Can we find our curriculums online when they're done? Because I've seen are they online already and I haven't seen them. There is elements from the curriculum online. Yeah. Um >> I'm thinking like a like a like a overview like a curricular overview. I shouldn't say the curriculum because that's just super vague, right? Or it could be a lot of stuff or like a >> curriculum overview or like a scope and sequence. I'm thinking about the uh by the through the lens of a community member. If I'm a parent and I'm wondering, okay, third grade, what are we going to be talking about in third grade? What is the expectations? That would be a nice um thing to include in part of our systems. So, it's available. Is that part of our strategic plan already? The like the memorialization or publication of it at all? >> You want to talk about the curriculum renewal cycle and what is undergoing?
Right now that that is in the hands of the leadership team and we're taking the board's feedback and and trying to make our adjustments and break those smart goals. And so the last step is to get the staff and the the parents survey back so we can ensure that their input is in the priority plan. Um so looking forward to that. Um >> [snorts] >> and then I just want to celebrate. Uh first of all, received an email over spring break. Um three separate emails because all three of our elementary schools are invited to the state house um to celebrate their performance on I read from 2025. Um and so this is when when Helmsburg got the one 100% on I read um Mrs. Werner and I were able to go down and celebrate and I just think it's really amazing that all three elementary schools get to come um together in April to do that.
These are all essential policies uh per ISBA recommendation, and tonight again is just for information purposes. Please review these policies, and we'll be bringing them back to next month's meeting uh for approval. So, bring the questions back next month, then? Yeah, after you after you review it. Okay. If I mean, if you have I guess if you have some now, absolutely. Sure. It Go ahead, Mr. President. Corporate Yeah, I was going to ask a question. So, it's um on the board compensation, it was in there I could look it right up. This is no order no order in particular, Mr. Kewa, but uh board compensation of basic compensation of $2,000 per year, which we're all for, I believe. No nobody's against the you know, the state says we could take 10% as a salary of what the beginning teacher salary is at Crown Point. We've all spoken against that, but I can't speak for other boards down the road that they may say, "Yeah, we want that." So, is it is it better?
Uh so, you can see some of the other things that I was doing and working on. Modeled a lot of uh lessons in classrooms, really starting in August. Uh so, I was very thankful that people and teachers were willing to ask me in. I believe that was their choice and not by principals. Um so, it was nice that they trusted me to come in and and share some ideas with them. Uh but again, with that being visible, every time I was in a building, someone stopped me and said, "Oh, I was going to email you, and I just didn't get to it." That actually happened today as well. Uh I was at Flint Springs, and someone said, "Oh, I was going to send you this email on Friday. I really need some help brainstorming. Do you have a minute?" So, we sat down, and we brainstormed, and it was great.
This reality is reflected in the judiciary bills introduced this session, which would allow public employers to seek TRO in cases of employment related harassment. One parent who harassed educational workers for years resumed targeting me on social media after the three-year court issued injunction expired. The conduct is ongoing, intentional, and shows the terrifying stalking behavior of these perpetrators. Parent and educ educational worker partnerships are essential. As a parent, I understand that completely. However, strong partnerships must be grounded in safety. No child should witness an educator being threatened or harassed. Yet, teachers have experienced that in person and online. Educator safety is student safety. Uh, thank you for the opportunity to testify. >> Thank you. Okay. Anyone else wishing to testify? Please come on up. Identify yourself. >> Good afternoon, chairs and vice chairs of the committees. My name is Michelle Pestoaga. I am I testifying in strong opposition of HB1 1888 House draft 3 based on our firsthand experience of Hawaii Department of Education's educational workers as defined in the bill.
So, we want to thank them. We also want to thank our leadership team for the tremendous amount of work that goes into it, days, weeks, individual work, small group work, whole group work, uh, revisions, all of those things that happen. So, we want to thank them as well. Um, I think uh with the comprehensiveness of this budget, we're going to even do better than what we've done in previous years. So, I'm very proud of the budget that we've put together. All right, without further ado, I want to introduce Christine Lee, who is going to be doing her first budget presentation along with Robin. >> Thank you. So this is okay. So good evening. Uh welcome to Bombberg 2027 uh budget presentation. Uh this budget year was a little bit unique and challenging. Uh first of all, we had a new governor. Uh that was her first SP uh budget with the $12 billion a little over 12 billion dollars uh for school funding and um state aid cap of 6%.
