's the one we're working on next utilizing resources in our area for example we need to again focus on resources we have moni has a wonderful agricultural piece we might want to go forward with that we may need to start looking at developing some first responders police fire ambulance we've got to figure how we're going to recreate our community and bring money back into our communities and a lot of has to do with the education we're also looking at growing our own teachers you know we have resources here we do have students that we could tap into so lots of exciting things as you know i'm working on developing a marketing initiative here in the district because we've got to get the word out we have a lot of exciting things that are just ready to be launched such as the southland career and tech but also for ourselves what we're doing here and we're really excited about the planning right now this is the things i'm getting excited about if taking the next step this board has been wonderful about getting us moving forward you know we've kind of settled down with the facilities and we know where we're going with this we can now start going full speed ahead on the things that really impact students career tech you know and providing opportunities uh for our students moving up so that was a long-winded response to you [Laughter] two more questions where what's the location and if it does take place and we build this addition to the high school with these cte facilities what happens to that what happens yes so if it is going to be here is it going to be somewhere else or are we going to build this and then it's rich each it's rich it's been sitting vacant as you know they did close it and that was the intent to basically demolish that site build a brand new site but even if we had the money today it's five years out for planning operations so we're looking very much a long-term piece we're still in the concept and the socializing the concept so i don't want to wait five or six years to do things for our students and even if hopefully it does come to fruition it doesn't negate the things that we are doing for our programming because the district would then send students and we would pay a tuition to outsource programs that we can't offer here so we are offering several programs but not everything would be offered at the the um trade center what other districts are on i call it our sister district so we have homewood philosoma we have bloom we have rich okay and then we have uh thorn fractional okay so thank you for bringing that up any other new business okay then can i get a motion to go into close oops let me get my handy-dandy reference card here i think this is all covered under litigation okay can i have a motion to go into closed session for the purpose of litigation when an action against affecting or on behalf of a particular public body has been filed as pending before a court or administrative tribunal or when the public body finds that an action is probable or imminent in which case the basis for the findings shall be recorded and entered in the minutes of the closed meeting yes and and we also second purpose for number nine student disciplinary cases so two purposes litigation and student discipline roll call please brown is and i this and this is so honest hi mrs walters aye dr hall aye mrs galbert aye vice president rupert aye president albert aye okay we are enclosed at 8 40.

for grades three to eight the measures that we're using are the kodak i ready eli and math teacher recommendation report borrow rates and come this spring you will most likely add an nj sla onto that guru as well so since we are in the developmental stages of both the reach program and our win program you know things will be added on and changed as we as we go through the year or this year there is a total score of 19 points with it uh with a minimum of 13 to be able to qualify for the program so just a little overview about the cocad for anyone who's not aware of it it is not an iq test it is a cognitive abilities test it is one of the measures that we use on the uber it's used widely across the state of new jersey and the nation for g t identification there are different criteria that are created once you administer the token what we chose to use was the age percentile rank and the cogai indicates that students that score above 95 are considered very good this percentage equates on a rubric to a score however this was not the only indicator we used we also broke it down into other percentages lower than 95 we did that every criteria so not one area a student will be eliminated if they didn't score for example in this 95 percent are higher which a lot of districts did but we chose to give the children a chance to earn points in different areas as you can see if you pull up the rupert on our website what does the co gap measure it measures the cognitive development of a student in the area of learned reasoning and problem solving skills and three main categories verbal reasoning mathematical reasoning and problem solving with patterns and relationships for the k-2 students who are not able to read yet it's picture analogy so there's no meaning involved and objectives are very similar to our new great districts some of our goals are that students will be able to develop skills reach their potential and also have the opportunity to collaborate with their peers develop differentiated materials for our viability students while we're fostering highway higher weather thinking critical thinking and problem solving skills some additional goals and objectives for grades four to eight the students will engage in medical mission and be able to communicate their thoughts and ideas appropriately design and construct meaningful research demonstrate the ability to pursue areas of interest through in-depth investigation and also develop an understanding of themselves and their own unique interests and abilities throughout the program district wide enrichment that occurs to us have been provided to our students for many years these are some of the programs that we offer kfi and in the middle school to many of our students and we have more all right so our reach program had a glance i have to say i'll reach teachers kelly cardone we first sat down together in september when they came back to school and they have done an outstanding job working with me creating the curriculum for this program i can't say enough about both of them and what they have put together so far it really is amazing to me and they are just thrilled to be teaching this program this week was when we launched it so i went into this cardone's room a few times already and just watching the students and they were doing an introductory activity where they had me create masterpieces that play and then comment on each other's and be able to think about what it was that they were creating and you'd see their own unique talents and abilities as they were making these projects and they were they were so excited this partner was so excited and it was just it was really nice to be able to walk in there and see everything that was happening our kindergarten through third grade preaching program will be taught by gene roman and that will be conducted during our main period which mrs carlson basically just has broken number four so during when those students will meet in small groups and this woman will take the students who were identified for the gifted and talented reach program with her and she has created already different units for each different things so just to give you an idea for the first trimester kindergarten even though it will not be the reach program she will still be doing an enrichment with the students who are exceeding expectations in that grade level she will be doing fairy tales and fables first grade dinosaurs second grade in nature and third grade under the state kali cardamom and fourth and fifth grade will be her themes will be stem and fine art sixth grade space seventh grade music and groupies and eighth grade will be business but as i said before it will be cross-curricular so they will be including all the different subject areas into the program students may be offered an opportunity to attend an out-of-district program hosted by the short consortium for gifted and talented it has been around for a while however it hasn't been because of the pandemic so i'm going to meeting next friday so i will find out a lot more about the program at that point i don't think all students will be able to attend because some of our grade levels have a higher number of students that have been identified and you just depend on how many students they will be asking us to send for each event so again i will have more information on that actually some of the programs are limited their school is hosting we limit the size we dictate how many kids can come to the building and that's even free so again we put a lot of time and effort into the rubric to really make it fair for all the students however if a parent would like to appeal [Music] then once new data arises for example new idea scores report card grades teacher recommendation then i can reevaluate and put those new measures into the uber to see if they would then qualify for the program so most likely it would be for a student who was close to the criteria and then possibly with new additional data it might push them up to that one twice exceptional is a student who receives special education services and qualifies for a hampton intelligence program all students have been provided an opportunity to gain acceptance into our reach program we provided accommodations and modifications that were implemented during the screening and the evaluation process when we're getting our full gap access and these are some different websites that anyone is welcome to go on to learn more about youtube and talented programs including our teachers i will also be attending the national association of gifted children conference i was going to go to denver again i didn't want to ask two times in the last few years so i decided to do it virtually i said i need to know oh i really did welcome but i will be attending that conference and what's really nice about it is i would have access to all the sessions through the spring so it gives me plenty of time where i can attend the sessions that i feel are you know most necessary for what i mean right now and then as i go along and i can even have this part and they'll enjoy me in watching sessions that would find them and help them in their instruction as well so i'm really excited about that so thank you for approving that and anyone who has any other questions parents board members teachers you can contact me at extension 184 you can email me invoice me beyond more than welcome to reach out to you and answer any of your questions so thank you so much for taking the time to hear about our reach program and like i said we're all very excited about the teachers students and parents as well we had all the students that were identified all the parents said in their letters and wanted to be a part of the program so 100 so i think that really shows that they were very interested in having this program as well and i have to say jen uh did this exact presentation to our teachers when we did our in-service on top of the open service update and uh the teachers were really impressed with what jen has done but with the other teachers i've done so i'm glad to mention gene mullen and kelly have the version so far and because gene loman is a special ed teacher worked with special needs children but he created in the schedule some periods during the day where she do win where she can do lli that's another part of her schedule and say for kelly partner which is an eighth grade teacher teaches eighth grade science she does eighth grade lab and we created pieces in her schedule where she could pull out kids in important breakthrough aprons so it took a lot of work you know i'm asking them to do this there's a lot of more work for putting on them but they did this without the they've really done a tremendous job in such a short amount of time because i said that it doesn't matter if the boy doesn't care we're going to work on him when we can start this program this is not a race and so it also breaks but i think it's incredible that the program is starting now and that just shows you the kind of stuff so for example third grade teachers we looked at a skill they all decided they're going to work for about five weeks on fluency so then we move the students according to their lead as a whole grade level so it is so exciting to go in and see that each teacher has a different group of students and it actually prepares them for you know later on in the school year because they're moving from one classroom to another and they're getting to have another teacher do the lesson they're seeing other friends that they might not have seen before and if they're really enjoying it we've only had one or two sessions so far but we needed plc's ahead of time to decide what is the skill that we're going to be working on what are our lessons you know how we're going to make it fun for them and we did the kindergarten and we just did you know we did an sdl activity just so his teachers could get to know the students because they don't have those students every day and the students can get to know each other and they were just they were just adorable and had had so much fun so that's an example of last year we wouldn't do that because of children learning in cohorts now fixing our kids and still following all the rules we are really uh moving in the right direction i i was i keep saying everything that's happening in our building you know we put up i was bored and put up with a lot of stuff but when you're in our building every single day and you see what's happening you're like we've come a long way in a year or six months we've really come a long way and it and it's really associated with teachers jen for allowing us uh this opportunity to make something like this happen it wouldn't happen without before my view of saying yes to the things that we asked whether it was budget season or curriculum lies you're a board that you know looks at what's important and understands what we're trying to do thank you very much are there any questions we have a few questions or maybe you want to sit down and we can all turn around oh sure [Music] my first question was um in terms of how we came up with is that something that's been validated how did we come up with with that system and the point system and that they are ready scores and how is that something that other centers are using how do we come up with that so i researched many many districts and there's every district uses different criteria so those were definitely criteria that were on many school districts so again we looked and decided based on the difference that we looked at and percentiles that were recommended on the i ready you know what is considered exceptional and as we go through it matched up to the percentages that you put on so there was a lot of research that was involved looking at other districts and looking at each criteria in regards to i ready like i said in the market that they recommended each percentage and then it was created from there so each school district really uses different measures but these were the ones that we currently use and so it was easier to because you have the information right actually before i ask you a question i'm sorry i should have said thank you congratulations on getting this program started i think it's it's very important it's it's it's been a long time coming for for us to have this here it's a very important thing to identify and and foster these kids um a few other things um i saw it from the appeal process where maybe you would re-evaluate how often are kids gonna be diabetes maybe once a year yes every spring so ideally this would always be done in the spring however i was not right and this spring we were not in a position so and again i think i think this is great and this is a great starting point but one of one of the things that the dog and i had talked about the last meeting was that and i'm sure you you know this being that you you're the head of the program because that gift that children aren't necessarily kids that are just getting good grades and everything and never get the kids to be identified they've not been hit into rubrics um i just i know that that's hard that's not something we can start right away but i just want to make sure that that's something that we're looking at in an ongoing way and that we don't um you have to start somewhere um but but i think we need to make sure that we continue to evolve and identify you know there could be kids that are that are gifted in music that are not doing great and all these other tests and we need to make sure that we identify them it's just as sorry you're absolutely right i know kurt has talked about this in curriculum and the reminder is good and keep it on the page forward because i think the meeting that i was in with you jen is that that was the goal that this always will evolve and that's like every year it's gonna change and hopefully grow even more but i think as a board we need to keep that in mind the top priority so we can keep moving forward okay okay right but you said we had to start somewhere we got to start somewhere so here's where we started we drew a line and as we move forward we have a little girl two little girls in our school that play at carnegie hall so i know about gifted musicians for sure so and we have a lot of kids in this in our school it's it's we are aware and it's it's a challenge because you know there can be kids that are actually gifted even into something like math they don't do well it's very challenging to identify with you yeah so i you know i followed the effort um what else was that was there was there a time a time constraint where we had to start this by a certain point or pausing together now because we met the policy didn't proceed right we met the regulation of what we were doing already so this was just about yeah yeah and then you know and sometimes when we talk about it this summer it was like you can't start this stuff and then it was like what if it's october i would say to colin jen i don't care where it starts because when we started we wanted to the right we will backpedal when we when we open this up and we make our decisions we want to be great and know that as we move forward we're going to grow as we move forward so there was a little bit about it last month um that was probably going to start in october but but even when i said it i was like and if it doesn't happen i would come to this meeting and say there's so much to do we're not ready to start right so i'm glad jen's here tonight to say you know we've worked hard to get done thank you and then take to your point that you know [Music] identify that in a shorter amount of time and get them exposed to what they need to be exposed to and karen applied to this add-on just just as our reach program and our win program are in the developmental stages my vision is you know a lot broader so you know i'm hoping for our program to be able to carry over and we can do the good program also in math and we can use our math interventionist as well i'm hoping it will carry over into you know higher grades but again you know we have to start small and then evaluate how it's going and then we can extend it and same thing with the with the arts and other areas where students may be gifted so i definitely have that vision it's just we're starting here and then we'll just keep growing it as we go and the teachers have really um been so accepting of the win program but it's just beginning so i wanted to just start small so that way we can see how it's going make any modification and then we can extend it and really you know create some vision that i have i'm glad i'm saying that because i did a fourth grade plc for a small building everybody's talking and fourth grade says to me in the middle of a meeting and why can't we halfway you know and so and and then juggles you're saying that we walk with right they won't win so it's you know it's you know i only have a certain amount of personnel and so so so i said to jen okay like down the road maybe we could fit in a lot of five winning or went down the road let's get this going and maybe we can do it for fourth graders so and maybe it's like we're going to work on that but why can't we have it as a great thing for teachers to be asking for generally subsidized problems questions yeah um but first i also want to thank uh and thank thank you mr carlson kurt and karen um for taking this seriously it's kind of amazing we had a parent mayor of june i'm sure come to the meeting and raise this as a concern and it was really annoying excellent took it seriously right and i think one of the things that you said really stands out there's new legislation we work with clients and that wasn't enough this is a commitment to excellence this is providing a service above and beyond the letter of the law and that should be committed so thank you the page on the website is currently down um i don't know if that was configured but in the last day or two it went down the actual reach program the criteria the presentation it's going to be an arrow right there right now so just that's my miner i'm [Music] about there would be a social emotional component and i think it ties into this voice exception so who's responsible for that evaluation is that the teachers or is it businesses overall involved yeah there was that there was a piece yeah so um so that's in this program will be some observation to see yes um the evaluation is the kogat the iraqi we're not currently available in genesis is there a plan to have that data available through the gradebook [Laughter] um you mentioned bringing in the njsla do we know that would that be the false start strong that the is there intention for there to be spring and json the only last question i had was i understand that we have to work within the agenda of the teachers that are providing this this service um currently i think the way it falls is that well it's like in fourth grade that's a particular elective is missed so two questions on that is there a way for those students to continue to make up that elective if they're interested in the topic um and then like is there a thought that maybe that won't always be the case that could be a non-elected period that's utilized so that students aren't missing special education it's not like i've had a full-time person delivering this for two part times delivering this it's it's part of their schedule and they only have certain theories that they've come in so we try our best to have it happen during electives because this program is so rich and so um trying to stay away from the course of reading language management this small to even tougher there's a lot of restrictions i just want to reiterate what sean and dave said thank you very much we are all extremely impressed and proud that we're able to implement this so soon currently now i'm looking forward to seeing where it goes thank you very much so thank you and i told you that you could be very items only at this time tonight uh great correspondent mrs cherry done this evening on to committee reports finance um ted is not here tonight uh representative samantha swan dennis uh yes um there were a number of issues that they discussed but what i think is interesting is as everybody knows there's a very difficult shortage of buses and plus drivers manuscript has leased their own bus and they do have a bus driver so they will be using their lease plus for every school activity particularly for student athletics um and there was you know some buzz about seven districts maybe getting together something like that but the course of the uh schedules might be very difficult to share a possibility across changing we've experienced the same thing but this time we're lucky i think that pushback parents here and brielle are driving their kids but i definitely think this is something that you can keep on our radar radar because i don't think one thing i said so frank about that is with this class where it does work is because i said you're using that plus every day so when you're using it for your middle school and mascot um just brioling and sprinkling math starts to spring like a plane the way the schedule is done the boys are walking the girls our way so you bring them up the boys stay home they bring the girls to spring lake and then the boys at spring lake gala with us and come back to manchester okay so we might that's it because that's how we do it so that's how we'll work in the center so when we're playing one another and the boys and girls girls are there that bus brings with players here our could get on the bus and we will do that for an ascending district but it will work yeah don't worry um anybody else have any questions great uh curriculum programs uh there was no meeting other than the items on the clinic's agenda and uh the wholesome presentation there's some normal meetings great thank you joe buildings and ground oh sorry i got a question on uh um i'm just asking why it already happened all the credit um he ran the program alone the only time he could do it uh he couldn't get any other firemen he took his son out of school and he says this is the only day i could do it so it's here we got the police help us and so that was the only thing we could do but i was not going to say no to kindergarteners not ideal sean but yeah and even coming back here he and his son ran the program for kids here as an assistant i usually have three or four firing everybody is busy so i had to say yes to see when you know you get that quality especially there's a walking trip yeah it's a great program i'm usually here but right and it's like that's what steve said there's so much going on i'm like this is the only way you could do it i mean he takes a personal basis he pulled his son out we got them again but it was because you know we sometimes take for granted and we love the program the kids help the program and you know and i said well just my first assembly we did it and everybody loved it i i mean i think we all think it's a great program but as a point of order are we allowed to approve something that's already happened yeah yeah we are okay valid point usually we don't want to but yeah thank you uh jack building the ground we'll be meeting before the november meeting as a committee so i have to have more information report on that great thank you dave personnel tonight joe negotiation uh yes um we had we met last week and um this evening we have two policies that are on on for a second reading and then i have on four other policies for our first reading um a couple of these are culvert related and the first one is the road forward cope at 19 health and safety and um this policy replaces the one that we did last year which is the road back restart and recovery plan for education policy this plan provides a range of recommendations rather than mandatory standards these recommendations are meant to assess school districts and implementing protocols to reduce risks to students and staff from covet 19 while allowing for full-time learning and the second one is 1648.13 and that one is school employee vaccination requirements and as we know um on august 23rd governor murphy signed executive order 253 uh requiring all public school districts or employees to be fully vaccinated or submit to coca-19 testing at a minimum of one or two times per week this executive order will become effective october 18th so that was this week um and now so i met with um there i had a lot of questions about this policy and um we're also required to have an appendix for this policy which will list our procedures and protocols so i met with our school nurse and she was able to give me a lot of information um and i'll just i just jot it down so one is that brielle will be working their local laboratories um they will offer a pcr saliva test weekly and um and also um brielle has partnered with the new jersey department of health and this program asks that brielle offered this testing to um parents who are interested in having their child tested weekly and this is a voluntary program now as of last week and and there's been there's a change to the report that all of you have um when i spoke with um the nurse last week um rover laboratories were behind schedule and thought that they would not be able to start testing this week and then i received a phone call um i spoke with um mr xavier and so he gave me an update this afternoon so i will be updating the appendix that's attached to this um policy so what has happened and you know with a lot of these copied 19 related policies and regulations um they're fluid there are constant changes so um i will probably be updating and revising policies um as the year goes so uh it turns out that rover laboratories on is able to come to brazil this week and so the scheduled time is friday and on the teachers the staff members will be tested during their um cracker lunch um classes of course will be covered and on as far as length of results are concerned that's something that um we should get results back within 24 hours and um our school nurse is responsible for that and her and uh mr satan together will be working on this um and they're also the contact tracers so um i will update that and then um and i'll make sure everyone gets the updated appendix um i think that because we're already on a second reading for this policy i think that if everyone agrees we could approve it tonight and then i just have to update on the appendix for that and another thing that we discussed with vaccinations on with this policy is whether or not us as board members um are also are also required to do the testing um when they um explain who covered employees are they also include volunteers and we are volunteers so but there was a question about that we weren't sure about the language um i reached out to our report attorney and our board attorney stated that um that she does not believe that we fall under that category on because volunteers are covered if they are regularly in the building um she will get back to me though she said that she will let me know for sure whether or not the board members are considered volunteers and as soon as i hear from her then i'll update everyone on that the other policy is a 1648 safety plan for health care settings and school buildings um this is a policy that was aimed is aimed at health care professionals hospital workers people working in laboratories it's a it's a very detailed specific um policy but then um school districts have been informed that on the emergency temporary standards which is what it's called will apply to health care settings in schools as well and the districts are required to develop protocols and the superintendent is required to appoint a kobit-19 safety coordinator so you do have to combine by this policy is mandated the other policy i have is emergency virtual or remote construction school districts are permitted to implement a commissioner-approved program of virtual or remote construction in the event the school district is required to close the school for more than three consecutive days and uh brielle's virtual remote plan has been developed and it should be posted on the school website the next policy is sexual harassment of students this policy has been revised to include a detailed procedure on how to respond to allegations of sexual harassment and then the last policy that we discussed was uh 2464 gifted and talented students and um so um dave was asking about when all of this came about so it turns out that um the governor last year signed um into law the strengthening gifted and talented education act and that's when everyone took a closer look at the gifted talent talented programs that they had and they began to examine and improve on their programs including us um and also and i have to say that you know what shawn said um having a parent come in to our meetings and um express a concern about the talented gifted program so that always prompts us to take a look at what we have and make improvements so i always encourage the welcome parents to any concerns that they have to see us about that so on with this um when i took a look at the policy the policy was compliant but not the regulation the regulation was taken it was really dating so um so last week i met with on miss love and on you know to review the gibson and talented program with this information i was able to update the policy and regulation uh the revised policy will outline the requirements as mandated by the state the revisions include requirements regarding the accessibility and development of the gifted and talented education program and it also includes submission of annual report so the new jersey department of education a compliant procedure for individuals who believe the districts have violated and misled went over all of that um and so um so during my committee meeting during the policy committee meeting i presented the regulations to the committee um and um and so they made uh recommendations so i went back and i added the their recommendations to the policy to the regulations now um i did want to say that to note that this is the first year that we're implementing this program the reach program and as the process begins i anticipate that we may need to update um the policy in order for it to align with any any changes deemed necessary on and one of them dave brought it up about our students who are truly gifted musicians and artists and writers and we can't forget about that population and so one of the things that um miss love and i talked about was um developing a checklist um that is geared towards our artistic um students and um so we're hoping that that will be done sometime in the spring as soon as that's done um then again back to the drawing board and i have to update the regulations so that that is included and i think that's a parent actually reached out to me about um what is the what is the policy in terms of whether they're going to volunteer for things in school or via a class parent if they're not vaccinated would they be covered under getting the just getting the exam the um so that's the question that i've had for the attorney and so um her response and job is down her actual response um so she stated that she doesn't she doesn't believe this requirement applies to board members um because they are not regularly in the building during the school day uh volunteers are covered if they are regularly in the building so the question is well what's regulation yeah that's pretty interesting so that's how how you know what working with kids right we're not working until often right and and i also i looked at i looked at the um the legislator and that was the ethan um so i did i sent her on an email and so i'm just waiting for her her response on that my other question um going back to the same thing in 1648 2013 this last bullet point here about the department of health offering to voluntarily touched children weekly can you expand on that a little bit what's what's the genesis for that they're saying asymptomatic children you're just testing them quickly apparently the parents once wants to do it so they give a reason why they they're offering that i don't i don't quite understand why you're doing that so what has happened is that on when this on when the governor's on this order right now um the districts one of the things that they offered that the state offered to the districts was um funding so they they gave districts a choice you can have um you can receive a grant the funding like and and that's what we're that's what we opted for and that's like over over laboratories they're coming into the building um or you could have the staff members just do it on your own well one of the things um if you accept the grant funding then you have to offer it to parents if they want to have their children tested so that's how that came in gotcha do we anticipate any demand for that from parents has there been superintendents but we don't think that's good yeah when we heard that that was like applause and superintendents were like this this was a gigantic old red flag for me i don't i don't understand why including so them something else yeah dave i've only had two parents reach out to me to say tell me about getting my kid vaccinated and so when i answered both of them they're like yeah thank you once they heard weekly they're like what i don't i don't think anyone was gonna say yeah anywhere i should there's gonna be some people that say yes i'm on it yes but pull up a lot of class together [Music] that's a different story though that's yeah that's what i'm saying testing asymptomatic children on a weekly basis but it sounds like they wrote it into the grant so it is what it is [Music] if we're requiring parent volunteers can be subject to that i feel like it should be consistent with that being power as well i personally just don't like to set a standard for something that we're not willing to model ourselves we should be setting a rule that [Music] now that rover is available is that the only method for teachers who are not vaccinated to test out or are they able to test the home test or the teacher wants to go to their own [Music] so that in our policy that i do think that matters just because they couldn't get a home test with the policy ties to rover directly it says that either or it's either an antigen or a pcr test or that can be challenged or is it actual process of submitting the test results to the school the way that um the way that the policy is written it allows for the staff member to take with that whatever test it doesn't allow them to do that now um but part of this policy we have to add an appendix and so as a board we can write in there um if we just want it to be the the pcr of saliva test we can't do that um the the state has given districts the flexibility to do this maybe we just want the pcrs to line the task and that's what i have to update that's the information that i got when i spoke with mr xavier um this afternoon and he gave me the update so that's one of the things that i have to um i don't know if this is directly related to this but in the safety plan before the healthcare settings it talks about yes two different questions okay up about the um in our housing meeting that there's a medical record being kept by school yes in terms of who may have has a positive et brought up cetera about is that being held by the school maybe typical clients medical system this is p e o s h but i just want to make sure that we're addressing that because it is sensitive personal medical information and this is this is codifying that we're collecting it so i just want to make sure that we're doing something that's typical clients so i i spoke with our school nurse about them because she's the one that's gathering that information and holding that information um she said that she doesn't i thought she kept it on the computer for some kind of spreadsheet she doesn't it's it's done manually um in a file and it's under locking and um she's the only one and i would assume administration of course will have access to that if needed but she's the only one um that has access to that file and she also stated that because of hitler she felt more comfortable doing it that way than having something like that um the last question was on the remote instruction in case of a school closure you mentioned the road clockwork plan i asked a question in the august meeting about what happened to the student this astro quarantine or sense moment and i just want to clarify our current road forward plan says that there's a short-term promoted protocol and that currently says that within 24 hours the first day is 20 is the same day and that subsequent periods that they're asked to stay remote is supposed to provide synchronous construction and that some periods such as electrics may have asynchronous instruction but the answer mr carlson that you gave me in august was that you're not providing the secrets so do we just need to update that that document or are we operating using this instruction so they're able to watch there are when did that go into place i think it went i think we talked after our own meeting and i brought it to your attention and you're like you're right you've just had the live stream but we needed to give the teacher 24 hours thank you great um just that for the virtual um for the virtual and remote instruction there is an appendix for that and um it was worked on by some of the staff members so that that will be attached great any other questions from the valley mr becker press administrative report this evening as you'll see the attachment in your folder that we do have for this module and um i also want to say that mr bob mcdolly who was an excellent reporter but i want to give savior and carefully the credit for um their hard work and getting over because friday afternoon i think it was around 3 15.

i want to remind everyone that at 7 15 you should feel free to go to the individual google meets that each of the teams is hosting uh the two seventh grade teams team c and d uh will be hosting uh their google meets as will the two eighth grade teams team a and b so that's going to be something that i'm looking forward to all of you participating in and in addition to the uh google meets which will be live and synchronous there are also links to this website that has been created for each of the teams and those will have links to videos and presentations about prepared by each of the teachers uh and those uh will be also for you to explore asynchronously so on your own time and and however you wish to um so again thank you all for joining us i understand uh that um that some people had some challenges uh finding the link i'm hoping that everyone is able to do that um and and we'll we'll be starting again soon again that link was sent via email on a couple occasions and uh from uh from elgato at the front desk at the front office and hopefully all of you are finding that so as the numbers continue to tick up i'm going to go ahead and begin and i want to welcome you to the all school meeting and i want to um um just start by reminding you that that here at arms um we have a um you know we have some a lot of work to do and obviously there are many things that we try to do and work together to try and do and so i want to begin by just sharing uh what our school mission is because at arms we challenge and inspire students to be engaged and curious learners uh to be collaborative and creative problem solvers to value diverse perspectives and also to care for themselves and each other and i just want to highlight the fact that these uh this mission which was written uh several years ago and obviously something that we work to live into each and every day that we show up at arms is a particularly challenging thing to be doing uh these days um and so obviously i don't need to go into details about the experiences that are going on nationally and worldwide which are truly unprecedented and unique and i will be highlighting some of those things in just a moment but i i just want to offer this um as an opportunity to commit uh as a community of of caregivers of parents of teachers of educators to the collective um efforts to collaborate on behalf of our of our students and our community and to recognize just how critical that need is now more than ever the the the events that are happening in our world have been termed by many individuals as a slow-moving trauma that we're all collectively experiencing and and and i think it's really important to recognize that students are awakening to a world and stepping into a world that presents these challenges to them at a time when they're trying to find their place in the world and so it's particularly important that we as adults maintain honesty and openness with them but also maintain uh unbridled commitment to support them in their growth and the and the development of self in in this in this community in this in in in this region and in this world and i think uh at a time when students are beginning to differentiate themselves and and make those changes um this challenge is particularly difficult one of the things that i shared in the in the communications i send to families every other week called open arms was a chart that was a really valuable reminder for me of precisely what that means we work with 7th and 8th grade students in our building and for the 8th graders the last time they experienced a normal school year was when they were fifth graders and for our seventh graders uh that's not something that they've experienced since they were fourth graders and so you could imagine that big gap between fourth and seventh grade or fifth and eighth grade um which is um which is a tremendous amount of time particularly when you're a young person that makes up a significant percentage of your life um it it is it is probably uh hard for us to imagine certainly impossible for me to imagine um but i see it and and meet those challenges in the conversations i have on a daily basis with students uh all over the school um and and so so in that spirit uh i am uh wishing for and and hoping for and asking for us to be committed collaborators uh in supporting that and and and what does that look like what does that partnership look like uh and why is it important well first of all developing uh when we are when we effectively partner uh on behalf of students in our building we are helping them to develop social emotional and academic competencies that will allow them to become fully incarnated hopefully free human beings and that's something that that i hold as a goal uh for all our students um and so in partnering together i want to just let you know about some things that are going to be happening uh at our school one of those which i'm going to be sharing information about soon is about a partnership that i'm really excited to announce uh within an organization called the family institute for student success um and this partnership with this organization which we're going to be launching officially in january but we're going to be reaching out sooner than that to ask for support and and volunteers to serve as recruiters and trainers for this effort it's an unprecedented effort in this community to really try and develop meaningful partnerships between between our school and and the people who work here and our community and those of you who are parents and guardians of the community and who interact and support our students at home throughout their you know throughout the other parts of their lives and days and so i want to invite you to stay tuned for information about the family institute for student success and that partnership which will be kicking off officially uh in january but prior to that like i said we're going to be reaching out and trying to get support from all of you and certainly inform all of you about it um and the other thing that i want to really uh stress as a real opportunity is um is the pgo the parent guardian organization here at arms is an important vehicle for us to develop relationships with parents and to give parents the opportunity parents and guardians the opportunity to have an impact not only in the in the lives of their students and even participate in in those lives at school but also uh to support some really valuable initiatives the mission of the pgo is to create a supportive and welcoming uh community for students their families teachers and administration and the ways the pgo does that i think offers some really unique opportunities because they work to support equity in the classroom through organizing events and programs that foster a positive environment and they also support uh serve as a resource and in information for family engagement and also importantly they they fund academic and community initiatives and again these i i'm hopeful that we'll have a lot of uh initiatives and programs that bring our community closer together and allow us to celebrate and recognize the tremendous work that goes on with our students who constantly uh impress me and remind me with their resiliency and their capacity and and the highlight of my day is always the time i spend with them informally at lunch having conversations and dialogues with them i want to let you know that the pro the pgo is in the process of rebuilding of course our virtual school years were really impactful of that organization but i'm going to ask that you all look for an email from the pgo which will be coming out next week and consider volunteering and as a reminder stay posted and tuned in for information about the family institute for student success which will give us another opportunity to really collaborate and work on behalf of our students in our community and so i want to let you know that the work that i do in administration and and uh is is uh is a team effort and there are a lot of people who work with me on this and i want to make sure that you have the opportunity to meet some of those but i also just want to take a moment to just recognize the tremendous and herculean efforts of our teachers and our para educators who work uh in in the critical space of the classroom with our students and um and who work really hard and and put in tremendous hours and energy and effort to make sure that our students are not only met with safe classrooms and safe spaces to learn but also with engaging curriculum uh and fantastic assignments and and and work that is uh teaching them not only the skills that they need to know to to to make sure they meet the standards of education that are created for them but also to learn a lot of those skills which they really work on in which i'm really happy that we have students in person to be able to do like the collaboration the interpersonal communication and and and i'm really uh honored to work on trying to support their work in the classrooms because that's where a lot of the real learning happens one of the most important and valuable partners i have in this work is is someone who i'm happy to introduce to you right now and that is the assistant principal doreen reed uh during uh welcome back to the presentation and i just want to see the floor to you and ask that you introduce yourself and let us know a little bit about the work that you do absolutely thank you diego um it is my pleasure to be the assistant principal again at the amherst regional middle school and collaborating with diego on a daily basis in addition to pk we're also working very comprehensively with our partners at umass we are um we have embarked on a system to support their special education department we are currently working with their pre-practicum students where we have a number of students from umass supporting um our special education department and learning from our from our special education teachers in order for their students to become academically prepared and culturally competent educators in our community um in the next semester we will also be offering practicum opportunities for some students to work more comprehensively with our special education teachers and learn how to do more direct teaching and planning to connect with our our students and families in our community in addition to that we have partnered with umass for the happiness project it's the well-being promotion project it's a 10-week evidence-based tier 2 support addressing students social emotional wellness through activities targeting gratitude kindness character strength and hope especially during these times within the 10 weeks students will learn about feeling grateful for their past feeling grateful for their current relationships with their families and friends getting to feel excited about their day and using their own character strengths to build their individual characters feeling optimistic learning how to just take hope and pleasure and finding the best about their future and about themselves and really learn how to say goodbye in a positive way so they can reflect and grow and move on to the next educational opportunity friend opportunity um just giving them the skills this is a two-year grant so we will be partnering with umass for uh two years for this research-based project in addition to that we have students who are receiving not only supports from our special education department but also through our 504 process we have a lot of students in need and we continue to not only support our students but our family and our community through purposeful empowerment and interventions that we offer at arms if we need to connect families with outside resources we are fortunate to be able to do that and we do that also through support with our family center and dr martin barra diego thanks so much miss reed i think it's a bit of an understatement to say that we collaborate on a daily basis miss rita and i are literally moment to moment throughout the day working collaborating and problem solving but also sharing opportunities to interact with staff and students um and on the whole it's a really joyous thing and i thank you for your collaboration miss reed uh and uh already looking forward to tomorrow me too i enjoy it all thank you great thanks so much um so um i'm gonna i want to talk a little bit more about some of the things that we are doing in this in the school and i want to just uh acknowledge that part of this partnership isn't just within the school but also in the community um and um and one of the um things that we're able to work with uh and i and i want to offer just my gratitude uh for um a new position that we were able to create in the school which is a culture coordinator uh and this is something that um i think has been having a tremendous impact not only on the relationship between administration and teachers but also the relationship between teachers and students it's no secret that there are a lot of challenges that we experience in the school on a daily basis trying to meet the needs of all our students and and i want to just introduce dr litha gail brissette who is our culture coordinator and give her the opportunity to let you know a little bit about the work that she does on behalf of our our community in the school uh so dr gail berset why don't you take it away and i'll let you um share some of the work that you do thank you mr sharon hello everyone thank you for joining us this evening and for open house um as mr sharon mentioned you know i'm literally impressed and the cultural coordinator here at arms in my role i'm working with the administrators the staff and student and most importantly to build an inclusive environment of culture because we know that the climate of culture provide us the opportunity for learning caring and success we want all our students to work together to have a great middle school experience we talk about the values the traditions be respectful of themselves and also each other and it's no surprise we all know that you know middle school can be that very awkward period and it can be complicated at times and challenging for some of our students as they made that transition from elementary to the middle school um so it's that period where you know the students start becoming more conscious of understanding themselves and also building their identity and i guess many of us including myself can remember those days of going through that phase you know it's really can be a bit challenging um so without doubt um having a positive school culture will have a huge impact on who they are as individuals and also their learning um this is not only coming from me but you know research has shown that a positive school environment sets the tone for everything that happens within our building you know the ease at which students develop competences in their academic work um understanding differences when they're interacting with other people who may they may even think different from them or even whole different views um so that is why we are really working very hard here at arms on building a culture that allows our student to thrive to build strong bonds in the community and ultimately to succeed in their academic and of course importantly social life so how do we go about accomplishing this uh mr sharon did mention a while ago that one of approaches that we're doing is practicing restorative justice approach um so in this approach we use strategies to teach our students skills and how to make good decisions resolve conflict peacefully and come up with their restorative solutions and i said come up with their restorative solutions when they encounter um issues and how to deal with those this requires us helping our teaching the students um certain skills of working together showing empathy connecting and negotiating different points of views and overall this is about developing positive mindset in our community because that is really very important and also how do we also teach these practices to student so some of these lessons and activities they take place during our advisory periods and also in restorative circles with me and i also do one-to-one meeting with many students as one of the most important one of the important things also is to provide mentorship and support for our students as well of course the success of this program is dependent on the support from everyone in our school community especially you parents we want your support as we work with your children and you please feel free to reach out to me via email my email address is gail dash bracelet l so that's g-a-y-l-e dash b-r-i-s-s-e-t-t-l at orbs.org or you can give me a call my number is 413-362-1840 also i'll be reaching out to you as i get to know your children and working with them because we want them to be the best they can be again thank you for joining us and have a good night fantastic thanks so much for that uh informative presentation i appreciate that uh and again just an opportunity to uh see uh see some of what goes on behind the scenes here in in the school thank you uh dr gilbert said for that and um one of the other things that i want to share with you is that there are a lot of resources that are available to all our students uh and um and one of the key contact individuals and someone who's a group of people who are always working on behalf of students tirelessly are our guidance counselors and they offer support to all the students in the school and because their caseload is so large they each take one of the grades and so i'm going to bring them bring them on and uh and share share this group with you real quick and so um let's see so we have miss delinda dykes and mr elise gomba both of them are guidance counselors the linda dykes works with the seventh graders uh and she works with every single seventh grade she's brought um she's new with us this year and she brings a tremendous amount of experience and also a great deal of enthusiasm and energy um and uh and it's something that we all appreciate uh so thank you miss dykes and i also um uh want to share that miss dykes is someone who if you have a seventh grade student and you have some thoughts or questions or concerns about uh them and you want some information she's a good place to reach out and same is true for uh if you have an eighth grade student uh and uh and uh want to hear from them or want to have some questions or thoughts about what's going on with them please feel free to reach out to mr gomba he's the eighth grade guidance counselor and i'm gonna give them the opportunity to tell you a little bit about what they do on a day-to-day week-to-week basis on behalf of your students and to preview some of the things that may be going on later this year so i'm going to get out of the way and let them share some of their work with you so let's start with miss dykes in the seventh grade if you wanna uh go ahead and share some of the information you'd like to share and introduce yourself to the community that'd be fantastic hello hello hello everyone hey i am the linda bayman dykes and i am the proud guidance counselor for the 7th grade students i'm very excited about being here first of all i want to say hello to all of my teachers the administrators the parents because we are all front line workers people we're getting our children ready for the future so i want to thank you guys i want to take this time right now just to say thank you for all you are doing uh okay so a little bit about what we do here as guidance counselor well the guidance counselors help students to identify issues that are affecting their school performance attendance is a big problem so with some of the students so we kind of help them identify if you're not in school we can't teach you right so and just be able to do it in a nurturing way of course so we also teach students how to build and maintain relationships we help them address their um their social and behavioral you know some may have behavioral issues we kind of help them with that we also help students to develop the tools that they need for academic success as well i counsel students are individual like individuals group counsel and also group counseling i work closely with my teachers my administrators and also the parents to help improve students performance you may get a call from me on a saturday you know you may get a call from me later on in the evening because that that means that i really want to connect to connect with you regarding our baby so middle school is a challenging stage of development kids are going through a lot of changes and turning to their peers for affirmation instead of their parents and they're often unequipped to deal with the increasingly grown-up problems right so counselors provide a critical support to them during this transition from childhood to adolescence so yeah we work really we work real hard with our babies to make sure that they know um how you know and able to kind of transition from this this stage my goal is to ensure that students see our school as a safe space a caring and la and a caring learning environment and it will set the students up for academic and personal success so therefore i act as a resource and i connect with the teachers and parents and administ to help them connect with the teachers and parents and administrators so that way they'll know how to you know make sure that their needs are being met i'm almost done y'all counselors are charged with being the voice that's why y'all hear me we charged with being the voice of our students because sometimes kids feel like their voice is not being heard remember the knowledge attitudes and skills um that the students are acquiring now helps to build their foundation for future success and i'm honored to serve on the front line for our children our future thank you for your time thank you so much miss dykes so i'm mr gombos i'm the 8th grade guidance counselor um a lot of the things that we do miss dex is already um covered um some were more talking about our 8th graders so you know part of this journey is the transition to high school and that's something that i want to support them as much as i can with so academically social emotionally that is my goal is to be that support for them as they transition to the high school kind of building those um habits and making sure that we instill those good habits into them as they move on um into the high school um part of that too part of that transition is you know upcoming um uh conferences in the spring to talk about appropriate classes that they should be taking for next year um you know a lot of this more of this information will come as we go along the year and um you know i'm really just here for support and trying to figure out how we can um kind of go on this journey together and have help them navigate throughout the day to day um as we move on uh throughout the year um so please feel free to reach out to either of us for seventh and eighth grade um and we'd be happy to help you with anything fantastic thanks to the two of you i'm gonna let you all go and and and get uh get into your evening a little bit but thanks again um and i wanna just uh thank everyone who joined us this evening thanks for all the participants uh who had the opportunity to uh share a little bit about what they do in the school to make uh arms the great school that it is and again i want to thank all of you for your support i appreciate the comments and and i want to let you know that if you you should be going now to the individual team meetings uh the seventh grade teams are teams c and d and the eighth grade teams are teams a and b um and so i'm going to get over and join the presentation for the team that my son is in excited to hear from that so that starts at 7 15 so i don't want to delay you thank you very much for your participation and engagement i look forward to hearing from you and seeing you in person soon have a wonderful rest of the evening thank you you

yeah kyra wilson but adam will be getting a corner they were practicing them earlier this game yes indeed they were during ds's little photo op they've already had some reps in with their corners let's see how this goes fumbled cleared out by emily wahl i believe yep 24. okay raiders weathered that little storm there [Music] or at least attempt to oh no that much travis couldn't get that ball he'll be out of bounds [Music] [Applause] number three trying to bring it up [Music] oh yep ds ball yes oh no bumble's up on the pass here oh cause she totally redeems herself with that great defensive stick yeah katie right there the second attempt there definitely shocked slater stick on the ground there to block the passing line it's going to be denim ball out of bounds oh juicy rebound there root yeah it's gonna be out of bounds yeah i'm pretty sure number eight there um help keep that thing out of the net that would be eliza birmingham what is the ref talking about here i don't know looks like she's going to the coaches uh oh and we'll try and listen in here goalie did not have her mouth guard in so they got the green card that's a warning wow okay to the coaches okay i don't think i've ever seen that call before no me neither and you know it's weird because she has a cage so her teeth are not getting broken [Music] maybe for um brain shock like concussion perhaps trying to get it down the side of extravagant [Music] coming down tries to center it root with a nice save oh rebound another one brew with another save wow lauren root playing great right now yeah no kidding [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] that's going to be ds ball about 10 minutes 20 seconds left in the first no score trying to chip that down the line that looks like it hit denim's foot izzy frydell trying to get it to lily fryer yeah good defensive play there from uh dedham [Applause] with the breakout pass oh [Music] fighting for possession here then yes mayor trying to work down that sideline turn over there but she gets it back nice walk there by denim oh wow mayor may you're turning on defense into offense oh chose the center uh that looked like that hit our foot yeah let's try there from number seven that's gonna be a corner not nice try it was a nice chat [Music] yep number 24 emily wahl we'll take this one [Applause] see nice did the goalie get that initial save on that yeah outstanding nicole mayer oh right under this thing through but unfortunately it got through everybody hussar oh crowd erupts there for drew [Music] oh [Music] that that's ds advantage out of bounds fds ball again [Music] [Applause] well some fancy moves there but hey i think it hit off a foot yes good handed hi there from mayor knocking it out of the air yep seven minutes no score oh what a breakout play here for dedham oh that was a good move there abby wayne trying to get to that ball first that's gonna be out of bounds just trying to get dies to regroup [Music] yeah that's gonna be uh that i'm headed up to 25 i believe just under 6 30 here left in the first quarter score being 0-0 each team's had some nice shots on pretty equal game so far i would say [Music] that i'm trying to get it out oh and diaz it's right by root kick save oh my i'll clear it corner okay that's gonna be a corner for dedham but ds proven to be good at defending these yeah that's for sure oh he's passing here is that true oh no oh oh really redeflection there i think that was number 14 who put it in yeah it looked like that bounced off the backboard and into the goal you know with the tip off she was in the right spot and got a good stick on it [Music] [Applause] oh well apparently um someone knocked over one of the big heads yeah um he's looking up here like one of us did it [Music] i can assure you nothing was intentional got a guilty party right here mayor trying to get it to drew but can't get it oh that looked like that head off for fight playing advantage to dedham hussar trying to do some razzle dazzle wow oh come on drew sorry can't get that off yeah that was uh pretty impressive though she was getting swarmed and still remain to bring the ball up a ways yep everybody that hit her hand dipped the asmr i'm sorry it's going to take that oh no oh great got past mcstravik on the left and that's gonna be hit the pole that hit the pole wow i don't think i've ever seen that before it's kind of like last week when the um or a couple of weeks ago when a flag in football hit the the ball on the penalty on the on a punt and it redirected the punt oh it's weird that's that's bananas what game was that in i think the cardinals there's in the cardinals game cardinals rounds it's gonna be another corner [Applause] dead i'm pretty amped right now trying to capitalize again already at one nothing why can't they make it more [Music] let's see what they can do here oh good defense all right they're all excited another corner they're hooting and hollering so yup looks like another corner yeah hasar playing some good no that's uh yeah number 19.

one of the towns their bus company supervisor was talking about that many of the drivers during the pandemic because they didn't have the steady work uh moved on to some warehouse jobs such as fedex or ups or um amazon that was actually you know they lost a lot of people to that it must be the area of the state where some of those those areas are so that's because people ask that question too what's happened to everybody you know they didn't disappear so so what's happened so that's that's part of the answer i don't know the full answer to it in terms of mitigation strategies it's through the cdc there's a national mandate that public transportation including buses there's mass wearing on the bus and that's really the main mitigation strategy then the common sense known strategies keep the windows open obviously to temperature toleration so we'll be careful about that of course as the winter comes around other than that uh buses could run at full capacity um so that's i hope that answers that part of the question there um in terms of the beginning of the year where there was an especially at uh huckleberry there was a number of quarantines that was not because the kids were necessarily sitting close to each other and there was a problem with infection rate what that was is those times where we had to combine the buses just give you a for instance if and these aren't the real numbers if bus or letters if bus a had a compliment of students on the bus and they had assigned seats one one of the issues was with it being such a new school year the drivers weren't necessary and the new drivers too weren't necessarily getting the seating charts correct that was a little bit of an issue then if bus b isn't running and we have to get the kids home the students from bus b were moved to bus a with the regular bus a kids rather than saying hey bus a kids slide to the back sit with the children you normally sit with but move to the back and we'll have the bus b kids up front kind of just a logical uh um cohorting they ended up mixing everywhere and it became very difficult newer children younger children with masks on they might not know who they're sitting next to the video technology trying to recognize and so what that forced was uh that as they say the abundance of caution and really looking and not being able to tell which caused more quarantine that clearly was not necessarily necessary in terms of knowing who was next to who but the reality is they didn't know who was next to who so we got to that situation we really gotten tighter on the seating charts and so forth and if we don't have to combine buses we're going to be in a really good place and we've been in a good place with the bus situation since so i tried to be concrete there debbie i hope that answered that sounds like you know there were some bumps in the beginning oh yeah there was it seems to have smoothed out now yeah so if i could just follow on that so just to recap you're you're you are tracking how many times we've combined buses we had six at the beginning and we haven't had any in six weeks you said uh over three weeks between three and four weeks i think okay is it possible for us as a board to see how many times we do combine buses on a regular basis yeah i mean ken could check i mean when it happens we could take off on the calendar you know just i just i think was a board it's a sensitivity in our community and i think we should be aware of if it's if it starts ramping up we have to start thinking about mitigation strategies um if it's not a current issue i don't see why we would go do anything especially if the one of the new bus drivers coming on board can you have a sense of timing on that i do not okay we should know that um so um because that would help a lot right because the only reason we're combining buses is bus drivers right exactly okay and in the meantime is someone speaking to the bus company about some of these other more common sense uh mitigations oh absolutely the prince that the principals in kent actually sat down with the at the bus depot and they had a meeting about all these things and that that's why we're it's better because we've um i think the bus company need to needed to experience those mistakes which we were talking about from the beginning of the year that this has to be done and to take it that seriously and uh you know some newer drivers perhaps uh were part of this and so i think they understand the gravity of their decisions because if they're not assigned to those seats we cause all the problems with students not in school we cause all the problems any anxiety for families and it's very frustrating for everyone so we can't have that well it's they're crowded buses too it's a it's a problem because they're crowded buses and kids are near each other and there's a lot more kids jammed on the buses so um i just think if the if we've got to take it seriously as a board that we need to see the data right and we really do and i appreciate it if you would can if you'd organized that we see something like every week like when you're sending out your note notes on fridays not a problem at all or maybe you can add add a column to the dashboard or something or yeah or or a note right when it happens on that day say we had a combined bus i mean we haven't had it in almost a month now but if it's not it's not happening that often that's not a bad order yeah sure we can do that okay i wonder just one more thought i'm having you know the other the other consideration i know that we have to provide transportation but there are parents who prefer to to drive their children to school but i think a lot of times they're deterred because the parent drop-off line is so long and it takes so long to get through there so if you need to get to work or whatever some people just don't have the time to wait in that line so i wonder if it's worth looking into um you know a little sort of out of the box thinking about how to improve the parent dropbox you know in a school like huckleberry is it possible for some kids to get dropped off in the front of the school and some kids to get dropped off down at the lower level by the playground maybe instead of everybody funneling through that one drop off in the front or you know i'm just trying to think of ways i think part of it dev is you know we look at those logistical pieces and safety pieces bus traffic etc i mean now with huckleberry under construction i mean that to that that particular example it probably wouldn't be feasible um very limited space obviously at the center school um uh center school uh you know some ideas that are out there that we could explore and we could explore as we think about um the new bus contract that we'll be you know getting ready to go out for uh forbid on is i you know there there are ideas that are out there and it's not unheard of where um there could be a um a small fee for for child care uh a half hour before school for example and parents could you know that are working and they're doing drop off could drop off beforehand and that would eliminate some of that that car traffic so there's there are ways and things we can think about for sure um so we're open to ideas if people have ideas and we're certainly opening to open to thinking outside of the box for sure yeah i mean i think that might be worth looking into you know especially some parents might appreciate that extra half hour or 45 minutes in the morning to drop off early and maybe that's i mean i have no idea if that's something that will be eligible for like covet funding but that's maybe that's a way because it's directly dealing with the effects of the pandemic and the busing and everything yeah i i wouldn't have to look into that i couldn't tell you that yeah let's do let's look into that sure yeah we can maybe talk about that at the next finance committee meeting absolutely right as a way to think about we could engage or something offering a tutorial and paying teachers to yeah yeah i mean are paying you know and that's always an issue too you know teachers also you know and i'm with you joy you know there's people who would be interested yet you know we posted the the contact tracer uh opportunity um and so far we've only had two people apply so you know there's labor shortages everywhere you know we think of these extra things but you know i think of our teachers they're rushed just getting into school because they're dropping their kids off and they're waiting in a line somewhere out of school you know sometimes and those kind of things but if we can it doesn't have to be teachers there could be other people you know we hire monitors and different people that um have a little more flexibility in their schedule and they may be interested in helping out and yeah and making a little extra money on the side there's a lot of things we can look into okay anything else all right all right thanks everyone uh subcommittee reports first up we have facilities there's actually two meetings so go ahead so our first meeting we met on october 6th we reviewed the schools of reports we got an update about the water at wisconier the treatment center is online and has been running for about two weeks we're continuing to do routine lead and copper tests the state will come in and do a final inspection we are updated on the status of open capital projects the hvac project is still active the contractor's working on it and it's getting done this year and the changes will be for next year there's not been any movement on the high school boys locker room project it's going to go out to bed later this fall our building management system at wisconia has been restored it's been replaced and has new software it was built off-site and brought in so it's on time and on budget we're waiting for a quote for replacing the whiskenier cafeteria floor which we'll discuss later the wool update at wisconier the structural engineer needs to come out to assess the damage ensure it's safe and structurally sound and develop a restoration plan the engineer will provide us with a plan to winterize the site to prevent further damage and decision will be made in december and then we'll it'll go back out to bid we had some new business the center school roof there's been a lot of leaks more serious ones above the nurse's office several attempts have been made to repair the leaks in the roof over the nurse's office unfortunately it has reached the end of its life expectancy so we're working on getting a quote to re-roof that section we did a building condition study but we're looking to do that dr bill is working with tech don to get an estimate for detailed building condition study in hopes to bringing the middle school and high school up to where it needs to be i inquired about the vandalism in the bathrooms at the high school mr coldwell reporter reported that the extent of the damage has been approximately 12 soap dispensers six paper towel dispensers and four toilet paper holders we had some miscellaneous discussion we'll be engaging at contractor to get a roofing assessment across the district the last one that's been done was in 2015.