That's why you were voted. What else is there, uh um Have you guys Are we going to get to see anything to the public about the budget? Or are we going to come here next week you guys are going to vote on a budget I'm going to perform another yelling and screaming thing and then and the budget passes. Cuz you guys work for us. People don't don't I don't I don't understand how we haven't gotten that. And the last thing I'll bring up is uh Jack, is there any uh progress in those uh the contracts and the people and how much we're paying for? Cuz I really need that information. Thank you. Any other public comments? Seeing none, I will open up to the board. >> Uh through the chair, I'd like to Yes, Dr. Tapia. Mr. Geisler, how are you? All right. Few things.
>> Yeah. So there is um I would say that the work that's been done especially in phase one and two have really been from the teacher view and perspective. So that's something that we can partner with phase two just to do um like a a one-page overview per grade per content. So that's something we can definitely work in and then make that available online. >> Yeah, I don't know if other board members would find think that's a useful suggestion. And I don't want to be the one saying I think we should do this but >> yeah. No, I think it's useful and also like because so much of the curriculum audit focused like all of the so many of the areas for growth in the curriculum audit focused on like that need for centralized supports and centralized curricula, centralized resources. I think that also kind of um you know not only addresses the issue by providing that support but also highlights the work that's been done by by showing that centralized message.
So really excited for them. Um and then our kids are I think back from Portugal this week. >> I They have landed in DC. So I did get an update from Mrs. Speece before I got here. Um but they're not their ETA back in Indy is about midnight tonight. So I think we'll have out of the 14 a lot of She said the kids are still they're winning they're ready to come back to school. Like they're excited. So I have a feeling someone will be straggling in late but um so yeah, they're they're back in the states and safe and sound there but have one more flight into Indy tonight. So excited to hear. Pictures looked in pretty incredible. Um an opportunity for them. So And then uh our invention convention the state competition was uh not this past Saturday the Saturday before um at the uh state museum in Indianapolis and Van Buren and Spring Creek who both participate in it did amazingly well.
Does it make more sense to add into that policy "Board member shall receive an amount approved by the board not to exceed 10% of the lowest teacher salary"? Because I can't speak of the for the future people at all. But, is it better something to consider something like that? Yeah, I mean I I I basically what we what we are going to say here per ISBA recommendation is we follow the law. And at the at the very top, you'll see that draft that we cannot um compensate the board and that compensation cannot exceed the limitations established by Indiana laws. A really brief way of summing it up So, the format as you see the dotted line. So, the old policy is below, the new policy is up top. And typically ISBA is incredibly brief in comparison to old the old policy. But, they've been written by their attorneys.
Uh so, you know, life happens. Teaching is hard. We're very busy uh from day to day. So, just being around and being available uh was really important, and I think that helped build a lot of relationships and trust. So, that was important. Uh we also continued our work with Smekens Education this year for writing. So, last year they came in and really were in classrooms and modeled. This year they came uh almost everyone has had four sessions so far uh already this year, and they started with a little bit of new information this year, but the big goal was for teachers to feel empowered to gather those skills uh with the lessons that they were learning about last year and put them together to create a scope and sequence so we can have not only the reading and the math that we have now, which I showed you before, but we will also then have a writing document that we can follow for some consistency.
Our daughter Ana was born with a unique genetic anomaly in cle lip and cleft pallet. She's a former special education student at Hayon Elementary School from 2012 to 2019. From August 2019 through today, she's been homeschooled. She refuses to return back to a regular school in fear of what has happened to her. The trauma that she experienced was not just from students bullying her. It was also from the administrators. Seven years out of the school environment, she still needs the lights on at night to sleep and still has nightmares about what happened to her at school. In 2017 2018 school year, Ana was put into a secluded classroom, door closed and lights turned off. It was called the Unicorn Learning Center. When the schoolbased behavior health representative assigned to Anna learned of this room, she informed the sped teacher that this would be considered a seclusion room and it was to be discontinued.