in response to the communication pandemic governor newsome assigned signed ab 361 into law permitting public agencies to continue conducting meetings remotely the board of trustees will need to adopt a resolution to allow meetings to remain virtually or remotely for 30 days so each month we will be required to have new findings that justify conducting the meetings virtually and a new not necessarily resolution but we will use a resolution to confirm those findings that's our our plan so do we have a motion to approve i'd like to make them understood that we don't approve well then don't make a motion [Laughter] to bring this to the perfect discussion that would be wonderful thank you mr bruno please i guess he's made a motion to bring to the floor for discussion thank you dr lee okay now my family is that if we're gonna require our teachers and staff to be here every day then i think our board should be here as well i just see no reason why these can't be attended we've taken every precaution there is to take without some reason you know some reason by a doctor or something that there's an issue board meeting should be attended i i respectfully disagree um you're in the midst of a pandemic and i think allowing people the choice to attend personally helps reduce risk i think it's made great strides in connecting with the community and i i think it it's been more positive than negative and i i think it's good to continue so i i i'm going to agree with mr bruno on this one um we just had in the last 24 hours another 156 deaths in california um many of our cases are breakthrough cases a large number of those hospitalized are still people who've been fully immunized um colin powell recently passed he was fully vaccinated and other people may have comorbidities that they don't need to share it's not it's none of our business may just be that they don't want to get sick and die and i empathize with that and our students have the ability to participate remotely if they choose to they can do independent study um and i just don't see any reason why we would require someone to risk their life when it's completely unnecessary the meetings are being collected just fine additionally i would like to make sure this gets put in the minutes carol that my disagreement is because we require all students all teachers and staff to be here every day and i don't think the board is any better than our employees but just as a reminder two months ago i was able to attend the meeting virtually while having code and it's still in my opinion very fresh and right you had a reason you had a medical reason why right but this allows us to have that option available right but to just not come to every meeting is something different but if we if we don't pass the resolution then i wouldn't have been able to attend virtually for that meeting uh medical reason or not and my choices would have been to show up and expose everybody or completely sit out the meeting or virtually while posting my address and all that i am i just think that while we're still in the midst of a pandemic it makes sense to allow we can still do everything the same we can still have virtual meetings the other thing is nancy is that we're not making that decision that teachers have to come to school that's being mandated by what's being allowed statewide by the state mandates am i am i incorrect in that i mean there are there are mandates in place that are saying school needs to be in person correct i think if i'm understanding your question yes the the priority of the state of california is to have school in person they do provide the option for uh distance learning for families that want to i don't know if i can answer your question right but right and aren't a number of our teachers you know who do have health concerns and that don't want to risk their lives um to continue teaching aren't they allowed the option to teach in that distance learning program if that is their situation superintendent lair we we have some independent study uh staff that are doing that yes uh there are not as many as we once had but we do have uh some folks that could could possibly choose that option yeah and i just want to show appreciation um because i agree with the sentiment that you know no one should have to risk their life um to make someone else um feel comfortable that they're sitting in the room with them in the middle of a pandemic and i i think that's a truly inhumane suggestion i get what you're saying mrs anderson you know we should lead by example the teachers are required to be here we should be here but we're also we only know what we about ourselves right we only know what we feel i feel that i should be here for that reason i've been vaccinated i'm i have cohort morbidities i am at higher risk but i'm making the choice to be here but that's my choice to make and um you know i trust me kelly i just think that there's there's just there's no reason to require it if we don't have to one other piece this conversation seems to be revolving around uh board members uh it also is the reason it is was enacted also was for audience right so the mode at which we're able to have a comment that it is so it's two twofold um that people can't participate with that so just we went through a training again this morning and carol just said we don't pass this resolution people cannot participate virtually they have to physically be here so that that we will continue to we will continue to stream all of our meetings going forward but as far as public participation would be [Music] i think we've all seen that as a huge uh win for informing more more people i mean we look at our streaming numbers to have 50 people look at our meeting you know we didn't have 50 people typically watching or being you know in person here so had never seen definitely so yeah and i also want to say nancy i would disagree with you that that we should lead by example and that being in the room really does make for better interaction i i understand that and i agree with that i just think that the risks of the pandemic outweigh that and now the idea that the public cannot participate virtually if we don't pass this resolution i am completely i'm sorry i just think that outboard is not wasted i don't disagree with you at all sorry i i think you you raised a good point but as excuse me as president kelly said i i think the risks of the current situation okay and i just that was the one issue that hit me is that we're requiring others to do it that we should be and i appreciate you bringing that up he sounds good so so just as a before you guys vote i would like to say so what what the law does require is every 30 days uh we did get some advice so you basically the board would keep certifying so what we got advice today in our training was uh do it by resolution i know csba said you can do it by fact finding our attorney said it's it's just cleaner to have it in writing the board approves it how are we going to confirm fact fighting without doing this and then the second piece to that is we're getting the detail on some of our meetings because we meet once a month do go beyond the 30 days so we're double checking but it sounds like what they said is if you go like the 32 days in between that first item on your agenda needs to be that new uh resolution certifying that for some reason if the board turned that resolution down then we would probably we would have to possibly stop the meeting so just want to put that out we'll i'll get more details on that but that was something we learned today is before we thought about schedule a special meeting to re-certify uh but they did say there is some um ways to work rewards and meet that way so just just for food for thought and i realized we're we're ready for vote i think we are but let me let me just for those of you who are wondering what these findings are each month we have to have three findings that confirm why we're continuing so the three findings are number one there was a proclamation proclaimed state of emergency state or local officials have imposed a recommended measures to promote social distancing which really should save physical assistance um two there is a proclaimed state of emergency and the local agencies meeting is for the purpose of determining by majority vote whether as a result of the emergency meaning in person would present eminent risks to the health or safety of attendees or number three there is a proclaimed state of emergency and the local agency has determined by majority vote that as a result of the emergency meeting in-person presence would present an imminent risk to the health or safety of attendees so i think having this room crowded with with attendees would definitely uh create an imminent risk do we have a motion to approve i will motion over thank you mr riddle we have a second second and k12 vaccination mandate this is a discussion item not an action item uh on october 1 2021 the state of california announced that all students at public charter and private k-12 schools in california will be required to be vaccinated for cover 19 starting the school church following the full fda approval of the vaccine for a very great span the cj usd board of trustees requested a discussion only item to be included on our october agenda included as informational backup material for this discussion is an overview of the proposed regulation by sacramento county public health and additionally an overview of the release from the state of california we have a motion to bring this to the floor for discussion so much thank you mr yeah i mean so the only thing we i was thinking i actually took it kelly was i wanted to just uh in the packet the board i did have a copy of the summary from our sacramento county public health officer uh and in there we've received a few questions from from folks about it like the when the why so i would point people to that for kind of a synopsis of the process one of the things would be is you know when does this start one thing is we we don't know when the state's going to mandate it depends on when the fda would approve the vaccine based on the conditions that are outlined by the governor's mandate here we do know it starts with 712.

we know the survival rate for young people is even higher and i just wanted to mention a few other things so in relation to the claim that we need to follow the experts history shows us that the government and health authorities have gotten it wrong many times in the past cigarettes is one of those areas the us government was once the world's biggest buyer of cigarettes lead paint in the best doses another the government once deemed a bestow safe and then something interesting a yale school of medicine study found that nearly one-third of drugs approved between 2001 and 2010 had major safety issues years after they were made wildly available to patients it took a median of 4.2 years after the approval for these safety concerns to service and issues were more common among drugs that were granted accelerated approval near the regulatory deadline so in closing back to the mandate for parent volunteers other schools as rebecca mentioned have interpreted the recent mandate differently achieve star cards achieve star charter school so they can allow they're allowing unvaccinated parents and custodians to volunteer participate with proof of a negative test result it was mentioned again it might not be feasible for you to provide the same services of that test but to give parents the choice to to provide that negative test i think is crucial in any case to implement a policy that i believe and many others that it's discriminatory is not right and the school board should move to adjust it immediately vaccinated or not parents deserve the right to see their children in person at school during school functions field trips and events thank you do we have a one additional is ruth here yes ruth i'm old i'm just getting here as fast as i can i've been very moved by hearing from some different points of view tonight things that have been important at some point in my life and i did um prepare and put together a few thoughts that and some printed copies that i will give to the clerk the um they already are this article from new york which was 10 16 21 that was a couple days ago three days ago anyway um was saying we can you can go ahead and invite and order the the um vaccine even before it's approved get your get in line i think it's an important article i hope you read it and i have a couple extra copies i also wanted to let you know that i am very aware that there were over a thousand demonstrators in sacramento on the weekend on saturday and they a lot of people don't get the local paper here in chico so a lot of people don't really know what's going on around them sometimes they could be right next to it but they really don't see it they just look at one thing they look at covered they look at this they look at that i try to look at a broader section of what's going on the oceans are dying sea levels are rising and if you know right now there's only two ports that are open here shipping points in in los angeles and in long beach and there's a line of ships and there's pictures of it in the paper you got to read the ap articles because they come from every perspective and i think that this one of the articles that i have here is u.s expected to authorize mix and mass match booster shots and i think i mean i also i remember back the how kind of like food drug administration works and how long it gets to to get a a product that's killing a lot of people we had thalidomide uh babies from europe because we didn't bother to send instructions to physicians so they just used it anyway i have that and i have one just one other uh one that i will draw attention to here if i might uh the other is the cause of covet deaths no one wants to talk about and it kind of deals with all of the um all of the hazardous chemicals and the all the um firefighters that are out there are are prisoners that's why they're out there doing the dirty work and those are the kinds of things the people here ought to be thinking about because there's a lot of things that are killing people and fear is one of them thank you thank you ruth okay our next item will be item number eight negotiations update mr hanlon where is jimin yes so um tonight our last meeting we um brought to you the kuma tentative agreement i'm sorry the c-u-t-a tentative agreement tonight will be we will be bringing you the csca and kuma so really i'm gonna defer until then because that's kind of the bulk of what we'll be talking about i didn't hear the last part of what you said i'm going to defer until later in the in the agenda because we're basically bringing what we're going to be talking about to you at that point in time okay are are we going to include the other two bargaining units at the same time csea and kuma tonight yes we concluded cuta last time and we continue to talk with them on language issues but we've reached no no agreements at this point thank you this is uh not an action item so we don't need to um take any action at this at this point next is item number nine the consent calendar um are there any comments on the consent calendar from either the board or or the puppet yes uh mr tennis i have a couple of items to ask about um mr carris tim karis is that you back there is that him yes that's jim carrey i got a question for you oh there he is right there i thought this guy was looking the wrong guy thank you um on item 9.2.2 the enrollment update is that we get these how how often these enrollment updates uh just right here a few times a week and then definitely for the board meetings so the board meetings so we get it so at the beginning of the year we do it daily um and then once we hit early october we tail off to just the board meeting it's a little dry you know i mean it's kind of like a spreadsheet like some kind of some data but it's hard to like imagine no are we up are we down i mean you have to be really following it closely is there kind of like a slide or something we could put at the front like that that would be some sort of graphic or something that would sort of show sort of a general trend you know or anything like that that could color it up a little bit to make it more interesting to to read and maybe more telling or something like that i could work on some uh some drafts i don't mean to dump it on your plate and if the answer was no that's not really going to be very feasible without a lot of work forget it you know the problem is is when we look at um you know month-to-month trends we don't see drastic changes right at the beginning of the year we do see drastic changes because we enroll we show enrollment for every student that has enrolled with us rightfully so but then we have a significant number of no-shows and that's just the way enrollment works in a medium-sized school district yeah but generally month-to-month not much changes year to year that's where we really start to see look at trends generally so i'm going to make a recommendation that we pull this particular item since we're talking about it and then go back to our process but that said i would like to add to this that attendance is what drives our funding so it is crucial that we know it and that it's clearly understandable so if we need to do some things to spruce it up we can do that that's all i'm done on this i don't need to talk about it i have a question still though so if we let's yeah if you want to pull it let's consider that um 9.2.2 has been pulled for um additional discussion because i have some questions too thank you um are there any other um items under the consent calendar that you have another one that you'd like to follow 9.3.4 9.3.4 okay we'll pull that for later um any others board any comments from visitors on the consent calendar okay then do i have a motion um on the consent calendar i so move with the exception of 9.2 9.2.2 and 9.3.4 second thank you board um [Music] i'm going to do a uh roll call vote on that dolby eye robinson eye thank you board um okay we're back to 9.2.2 uh monthly enrollment update do you have um any additional comments mr tennis uh who indicated they had yes caitlyn must alby so i i think mr tennis's points are are well taken and and just uh you know from a data perspective um a data point isn't very valuable without relative information and so the reason we have data points is to show trends whether the trend is a changing trend or a not changing trend both of those tell us something and so i think that it would be it would be useful to be able to see a you know a chart that has trends as we move through the year um i you know a table is is only data and it's what we do with that data that helps tell a story for for those of us who don't have our eyes on it every day mr garris i have experienced that at the semester change we do have a significant moth significant defined significant but there there is a a change in enrollment at that time both in and out we have early graduation and a lot of people that are moving want to have their students finish a particular grading period before so at that point especially it would be very relevant to be able to see what's happened as you know as our semesters change the other point where my experience is that we have some movement is is at the first grading notice of probable failure because we get we get students who will move to a a credit makeup credit assistance program so those those areas where significant movement occurs would would be lovely to include because i agree it's not very flashy thank you sir so i'm going to come to tim's defense here that um this i didn't mean to in any way uh this would i will actually enjoy sprucing it up a little bit so no worries okay okay and kelly had i'm sorry superintendent staley had started to mention that you know our our funds are generated by uh seat time you know where is the student in school and in in their seat not just enrolled so all of those things that make it very important for why these these reports are significant 9.3.4 who did you pull that as well should we vote on 9.2.2 um we can or we can take them both at once what's your pleasure board you want to do i have a motion on i i i think yeah we'll just approve it as is i move that we approve it as in accordance with the staff recommendation that was on the agenda well we we've actually i believe superintendent staley asked that it be uh no let we we'll approve it we don't we'll we'll prove do i have a motion on just approving 9.2 points second okay we have a motion in a second um all those in favor of approving 2.2.2 as submitted thank you board um the second item that was pulled is 9.3.4 yeah i i meant to give you madam superintendent a little heads up that i was going to just be asking about this and i apologize that i didn't but just what what is becoming of the this is the furniture that we replaced this is the desks and tables that we replaced recently yes this is the furniture i met our elementary schools that we replaced so last march the board approved using coveted relief dollars to purchase new elementary tables and chairs in order at the time to adhere to the six foot distancing piece all those tables and chairs were delivered to our school sites and implemented before the first day of school if i can have julie come up real quick she can speak to the next steps regarding the tables and chairs thank you you can keep it really short julie i'm just curious as to what because we're talking about hundreds and hundreds of tables and chairs many of which were in thousands yeah we're in very very good shape and so i assume we have some kind of good plan for that or something yes we have developed a flyer that will go out to all first off all public agencies to put that equipment up for donation to public agencies and then after that period of time has lapsed then it'll be open to the public and there there are some pieces that just simply need to be dismantled and recycled and then we will see what uh what we have left after that based on your experience with this kind of thing what what do you anticipate is probably going to happen with this furniture well um we've been fortunate that we through our master plan have tackled several of our elementary schools in the last eight years and that furniture was put out for surplus and the local schools were able to come and shop and get what they needed and wanted so i have a feeling that we're not going to get a lot of takers because they already have what they need and it's the same furniture so it is likely that a lot of the furniture will be dismantled and recycled ms dalby how how far out are you casting the net of letting people know that i mean there may be schools that are further out more rural schools that may think that it's worth the trip to chico to pick up furniture surplus furniture especially in the areas that really are at a disadvantage for being in a rural area it's our goal that we're going to all of butte county and all of our surrounding counties to start with okay and then how long are you are you planning on giving the process before it's time to like put them on the chopping board well it's not going anywhere there's no real reason to rush other than it is out in the weather and it won't it takes up quite a substantial uh space as you might imagine yeah it's not possible to store it indoors and they're going to the corporate yard there in the courtyard at the yard is that also where we have um the buildings that can move thank you portables yes it is and i'm assuming those portables aren't necessarily empty or available to at least store some things so they're not out in the weather i don't want to see things go to the landfill personally i understood we don't we don't either the portables are what you call weatherized so only one half of them is accessible by the doorway and they really will not store anywhere near this much furniture it takes up quite a bit is it an option for after the first wave of furniture gets possible before we get into the depths of winter yes okay thanks julie you know you know where my heart is thank you thanks okay do i have a motion on um 9.3.4 so moved i have a motion and a second uh to approve 9.3.4 all those in favor signify by saying i i thank you board um that was a four nothing yes vote okay next we're on to item 10 our discussion action calendar information kelly staley thank you so much superintendent staley for president robinson members of the board we are uh thrilled to be back here tonight to share with you your draft trustee area maps that we have been working hard to prepare i have rob murray here with me he is our director of demographics and planning and we've been working on this together for you i'll go over quickly kind of the agenda what we're going to talk about the timeline and kind of where we're at and then i'll hand it over to rob and he's going to go over the criteria with you answer some questions and then present the draft maps with the data and the analysis um is this move the presentation along okay i should have known that i'm like why isn't the slide moving uh so um again we're going to review the trusty area creation timeline you do have some time you did start this process early so we are not in a huge rush but we do need to be done by march we're going to review again the criteria this criteria we've been collecting at board meetings and through public input through the district website since the process started all the way back in april of 2020 actually we're going to present your initial draft trustee area maps these maps can and will likely change and we're going to review the criteria data for each map because there's quite a wealth of data and then we're going to talk about some next steps um so a quick review of the timeline and then i'm going to hand it over to rob this process really started back pre-pandemic and then because of the governor's orders and coveted the inability to really reach out to the public during a global pandemic the pause button was pushed and then the process started again just this year so we have had two public outreach meetings already on september 1st and september 15th it's not really typical to get a lot of public outreach until the maps are published it's pretty common that that's kind of when once could the community start seeing the initial draft maps starts to understand how it might impact them and their family and their representation that we start getting more community feedback so there's still the opportunity to continue to collect that as the process moves forward so that's important to note we're here tonight it's october 20th to present these draft maps november 3rd we'll have a public hearing and to gain more input on those draft maps november 17th have a second hearing on that after incorporating from feedback and then maybe by november 24th we'll have a final map option maybe we'll need more public hearings more map edits i can let rob speak to that and then you know the timeline currently is december 15th the board to adopt the map and then some to be determined dates uh following that so i'm going to hand it over to rob he's going to go over kind of the legal requirements of things that we have to consider when we're drawing these these are not you know optional and then he's going to go over the criteria that was compiled when it was compiled who it came from for the criteria that we've used thus far to develop the draft scenario map so i'll hand it over to rob murray thank you thank you jamie absolutely all right so thanks for that intro and then like jamie said we're going to first look at when we talk about some of the criteria that the legal requirements and there's really two primary ones that we're looking at here that is making sure that if there is a geographic concentration of a protected class mostly looking at this by race and ethnicity that we are acknowledging that and then of course each of these trustee areas to preserve relatively equal voting power between all the people living in your district need to represent about the same number of people and so a quick background for those of you who have not really worked with the nitty gritty census data before you see a map here this is zoomed in kind of on the more central area of chico just so that you can see some of these blocks but we have various levels and we're using the the smallest finest level of census data which is the census block and you would think hearing that that these might be you know try to make them all about the same size try to make them all about the same number of people and that's not really how it works we're doing a jigsaw puzzle here with pieces of very different shapes and sizes and numbers of people in them but all in all we have census blocks right that some of them don't have any people in them it's just an area where we know no people are and then your largest block by population has more than 1400 people living in it so those are kind of the blocks that we're working in and you see this is just a density map that just shows blocks and shows how many people are in them uh this map even here can be you have to keep in mind how big physically the block is because the bigger it is the easier it is to have a lot of people in it but that is a discrete piece that we can't really break down any finer at that point but these are the the pieces that we're working with to piece together trustee areas that all have about the same number of people so uh big changes since 2010 when we start started this process the first time around in spring of 2020 the 2020 census had not even been conducted much less had data released so we were still obligated to use the 2010 census numbers so since that time the total population recorded has increased from just over 107 000 people to now just over 120 000 people we have also seen that especially when looking at the hispanic or latino population that the district is growing more ethnically diverse uh going from just under 15 percent to now just under 20 percent of the population identifying as hispanic or latino and interestingly uh comparing some of the maps that were put together for the last presentation that population of people identifying as hispanic or latino has become more evenly distributed around the district we're not seeing as much of a single large concentration so looking at this map these are all those census blocks again and now the ones that are in the darker shade are the ones that are more than 50 hispanic or latino and what might catch your eye are those two big blocks at the top and that's where we have to keep in mind uh that we still have to look at how many people are in them because between those two blocks we're talking about 11 people all told so a small block of ten people that is a hundred percent hispanic or latino is less significant in terms of a concentrated population of that class than several blocks that are all 50 to 60 to 70 percent that have higher population uh in the dozens or the hundreds and that are closer together and so i've really just looked at that one circled area where you have multiple blocks that are all majority hispanic or latino identifying population and so that is an area that we want to make sure is not getting split apart and diluting that vote between multiple trustee areas yeah question for you sir one of the many things that flashed across my consciousness as i was going over all this material did i see that at least one of the map options that has a district that actually has more hispanics in it that does not encompass this neighborhood you may not know the answer to this question yeah i i will have to look at that when we bring those numbers i apologize i don't have it oh no and that's no and that's a great insight if that's the case because again this area while it has the most uh concentration uh does not mean that that is you know there are more hispanic and latino people living all other periods of the district than there like i said it really is what really popped out with this is how much more evenly distributed uh this population is compared to in 2010 where you you really had more of a sense uh and and again that was where we had scaled back we were really only looking at 30 as a threshold now we're at least able to start looking at the areas that are legitimately majority minority in that sense uh but that you aren't seeing uh a very large concentration all built up this but this was the most significant one that i could identify yeah i did kind of find it and it's the purple map there's actually two districts okay proposed that don't encompass the hispanic neighborhood if i may that have 24 more than 24 000 people um or 24 of the people being hispanic or latino yeah the second the second district has 24.8 yeah and i think mr tennis i i was also interested in that same issue why don't we hold off until we get to actually looking at blue versus green versus purple and then take a deep dive into um you know your your specific question yeah that sounds good i i think i have some ideas that can help speak to that when we get there so but so carrying on uh so yeah i think that covers that and so now we have uh aside from those two mandatory criteria that we came into this process knowing that we were going to be looking at we have some additional criteria discussed in public meetings and to be clear at our first public hearing earlier this year on september 1st we did review the process that occurred in 2020 up to again when that pause button was hit uh but that we had developed criteria at that time and so in reviewing those uh we kind of received some affirmation that we would continue to use the criteria developed the first go around and then we had some additional input and so i'll kind of cover what happened this year and then we'll back into the origin of some of those original criteria from 2020.

everyone there has been adequate notice of this meeting provided by the board of education march 18 2021 notice that the co-star is setting forth the date time and place for this meeting similar notice has been posted in the town hall of reality school website and the borough club has been notified can you please call the role here [Music] is [Music] can i have a question that the board accept the minutes of the september 22nd 21 regular public meeting minutes yes kurt and the second dennis oh sorry can you call the world a presentation tonight [Music] [Applause] [Music] have a crowd here um so this is one of the best presentations we've ever seen in a long time um i want to begin by uh you know thanking jed for all the work that she has put into this uh tireless hours but i want to remind everyone who just hired her in july and so i have to remind her almost daily you just started we've just begun this journey together and there's a long way to go but what you have done in a short time we are quite impressed and yes in our district you know you know we are you know one of the finest high performing districts in the state we're proud of that the reason we're proud of that is because we've had a great board you know leading the educational program for all these years um i should point out this doesn't happen in many places but i think the number's about 35 years you've only had three superintendents in 35 years that's really unheard of and so here you have to look at that as the steady shift moving along like when you have that it's really a great thing most importantly you have phenomenal teachers and this board has always recognized the great work that our teachers have done in the classroom the training they can have provided for them because many boards do not support the cultural belonging and we do i'd like to remind you again your support of professional development matters to every child in this building and so you've been strong supporters of having our teachers get the training that they need hang for because this board supported learning more about being a coach at the school but it's only been a short while this is the first year ever that we have a full-time math and reading interventionist or coach full-time we've never ever had that and i would say when you can get on board and prepare your programs that pushed it but cameron's fault in the budget we had to find this because she knew and others on our freedom really knew how important it was so with that said a full-time math and reading person and a curriculum supervisor for teachers we're at a good spot we're at a very very good spot and so in the short amount of time jen and her team and there is a team of us uh mr stacy and myself jen our interventionist that's lisa neither maria prendergast and some of our child study team members everybody had a handbrake guiding us through the creation of a wonderful internationality program so there's a lot of questions that we like to ask we talk to a lot of other professionals that have that program and then um and we have a program we have a wonderful name it's called reach you know we sat for a long time i think jen at one time came to a meeting there were ten choices you know like let's narrow it down we want a great name we want a great name we love our neighbors and even with the reach program we also have different programs tonight a win program what i mean and which started it and i have to say you know we're a small school so to find personnel to do things uh on certain periods it was very hard to do but this summer when we worked on our schedule we worked hard to find those missing pieces so that we could do a win program and we're going to explain that tonight so and just in general trying to win uh it's one period and children get their needs met what i mean and so children who need basic skills children who need enrichment children who need certain skills will get that during their win period and the children that have a grade level when they go to win they're mixed in other kids from their grade level so they get to interact that social piece with other kids from other grade levels so a lot has been done jenny gets all the credit uh because you know she she's lost on this uh she comes every morning with more questions um what do you think of this what do you think of that and so we're gonna just talk about and this is on our website about what we have you know come up with to support children so that they can reach all the potential possible jen and jenna's not going to read this powerpoint so hi everyone thank you for taking the time to listen today i couldn't be more excited about our new reach program here for y'all it stands for realizing excellence through academic challenge and like chris said if you're bouncing all these different you know names and i just feel like this was the best one for our students all the information in this live show is on the website so you can feel free to go and read through it at your leisure i'm just going to highlight a few points from slideshows just to give you an overview of the program so new jersey recently had passed the strengthening gifted and talented education act so we are following the state requirements for this program we had already been following them at a basic level but with this program we created a more rigorous gifted and talented pull-out program which i'm really proud of this program includes an ongoing identification process with multiple measures which we will ultimately conduct every spring we're aligning the national association of gifted children programming standards to our lessons in reach we're providing modifications and accommodations for our special ed students and we're also including interdisciplinary connections along with the rigorous curriculum for those students which are all part of the strengthening gifted and talented education act so what is the research study overall it says that gifted and talented learners are typically two to five percent of our population and kda clustering with impasse differentiation is an effective model of a gnt program which like i said before we have been using from the beginning through all of our k-a classrooms every day so the next piece i want to go into is our identification process it does vary depending on the grade levels and typically it will be conducted every spring so it was a little bit different the blueprints which again are on the website are a little bit different for this year because we collected some of the data in the spring and some was collected this fall so for students in grades k through two the measures that we use for our blueprint for identification or the i ready map because they don't take the ela in because we have other measures that we use teacher recommendation report card grades and then the code gap which we administered for the first time this year um we finished it for eighth grade last year but this year we're administering it four grades eight through eight times two minutes our kindergarten reach program will not start until january we need to collect some more data before we can decide who we can identify for that program so we will administer the progress to the kinder partners in december and then we will administer the i ready to those students in early january with the start date and hopefully sometime and then again there is a minimum score on the bookworm for students to be able to qualify for the program and for the kh2 students it is a 9 out of a total of 15.

i got a phone call and a text from the county superintendent and no superintendent wants to get a call at 3 15 on a friday from the county superintendent uh you know i called him and said how can i help you he says i'm doing a survey and i want to know what's going on right now and i told him uh colin uh has secured as of now on friday that overlapped will be coming to our building and he said no way there is not one school in monmouth county that got more relaxed not one nobody sets me on front i said well doctor it could change colin has another meeting on tuesday and the dolly said great everything is still a little changes and then you meet me teachers on thursdays the rules change on friday so colin has his meeting on tuesday comes in my office he says you're not going to believe it we are the only school that will be tested by broker this friday not only kidding me and really uh colin and karen really stayed on top of it because this was something that we thought we should have when we were told you know we're going to tell teachers and some districts just told you you're on your own go get it on your own and so i don't know before the test lab as i said the column but broker will be here on friday at 12 30.

oh at the middle school we have three specialized programs the first one is the essential skills program and that program is for students who have significant challenges that require intensive programming students may be on the spectrum they may have intellectual challenges and they may have complex health impairments the instruction is delivered through an aba model and the core curriculum is significantly modified all the standards are modified and functional and social skills training is delivered throughout the day in addition to the esp program we have our aims program for students who are on the spectrum or have neurological differences those students are coached throughout the day through our social skills model with a lot of pragmatic teaching and learning and in addition to that we have our student support program for students who have uh challenges self-regulating and modulating throughout the school day we are an inclusive school so all students access general education as well as special education and our special education structure this year as mika will also highlight is a little different this year we have two seventh grade special education teacher liaisons patrick hunter who focuses on humanities as well as special education and kimberly alderman shapiro who focuses on science technology engineering and math and special education in seventh grade and in our eighth grade we have michael russo who focuses on the stem and we have daniel hales who focuses on the humanities um in addition to that we are fortunate to have mika who teaches our pull out direct service instruction in english we have daniella ferro who teaches our special education math program and then we have keikis coblin who teaches reading tutorial for students who have reading impairments and who needs support and intensive structure intensive instruction on decoding and encoding um mika thank you doreen um welcome everyone and welcome to the arms open house my name is mika mcgee and i'm the sc curriculum special education curriculum leader um so doreen mentioned some of the programs that are available at arms and some of our small group classes in addition to the small group classes which i teach seventh eighth grade ela we also our students are also in inclusion classes and those inclusion classes they have the support of a paraprofessional or a sc teacher in what we call our co-taught classes with our goal to place students in the least restrictive environment to meet to meet their needs um so a little bit about our process um students are we are referred to essie and once we receive a referral um there's a comprehensive evaluation that's completed and the students are determined to be eligible for special education we go through a process of developing an individual education plan through a meeting we have that's called by what we call the individual education plan team or iep team we convene a meeting and determine what that plan will look like and determine their eligibility um and so once the plan is developed we determine the least restrictive environment and the students will be in either one of the programs that that doreen mentioned or they'll be in a small group class like my class or inclusion classes they also generally they are included in whatever electives other students are included in um each student is assigned a liaison which is a liaison is a special education teacher and that liaisons um that liaison is um the person that or the staff member that interacts with the student to make sure their academic needs are met that the iep is implemented um they interact with the parents and there you're kind of like uh your first contact at the school um as far as communicating should there be any challenges that you might have in the school or with your with your student it's a great idea to reach out to the liaison first liaisons also collaborate with the gen ed teachers general education teachers and related service providers should the student have like physical therapy occupational therapy speech adjustment counseling things like that on on the iep um so our goal is to just do a really good job at you know servicing our students uh one of the um other doreen mentioned this earlier one of the other services we provide is academic skills our students have academic challenges and some of those challenges are due to organization executive functioning and so our academic skills class addresses issues like executive functioning organizing or organizing themselves time management and also self-advocacy so we had a what we have a wide array of special ed services um within the district that are available to our students and i hope that if you have any questions that you please uh reach out to us absolutely um mika mentioned the academic skills and this is also a time for students to learn how to in addition to managing course expectations how to advocate for themselves right so for an example would be to learn how to email a teacher for clarification make a plan for future assignments work on extended time assignments um t of course you know the educators will be teaching um executive functioning skills and really also learning to practice the social emotional learning strategies and also always the opportunity to retake tests and assessments for your students and your children to do better to do their best i just wanted to slow down a little bit and highlight the teachers once again so for our essential skills program that is our teacher is denise o'donovan for our ames special education program that head teacher is corey haynes for our student support program our special education teacher is kim rizzotti balanced with the student support program and aims we have clinical support so in ssp our clinical school adjustment counselor is miguel wallace and in ames it's aaron neil kolozynski um in addition to that for our teams of special education teachers in seventh grade they are patrick hunter who focuses on humanities in addition to special education and kimberly alderman shapiro who focuses on the stem component and special education and in eighth grade we have michael russo who focuses on the stem and daniel hales who focuses on the humanities and to highlight once again our small group specialized content air instruction for reading tutorial is caicos coblin for our english small group learning focusing on writing skills written expression reading comprehension is mika mcgee and our pull out small group math focusing on calculation and numeracy is daniel farrow mika what did we forget um i think we've i think we've covered just about everything um i would say that when we um part of the implementing the iep is developing goals and so those liaisons and the um and the special education teachers work on uh the learning goals that are developed in the iep meeting and also students will have accommodations in class to make sure that we can meet their needs for them to to be able to to to access the learning absolutely and in addition to our other to miguel and erin who do our clinical support we also have hector santos who has a dual role who not only is a school adjustment counselor servicing students with iep goals and objectives but he's also the clinical coordinator of our bright program for students who might be transitioning back from hospitalization or a long absence from school thank you so much for your time welcoming mika and me into your home and we're going to turn it back to diego thank you hi everyone welcome back first of all i want to start unfortunately with an apology because i realized that at the beginning of the broadcast uh i forgot to go live um so there's a big learning curve uh for us and we're all learning here in the middle school and of course one of the things that i'm learning and didn't expect to be learning was to be broadcasting uh on our arp's youtube channel so uh so thanks for your patience uh but i think we're finally in and i see that uh as we start the all school meeting or as we're beginning to start the all-school meeting which was scheduled to start at 6 45 um we're i'm seeing the numbers click up and we're getting uh close to 100 participants viewing so i'm just going to wait for another minute or two and while i um thank mika magee and assistant principal dorian reed for the presentation about special education and and again i will be reintroducing this read in just a little bit but i think all of you who are here for being here and thank you for tuning in on the arp's youtube channel i want you to know that this video is being recorded and so if you didn't get a chance to see it live um you will be able to go to the arp's youtube channel and see it at any other time it'll be archived there for you to review so thank you um all right as the numbers start to click up i'm going to go ahead and uh and begin the next part of our presentation which is the all school meeting uh the all school meeting will be going from 6 45 which just passed us to 7 15.

welcome to today's varsity field hockey matchup between denham high school and your dover sherwood raiders [Applause] before the match begins we would like to take a moment to honor the senior players on both teams we are grateful for the leadership and support of these senior field hockey players and your commitment to your field hockey programs we hope you have a great rest of the field hockey season and a fantastic senior year at first i would like to begin with the 13 seniors from denim high school 13 wow that's a lot for datum as each senior player is announced we ask that they step forward and take a flower from one of our juniors and we will applaud your efforts leadership and sportsmanship to start us out as captain katie soucy [Applause] what's cool [Music] barbara monahan barbara sophia mckinnon [Applause] [Music] [Applause] bridgette murray [Applause] neve chaplin [Applause] captain susan reynolds [Music] murphy [Applause] regine green [Applause] [Music] [Applause] for jean green julia hilson [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh sebastian they have a lot of seniors yeah i know i think 13 was the number wow anna wow [Applause] [Music] [Applause] congratulations adam [Applause] [Music] now at this time we would like to celebrate our 11 dover sherbet raiders seniors i mean there's 11 for the radio show really one two three four five oh yeah there's a lot right in the middle field hockey together here at dover sherburne for the last four years or even longer some of you have recently joined the dover sherman high school field hockey team together you represent dover-sherborn and your leadership and sportsmanship have made us all proud tonight we would like each of you to come out to join us on the field one player at a time and we welcome your parents and your family to walk up to midfield with you and please join for a photo once you're called out to midfield please stay at manfield so we can take a group picture at the end so let's begin to start us out we have number four playing midfield lily fryer lilly here's lily getting us [Music] [Applause] [Music] congratulations lily up next we have number six playing defense avery mcstravick [Applause] [Music] [Applause] walking out with avery are her parents melissa and peter congratulations avery [Applause] up next we have number seven playing forward rachel wendell rachel wendell [Applause] walking out with rachel are her parents tom and shelley congratulations rachel [Music] [Applause] up next we have number eight playing midfield liza birmingham [Applause] walking out with liza her parents allison and stephen and her sister grace [Music] this little bouquet of flowers there and they all got this whole different assortment on the side i know that is quite the assortment let's take a look at that what is going on over so much food that's gonna be congratulations after game snacks those blankets i don't know i'm next week number 12 playing defense kira wilson [Applause] amy and jack [Applause] yeah look at that that looks like some kind of blanket or something i don't know what really congratulations kira [Applause] up next we have number 13 playing forward izzy free down izzy fredo yeah she's got speed on the wing walking out with izzy is her mother tracy and her brother and sister [Applause] mother has a nice louis v bag see that congratulations easy up next we have number 19 playing defense katie ritzer oh katie ritzer called that name a few times as well yeah absolute stunt on the d line there walking out with katie or her parents kristen and andy [Applause] congratulations katie up next we have number 22 playing forward lily duplessi oh yeah lily duplessi just an excellent player walking out with lily are her parents steve and jessica huh congratulations lilly and next number 24 playing midfield emily wong [Applause] tracy and andy [Applause] that's a candid right there congratulations emily [Music] [Applause] up next we have number three playing forward captain nicole mayer oh yeah yeah nicole oh mayor um special player expect her to make some good plays today parents liz and chris and her grandfather paul i got paul in there too that's great say cheese congratulations nicole [Applause] and last but certainly not least number 17 is playing goalie captain lauren roots oh yeah aka the brick wall [Music] walking out with lauren and her parents jen and nate [Applause] congratulations lauren [Applause] and congratulations to our senior field hockey class and good luck this year at this time please take a group photo so this is going on dedham is over here warming up yeah it looks like they're taking corners right now it's a good idea that's a great picture right there let's hope cam on instagram is getting that [Applause] and at this time if we could all please line up for the national anthem now uh i'm not mistaken emily's going to play an outstanding rendition of this song look at that unity they're all holding hands at this time we ask all of those who are able to please rise remove your hats as we honor america with the playing of our national anthem [Music] my stripes me [Music] [Applause] is [Applause] let us [Music] [Applause] [Music] my [Music] my and welcome everyone to field hockey action today on this wednesday evening october 20th i'm sebastian osar joined alongside brad crandall with cam crandall on instagram senior night here for the raiders with uh i wanna let me do the math 11 seniors for the raiders definitely making up a base of this team uh-huh a lot of seniors out here on both sides of the field yeah 13 for dunham molly and her dad tom getting some last words in before the big uh big game here yeah this team ds and dedham both made up of seniors both with 10 plus seniors on each side so there will be holes to fill in she's to fill this year's class and next year's class oh great stick check this takes always forever oh yeah so what would you like to say about today's game it's going to be a good game it's a pretty nice temperature right now yeah my phone says it is 66 here in dover and yeah the temperature will definitely be dropping a little bit but he is 66 now yeah it'll go on as the game goes on probably dropping to about 63 by the time game ends okay nice little raiders chant there yeah looks like they're starting all the seniors tonight yup lauren root getting the knot in net they are pumped up right now [Applause] oh [Applause] [Music] oh wow okay denim has spoken and you know what they said they want some more they want some more they want some more [Music] dead i'm going left to right here yep and the maroon jerseys yeah over sherburne and the white going right to left yeah denim and the maroon maroon bottoms marine socks vs with the light tops blue letters black outline white skirts and black skirts black skirts and the white socks nice move up there from number four lily fryer gonna be a free hit for diaz [Music] ds ball again [Music] emily walk trying to get it up to mayor mayor working down the sideline runs out of bounds it's gonna be tetherball denim right here with some speed nice pass up nice step up there abs great defense there from number 12.

no it's katie ritzer ritzer my bad [Music] ritzer playing good [Music] defense it's gonna be out of bounds it'll be a free hit for diaz [Music] yeah she used to think oh no denim not making it easy to get that up is it just me or does ava federico's goggles don't look like they're on oh no no that's a headband dead i'm forming some kind of wall to block those free shots yep centers it up oh nice deflection there yeah oh she lost her stick oh almost true tumbled pretty good there hopefully she says she's okay she's a little banged up but she's a tough one nice block there i'm sorry wow big save corner i don't think you're allowed to cover like the ball like in um yeah hockey i think you gotta like clear up and tie it up well under 30 seconds left in the first quarter remember game cannot end on a corner so down could what just wait wait it out but that'd be kind of pointless start trying to get there ben clears it mayor trying to get behind there no that's gonna be another corner it's kind of funny to me sebastian how they call it hockey when it appears to be just a completely different game you know not even close that'd be like street hockey would be more like ice hockey yep quarter will end when ds touches i a believe flip oh that's our goal no goal no goal no he's waving it off yeah what do you say no goal someone from dedham jumped early oh good break there for the raiders and it looks like there's a timeout so tell them what the score is at the end of the quarter well scores one nothing almost could have been two but diaz gets a lucky break there yes exactly so we'll be here for second quarter action in a bit and welcome back everyone to second quarter action of today's game between your dover turbine raiders and the denim marauders dead i'm up one nothing right now diaz still entirely in this game absolutely [Music] denim's goalie did make a couple very nice saves already and root has been playing outstanding outstanding um but now she's on the sideline and they're rolling with the other goalie yep caroline harvey yeah who's absolutely no slouch either she's a very good goalie as well that hit off the foot of mayor that's gonna move the ball back a bit let's move around there gonna be okay hit for denim at the 25.

[Music] okay good evening everyone today is wednesday october 20th and i call the regular meeting of the brookfield board of education to order let's stand for the pledge 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 we have all seven of our board members here oh jen's not here so um okay we have six of our seven board members here um up first on our agenda is the student representative report um so a few things for today we have uh past events which i talked about last time as well as upcoming so um we had the pep rally last friday along with the homecoming football game which we had a lot of success with it was nice weather for the pep rally and the football game a lot of people came to support and then as far as the homecoming dance comes which is saturday october 30th at the amber room that's coming up as an event that's open to 9th through 12th graders so tickets are still on sale through this friday it was extended from last friday but student government's basically working hard to make sure that all of the grades can be included and it's an event that everybody can enjoy because they just want to carry that over so that one grade doesn't feel like left out after anything like that so they're working hard on that and they had class elections recently so there are some new leaders in for that as far as i'll skip down to clubs but um we have a lot of regular club meetings going on um national honor society um is making a 3 400 donation to the hole in the wall gang camp and 400 donation to ann's place so that comes from last year's mother's day 5k that we had and then this year's scrub and grow then future teachers of america were trying to kind of start up the word of the week program again that we had last year and we kind of revamped so continuing that in the next few weeks uh key club we have a center school halloween themed fall festival that a lot of people are going to help out with and volunteer that's saturday october 23rd and with peer counseling this friday we have a new student lunch for any of the students that are new to the district just to kind of see how they're doing this year and check in with them and then one last thing from kind of an administration perspective which i kind of talked to dr brill about already but um they're kind of having trouble at the high school with lunch services so getting things moving quickly some challenges are like for example students which even at the high school is an issue of students cutting the line and um so basically they're trying to find solutions to that which they're actually coming up with a lot of solutions for example um they talked about possibly using even like the what do you call them the uh different like banister or like line uh section off the line so that way like like you would see like a movie theater so that way there's not just this big blob in front of the lunchroom instead it's an actual organized line and then also the main point was looking into more personnel for whitsons the food company because they've just been having a lot of trouble finding personnel and they're kind of low on that right now so i guess on behalf of them and misheidi they just wanted me to say that like within the community and that they're trying to look for new people and they can always anybody who's interested can always visit the website and learn about possibly new opportunities for that so ben can you share a little bit about the the volume i know you had that in your report the volume of lunch is being served you know people people forget that lunch is free for everyone um all students regardless of free and reduced lunch status this year so talk a little bit briefly about that as part of what's contributing to this yeah so last or recent in past years they had it was around 350 uh school lunches per day were sold and that was being sold so they weren't free and students actually had to buy them but now this year with them being free and more options it rose to around 600 or more per day so it's about double and that's why they're seeing such an increase in that lunch service and kind of having trouble keeping up with it but also just the fact that um going back to the students who like yes like you said because it's free they also have some that are trying to go back and get a second lunch for free even though it's one free lunch and need to buy the second and stuff like that so it's just again multiple parts coming together that becomes a little tricky okay any questions for ben all right thank you very much so bad and tell them if they restart the uh if they restart the word of the day program send it to us we'll try and make sure we mention that word in our meetings oh yeah that would be fun that would be fun or that's how you get your lunch ticket that's how you do it yeah maybe that's how you earn a lunch ticket all right thank you um written correspondence joyce pacino wrote regarding and jen augusto regarding public comment procedures ron jaffe wrote regarding equity reports lisa zolbrecht wrote regarding iep services during quarantines mark ferry wrote regarding reporting systems and student welfare marnie mcniff wrote regarding media misinformation and kim gerardi wrote regarding busing concerns and mitigation strategies okay approval of board minutes i'll move that the board approve the minutes from the regular meeting on october 6th second okay all in favor aye all right thank you uh superintendent's update all right thank you thank you rosa dr sullivan said when we speak if we would like to take our mass down we can so i'm going to do that um the i'll be very brief because we have a lot of new business on the agenda tonight so i want to make sure i move things along in my report two weeks ago was quite lengthy so one thing i want to remind everybody is the town mask mandate has been rescinded mr dunn sent out that notification last friday to that end just to remind everybody that the governor's executive order is still in effect for schools so we have to um that they're mandated uh in schools just so everybody knows that um to follow up on a question that was asked during the superintendent report uh two weeks ago uh was there any uh reports for from to the counselors of anxiety and students regarding mask wearing or any reports to the nurses and in in medical issues in terms of specifically to to mask wearing we had one specific report for medical um to the to the nurses and the family and the the nurse in the school worked together on that and came up with a resolution so that's all there was in terms of those specific complaints directly about masks that's not to say that people don't complain about wearing masks because they don't like to i understand that but not specific to anxiety or medical um i've reported um last time that our 12 to 17 year olds there was a increase from about 60 to 65 vaccinated that was two weeks ago the report this week is that almost 72 percent of that group 12 to 17 are vaccinated at this time so we're seeing that increase um there was a couple of questions over the last couple of meetings about quarantined learning and students who might have special learning needs one of the things that's really important to remember is that first of all students with special needs are regular education students first and so we've since july with the board approved opening plan we have put the plans out there and then continued to update things um each school on september 30th we sent out an updated opening plan which included updated quarantine plans learning plans for each school and then should a student with special needs be on quarantine and be in that situation case manager the supervisors at the school will be working on different zoom opportunities for the students and or zoom teacher opportunities as well in in synchronous and the check-ins as well as asynchronous so whatever the combination is we have over 350 students and you'll see that in the reports tonight that have special needs and so you can't broadbush the reason you have an individual education plan for a student with special needs is just that it's individual so you can't just broad brush what you're going to do and also with the opportunity for seven day max quarantine with the test out um it really and by the time you back date and come forward we're really getting less and less on the quarantine really hopeful of you know continuing that trend so i wanted to share that the final thing i wanted to share was in terms of strategic planning and budget roundtable preparation the main question has been developed and worked on with mike and deb and amy from policy communications uh worked with mr costa from advance on it it's ready to go the thought exchange is set up we worked on it yesterday at administrative council with the administrative team and they started to give some input it's going forward tomorrow most likely i'll work with eric we'll get it out on a school message and parents and citizens can start contributing to the to the thought exchange so it'll be the first way first time we used it for for this purpose working toward budget preparation but really bigger picture what are those skills and experiences people want for their kids to learn going forward in the long term so we're excited about that and we'll be able to start capturing that information we can keep that link live and open as long as we want so through the winter time i mean we could really get a lot of information so we're excited about that that will be disseminated tomorrow if everything goes well and that's all i have any questions i have a question i think in our last meeting i think it was in the meeting we talked about busing issues and and we talked about all-star and how they were in a pretty good position as far as having enough bus drivers the bus driver shortage that a lot of districts are seeing really wasn't impacting us to the extent that other districts were affected but i think there's still some concern in the community about um mitigation strategies and kids being close together on buses and um i think back in september there were some uh children that had to quarantine and and the assumption was that it was because of the busing is there any development on that front or is there anything more we could be doing um to kind of lessen the concerns that parents have about the bus situation yes i think i think with two different issues here i think in terms just to answer the first one kind of where you started to go deb on in terms of the driver shortage we really continue to be fortunate and we've um uh mrs jones the the manager of the bus companies they're adding two drivers soon quite shortly to the to their driver um situation we did have an uh over a month i think it's over a month ago now or maybe three and a half weeks ago now um was the last time we had to do a combined bus um that's that happened six total times uh six total days i should say um in in september basically um so uh unlike other districts where they've had a call appearance last minute and uh you know we have some of the folks who are they work for us here and they're in new town or somewhere else where the bus run wasn't even able to to run until an hour or two later in the morning which really that's nice but it forces parents to have to find a way to get the kids into school um we haven't run into that situation knock on wood so we're in a good place there um i saw a um i can't speak specifically for all-star in our area but i saw a news news story it was actually this morning it was on channel 8.

mrs brooks suggested the possibility of seeking donations or sponsorships to make up for the additional funding possibly needed for the high school boys locker room project or possibly seeking a full private donation for maybe like a new field house stadium seating or concessions those are good um suggestions we also had can i just say the special meeting yeah okay we also had a special meeting on monday probably the quickest meeting ever three minutes um we just had to vote on um the estimate for replacing the floor in the wisconnier cafeteria mr post met with mr dunn and miss marion and they recommend submitting the capital plan with you'll notice later in the agenda it's to be determined cost for that item we do have an estimate at this time which we'll share later it's going to be part when the estimates receive the town wide capital committee will determine if the project will be brought forward and then we made a motion to approve the plan and bring it to you today so that's it um i just have a question on the building condition study when we did the one with tekton five years ago a lot of things were already at or past their useful life is there is it easier or cheaper to just update that study looking at the things that maybe were still good five years ago but maybe are now at or past their useful life so part of the i and ken if you want to come up because you actually were able to get to that meeting last week one of the things that we're talking about is going even deeper than what we did uh for whiskenier and the high school um but ken and dan were at the meeting with techno i think it was just last friday afternoon so ken maybe shed a little light on rosie's question it was last friday afternoon and what we've asked them to do is to really get in a little deeper and and you know they went around and they looked at how old the boilers were and how old this was and that was we're asking them to to uh commission a study where people will actually get in there and do a little more kicking the tires things like that seeing what kind of condition things really are in for their age and you know whether we need to accelerate things or or modify things or if we can wait longer on things so just get a little a little more deeper especially in the mechanical systems of the buildings and to your point things are five years older yeah yeah yeah so i i expect anything that was past its useful life five years ago is even in worse shape now yeah yes i would agree okay any other questions for joy okay uh finance all right so we met on october 11th it wasn't the shortest meeting ever that's the first time we've had a two page minutes in a while the important news for us as a board is we had our first projection for the current year budget spending and we're actually running ahead of budget by about 151 thousand dollars uh the reason for that is that we got an unexpected e-rate immersement of 122 000 um and it was not something we were expecting so that is now a benefit to the district and uh we're going to just leave it there and monitor it as the as the year goes on so the whole situation the uh there are the other important news is remember we always put an assumption in our budget for how much turnover we're going to get and mr posted reported that we actually have come in on or better than that budget on turnover savings so that's actually one of the risks we always have in our budget the other big risk in our budget is special ed costs and he reported that we're continuing on track on special ed especially outplacement tuitions so there's a lot of other smaller items we talked about um uh you know with some substitutes and professional services and uh the like but the net they were all relatively small so um the net of it is 151 thousand dollars better than budget as we stand right now so now we'll continue to monitor fifty one thousand at the beginning of the year is not a it's not a uh something to write home about and it's not something but it's at least in the right side right we've had years where it was the other way so um we uh we talked about the arp esser um grant we're gonna what's on the agenda for later so i'm not gonna talk about that here we also talked about the busing rfp i remember last month i had reported that we were looking into extending it for a year the problem we're running into is that the bus fleet is old and the bus company really does need to go to a a full new uh contract bid in order to actually update the buses right because they're they're exceeding their useful life as well because we've already extended it one or two years two yeah so um so we agreed that we're going to proceed down the path of doing an rfp process so that was that's a change from what we talked about last month we've had some discussions about student activity fund and in particular around how tickets are being paid for because athletic tickets have been an ongoing issue over the years of do where does the money go who's handling and the like and the good news is that we're implementing under mr baldwin's leadership a online ticket service which will take the cash handling out of anybody's hands so that is good and we also confirmed that it is going into the general fund it is not going through the student activity fund and it is not going in anybody's hands but school employees so that was an important that was a question that had come up to us so we've responded to that so um we talked a little bit about some we got an update on the facilities things that joy you just briefed us on so that was just an update um including uh the the high school and the center school roof um we are um we do have an after the after school grant does need to come for our formal approval so that's on the agenda today um the we we approved and the the thoughts of contract tracing investment and and then we talked i think we talked about the last meeting about the enrollment study so um that's that's old move that's kind of the new news on the on the finance committee so it was an hour and five minutes so not three minutes but i went a three minute uh finance committee one day about i had a question on the uh the tickets so is that online service was that covered by the sound well now it's on is that what's the cost of that online service dollar fee per ticket dollar okay which is paid for by the purchaser so and ken you told us it was actually the take-up on doing online ordering was actually pretty good that is the way we started the implementation it's been uh relative it's not a hundred percent yet but it's starting to really um it's been positively received yeah i was going to bring the actual data to the next finance committee meeting but i know as at least the first two football games uh the first game i think was around 50 or maybe a little less than that and the second game was a higher percentage of the online so be curious to see how that continues to trend well that's perfect actually good controls for us i mean the the ticket thing is it's not a lot of money for the district it does cover you know some things for us but um the controls around cash handling it's very valuable to have an online tool like that all right any other questions yes thank you equity and inclusion so the committee met last thursday it was also not the shortest meeting ever we hadn't met since last spring so we had a lot of catching up to do we opened up with a welcome back kind of icebreaker activity that's called what's in a name and everyone shared um something about their first or last name something that was unique or that they liked or disliked so that was really interesting and enlightening uh then dr brill shared with the group that when he and mrs holly met back in june that they decided that she would step in as the administrative lead for the committee due to dr brill having so many time constraints and other demands it was becoming difficult for him to put the time in necessary for the committee so we thank him and mrs holly for stepping up to help lead this committee we did a quick check-in on meeting time we were having a lot of issues with people not showing up to meetings last spring and it's a large committee with important work to do so we sort of set you know this is our set time it's an hour and we sort of set a rule like three missed meetings and it's time to re-evaluate your membership then mrs holly presented the presentation that she shared at the board retreat in july that covers where we've been where we're going how she and dr burle took a lot of effort in examining the equity and inclusion process that's already going on in other districts and states to help guide our work going forward we have a proposed timeline that begins with an equity audit so beginning with our next meeting and into early 2022 is a coordination of data where we're going to divide into four focus groups to gather information those groups and groups include teacher quality programmatic equity achievement equity and stakeholder equity so before our next meeting the members are going to choose a focus group and in november we're going to have one of our high school teachers he's going to be consulting with us mr andrew hill who's going to provide some lessons on data collection and analysis from what i hear he's quite a whiz with statistics and then next winter into early spring we'll present the subgroups we'll present the um findings from each focus group to the full committee and then we'll eventually come to the full board then after the slideshow we had some discussion and feedback from the committee so everyone has kind of has a lot to process going forward and thinking about what they'd like to pursue and then before we adjourn we took a quick vote and we added an ad hoc member we voted unanimously for ms jackie whiting who is the technology integration specialist new to the district so she will be an ad hoc member and will also provide tech support to the committee and that's it many questions thank you any questions all right um okay so that's it for subcommittee reports um next is the consent agenda i'll move that the board approve the items on the consent agenda which are new hires resignations and the september financials second all in favor on to new business first item is overnight field trips for a field trip i will move that the board approve an overnight trip to killington vermont for the bhs outdoors club from friday march 11 2022 to sunday march 13 2022 as requested by club advisor chris buckley and principal mark bellanda come on up chris um so second real quick oh i apologize that's okay i'll second thanks thank you joy um first of all introducing uh mr buckley our uh teacher of the year for brookfield uh school district so we're really proud of him thank you for being up here chris and all the extra work you do outside of the classroom for the district the other part about that is overnight trips by policy must be approved by the board and as you as you all will recall we have gotten to a point where our what we know is overnight trips uh in when fell swoop we now uh have a system where once a year we we approve those and bring them to you for consideration for approval this is a new club and chris is going to do a brief overview and you've all had a chance to read the trip it's a very detailed plan i really appreciate the work that went into it but chris i'll say no more and turn it over to you sure thanks for considering the trip uh you have a copy of it uh the trip is in march it is at the end of what we do for generally winter activities um the trip goes to killington vermont um the kids would leave friday after school be back on sunday kids need to know how to ski this is not a trip for kids who aren't aware of how to ski we do other opportunities for kids to learn this is a trip for kids who kind of know what they're doing it's a great opportunity for kids to spend some time with each other um it's a unique opportunity killington's a great mountain um we keep them busy you'll notice there's something to do on saturday night high school kids in hotels that are not exhausted are not a good thing so we keep them busy we take them to a rock climbing facility keep them there for a couple of hours get them tired bring them back they pass out get up in the morning take them skiing put them on the bus and pass out so it's a pretty good experience the trip is facilitated through a ski company called ski 93 trips i've been working with them since 2006 they're a very thorough and very well organized organization and they do a fantastic job they typically send a travel agent with us who facilitates the hotel experience the tickets keeps us on task the bus company is datco which is also a very good reliable bus company that we've worked with before the trip costs you can see up there are all inclusive i typically ask for a little bit of cash from them that we keep in envelopes give it to the kids that way they don't overspend all at one time and you have some kids starving on saturday afternoon because they spent 40 bucks at mcdonald's on friday night which would happen um so yeah the the the trip understanding that it is a experience during covid i did add that kids get a kova test prior to leaving the kids would be spending time in a hotel room together and i think it's a good idea for us to know with that said kids are masked when they're in side places when they're on ski lifts they're supposed to be masked for the regulations of the mountain but most of them wear gators anyway when they're in lodges when they're in hotel rooms when they're in the gym when they're outside far apart from each other and skiing on the mountain you know that's kind of their prerogative they're outside um the trip is a great opportunity for kids to show their responsibility to be kind of spending time with each other and to show kind of what they can do and represent brookfield high school and our community so it's a good trip i've done it many many years i've taken kids away on overnights since 2006.

roll call so if you could just say present dr lee present mrs anderson present miss bruno president sorry mr steve and kelly kelly president um flag salute so we are going to start a new process this month on the black salute in recognition of free speech on the following board adam we welcome all would like to note that this saying that saying the pledge of allegiance is not a requirement to participate in the business of this public board if you do not say the pledge for religious political social or personal reasons you are most welcome here as an equal participant in the business of this public work that said if you'd like to join me please rise i pledge allegiance to the right 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 the motion to adopt the agenda [Music] consent agenda please yes thank you so much okay i also will be moving item 10b action item 10b to the part of the agenda because that doesn't really change anything wait a second on approving the agenda is recommended motion all right with the agenda adopted adopted we can move on to the organizational reports if you could have vanessa mason and i'm sad to report she was feeling about well today so she will not be joining us all right then let's move right on to marie huggins please send her our well well wishes greetings um i wanted to bring your attention to uh consent agenda item number four which is the initial proposals for cse for um our 2021 uh 2122 school year for negotiations and if you guys approve that tonight we can begin negotiations tomorrow so that's basically where we're at we would like to be able to move forward we do have a successor year this year so we do have our contract being renewed for the next three years and so we have a lot of work to do so we'd appreciate your approval and um so we can is get basically what you call sun shining yeah yes i didn't see that term anywhere but i was like this is a sunshine yeah these are our sunshine proposals um so yes we would appreciate your approval on those questions all right thank you so much moving forward thank you mrs huggins thank you moving on to item five committee updates we have a curriculum instruction and special education update for myself good evening just to get to give you a brief overview of what's going on in the curriculum instruction special ed uh uh venue uh health staff falls under us so i want to give you a quick uh update of them as well we just hired three new lbns licensed vocational nurses they are assisting with our co-work testing we are doing culver testing at all sites and the district office uh for both students and staff uh we that brings us to a total of 11 health staff so that can we cover all school sites and two of those are registered nurses as well um so we are we are i feel fully staffed at this point um we do have enough supply of cobia tests to last us through at the end of the semester um so we are sitting we are literally sitting on boxes in my office um but we have plenty of those uh in terms of curriculum instruction department we did student all students complete began the school year the high ready diagnostic test for both reading and math uh we've been disaggregating that data through our data culture committee with our uh not only our admin staff but they've been going back and disagreeing that with their teaching staff as well um we were using a protocol that we uh we developed with the help of the sacramento county office of education uh in order to to do that the disaggregation process um we're in the process of getting our new high school science materials those were ordered those have been coming in for the new adoption for both center high school and mcclellan those are getting up to the sites um we currently as of today have 167 students enrolled in the independent study program and just to give you an idea normally we have about 30 uh in a normal year so we're up to 167 and seem to be trickling in a little bit more uh each week each day um current our current staff normally we have one full-time independent study teacher right now uh we actually have uh five full-time uh independent study teachers and four part-time teachers including some retired staff that have come out to help us out so we appreciate that in terms of our social emotional learning we have added five full-time social workers uh mr miranda and i meet with them on a weekly basis to kind of troubleshoot and welcome them to the district and just help them out getting acclimated to our school they are working uh doing groups um as well as one-on-one counseling with students uh in terms of uh our our immediate office uh we are uh welcoming keira jennings is coming to us from oak hill uh as we move we have to see tina duncan go but wish her well as she goes to the business department um we are also doing medi-cal billing reimbursement training uh we just did one with our social workers um heather perry's doing a fantastic job helping us out with that medical reimbursements our money they come back to the district for services that we uh provide to students um and heather again gives a lot of credit for helping us out increase that tremendously uh we just submitted uh this the last part again a part of the sea take application that's a cte uh grant that we've been working on we've gotten actually for about the last eight nine years um we are awaiting funding for that that's going to help out our careertech programs throughout the entire district uh we are also joined the k-12 workforce strong grant as part of our consortium with scoe that's going to help us out again with our ct career tech ed programs mainly at the high school with that grant but it is another grant which is a fantastic boost to our programs we are right now currently looking at reviewing the single plants for students achievement or the simpsons and the school county over ability report cards that are coming into the district district site admin are putting together then we review those go through those and then present those to you in terms of computer services which is also part of the quick construction department they're at adding wireless access points throughout all the school sites trying to increase the wireless connectivity uh recently they just went from one gigabyte to 10 gigabytes uh of bandwidth between the dl and center high school that probably means more to you apparently that's great i mean that increases our our speed and our ability to add more uh devices uh we did hire an additional network person to help out uh as well as ron wyoming who's in that spot now so we have two of those and we did hire a new computer tech uh who was gonna help out uh at center high school and a new tech earlier near it's going to help out of both briles and with our special ed department we added another full-time psychologist to our earms program herbs is the educationally related mental health services this is another full-time clinician that can help with accountability health is doing the counseling services with our students who are on iep and have this written into their ieps and then uh behavior services we just uh added another bcba or a board certified behavior analyst who is helping uh us out joining our behavior team and we are currently posting for one more um to help us out uh also throughout the district not much going on huh do you feel like you're juggling the place everybody is it across the district is working harder mr jordan um i just had a quick question um you did mention about the i ready diagnostics that are being administered and i'm just thrilled to hear that we're looking at uh disaggregated data you know at the department levels and among the teachers as a board member um are you planning to share uh the initial diagnostic results with us because i think it's really important for us to start looking at the data as a board so that we can act with intention to close any equity gaps that are appearing in the data yes correct so normally i would bring the cash data and i'll bring that next meeting as well just for the heist center high school because that's all we take it but during that presentation we'll also do the i ready data as well as our ap advanced placement data from center high thank you so a much question go ahead how's mark i haven't had an update lately he's hanging in there bless his heart slowly but surely yes is he home yes yes yeah he's got one one more potentials not to get one more surgery as things go over the next couple weeks and then uh i'll send him our thoughts in our prayers as well we're thinking about him thank you thank you surely appreciate that thanks mike another question um the disaggregated data that your team is reviewing is that being done at the seo meetings and is that something i could continue to participate it's actually being done on school site meetings doing their collaboration days but yeah i'm sure you could join in well i just want to get back in the swing of those uh some meanings and absolutely be in the loop on that if i can absolutely hopefully any questions great thank you mr jordan thanks mike thank you moving right along so the next committee update is the facilities update by richard putnam good evening everybody how are we doing tonight thank you all right so uh as as last stated um we're back more in just a maintenance kind of mode for the district taking care of warhorse they come in but we did have a small break and during that break we're able to get two roofs uh repaired and covered over at uvc or at a center high school uh 903 and 904 so we don't have a rough leak issue there anymore we're also able over at oak hill we had several places where the concrete had raised up there's posing tripping hazards for students and staff we're able to take out those three portions of concrete and get them re-poured so we do not have the tripping hazards that we have there right now we have the staff getting sites as ready for winter as possible perfect timing considering that we're supposed to be getting some decent-sized storms coming in so the the between maintenance and the grounds they are going out and doing what prep work they can to help with that um on bigger news we are still waiting waiting patiently for our appraisal the drop dead date for that is the 28th of october so that's next thursday we're hoping it'll come in sooner but we still don't know yet and then with that being said then that leads into our next depending on the price of the purchase of the land and then with the bond sale and other money still coming in we may have to do a phased construction of the new school site just because we cannot over step our allocation of money and funds for what we signed a contract for so we may have that coming and then lastly we will be uh starting the facilities committee meeting back up in january because then we should be having with the school and other projects going to where it'll be worth everybody's time for us to have our facilities community meetings that you [Music] and so it's probably been about a year so let's let's just put it this way if any the rest of us are interested just mention it and we will look at it the meetings are usually like three o'clock or four o'clock so take that into consideration we'll yeah just about anything else that is it for tonight's question thank you all for that very much reports of presentations don't blink on this one the williams uniform complaint quarterly reporting i'm pleased report there were no williams okay comments from the audience regarding items not on the agenda i'm going to just read this little statement real quickly anyone may address the board regarding any item that is within the board's subject matter jurisdiction however the board may not discuss or take any action on an item which is not on this agenda except as authorized by government section 5.954.2 a speaker shall be limited to three minutes we're lenient on that board policy 9323 all public comments on items listed on this agenda will be heard at the time the board is discussing that item so we do have a public comment by mr steve bush if you'd like some quote thank you i've been a resident since 1993 my children grew up and gone to school here i didn't know where to turn to um but i thought this might be the proper place to elevate something that i have i'm looking out for my grandchildren so first of all thank you for your time thank you for your dedication and your service to the center's district i have two grandchildren diagnosed with asd and speech apraxia one is nine and the other is seven both attend north country they have been going to speech therapy and on public agency for six and four years respectively both excellent using this agency the district and their parents at one time the district and their parents agreed to try using the district staff pathologist did not work out so well it was less they were getting less repetitions in speech therapy than they did at the non-public agency i'm here because beginning of the school year the boys have not received um any speech so we're going on three months now and we're starting to notice a regression in their language um so as a grandfather little prior prayer uh there's a little bit of concern for us uh the agency my grandchildren used decided not to go forward with the county's new requirement for a reliability limit increase so that means that the district is not able to contract with them through so by belief and what not as part of the agreements go but the district also tried to use another agency the non-public agencies outside the district that did have the insurance but they had no room for them and just recently on monday i received a call from staff um said that they would like to see if they could use a speech teacher who is presently at oak hill and my kids go to north country so um and this would be after school hours in which they're gonna ask if this person could volunteer whatever good time after school hours to do speech therapy for two boys so if we have to try that we're willing to try this but um the thunder district ar 6159.2 discusses the use of non-public agencies under using education code 56366 under these codes waivers can be requested single waivers can be requested and is enabled to receive the necessary special education needed for their development i'm here tonight requesting this to be elevated to the appropriate level so that my grandchildren do not continue to suffer in their development standing in their ieps and requesting a waiver for a single contract because the liabilities limits don't come into play because we're requesting online speech therapy which since the pandemic they've been doing and it works out great so again thank you for your time and i don't want to waste any more of it thank you so much all right do we have any other public comments [Music] for items not on the agenda yeah thank you [Music] state your name please for the record absolutely uh james anderson parent of the student spinelli thank you uh first i just want to thank you all for all the hard work you do i know it's a lot of work to be able to run a district and make sure everything works well uh i wanted to express two concerns of some hot items that have been in the news and i personally have concerns about um i apologize if this has come up previously but uh vaccinations for children at elementary age i know that that's not here yet but it's on the horizon i personally support the district or school if it comes to that requiring that of students if that becomes necessary um and another item i want to be brief another item that has been coming up a lot in the news around the country is a critical race theory it's a hot topic item i know i personally am against teaching this within the elementary school environment i feel like kids should learn to respect each other not because they color in their skin but because of who they are and i think that critical race theory um is contradictory to that in nature from from what i understand um i know that currently it's not taught in the school that my kid is in but in the future if that is a consideration i just want to put my opinion out there that i would hope that that would not take place in an elementary school environment thank you so much for your time have a wonderful day thank you thank you for coming forward and sharing that with us we don't hear from parents on the positive side or ahead of time very much yes good to hear thank you just want to get ahead of it thank you so much nice to have you come forward thank you okay any other public comments for items not on the agenda carol this is not nothing from the online okay great let's go ahead and move on um i'm sorry oh yes one just came in oh okay good skate it in [Music] is from ashley uh it says meal there seems to be an issue with the school sites running out of lunch meals how is the district addressing this issue so students aren't going without a meal thank you so much for that comment um we will definitely have the district look into that and respond we have your information thank you we have you i'm sorry it sounded so weird but creepy all right um moving right along sorry um item number 13 board and superintendent reports and volunteers of who would like to go first i'll go first thank you mr frito i'm just going to keep this brief um i've heard quite a bit some people have reached out to me through email through facebook and we've got a couple of public comments tonight and quite a few people that showed up tonight and i just want to say first of all to those who have sent me messages emails letters whatever i do read each and every one of those even if i don't always uh respond in my manna and for those who showed up tonight i really appreciate you guys being here i love the feedback that we get because that helps us better represent you all so thank you very much let's keep this going that's it thank you mr no i'm just pleased to say that those school sites are running wonderfully the cova grade is way down and seems like we're got a handle on it moving in the right direction right dr lee yes um so welcome everyone uh there in the room and and watching us digitally i'm so glad we're able to continue having our our meetings digital i think there's so many more community members who are much more informed about the proceedings of this board and that's a great thing um for almost a year now i've sat in our board meetings where we continually hold up kindness and pat one another on the back about our fiscal wellness of the district and that really seems to be a perpetual focus and our focus on the fistfuls over the physical human beings and human lives really shows in our draft heritage days and months that our board is working on um as the list changes and evolves it really is demonstrating who and what we really are and what we're working overtime to protect in this district uh that process really is highlighting a lack of understanding about the heritage months that are recommended by the california department of education and so to clarify this is the beautiful state of california it's not the state of pennsylvania it's not the state of rhode island and only the list of heritage months that we should be using is the one provided by the california department of education as gregory freeland from the california lutheran university explains until we actually reach the point where all americans value all of the groups that make up this country cultural recognition days and months serve a purpose and i couldn't agree with him more where the sport's commitments lie really does show in its actions to preserve the status quo at all costs and in its refusal to recognize that the world and this state is changing and those glory days that we're reaching to which never really existed are over and they're not coming back so since i started my tenure here on this board i've really been appalled and disgusted at the number of times an open session a certain trustee here on this board has made racist and or homophobic comments i have received complaints from community members about this and most recently following the utterances made in our september 22nd board meeting i submitted to president kelly and superintendent lair with documentation and direct references to dates and meetings wherein said trustee made indisputably racist and or homophobic comments that myself and other board members and members of our public were made to listen to and that it appears we condone by acting by not acting to censure said individual we keep excusing the behavior and that excusing indicates the tacit agreement with the racist and homophobic comments so let's be clear about that a president kelly did opt not to agendize my request for censuring this trustee who has a pattern of making racist and homophobic utterances and so now i am making my request public i want my constituents to know that i hear you and i'm with you but i'm really just one person on this board if you want to make a difference start showing up acting up and speaking up and run for these positions when they come open we have a couple of positions opening up in 2022 and that's really soon and that gives me a lot of hope if you are in need of help with the paperwork to know how to navigate the process to register your candidacy for this board please reach out to me i will help you this is because i believe that there are no neutral observers when bias hate and inequity are in the room please know that i do not agree and i will not be silent about it hate has no place on our school board being passive and condoning hatred creates a hostile environment here on our school board and i really think that we have different operational definitions of kindness working here on our school board for me to act to end the suffering of others is kindness to be inclusive is to be kind to celebrate diversity is kindness to celebrate the achievements and contributions that marginalized groups have made to america by recognizing the heritage months suggested by the california department of education is kindness to stand against racist statements is kindness to stand against homophobia is kind and a constant focus on how every fiscal and personnel resource we have is being used to address the persistent inequitable educational outcomes that are here in center joint unified school district is to be kind so i that's my definition of kindness i remain hopeful that we can work together to really codify what that means to be kind here in center joint unified school district and so with that my next office hours are monday november 1st you can access the zoom link on the board website i welcome any and all members of our center community to drop in four to five first mondays and i look forward to connecting with you all in between that time be safe and be well that's the that concludes my report thank you dr lee glad you went before me happy to make my public comments now as well first of all i'm going to read to you the email that i responded to you two nights ago in response to your comments first of all no one is supporting anything racist or homophobic and i'll thank you not to make insulting accusations i texted asking you to call me i called you i emailed you twice and you chose chose not to respond if you try to make this about me refusing to put this on the agenda it will immediately be about your refusal to speak with me and it is now about that you have refused to speak with me about it you have no idea what i was going to say what the conversation was going to be and therefore you just made your assumptions that i'm being condoning homophobic or racist behavior and i present that i am very insulted by that and i will not allow you to publicly defame me in that way period let me continue with my email that i read you don't even know what i wanted to talk to you about and so until you come off the offensive which you've been on since day one and have an adult conversation about our options it will continue to be about your inability to have a discussion that's my public comment i do have some other things to say may i respond no it's my public comment we have options on paths to follow since you refuse to have that conversation with me in private i will have that conversation here i would like to discuss what those options are i would like to discuss what has already happened and transpired in response to comments that were made i am not condoning anything and i would like to have a conversation with you about what our options are and what exactly our plan is for moving forward if you refuse to have that conversation it will continue to not be on the agenda because i will not know what exactly our plan is now i would like to apologize i've welcomed new employees congratulated retirees every month since starting on the board again and i neglected to do that last month so let me go back and welcome our people from last month so first of all i would like to congratulate laura kraft who was promoted to a school bus attendant elena lamolda promoted to a relief bus driver folly faye promoted to a health assistant and yoshi yang who was promoted to an instructional specialist we also have new hires alya avina alicia bryan lauren kane sarah dean leah edwards elia irwin cynthia jones valerie turn gregory orloff janelle ramirez harlan rogers dyson schmidt those are classified and then scroll certificated oh wait a minute should i talk about our retirements sorry let me go back to the classified retirements congratulations to we didn't have any retirements that would be right sorry about that okay um for our certificate congratulations to raymond gagnon on his retirement we have new hires raisa gabriel who is a school nurse and jerusalem chardonnay i'm sorry if i murdered your name chatenko from mclenna mclennan high school um and then for this year or this month excuse me we have several new people we also have promotions for classified employees we have iris arson and arseniega who's a bilingual assistant tina duncan account technician bianca ismario cafeteria worker new hires adriana chavez jeffrey clement taylor cook francesca garibaldi latoya jenkins madison kleinheinz selena mayorga quad carina romero gutierrez demario russell elizabeth valoria melinda white and tanya white and then for our certificate we would like to welcome catherine cadarro cada rayo county rail at center high school so um welcome i do hope you enjoy your tenure here at center joint unified and if there's anything i can do to help you or answer any questions i'm always available thank you that's my report oh we also did a a csv and delegate meeting this past month and there will be some uh interesting notes coming out of that which was kind of a compilation of various uh data coming out of the different um districts in the northern area thank you and mr yes i just wanted to report uh here since we had the october break uh leading up to october break i think it was very much needed uh folks seem to come back i've had the opportunity to be at all school sites after the break and before break and i just want to continue to congratulate our our remarkable staff for their continued support for and of our students and of each other uh i've seen it to be uh really nice as as it was pointed out our cove cases in district have come down a little bit and that has really helped uh with the workload on all of our staff uh i don't think by any means it's over i think we need to stay vigilant but i also believe that having fewer cases has very much helped uh with the the running of our schools uh which is a positive uh just to follow up to last month the board had uh talked about restarting up our trainings with csba for our boardmanship so i was able to speak with our trainer monica uh earlier this week she's meeting with her supervisor to talk about next steps for us uh as we develop a handbook with common norms um so i hope to have some more information on that in the coming weeks that we can do the the problem that she pointed out to me is we're looking with november december very busy months um she's heavily involved with the csba annual conference so it may be the first of the year before we get on the bookstore but i will see what we can do to get get that process moving um and then finally just to alert the board we do have a big batch of uh board policies coming forward and so typically we would just put them in the regular agenda and you have a few days we're going to get this batch to you guys significantly earlier so hopefully by late this month or early november we'll get it and those will be for board policies that you will consider at the december meeting as a first reading we want to give you enough time because it is overwhelming when you get two reams of paper to look at so um that way we can we can make sure that goes through and then again i just uh appreciate the work that everyone's doing and thank you very much thank you mr leo let's move on to the consent agenda we'd like to approve the consent agenda with item one pool we have emoji all motion thank you mr bruno for the second second voting on the consent agenda without item number one roll call vote dr lee aye mrs anderson aye mr bruno aye and the chairman's i thank you and for item number one give a motion to approve or motion to bring it to the floor motion to bring it to the floor thank you dr lee do we have a second i'll second thank you mr bruno discussion um i did ask for this item to be pulled um because there's a need for correction uh of the meeting notes um in business item a um i'm asking for the correction to be made to the notes to include that we agreed to focus on whittling down the voluminous heritage months and days that are recommended by the california department of education for recognition in california public schools that was a a major point in our discussion and i feel that the omission of it from our meeting notes and the drafts that i've seen subsequently are really reflecting the need to note that that was a key point of our agreement and i would like our meeting notes corrected to reflect this important component because that was the board giving direction to our superintendent of which list to use um and i'm hoping that we can restore that to the notes am i not going to get a chance to respond to her again i mean i have no problem with those corrections that makes sense to me that that's the correction can be made here and then that's my responsibility i think i put it out saying hey is there anything anyone to add i had whittled it for like a better word down to just the cde ones i still have that original list i can share and then trusteely spread i did bring ask for other people to provide uh input and so i can bring back the original list at the november meeting as we discussed but i would like to be able to tweak that to what we have here at our school what's pertains to a student population here all of that could be discussed at the november meeting when we have already agendized it i think the only question right now that dr lee has just adjusting this to say that we've decided to pare down the list to just the heritage funds and that is a relevant very relevant piece of information that should be added to the meeting notes so can we just go ahead and can we approve the notes with the anticipation of that uh revision or do we need to wait and bring it back again if you're all good we can approve it with the the changes as presented where would include that it would be brought down from the cde list so we can make that change then you guys can prove it and then we'll i'll defer to dr lee on that if you want to bring it forward again we can or if you want to go ahead and prove it as amended that we can do that i'd like to see that list before we the list is not what we're talking about we're talking about it amending the meaning notes to just say that that's what we had decided to do was to clear down the list this is just about the meeting notes item one on the consent before we're locked into that list i'd like to see it that will be at the november agenda yes at the november board meeting absolutely dr lee did you want to approve it tonight or move it or defer it to tonight two months i mean if they could just um are they going to be providing us with the corrected minutes and so we can approve them at our next meeting yeah that would be pretty cool so we'll make the adjustment and then we'll just bring this group back with the adjustment for the at the november meeting okay so the motion on the table is to table the item uh and bring it forward at the november meeting to be the second motion and um dr lee i'm sorry i just wanted clarification of the motion it was to correct the minutes um to state yes correct yes yes sorry so yes and mrs anderson i and mr bruce hi it's item one has been tabled all right moving past the consent agenda we have the business items this is item a and i apologize i was going to bring this aside and be forward early and i did not do that so i apologize but i think we're doing okay and we're as long as yeah we're doing the bible all right so business item a resolution 7 20 21-22 resolution of the board of trustees center joint unified school district authorizing the issuance of the sale of its general obligation bonds election of 2008 series 2021 be in an aggregate principal amount not to exceed 42 million and improving certain other matters relating to the bonds so i believe we need to bring this forward for discussion or approval and then we have a presentation from kusu so we actually i was just going to say brief words uh from cfw say a few words this is just the initial process uh to establish the process to issue the bonds these are the documents that we need so i was going to have uh last month uh couscou went over those with us and this is that first step this is not saying the board is authorizing it this is just the first step so i don't know if mr if you'd mind saying a couple words and then yeah yeah yeah can we go ahead and make a motion to bring it to the floor thank you mr bruno good evening ladies and gentlemen very pleased to be here this evening uh to give you a quick update yes uh uh we were here at the i was here at the last board meeting to indicate an opportunity uh uh on that basis uh given that there is going to be a need for funding for the new school that you're looking to construct uh in order to begin the process the documents are presented to you tonight if adopted would allow us to dig in the process are the long lead time components there is the reading component that will it takes a little while to get the readings and also there's a sacramento county component that sacramento county actually has to approve a resolution but they will not begin that process or they cannot undertake that process until you have approved your resolution initially so the intent tonight is if the board were to adopt these documents it would allow us to get going towards the bond sale i know there's still some unknowns this will be dollar amounts to be determined and we will come back to you with your november meeting at the november meeting if the board is ready to make a decision at that point to provide a direction we will proceed with the bond sale uh but uh certainly there is correct that there will be no uh the bond issuance this is the price this allows us to begin the process and we will not issue any bonds until we come back to your november or a future meeting for for the direction for the board are we gonna you have to go back to new york or san francisco or something for that uh typically nowadays they do it virtually so we've done it a couple times where zoom in the past we have i have personally gone to san francisco uh but no we would just work with rating agencies over over zoom or these you just remember i think ray went one time and dan reason and this and it used to be um initially in new york and then san francisco uh and now it's it's it's virtual and uh it may come back to uh meeting in person but a reading interview your staff will be interviewed by the reading analysts as part of the brown reassurance process what are the interest rates running right now so we're hoping just under three or just about three right around three percent for a third year loan is what we're hoping which is near historical roles not quite the historical lows but uh interest rates at one time were in the double digits so well i know last time you did very very well yes we did okay last time i think the interest is actually even slightly better but we'll still be while we may not be at historic levels uh interest rates are rising so if the board does decide to issue this we'll get to work very quickly on that one but uh we anticipate being right around three percent which once again uh would be a great deal for your community because it lowers the cost of having to repay the law do we um know the credit rating that they're uh we're gonna have a very strong credit rating uh there is there's a concern because everything that's within the control of the district uh you've done you folks have done a great job on but there is some uncertainty uh with future funding and uh so the analysts will be looking at that but i think we can mitigate it by saying this district is being run pragmatically uh you put some thought into how you manage your finances you need money to educate kids and so i think we're going to come out okay i think we're going to have a strong rating but i always go into the rating process taking it very seriously because any change in rating downwards which i do not think will happen would in turn impact our interest rates and rise high interest rates in the cost of the community so we'll spend some time working with your staff your staff has always been very generous with that time to work on preparing for the interview we have a prepared presentation the presentation is delivered and there's usually some questions and answers and answers that go in and then the analysts work on it internally for about a week and then they come back with the rating so it's been a great partnership you guys have done a great job for us thank you thank god you know how to get bonds for dummies right okay do you have any other questions for sure all right so we need a motion to approve the resolution oh okay thank you steve maybe a motion to approve the resolution thank you mrs anderson second second uh dr julie thank you i'm not sure which was first all right roll call vote dr lee aye mrs anderson aye mr bruno aye and the chair for the site resolution a has been asked all right resolution number the item being resolution number six 2021 resolution continuing board of trustees authority to hold virtual meetings pursuant to av 361.

once that would be fda approved for students in that age span than within the following semester uh the the mandate would go into effect uh that would be they're saying it's likely around july 1 if the fda approves things as far as a timeline for for our tk6 students i don't think there is any timeline that anyone's willing to share quite yet but that i've heard um the governor also stated with his proclamation that we would also staff would fall into that right now we're under a mandate for staff to either be vaccinated or tested weekly this proclamation would roll students students and staff into the same that all would be vaccinated and then the other interesting piece is since this is a regulation by the governor there are some exemptions for medical and also for personal belief if the legislature takes action uh then possibly they could remove some of the the uh personal beliefs there's there always seems to be a medical exception for the vaccines that we have required currently there is a medical exemption that could be filed for for a family through the doctor so that's what we know today the one thing also we know is the sacramento county public health is not going to accelerate the timeline uh for that some other districts statewide have accelerated their timeline and at this point of conversations with our staff we would not recommend that the board consider accelerating the timeline because there's so many variables within that that we would rather see a wait and see with it through the mandate yeah and just important to note that that's full fda approval so that means not the emergency use that we've been operating in most of this year we've only just recently gotten full approval for adult youths 16 and over for pfizer moderna and jj so you know we're we're nowhere near getting full you know the younger children are even going to be allowed to wasn't fighting didn't get four approval for play no not for not for 12 to 16.

good evening everyone welcome to the regular meeting of chico unified school district board of education the october 20th regular meeting the board is going to go into closed session at this time and we will be back to open the regular meeting by six o'clock thank you ladies and gentlemen excuse me welcome to the open session of the october 20th chico unified school district board of education the board was in a closed session and during closed session we took action the board approved the district's purchase of the property located at 1350 east lassen avenue with an assessor parcel number of zero one five zero two oh zero zero nine for two million eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars the following and the follow the the vote of the board was as follows yes dalby oh three three to one do we not identify oh okay all right 3s one no so it was approved okay um we will now officially open the regular board meeting with pledge of allegiance to the flag please if you would rise 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 thank you okay student reports um superintendent staley says uh is who's you know it has been an unbelievable two days with the rain my brain loved the rain but it's disconnected from me sorry about that that's okay we've got it and this group we're gonna hear from next is gonna connect everything all together we have a wonderful group of students here from shasta and to introduce them we have principal principal bruce bainard [Applause] good evening everybody i want to say hello first of all to all of our visiting teachers from around the world it's very nice to see you i'd especially like to give a shout out to my friend clement who is wearing the pv hat in honor of the upcoming victory for the vikings the almond bowl on friday [Laughter] uh my wife and i hosted um the majority of them for dinner on sunday and we had a wonderful time getting to know them and sharing all the wonderful things that they've done um in their time here so i can't wait to hear a little bit more from them later today but i am super excited because we have shasta's outstanding students here these students represent our sos program this is a program created by former teacher of the year now retired dave foster as a conflict manager program for students it started with sixth graders and after our sixth graders moved on to the junior high our fifth graders took over the responsibilities they are volunteering their time some of them miss class time some give up their own recess time to patrol the playground in pairs and help mediate peer conflict they help keep our students safe they encourage those who are doing the right thing they give out bobcat bits when they catch students doing well they are a fantastic group of students and i'm really happy that they get an opportunity to be here and share a little bit about what they do so i know we have a big agenda so i'm going to have each student introduce him or herself and say what their class is and i'm hoping that somebody has a couple of questions about what their favorite part is of the sos program so i'm going to turn this down a little bit and colby's going to start my name is colby and my teacher's name is mr bonisich wait wait wait colby what is your favorite part of the program i can follow mr bainard's lead my name is jordan and my teacher is miss cox my favorite part of the program is helping out the teachers out there and hi my name is matthew seeger and my teacher is miss cox my favorite part is probably helping all the kids my name is wyatt i'm in mrs cox's class is making sure the kids are safe hi my name is sadie simcox and i'm in mrs cox's class my favorite part of the program is definitely handing out bobcat bits and celebrating the students being safe hi my name is lana haley and i'm from i'm also from miss cox's class and i really love seeing people being kind to one another hi my name is ashton and i love and i really love watching the kids um playing and making sure they're staying safe and kind to each other hello my name is owen and i'm in mr bronech's class my favorite part of the program is helping kids if they have any problems um hi my name is brianne armstrong and i'm in also in miss cox's class my favorite part of the girl program is probably not having to wear a mask and people uh letting like people sing my smile my name is maddox my name is madison i'm in mrs bush's class my favorite part is helping students be safe i got a question from madison so madison um so did somebody tell you you had to do this or did you volunteer to do it yourself i volunteered to do it well you know what that says about you is that you are a leader and these guys over here all you guys who were who who stepped up and decided you wanted to do that you're pretty young to be doing something like that but the reason you did it is because you got leadership potential which means that someday you're going to be a you know a teacher or a mom or a superintendent like ms staley over here or maybe on a school board or something like that and so you madison and each of the rest of you should be really proud of yourselves and you need to know that you're in a good position to help your peers do the right thing in life so good job guys [Applause] so obviously one of the benefits is it takes the pressure off the teachers and some of the yard duties i really like that they get to be role models for the students and the younger students look up to the older students too and they know that they are looking out for them not necessarily trying to get them in trouble but to keep them out of trouble and make our school a better place and so they are a like you said mr tennis a fabulous group of young leaders and uh my favorite part about this mr foster when he left left us a binder of how to make it done and he has pictures of robbie ciriani our first and only sos student who served all year long he just graduated from high school he was in my wife's class and he recalled fondly his dime as an sos at shasta so thank you very much for coming out and thank you for all you for what you do for our school making it a better place thank you [Applause] um can i make a comment really quick uh just also from the you know teacher perspective because i used to be a teacher in my past life i can tell you that it's the work that you all do that make teachers go home feeling like they're doing something that matters too so thank you for also giving the adults in your life a smile on their face because i know that that's what you're doing for them every single day too thank you shasta sos you make us proud do the sos students want to go home with their parents now and work on work on homework you are welcome to stay though i i think several of them will the uh the fifth grade teachers this week are dissecting sheep eyeballs and so i know one class has already done that and they're gonna go home and try and uh rinse that site out of their eyes and the other ones are anticipating it on friday so good luck everybody thank you mr bainard and thank you again students and parents for bringing them here it's really special so i'm going to move right on into the superintendent's awards and i'm going to ask diane olsen to step up to the microphone at our last board meeting we honored the nurses but unfortunately we didn't have the nurses here with us um as we mentioned then as we have gone through all of the challenges of not just coveted but also the challenges that our nurses face on a daily basis of making sure that our students are safe and healthy we wanted to thank the nurses for all of the extras they have done and really learning a whole new thing on the fly so diane i'll turn it over to you so our school nurses as many of you know they are actually registered nurses and they have an extra credential they have to earn to become school nurses so they're doubly credentialed in order to provide all the health and safety needs and meet the needs of our students and they do a multitude of things on a regular basis already from care plans to for students with medical needs to screenings for hearing and eyesight to diabetic monitoring on daily basis they train all of our lvns our health aids and other aids who do transfers on students and other medical procedures during kovid they have been doubly busy trying to help and and with the quarantining and the information that goes out to family staff so we really want to recognize our people this day and so we are going to go ahead and call them up and then did you have additional i did if that's okay i had a couple of additional remarks too before we call them up just because they're fantastic people so the pandemic has certainly brought us a variety of challenges but our site nurses have been a solid foundation throughout this past year and several months these women are bright professional and compassionate they work over and above typical work hours to ensure that our students and staff are heard and cared for there have been more times than i can count in which they communicated after hours weekends vacations and yes even holidays i had the unique experience to work with diane and all of these ladies in the very fast ever-changing and emotional environment that the pandemic brought us they're problem solvers and good communicators i know for a fact that the most important thing for them while working through the pandemic has been the good health of our students families and staff members while working so closely with them i was fortunate to not only get to know them as professionals but also to be able to call them my friends in between work duties we talked about our families our beloved pets and jobs we've held in the past among many other interesting things as friends i would also say they are bright and compassionate additionally they all embody and have been able to maintain a healthy perspective and a sense of humor in the most difficult of conditions they've worked so hard in their professional lives and one julie scalette even finished a master's degree during the months of the pandemic so i know right all have masters by the way they all have masters that's more than i have so we do want to kind of commend them for their work i'm going to introduce them is that social you want to have this i'll do it okay i think they'll be able to hear me you may not be able but you'll be able to hear me okay i first like to recognize julie parker [Applause] can you tell us the schools they work at that they can because they're at several so i work at marigold here i work at loma vista the preschool assessment team and oak bridge all right thank you [Applause] julie scalette i said it right thank you so much hi everybody i am at pv high school um sierra view elementary school and then um the alternative education campus so cal afc oakdale and fairview sharing [Applause] i work at citrus and at chico junior high [Applause] and michelle neves dean [Applause] i'm at chico high school as well as mcmanus elementary i am at bidwell junior high at rosedale and at chapman elementary [Applause] i'm the newest member of the team and um was lucky enough to be oriented by mel who's going to come up here um i am at marsh junior high shasta and parkview elementary and forest ranch shasta bibwell uh forest ranch in parkview so yeah and not present tonight is tina collins i think on this side of the podium [Applause] and once again thanks to our nurses and all the work they have done and continue to do with that i'll turn it back over to board president robinson thank you superintendents daily um are you going to introduce um under announcements thank you i thought that's where we were was under announcements under announcements superintendents daily do you have an announcement to make about our guests i do uh we are lucky to have some international guests with us they are here with chico state and um if we have someone that would like to be the representative and step right up and tell us what you're doing and give each person an opportunity to introduce themselves yeah wonderful my name is charles hartman i'm a professor at california state university chico director of the center for bilingual multicultural studies and in this role director of international training programs and i've stepped in for diana parks who ran this operation with distinction for 27 years and she retired in 2019 and i've had the honor to uh to fill in her size 28 shoes in the interim and one of the programs we have is the fulbright teaching excellence and achievement program funded by the united states department of state educational cultural affairs through irex and california state university chico won a competitive grant to offer this program and we have 16 teachers from 15 countries who were in four chico unified schools for a six day period chico junior chico high school marsh junior high school and 11 of the were at pleasant valley high school it is now my honor to introduce them they will say their name their country and the school that they were at and clement who who mr baynard mentioned will be the last one and he'll share a little bit about his perspective on the experience dr sartman um one of the things that that is usually so interesting as our international teachers are introducing themselves is for them to let us know what they teach in their home country excellent thank you hello i'm marina i come from moscow russia and i teach english and spanish i was at pleasant valley high school good evening my name is ivani arias i'm from costa rica i teach esl and i was placed at pleasant valley good evening my name is theophil du senge i'm from rwanda i teach geography i was in pve high thank you hello everyone i am usman ba from burkina faso west africa i teach english in high school and also at college i was placed at marsh junior thanks good evening everyone i'm proud from thailand i teach english and i was placed in prison prison valley high school good evening everyone my name is kimena from ecuador i'm happy to be here i teach english as a second language and also spanish as a second language i was at pv with marcel it was an ex excellent experience thank you good evening my name is tracy lee edwards i'm from south africa and i'm an english teacher and i was at pleasant valley high thanks good evening my name is esther eisenborus i'm from turkey i teach english as a foreign language in my country at a public high school and i was at chico junior high school thank you good evening my name is dave from thailand i teach science and biology and i was placed at pv heart thank you good evening i'm nuro fazno binti muhammad usaini i'm from malaysia i teach english in malaysia and i was at chico junior high school thank you good evening my name is fella i'm english teacher from iraq i was a place in chico high school good evening i'm bridget howard i'm from ghana i was placed at pleasant valley i teach social studies in my country a government-run senior high school thank you good evening i'm sachin pal from bangladesh i teach english and i was placed at pb high school good evening ladies and gentlemen i come from vietnam i'm an english teacher in a high school a government rent i had an excellent experience at chico high good evening ladies and gentlemen as already said i'm claiming to nilanda i'm from malawi southern africa i was at army viking so yeah i was at prison by present high so app isn't very high so i teach history and social studies uh i would like on behalf of my colleagues here i would like to thank the board and all the parents here we've had a very nice experience teaching in the schools which are under you i can say for certain that to the parents you've got nice kids we enjoyed having teaching your kids the board i guess the whole system the principles the teachers we were welcomed very well in the schools wherever we were the movies do not do you justice we have we had this picture of high school in america and we were presently surprised to find out that it wasn't what we were thought it was so on behalf of everybody here from deep down our hearts we remain members of uh in my case i'll be a viking for life so on during the arm on ball go vikings thank you okay i have a question um so um i got a question are we better or looking or not as good looking as as the movies uh what the movies do justice to you is that you're good looking but what they don't do justice to you is that uh you know you have this picture of like american students or would be on ruling class and that kind of thing but we were for real we were surprised uh there are better behavior than the kids i teach teenagers will be teenagers but your teenagers were good so i think that's thanks to the parents probably you are losing very good kids very nice kids [Applause] okay the only thing is now that you've done that is that you have to sit on the pv side because if you sit on the wrong side at the game on friday you know i i i know which side that morning i'm a viking i know what i'm going to do thank you so much and thank you for [Applause] sharing i'll just make one last comment i was a foreign exchange student um in college i had the privilege of doing that um i was in the middle east and uh you know we here in america which i think is probably true in any country but you think about a certain issue you yourself are a history teacher and i think that we often have schools of thought you know maybe a couple different ways that people think about some historical event you know there they liked it they didn't like it something like that but you're limited to how broad your thinking can be when you grow up in the same place but when you travel to another country or if you have somebody from another country come and talk to you i think they bring a school of thought to you that you never would have been exposed to otherwise you know and so i think that's a really special thing about um doing what what you guys have done this year so thank you for giving that opportunity to our to our kids thank you uh at the same time i would also like to say most of us back home from where we're coming from this is not our first experience with americans we've had americans especially peace corps so we've had americans from all parts of the states coming to our places working with us living under worst conditions because i've been here and i know what home is like so they leave up all the comforts and come and live with us and uh we are here on your taxes i would like to thank you very much for the experience that you've given me as you said being in one place you have this world view which is limited to what you're saying coming here has opened up a lot of possibilities and i'm still right now processing them i've not yet sat down and seen but for sure this is like a whole three four years learning experience in a small space so thank you for giving me the chance to be here through your taxes and i will sure repay uh whatever i've senior and i'm speaking this on behalf of everybody here because i i'm with them most of the times and we talk about these things and we appreciate not only the schools where we've been even the community around chico we've had a very good experience with people so far no bad experience none whatsoever and i'm not just saying this because i'm here but no it's the truth so thanks for welcoming us with open arms thank you thank you and you are welcome to stay for the board meeting um i also know you probably have lost on your plate and you may be tired so we will not be offended if you need to leave either thank you again [Applause] okay our next item is items from the floor yes we do have some in-person speakers and one phone speaker our first in-person speakers we have clay and rebecca slocum listed together i don't know if clay and rebecca slocum i don't yeah here they come madam president uh i have not reviewed the right the rules we we have uh hold on second because we we do have rules in this that we limit to a three-minute presentation so you can share it or whatever you wish to do the cards who has oh there are the cards at 30 seconds the yellow card will go up when your time is up the red card will go up are we still using the bell or is it just the cards again i'm sorry what okay yes oh right thank you uh so that you uh don't think we're just ignoring you we are we are not allowed to exchange dialogue under this section so we we're glad you're here and we'd like to hear what you have to say thank you thank you good evening and thank you to the board for hearing giving us the opportunity to speak i really appreciate it it's our second time here we were here three or four years ago we are the people that were on dusty lane if anyone remembers prior to our kid um being in shasta but we wanted to address the board tonight um and we're primarily asking directly for the new on-campus policy to be re-addressed at the next special board meeting the current interpretation of the governor's mandate excludes a portion of the population from experiencing their children's experiences on campus and not being able to attend school functions and assist the classroom with a negative test does not allow parents the opportunity to comply with osha or the cdph note that other schools have interpreted the recent governor's guidelines mandate differently for example our neighbors that achieve school had a different advantage achieve is not only allowing unvaccinated parents and custodians to volunteer participate both indoors and out with proof of a negative test but they're going to step further and providing that test to their community we understand that that might not be fiscally um what what's feasible or desired to provide that opportunity or the same services but at a minimum parents need to be given the opportunity to comply with osha and the cdph by providing a negative test would be an alignment with how our unvaccinated teachers and staff comply with ongoing safety measures we asked the board to re-evaluate the current stance and to choose to be inclusive with their community at a minimum allowing us to provide a native test from an approved source this would also be allowing family members and volunteers to participate in their children's experiences whether inside or outside at school we are proud parents of the chico unified school district and i've always volunteered in my children's classes and i've always been a very strong supporter done every field trip and to not have this option is um is definitely not it's hindering my family and i'm not the only one so i just speak on behalf of the population that's being excluded and then i'll only add that i'm a former shasta bobcat myself and a viking and um i i have vivid memories of grandparents day and of christmas carols and my family was there for me i would like to be there for my kids as they sing the songs i don't remember know if everybody remembers mrs forrest but she had us all singing and jiving and i want to continue to be there for my kids too please so please allow that thank you [Applause] okay our next speaker is a phone call i am now calling jessica montgomery jessica montgomery okay go ahead jessica hello today kelly staley issued a letter to placate the public stating the governor's proposed vaccine mandate for students as a primary concern for many of our families and wanted to emphasize there currently is no mandate there is a mandate that is only being held up by fda approval today the white house detail plans for the expected fda authorization for children five and up so stop gaslighting the parents into thinking the inevitable is not going to happen i would like to enter into public records some of the testimonies shared about what they saw with their own two eyes this last monday for my nephew who attends bidwell i had nine kids in my first class i know more than 13 or 15 in the rest bobby richmond haynes said i was sad to see so many are missing from my school today karen chandler wrote that's why it was easy today less crowded and it looked like no more than 14 and eric's class of 26 were there i wish that were his usual class size i don't want to distract from the entire purpose here statewide the parent showed on october 18th the california school system will be brought to its knees whenever the fda decides to approve experimental mrna shots for our kids unless and until this board and the superintendent says no we will not be complying with this before any of you say you're just following guidance i would like to remind you the fda cdc cdph osho the teachers unions and any other government agency colluding against the public do not write the laws the treatment being marketed as covet 19 vaccinations are still in phase 3 until 2023 to 2024 making it an experimental drug the u.s constitution which you all should have taken an oath to uphold still reign supreme the national school board association and their state affiliates have become an immediate threat to our constitutionally protected rights as mothers as well as the physical mental and emotional health of our children nsba and their state affiliates work directly with the teachers union superintendents association and the national association of state boards of education to lobby union agendas that endanger the health and well-being of our children usurp parental authority and ensure superintendents and school board members toe the union line and they do so with public funds our children are being exposed to inappropriate sexual content gender indoctrination anti-family and anti-american propaganda and the tenets of critical race theory all under the nsba indoctrination umbrella of social emotional learning or sel our nation's children are being taught to hate their country hit their neighbor and hate themselves as we have and we have had enough i ask you all to pass a resolution in opposition to the looming mandate and publicly state your position on the mandates thank you our next speaker is choir tenon in person choir tenon hello i'm choir i was invited to come and speak encouraged to do so it's a little intimidating with all of the qualifications in the room the site nurses i applaud you the international teachers i applaud you and i believe even the sos kids probably outrank me in many ways um as a youth some years ago i used to sit around and watch the old men wax poetic about troubled youth and the state of government now at the uh the threshold of becoming an old man myself me and my friends we talk about troubled youth and wax poetic about the state of our government oftentimes as we're having these conversations different men have different hypothesis schools of thought and opinions on how we have come so far from yesteryear i'm having a hard time breathing with my little mask forgive me um i have i agree with most of the schools of thought on how we got to where we are but when we look at the multifaceted thing that has brought us here from my perspective i have a hard time looking at it without using the word hypocrisy hypocrisy is what drives our trouble youth away from the dinner table and keeps them out in the street when the street lights are on hypocrisy is the number one reason given when people say they don't want to go to church i'm not here to um disqualify myself by standing on or building a platform of religion that's not the point uh hypocrisy is an excuse given for why our country that used to be called a christian nation isn't necessarily so as much anymore uh that foundational belief many times has been simply um does that mean i only have 30 seconds left i'll get to the point hypocrisy has really done a lot with destroying families homes and communities i don't believe anyone here would appreciate me calling them a nazi i think that that would be rude and disrespectful and no one here deserves that that would be uh out of line i also would like to say really quick as fast as i can that should i call anyone a nazi in this room and they'd be offended by that and at the same time would believe that it is appropriate to mandate that people take a vaccine to them i would point my finger and wave my finger and say hypocrisy i'm not here talking about whether you should or shouldn't have the vaccine i have the vaccine i'm fully vaccinated it's not about that it's about having the choice thank you for your time thank you okay next we have catherine posey catherine posey hi everyone so i'd like to echo some things that rebecca slocum mentioned i know that i'm only the second person to speak on that topic and that you have that policy about that so i might repeat some of what she said i'd like to ask you to adjust your policy on parent volunteers in the schools in the district so to prevent parents who have not taken the cover 19 vaccine a vaccine that does not prevent infection or transmission from participating in the life of the school i believe is discriminatory in denying them their right to medical freedom and choice parents who volunteer who are sick stay at home when they're sick this policy could be continued you could also ask parents to show a negative covet 19 test something that rebecca mentioned if the school is truly frightened of an asymptomatic carrier just a review of the current numbers in butte county um of those who tested positive for the copa 19 virus that we've recorded and of those who've recovered there's a 99.98 chance one would recover so the recovery rate is even higher if one does not have underlying medical conditions parents in butte county are more likely to perish from cancer or car accident than they are from covet 19.

so at that september first meeting we did receive uh largely board discussion uh which is perfectly permissible and as jamie said really more typical at this stage it is rather abstract for a lot of people and it is much easier to really engage and start pointing out specific things that you feel are working well or more likely not working as well as they could be once you can see a map and that's where we expect at the public hearing following this meeting to hear a lot more from the public and crucially that was exactly the stage where we were about to get to the first go-around when we had to pause the process but uh that was where we did hear uh the criterion that is number six there of interest in seeing the proportion of owners and renters we did uh put that data in that was not shown in the 2020 version and that was due to some of the discussion at that september first meeting and then on september 15th we did have a member of the community express explicitly that basing those trusty areas around the elementary boundaries is that most foundational element would be important and so we do have i mean for all the map options we're showing how that works for one of them i went into it using that as the primary guiding principle but for even one of the other maps i still use that as a secondary principle and was able to achieve a good degree of alignment on those just a point of clarification would it be accurate to say that that was the only public comment that we received that was not did not originate from the board in yes and in this iteration this year yes so going back to some of those original criteria that we came into this process with from last year some of those did also originate with public comments most prominently there was the inclusion of those named neighborhoods of south campus barber and chapmantown we did have a public speaker at the public hearings in this process last year who encouraged us to not just look at schools but to look at those neighborhoods as communities of interest and help identify what the boundaries of those should be could you send me the links to those or give me some some time stamps or something yeah our first board meeting in public hearing was on march 4th of 2020 and then the second was on march 11th and that it was at that march 11 2020 meeting where that comment was received oh yes and yeah and we can send you the timestamps on that thank you very very much appreciate that um i believe that at at our last in our september 15th meeting this year um we also had uh input where we wanted to be sure and take a look at the socioeconomic breakdown within the the maps and we were referring i believe uh dr kaiser we went we went back and looked at what we had already developed as possible maps before and there was a couple of areas where there was a significant socioeconomic difference and if i am not mistaken that has oh excuse me that too has changed with the latest census and maps if if i if i read it correctly uh correct then i don't have a side-by-side comparison because we've already moved beyond the 2010 data but yes there uh we that was information that we were looking at in the previous process and we definitely received that input to continue looking at that alongside other elements and another and again just i think wanting to mainly reiterate how very normal and common this is for again uh we often have our initial discussions with the board who bring up some points of interest and then we really want to hear from the community and we provide those opportunities both before the maps are drawn and then i think crucially going forward after the maps are drawn as jamie said i i personally would be shocked if one of these three initial options exactly as it is right now is what comes through to the end of the process we anticipate that we will be hearing increasingly more from members of the community and even an entirely new map option can potentially come into play here if we hear about something that none of these three options uh really seems to address that the community identifies as being really a crucial piece of this that hasn't uh really been covered uh and just so and as jamie also mentioned while we have this proposed timeline that we've thrown out and that's our goal uh should we need to hear from the community should we get the feeling that voices are beginning to enter who need some space to get some ideas out we do have some schedule where we can absorb that into the process i can't see behind you as our 13th district pta representative here there she is just making sure that you know that our that our interest and commitment to having input from 13th district pta is is working for you as far as getting reports and information if there are more details or more information that you feel you need to to carry back to your reports to 13th district please let us know so that we can get that information to you um good good thank you okay and so again just uh not to uh just keep uh belaboring on this one but just a quick review so kind of those top three criteria are the ones that i think are driving the map options you'll see we'll review these again when we get into the maps but looking at school boundaries and as a school district that makes sense that that is one of the most common things that we heard about but particularly in a district like chico where you have two main high schools with a boundary that you have a chico high and a pleasant valley high parts of the district i've kind of two different ways you can approach that and some interest in seeing both how it would look with trustee areas that are each essentially representing one high school or the other or inversely making sure that every trustee area has territory in both high schools and then of course hearing that input that perhaps the elementary schools really ought to be where we're showing our focus and then of course we'll be looking at how the neighborhoods that were identified stack out across those maps we'll be looking at the social economic information that we have and we'll be looking at that information that we have on the proportion of owners and renters so just a quick review of the elementary boundaries so again zooming in so that you can see the detail in the central part of chico and then you have the nsat where you can see how those boundaries extend out to the edges of the district which of course is much larger but just so that when i put these lines over the maps later this is just a good reference for you so that you can see which schools these are and be able to pick them out a little more easily here and then your high school boundaries that single dividing line between the two high school boundaries and where that runs through central chico and again the end set showing how that extends to the edges of the district and then lastly these are the identified neighborhoods that we are showing here and these are the boundaries that for this analysis have been used to define those neighborhoods again that can certainly be part of that public input to add additional neighborhoods or to clarify uh what should be or should not be included as some of these neighborhood identifications but for the purposes of what you'll be seeing tonight this is the map that identifies what those neighborhoods are and what territory they are encompassing so now we'll get into those draft trustee maps so this is just a quick overall summary so where you're calling them the blue green and purple maps and so just kind of in order at this top line level so the blue map is the one that is really creating uh the way the population works out you can have two trustee areas that are pretty much entirely within the pv boundary and three trustee areas that are pretty much entirely within the chico high boundary the green map option has every single trustee area covering territory in both high school boundaries and then that purple map option is really looking at the elementary boundaries to help as much as possible of course there's not a perfect match but as much as possible to delineate those trusty area boundaries and then for those other areas i will get kind of into all of this but they all meet the population balancing requirements and then you just see the kind of range of the hispanic latino population as just it works out as you go from blue to green to purple you do get the trustee areas with the most and least concentrated amounts of that population you start off in blue with the most balanced in terms of socio-economic indicators going to more disparity as you go to from green to purple and then we'll have a breakdown of how the neighborhoods are either all contained or split between trustee areas so we'll start with our blue option and so again just showing the trustee areas here with nothing else on them so just numbered one in yellow two in red three in green four in blue and five in purple and you can just see how those shapes look and i think when we put the high school boundary on here that's where you can really see how this was our guiding principle here with areas one and two in pv three four and five and chico high and a very very close fit uh again just some of that area between uh one and three just the shapes of the census blocks didn't allow us to keep a perfect match there but overall and most crucially that population requirement actually does work uh keeping those areas close enough in population to each other to allow you to take this uh way of looking at the trustee areas then we can also yes um this is actually probably a question for a staff but um not that this is would be an ideal situation but would it be feasible in a hypothetical situation if something like this was adopted where we were really trying to match up those boundaries with the high school boundary to shift our boundaries just slightly too so that those lined up does that make sense to move it over a block or two we'd really have to look at the population within that because we've worked real hard to keep our high school populations the same yeah i totally get that like i know it'd be a huge undertaking but i mean that would be something that we could look at later on kind of thing down there probably turn that right back over to rob and jamie to find out for us yeah the um thank you caitlin for for bringing that up because that we have seen actually some shift in the two senior high school populations um not being in balance so we might be able to um you know tackle that issue as as well as the um trustee though my experience is changing a school's boundary is much more difficult than change oh yes than changing a uh you know a representational boundary for voting districts i've lived through a couple of school boundary changes oh my goodness so if that's the case how at what point does the scale tip to where we're like okay we really need to adjust our our school boundaries and how close to that are we so that actually happened when we couldn't fit all of the population of shasta into shasta school so we had to go back out and look at changing the boundaries we had community input and we did end up taking a portion that then moved to neil dow but you know the short answer is because people grow up in neighborhoods and there is a lot of transfer between schools in chico so it's you know people still end up getting to go to the schools they want to but people get attached to communities and those boundaries are something we really try not to change yeah and so that was my other question that's been my burning question um is uh i because i can't remember off the top of my head i know i've asked this a few times but what is the rough percentage of students who form 10 and don't go to the school that they do where their home is in the district country have that data and presented it yeah i just uh these are all great questions um we actually have that in your previous uh demographic and student housing report from last year that we did we do a whole matrix that shows across the top the school of attendance and across the left-hand side the school of residence so you can actually see the exact number of students that are living in a boundary but going to another school um or we can we can send that out to the board absolutely yeah i mean i would i would think that you know if we're if we're seeing 25 percent or more of our students form ten tenning it almost doesn't make sense to even worry about school boundaries or anything like that because they're they're kind of all over the place anyway and really how does districting even change how i don't it just you know if folks are living in a place where they're voting on somebody who's going to be you know making decisions with weight for particular schools if that because that's what we're saying here but their students aren't actually going to those schools because they're form tenning like it just doesn't make sense to district at all well you don't have an option not to district i mean the district thing has to happen that still is the case because i thought that that was there was some there was some i don't know um push back or or i i just thought that you know the latest is that it's not necessarily as strict as it was prior to covet well that would be a question for your legal team it's my it's my understanding that it is not an option to not move to buy trustee areas because there's been a legal challenge so mr gant are you still available i am available i did not even know paul was here rob and company have been doing a great job so i've been sitting in the background um but no i it would be a significant issue at this point to change tracks and to uh attempt if if there was a move to withdraw the resolution to um make the change to the trustee areas we would be back in litigation and then of course the safe harbor that would apply prior to covet when the board did agree to move toward district area elections that safe harbor would be eliminated and then the caps on attorney fees and costs for a potential challenge would be lifted as well and you'd be looking at a very high legal cost associated with that process if you were to to go a different direction and and i think a court would look on it very with with great concern um unless there had been some really substantial change that would justify a change in direction that i'm not aware of one that would be um that would be in favor of the district in that scenario so paul our uh data has not changed significantly that would not if if we were to go back and look at this we would still fall under the requirement of needing to redistrict the issue that drives this is mostly historical or at least was and and remains the issue of a history of racially or ethnically polarized voting and and those facts on the ground as i think rob can attest are have not changed the history is still there that would support the demand and then if anything the current facts on the ground in terms of increased population in target groups such as the hispanic population increase would drive um would drive the analysis as well so um while i don't generally give an illegal advice in public meetings i would say it would it would significant it would present significant concerns to change tracks at this point my concern continues to be that this is not going to do what it's meant to do and it could actually hurt our representation for some of these targeted populations by moving to districting so i like i just don't feel like the evidence is prevalent enough especially in this area that that doing this big move is going to to accomplish what these uh these litigation threats set out for us to have to do the legal test was one of whether there is a substantial or significant history of racially polarized voting within the jurisdiction under the law and we can we can always debate the wisdom of the law that triggers the obligation to move to district area elections um that was the intent of the legislature and um you know absent a change in law we would be driven by that analysis right so what happens i mean i guess this would just have to it's just a big experiment really because what happens if we'd make these changes and then see that it actually doesn't do what it's intended to do but actually does the opposite or or nil um paul this is eileen i'm going to jump in here with some remembering of what we went through when we were initially confronted with the evidence that we needed to comply with what what the voting rights act said and um one of the things that i think we concluded at that point was that we have a situation here in chica unified where we allow a considerable amount of choice movement so that our families and parents are free to um you know if if there's room to move um uh not physically but by enrollment and our form tens from school to school within the district and that even though the historical voting pattern did make us make us qualify for needing to comply with what the law says one of the things we saw was that like caitlyn just mentioned you don't make a significant change in what you know what what the law thought it was going to accomplish but with the new data from the the 2020 census one of the things that it seems to show is that our community has in fact spread itself out and the concentration isn't as significant and and therefore that balance that we have to look at to make sure we don't balance a population to the point where they no longer have a significant impact in a particular voting area which is which is the problem you want to make sure that they have enough numbers within that district so that they can have sway over the results of that particular area's representative so i that's what i'm looking for when we're looking at these maps is that we don't dilute the voting power of an identified group and something else i just thought of and i'm going to cut in because it goes right along with what both eileen and i are saying this is caitlyn again paul um that we do have certain schools in our district that are very specialized to certain populations of students who i would say are are you know targeted uh populations that need special um services and they come from all over the district and so that's another concern is that you know then they are being represented by again if we're if we're going to districting that that those those schools won't be under representation by the people that that are they're voting for um i just at this at this micro scale of districting i just am not convinced that that it actually will accomplish what it is intended to even though it's the law and yes we could debate the law all day long but here we are well i i do want to i do draw a distinction between how you determine um attendance at your various schools and the uh the intent of the voting rights act and what we're doing with redistricting in terms of of the strength of voters you're not required to focus solely on attendance areas in forming maps that's just one option and you may decide that there's there's other ways that you want to do it and and i'm sure rob can talk about that and we could even probably generate more maps to look at that um and and the uh the districting for for purposes of voting does not impact on your ability to move students from place to place in any way um so i'm not sure that those factors really are are going to impact on the decision about how to develop the districts and the other thing i would point out though is that the decision to move to district area elections has been made the board voted in and that is currently if you will the law of the district if there were an interest or desire to revisit that it would have to take place through a reconsideration or a revisiting of that original vote and um that that could happen i suppose in parallel to moving forward to developing your plan but i would strongly suggest it would need to be it would need to be agendized i don't think the member of the public members of the public tonight would believe that the board was revisiting that fundamental decision because i don't think that's on the agenda you would have to really go back and agendize that and i would strongly recommend a closed session agenda item to look at anticipated litigation because you would almost certainly be facing a very high likelihood of a legal challenge and that would put us in jeopardy of losing our safe harbor status in in how we got to out of the litigation situation that we were in before that's is that something that we would have to cover enclosed paul or i really those are those are highly sensitive communications between attorney and client the board's my client that i wouldn't want to initiate that conversation here tonight particularly it's not even on the agenda i agree paul this is caitlin again i just want to um say that i appreciate you um there's four of us sitting up here on the board today and two of us are new this year and so um some of some of these concepts are really important for us to revisit especially after the census has come out and especially after we've already seen some of the early uh results of the 2020 election as well so i appreciate your input thank you well i absolutely agree and i am i am conscious of the changes on board given the lengthy the delay in picking the process back up i will say that part of part of our charge as we look at developing these district areas is to not develop a plan that would cut against the fundamental purpose of the law which i understand to be to um to strengthen the opportunity of the targeted groups of you know racial ethnic minority groups that may exist in the district to have a increased chance of electing at least one member uh of their preference which isn't necessarily a a candidate from their ethnic group but it may be it often is but it could also be simply the favored candidate um relatively speaking of a particular minority group so the the intent of the law is not to dilute but to to strengthen that that opportunity and i think that that as you look at your maps you're going to want to look at that very closely and kind of leave rob to crunch the numbers and talk about what each of the options is likely to do in that regard one of the things that we have available to us in what has already been developed is we have not only the neighborhood identifications the attendance boundaries for our different schools but we also have identified those schools that are we have one that's a magnet school uh at the elementary level and so so we have a lot of information um presented to us and outlined in the overview of the three currently proposed maps and you know we we can change our criteria move things around in the maps but we we have all of those elements pretty much before us and one thing that we did prepare for you in the previous go around because it was happening in the spring after we'd done that year is demographic analysis and student housing report your dasher was that detailed breakdown of the current years students by the attendance matrix we have uh we're you know we're past your census day we have your student list we can go ahead and do that same breakdown so that and what really jumped out with that process last time of course was that really with the choice that you have every single trustee area pretty much had uh families living in it who were sending kids to every single school in the district but one thing that does jump out is that one of the schools that does retain usually more of its resident population is chapman which also coincides with one of those areas that we've looked at with that concentrated uh hispanic and latino population so that you know some of this does dovetail a little bit but if it would be helpful uh we can certainly go ahead and prepare that information uh since we may be doing it for uh this year's demographic analysis uh we can just have that uh those numbers available a little bit sooner instead of waiting until we usually uh do a kind of after the winter break to present your dasher to you ford what's your pleasure would you like to have that at the next overview meeting i think that would be fine but i really think that rob hasn't been able to finish his presentation and uh that we should move with that yeah so yeah let's just go ahead and yeah we have two more options so you've seen this one uh just a really quick look there we go uh and then just putting those elementary boundaries on and again uh you can just see up there on the inside uh just keeping between the now shasta and northern part of the neo dao boundary keeping that as the main line between areas one and two and just in the south uh again between emma and chapman there uh being able to uh kind of carve out again where emma and citrus come together but just using those elementary boundaries as a logical place to look for where you can form some of these trusty areas so now on to your green option so again very different looking shapes we still have numbers one two three four and five but now as we put our high school boundary on uh looking both in the nsat and in the close-up portion here you can see that each area covers territory in both high schools and this does lead this is very similar to a map that we had last time around where you have the two areas on the sides of the district that really cover that north south span and then three more concentrated areas that are in the middle of the district but achieves that first goal this one does make it quite a bit harder to line up with the elementary boundaries so i wanted to include that map just to see that once you are straddling the high school boundary you're by nature also straddling a lot of the elementary boundaries but we still to the extent we can and to the extent of looking at the neighborhoods trying to keep those in mind as we're drawing boundaries but with a main purpose that's driven by the high school boundaries and now our purple map the third one presented tonight as an initial option and again that emphasis these initial options are just the beginning of a conversation we'll have our first public hearing about these maps next month early and then as we get feedback we will refine we will add we will do everything we can to come up with a map that checks as many boxes as we can for all of the stakeholders in this process but so for this start here in the purple map again you have your numbered areas so this time the high school boundary isn't done with as much relevance but now looking at the elementary boundaries and again just with the number of elementary school boundaries the way the populations are dispersed in your district very hard to get a perfect match but again able to put for example chapman and little chico creek together able to put a large part of shasta and with emma wilson citrus actually just because of the overall population in that boundary particularly with the campus at csu and with downtown uh winds up being most of its own boundary and then looking at the southern part of neo-dao with sierra view and marigold so there is a lot of correlation in this one that is again maybe some different groupings than what you saw with the blue option so we're not going to just go through every number point on this again we're happy to answer some questions about this this is just more looking at what is made available so that you have the information to just do some comparisons so first off with the 2020 census data we have two ways of breaking that population down the first is the total population and then second is the population that is 18 and over or your current voting age population and so what you tend to see is that the percent of latino and hispanic population is higher in the total population which makes sense demographically that is you already saw the increase overall from 2010 to 2020 that is the population that is increasing in the younger demographics and so as more of that population ages into voting age then you'll see you're almost kind of seeing a preview of you know by the next 10 years from now uh what that voting age population might then also look like but as we said we have the uh for any race or ethnic category that makes up at least one percent of the total district population we are providing the percentages by each trustee area you have at the top just the total district population so you can see it is the percent hispanic or latino percent white percent asian percent black or african-american that are all provided individually any other single race that was identified uh by itself was less than one percent of the total population so we for this analysis are grouping those together if there was interest in seeing that fully broken out we can certainly supply that and then also uh this was a question that came up in one of our early conversations about that percent of two or more races in this case i wanted all of the totals to add up to those hundreds but it is common practice to uh just for instance if someone had identified as both black and asian that you could add that population to both of those totals and so you will have totals that exceed 100 percent but again with the percentage of people identifying as any combination of two or more races uh it is still not going to bump any one category aside from the white population above uh 50 overall so for this initial analysis we're keeping that as its own group and so again it is really just if we hear input that it would be valuable to really break that down we are happy to continue supplying greater and greater detail but this lets you see across the blue green and purple maps the proportion of the population that would be in each trustee area as looked at through the 2020 census data on race and ethnic identity so i'll just go kind of go through these and just explain what they are and what the numbers you're looking at mean and then as you have questions we can go back and revisit some of them so socioeconomic and tenure data so socioeconomic we looked at two things the median household income now this is not data that is supplied from the 2020 census state yet it will come out but for the redistricting really what we have are population by race and ethnicity and a couple of other more specialized uh things like group quarters since you don't have a large prison in your district we're not as concerned uh with with kind of mitigating how that population should interface with everyone else so in this case we are looking at the american community survey which is the most recent snapshot we have from census data this is available also in the census block group level so we are still able to correlate this as closely as possible to get a average median household income for each of these trustee areas and then you can just see i've just rounded those to the nearest thousand and then you see how those can compare and contrast across the different trustee areas more precisely we have from your current student list uh one field that is provided is if that student is listed as qualifying for the free or reduced price meals program frpm and so we're seeing those side by side you see there is a fair amount of correlation between those but we're just presenting them both to you so that you can see how those compare across the district and then interestingly i actually thought it was really fascinating that looking at that 10-year data the owners and renters it is almost exactly district-wide 50-50 in terms of the households that own versus rent where they're living and so given that as your baseline that you're comparing everything to you can really see uh you know how which uh options are relatively more balanced or relatively deviated and again it's not that one is good or one is bad uh there might be some benefits to uh having a trustee area that has a more emphasis on one or the other but this just lets you see which ones are more or less balanced and which areas and particularly stand out and then finally we have that neighborhood analysis so what we've just done here is again that map to remind you of for this purpose what we're considering those neighborhoods to be and then under the blue green and purple options we have your trustee areas one two three four five and we've just checked off so in the blue map for example every neighborhood is entirely contained within a single trustee area you see just each column has just one x in it under the green option uh the avenues is actually split between three different trustee areas and again for some that might it's not that that is inherently good or bad it just depends on how that's approached but this is that you see how well the neighborhoods are either contained within or split between different trustee areas under these options and so i'll pause here because if we have any questions about this data i'm happy to speak to those before we move on to uh just a reminder of what our next steps look like ms dalby um yeah thank you and this is um probably more of a question for paul um for clarification and using this sort of as an example um so the some one of the last things that you said paul was um that the intent of the law if i was hearing this right and please please please obviously correct me if i'm wrong the intent of the law is to create districts in such a way that our um uh the what the protected class population uh in in our case um the hispanic voting population um has maybe more representation within one district um rather than being evenly split amongst the other districts is did i hear you explain that correctly well i don't know i don't know why i would define the the intent of the entire law i would say that the law is intended to do that if it increases the opportunity for minority group to elect a candidate of its choice whether uh whether that is um you know that the primary intent of the law is to increase the opportunity for uh those populations that that are a substantial minority within within the district uh to have an opportunity to elect candidates where they or or um candidates where they have not been able to in the past um and at least the legislation was written so that if that result can be obtained or at least promoted by concentrating a higher number of the target population into one of several districts that that is uh to be encouraged i again i i want to emphasize that the issue of whether to in initially pursue a movement to the uh trustee areas from at large voting is different issue than how to divide up those districts and if there is a desire by one or board member one or more board members to revisit the fundamental question that i believe is within your jurisdiction to go back and look at that but i would strongly recommend that it be brought forward as a new agenda item at a different meeting when it's on the agenda and that it also uh be recognized that that it will it we we got here by way of a demand letter and a resolution uh of litigation so we would be back in in the pos strong likelihood of litigation and the board would want to get legal advice uh before setting forth a record in public you know of your positions and and um and a debate on a topic that's not on the agenda sure the the reason for my my question is is strictly talking about the district again not whether two district or not um so um yeah so in terms of what you're saying um and i think rob can speak to this there are some scenarios that even in what we're seeing so far that would strengthen uh the hispanic minority in at least one or two um areas um but again it would lower their strength perhaps in other in other proposed district areas right yes i think that's a good summary and and that's kind of what i was getting to um so for example if we were just going to say we're going to vote on these three you know i know that we're definitely still the drawing board but for for the sake of examples um the purple map option shows that um the highest percentage of all three options is for district two um at 23.8 percent um hispanic voters in that in that option so if that was the goal we would say okay this we're going with the purple map with the anticipation that they have more representation for that district but what are we doing to the hispanic vote in the other four districts and that's you know a concern and something to maybe be taking into consideration especially with public comment and things like that um but i think thank you that clarifies and i think that that no i think that's a great point and i will be very curious what again as we i anticipate a steady increase in public engagement with this now that we have maps it's much easier to look at something and point out your concerns about it and i just say you meaning just a general person who comes into this process and might just be seeing some of this and really kind of having the light bulb click and say okay i have some now i have some opinions and now i'm going to come tell them about it at the next opportunity and that's what we've seen a lot talking to other demographers because we do hang out and talk to each other why am i not surprised yeah but who are doing this work that's it's very very common that it's very quiet in the early stages of this you you put and you kind of just need to put something out to just get the conversation really rolling and i think that's obviously we're already doing a lot of that tonight and then we'll uh really look forward to uh how many more voices we start hearing from from the general community at our official public hearing which will again no changes will be made to the maps between now and then uh again we're just making sure that we've presented the maps that everyone understands the data and what the maps are showing and then we can really talk about them as much as people want to at the public hearing rob it would be um permissible for any board member to ask for additional information to be presented at the next meeting correct we did that last time around right i i just clarifying again because we did have uh uh matt was not present at that last meeting and i know that that was one of the issues that um was mentioned for a bit tonight have had do you have anything that you've been able to i'm for those that are watching on uh zoom mr tennis is there anything that you would like rob to have available to present at the next meeting when we come back for more discussion just the information that we but i'm going to get it between now and i'm going to get it tomorrow so so um not really no no i wonder what the basis upon which are moving forward will be i guess community input and everything that you already addressed i just i'm just curious and intrigued as to what the little baby steps will look like of us actually moving toward one one map or another um frankly yeah and i can speak to that with a moment if you'd like me to um i something you said raised question for me because we are we are supposed to make sure that any information that's given to one board member that all board members have access to that same information and i'd be interested in making sure that if you if you do have information you'd like presented that it it come to the next board meeting am am i am i off base superintendent staley and wanting to make sure that we all have the same information available to us we can certainly bring it to the next board meeting we can also take this information and make sure any information given to the board is also posted on the website and we don't necessarily have to forget that website like if we go and and get the information that mr tennis is asking for and it comes back to staff tomorrow it can be emailed out to the full board as soon as it's available we just have to make sure we make it available to the public as well yeah that that was my concern was that we all have you know the information that we think about and request available okay that i i keep forgetting that we're in 2021 and we do have things like websites and actually the mention of the website does bring one more thing to mind uh in that the there is a dedicated page for this process on the website and the community input that has been received thus far is all available there so that everyone can look back at again the input received at our two public input uh meetings thus far and that will be a live living uh page that i expect to become much more prolific again as we move ahead and i think addressing mr tennis's point the i think really what we'll begin to see is uh requests for again maybe some additional information and then once that information comes in uh suggestions on sometimes it really does just get down to can we just move these couple of blocks like out of this one into this one and what would that look like uh it might just be hey none of these are really working for me uh based on x y or z let's see a new map and so again it's this initial process that we proposed is kind of assuming that we might introduce a [Music] new map early on in that process and then it could kind of gain some traction to obviously have everyone comfortable to say this one seems to be the one that has the most support behind it one tool that i've seen some other districts use is once we get to those final map options having them on the district web page with some kind of voting mechanism just so that you can gauge if there is uh you know disproportionate public support for one particular option over over the other two or three or however many we have by that point but really it will be that kind of iterative process where ideally these three maps will still be in it but can be tweaked and then if again it comes out that really a fourth or even a fifth or however many map options are needed to show people what they think represents a good system which ultimately is accomplishing the goal of having each member of the board representing an area and for future candidates to only need to campaign to the electorate in that area i think that's the other side of that equation that hasn't been discussed directly tonight and that it's hard to quantify but has that impact of who would run in the future that might not have bothered running in the past when you had to campaign to the entire district in that election so just some thoughts to keep in mind but i will uh again be at your pleasure here to just answer any further questions ms dalby i think this is my last one for tonight um because i i do remember last time we spoke up here that i had asked if we might be able to see if there's any preliminary data coming out of the 2020 election for chico city council because this was the first election with newly drawn districts at that small of a local level right here in chico um and i don't know if any of that data is accessible or you know if it if or how it would be useful but it would be something that i would be interested to see if it is available because it may tell us a little bit more about how districting is affecting the the voting turnout and and you know if it's if if it in chico for the city of chico if it if it does seem that it's doing what it's intended to do um if that makes sense we are so much bigger than the city of chico's 588 square miles but we overlap so i think it's important because the demographics are very similar minus cohasset and forest ranch and and nord yeah since we encompass the city of chico and then extend a little bit the data should be pretty similar right now i will see what i can rustle up if i look at you would probably be the butte county office of elections and again to the extent that there might be some data i'm happy to bring what is available and again to the extent that we uh again caveat anything that is the city election that this is as we just clarified just a subset of the area that we're looking at for chico unified school district it's it's it's funny someone did ask a very similar question um after the the city went through the process and what was discovered was that because um they are just in the city they have seven seats instead of five chapman had not yet been annexed and there was another another area that had not yet been annexed to the city it was hard to compare uh you know what what we're trying to do in our balance issues and what they went through it was amazing how they they just didn't it was worse than apples and oranges it was like throwing in a pomegranate in the middle of it a question yes unless you wanted to respond to her oh no i was i wasn't expecting a response i was just do you have socioeconomic and tenure data uh and for that matter i mean the total population by rather than race and ethnicity but um for elementary school um territory territories what do you call those districts what do you call it oh no yes so yeah so certainly uh the for the student freedom reduced lunch data that that is very easily provided the it would be a matter of it would definitely be an estimation using the census median household income data just because at the larger geographic units that those are provided by uh less likely that they'll line up as evenly with the elementary boundaries but we could give you at least an approximation but the student free and reduced lunch percentages would be quite precise to those elements to any school boundaries you have and so i if that is some i can certainly include i'd be interested in a summary of that i i lean toward the position that the um that the elementary boundaries are valuable because there's so many of them you know i mean we're trying to draw these nuanced you know district lines and and it just kind of we're familiar with them we know them they they are respective of neighborhood it's sort of like it's building on work that we've already got in place yeah i i agree and what fascinated me was that with some of the plans there were only two elementary schools within the the proposed district and another one had five elementaries in one district in order to you know balance and i think it's because our student population is so mobile between schools and no that is part of it and then as i mentioned in one of the maps when especially if you're looking at just that citrus boundary you are also keeping in mind that you have the resident csu chico population that is technically inside of that boundary and uh that your general population especially the parts where you have more of that aging population that don't currently have school-age children in the district but are still voters who live in your district that uh the the heat map of kind of that density is probably different from the density of families with kids right now so yeah we do have a few different things that we're all looking at and just trying to come down to easily digestible sets of numbers that we can look at without making this you know a three inch thick binder full of numbers uh but we'll certainly uh continue to just as information will be useful and move the conversation forward and help clarify uh a good outcome we'll certainly keep i mean you have to usually ask me to quit giving you numbers so yeah but yeah i can't imagine what that's like when all the demographers get together to talk about cvra it's like a rocking good time you guys right we're cool you are very cool yes uh they were so excited about the census data um you have a significantly high degree of what we call you know uh intra district transfers so you know somewhere some are up to 54 and a half percent of the students that are transferring into a elementary school boundary or out of that boundary and attending another school so i think to your point um it might be helpful to to provide that tomorrow as a data point with the other data that we're providing so you have that to look at um and to consider as part of this process so we're happy to provide just just that matrix we can provide it on its own so you're not digging through this study until you're just whatever that will be from the 2020-21 matrix though and then as we are able to prepare the matrix from the current year then we'll update that but yes we can uh just so that everyone has that as a refresher uh just to be able to see precisely uh you know which school boundaries uh had those interesting shifts and also which couple of them don't as much yeah that uh those particular details were what was um most interesting to me when we started this process two years ago was the um like you just said some schools had a 50 percent lived in the district but didn't attend in that elementary district it was that was huge right anything else board are we i'll just uh want just the last part of the presentation well so again i've actually kind of touched on this already but just to make sure it's very clear so uh the maps will not change i will bring some additional data on some of that student enrollment detail uh summaries of free and reduced launch by elementary boundary to the extent that there might be some city council election data that we can just show at the next meeting but otherwise we'll be looking at these same maps but we will have a public hearing and invite all interested members of the community to tell us what's working what's not working what else we can be looking at in regards to these maps or the potential for new map options and then again within incorporating that feedback we'll come back again on november 17th uh with uh potentially at that point revised map options and then continue to hear feedback uh and then this is just a kind of the default proposed timeline and i think really before we get too far much much further ahead of that we just want to see how these next couple of public hearings go and where we're standing after the 17th and we'll just continue to uh look forward on a proposed timeline that again is fairly flexible at this point you did well when starting the process early enough to build in some flexibility while at the same time that if we can reach a conclusion that is satisfactory and meets enough of the requirements that every you know people feel comfortable with that we can also move that forward sooner rather than later okay but that no that's all folks huh yeah thank you um yes yep i do want to point out that the only person that really related to tim's the limit were you two okay this is informational only as we've commented several times and we'll be back on november 3rd for more discussion and to continue to check information on our website even though the maps won't change you'll be able to look at comments and things that have been submitted and possibly submit some of your own okay um is it 10 to yes 10.2 yes are we uh are you closing the hearing at this time our our hearing is closed thank you paul that's okay just have a good evening everyone and i'm going to check out unless someone anticipates needing me for the rest thank you thank you paul i appreciate it it's been very it's been a very interesting meeting and and um i look forward to continuing the process and technically paul we we did not have a a hearing at this meeting it was an informational only item it was informational item only i apologize not my mistake that's okay i don't mind um being able to use this gorgeous um mallet [Laughter] goodnight paul have a good evening thank you yes so at our last board meeting we had the first reading of two board policies uh tina is bringing forward the uniform complaint procedures and marie is here if there are any questions regarding the conflict of interest board policy but this is the second reading and we're requesting approval for the changes in these board policies that is correct i don't have too much more to add to what kelly had said board do we have um any questions on uh either well let's let's take them one at a time the first submission is the nine two yes the conflict of interest and the major change on that is actually nearly at the bottom of uh that that involves a disciplinary action which tina of course you are yeah the conflict of interest is actually under marie oh okay any questions on on that uh provision i'm move approval thank you do i have a second do we have any public comment there is no public comment thank you oh we have excuse me i need to turn the page um the first one was i my computer does not want to it's 9270 yes okay i i know mr tennis uh you moved was there a second dr kaiser seconded there was no public comment so all those in favor signify by saying aye aye thank you board that's four yes the the motion passes the next one is the um there's a a lot of additional um this one is board policy 13 12.3 uniform complaint procedure which is it's still item 10.1.2 i'm sorry it would still be item 10.1.2 um so yes it is but it's it's the second one 1312.3 yes and and there's uh significant change in well not not a change but there's a lot of language that was deleted and the red language is the newly proposed language that is correct and that actually came from our reviewer for uniform complaints from the department of education so it's the most updated language okay board do you have any questions of ms keene on what's in these um uh was was the significant uh addition of the um parenting issues and the um homeless and foster child stuff was was that what that was some and but there was additional on preschool as well toward the end you see quite a bit of um preschool there and we do have some state group schools at our sites yep members okay i have a motion to approve by member tennis do i have a second i'll second the motion thank you i'll second the motion do we have any um there's no public comment no public comment thank you okay board i'll call for the vote all those in favor signify by saying aye aye thank you that passes for nothing uh just noting um that thank you tina and marie thank you yes um really quick point of order i just want to remind uh the board that we should make sure we just follow our steps appropriately and wait for doc for um president robinson to call for a motion so that we are going through our steps in order and not asking for public comment after we've already put a motion on the floor i know we all want to move through these items that aren't so controversial and kind of catch up with our agenda for the night um but yeah let's just please be cognizant of um of um president robinson's uh steps of order so we can't move approval until she specifically calls she should be calling for it it's in our yes our format that's recommended through the procedures that we have approved to to um okay the other thing that i thought i saw was that board discussion was out of order on my um no it's thank you caitlin i thought i was following it um anyone want to do a quick stand up and stretch or are we good and just move on board oh good i'm good to move on but i um i'm totally okay with a stretch as well i would vote that we power through as quickly as possible on these non-controversial items okay okay our educational services presentation by christian lauer oh wait um first we need to set the annual organizational meeting 10.1.3 well i know it's in here i just i didn't see it before i turned the oh yeah the uh december or uh organizational meeting um setting a date for the annual organizational meeting it usually is tied to when um the election occurs that that's uh not what we're basing our thing on because we have no new members that would be seated so um we do do you have do you have anything additional to add in the way of presentation miss daily no um we do need to set the date and we have to send this to the county office right and at our organizational meeting we're proposing we do that on december 15th that's where we will elect officers of the board and uh set our calendar for the following year as well as make any changes to our agenda the agenda says december 9th you just said my attachment here says december 15th i am let me open my december 15th okay it's just clarifying to make sure which one was accurate yep it's on the resolution it does say december 15th is there um any question or anything from any board member is there any public comment there is no public comment i was just going to say that i was i'm really hoping to actually be on vacation that week um i'm not kidding but i guess i'll have to change my plans i'm sorry i'm sobby i can't i said i was wanting to be on vacation that week and actually get again i haven't had a break in a religious game yeah when you're when you're not a teacher anymore you don't get to plan your vacations accordingly so anyway that's my only opposition is just that that was the time that i thought i'd be able to get out of the state but i can try to just not do that okay um if there's no public comment and it's been indicated that there is not does the board have any motions associated with this agenda item i've got a question is there an option for having it on a um so the board adopted calendar had the meeting on december 15th the board always has the right to change a date um you just have to act on it as a board i think the only issue is that we're coming we're going to be for the csba in san diego on the first which is our other board meeting but i don't i mean people need vacations [Music] so i guess that becomes the issue of it would be finals week if we postponed it a week it would be let me just check something very yeah how do we have a board meeting on the first which is what i'm showing when we have csba yeah that's true we don't have one on the first one we don't have we don't okay i don't show one on the okay well then i would say especially because that's the same meeting that we're supposed to be adopting the map um this december 15th meeting um just seems like a pretty big date so i will just not go on vacation write us a letter or what you think we ought to do during that and then we'll take that into consideration i'll make it into a resolution so what about wednesday the 8th is that not feasible or quite i don't believe we can get the um we don't get back from csba in time to get stuff submitted for the agenda oh okay well woman you just got sunk all right okay we we've i'm sorry we've set december 15th as our regular board meeting when we scheduled these last december and i don't see any option for changing that that doesn't appear with interfere with finals week so we're december 15th was there already a motion made huh was there already a motion made no nothing no we um do we have any public comment madam superintendent there is no public comment does the board have an emotion okay second second by dr kaiser no further discussion okay all those in favor of the organizational meeting being set for december 15th signify by saying i i thank you board motion passes with four eyes okay next is ed service's multi-year competition grant overview for um and this is christian i'm kristen so this is going to be quick and positive the purpose of this is three things to introduce myself one there's my slide up there that's tiny um to introduce myself to give you a snapshot of chico unified's grants and then just to tell you how we go about grants procurement and chico unified so i'm kristen lauer and i've been with chico unified for 20 years most of my time has been teaching english and for the last five years i've been managing chico unified's larger grants and writing grants with our previous grants coordinator liz metzger who is retired so this is me that's my contact up there you're welcome to reach out to me at any moment i write and coordinate our grants and uh you you can't see up on the slide there but we we have 25 active grants right now and three are pending and that's pretty normal that's a pretty normal amount for us the grant search on that slide there's four items mentioned there grant watch is a grant aggregator that basically you plug in your criteria and it kicks me stuff that i then share with ed services and then we've got some um you know stalwarts up there grants.gov for federal grants grants california.gov for california grants and then of course the north valley community foundation and there are actually many others but i was just trying to give you a snapshot and so how this works is if anybody is interested in a grant um superintendent kelly staley gets a lot of notifications probably more than any of us about opportunities they come to me and then i prepare a grant snapshot for ed services which i attend every week actually two times a week we'll have a new grant snapshot tomorrow morning at ed services and then we sort of look at our capacity um our need and our capacity to manage the grant because that's that's the other part of it um could you where is this a clicker for the slides look at that okay so you can't see the colors very well or the key you can't see the key very well okay okay so you can but they can't so anyway i'll just just uh a summary here this is these this is funding by the millions and it goes up in increments of 2.5 million so you can you're probably your first question is probably oh well why is there a drop in 2122 and i just wanted to point out that in um so the green and the orange bars from 2019 to 2021 was the year that we had all of our cte we wrote our cte facilities grants which had caps of three million so there was just a lot of funding in those years and a lot of that is actually in the works right now um anyway so these again are just our competitive grants we have other grant funding that's more formula grant but these are our competitive grant competitions and lastly how am i doing on time five minutes i've been told not to go longer than that um good just use the cards if you want to put the red card up on me you can do that i've created a grant support hub on our website and it's basically for teachers to let us know hey if they're interested in applying for a grant i can offer support we can offer support it's definitely not just a you know an effort by myself i love it i need that um i'm thankful for tim karis and his spicy data because oh is he gone i was giving oh there you are i couldn't do this job without his data so i'm so um appreciative of that anyway so there's support on our website we support individual teachers that might want to you know apply for a little grants on their own and then um i handle the the bigger ones in house with this team that i love working with questions thanks i miss her we we appreciate the over the years grants have kept us alive thank you i have a question kristen actually because that um the online help for teachers for those little grants that are out there how long has that been a thing so um that's a good question it it it's been a thing for a while but when i say it i've changed it so that it's a lot fewer words now basically and there's a button on the website now that they click and it goes to a google form and then it kicks me an email that shows me that somebody's interested in the grant and then i you know reach out to them um so it's been a thing for a while i would say probably for the last eight years but it hasn't taken the shape of a hub a support hub that's just brand new in fact it's not totally done i'm working on it right now gotcha um i guess just because in my current role i'm like deeply involved in the grant writing world now um and i come across those little grants all the time like oh if i was a teacher and i had the time and the energy i would have wanted to apply for that um and you know as a teacher when you're busy and you do occasionally like maybe once a year come across something like that you're like i have no time or energy i know this and i didn't know that even there was any kind of resource um available to help with so yep and we are we're as it's being built there's a tab now on the site where because i have a grant aggregator where i if i see little things that teachers might be interested in i i pop them onto the site and then we depend on director of secondary education and and the directive of elementary education to to push that out to get that out to the sites but that's that's sort of something that's up and coming because there are so many grants and i certainly couldn't write them all so just like you said right yeah cool i hope that you know teachers start to really know that that's there and and you get to take advantage of it that's the goal yeah okay thank you this is informational only board we don't need any motion next up is mr hanlon with 10.3.1 information and update on the covid employee testing yes thank you so um governor newsom declared that october starting october 15th our employees and staff on our campuses had to either be vaccinated or we had to test them weekly we're in our first week of testing and michelle bunch is going to give us an update on where we are we're literally on day three right now so um we're just taking our baby steps so michelle yeah that's has some good information for us good evening i'm michelle bunch coveted lead for chico unified and i wanted to just give you an update on how many people we tested last week last week was our first week and we tested employees through our screening program during that time we had two positive employees and this week we anticipate testing around 365 staff so you might be asking why so many more um we started last week knowing that the mandate began on friday and have been in the process of collecting vaccination cards and through our digital system as of today we've collected 1404 vaccine cards that have been uploaded by staff and that includes staff substitutes and coaches as well as student teachers when you look at regular employees that are not temps or long-term subs or substitutes the estimate was 1582.