There was uh also uh been changes to um state uh budget calendar which shifted the key uh submission dates for us and added uh a lot of confusion and complexity to our budget process. Um however uh uh despite all those challenges um throughout um the months of uh time and effort and uh collaborations among the administrative team um with the uh a lot of discussions and meetings we were successfully uh were able to u put our comprehensive and u balanced the budget this year. I I know that Dr. Freeman thanked the board and then all this um u board members and principles >> but I you know never enough so I sincerely thank the board and uh Dr. Freeman and entire administrative team for the all the hard work um putting in this budget uh for the best interest of the our students. Um I also thank uh the governor for um uh her support of the uh education.
Uh excellent questions tonight from everyone. Thank you. And I I appreciate the opportunity to answer these for through the chair for the board. Um we've been Social media is a big thing. Uh you know, when I first started as an administrator, uh Twitter was the way to go. I don't know if it is anymore. So, we've actually been working uh diligently, Mr. Blue and I, trying to get a uh uh a part-time person to help us with some of the media stuff because of our website and you everybody's kind of pitching in right now. So, uh we're working on that. Uh we're actually working on our own app. Uh we do have an app here, but it's not really where I want the potential uh of for it to be. PowerSchool has something called PowerBuddy. Uh so, we are in the process of doing all those things.
>> Yeah. And it's real easy if a community man community member reaches out to say this and this oh we have our an overview of the curriculum and then once they review it if you have questions it kind of saves them. There is there is one page just I know we absolutely can add to it but there is a page called classroom resources on our page right now as it stands and it does break down each level as well as specialized programs and within those um the the depth of knowledge is a little bit different by grade level but as you look in there there is like you can keep digging from um you know curriculum down through like AVID and specifically kindergarten programming and then the high school course catalog and its description. So there's there is quite a bit of information there. We certainly can work towards making it a little bit easier to digest or or specifically around the curriculum resources that are available, but there is quite a bit there.
I think Van Buren had first They had a first place overall and a third place overall. And then Spring Creek had a second place overall and a tie for third. And a tie for third. Like that's the whole state. That's pretty awesome, isn't it? Um Yeah, so >> [applause] >> we now we need to get busy fundraising because we've we've never gotten the opportunity I think to send that many kids and their families to be able to go to the national. >> And seven of the kids had honorable mentions and so they're also invited to go to national. Yeah. Yeah, so pretty cool. Um and it's I also it's worthy to say that it's not that Helmsburg does not participate well they don't participate in this invention convention but they do something a little bit different. Um and so we'll invite Mrs. Salwan and and have her do a presentation too and um she's got some really really incredible things going on um with their stem courses too.
Yeah, I mean this is and so I think it's important that we keep that in mind as well. So, for example, in 4 years from now, if that board decides to all you're going to do is just re- re-issue this policy? Or just because it's fall within the standards of state, it would apply and we don't need to do it. The old policy is actually the one that dictated the 2000. The new policy that's replacing it actually does not define anything, so it's it's more I think open-ended than the current policy. open-ended January meeting would determine what structure they want to get paid at that point. That is correct. The policy is going to ensure that we follow the law. Okay. All right. That is correct. Good. I think we got that cleared. Any other questions? >> I I did have one one more, sorry.
So, that's been really nice. As we got into October and December, now we're in uh testing time with checkpoints. Uh so, I was still in classrooms. Uh I started sending monthly newsletters, where I, you know, of course, give important information, but my favorite part is the second page with that has staff spotlights. So, there's at least one person, if not multiple, um for each building, where I just highlight and share something that I've witnessed uh within that month of being around uh just to let everyone know how awesome everybody is because everyone's working really hard. Uh so, you know, lifting people up uh is really important, and we don't get enough of that. So, um trying to do that for people as well. Um and when the with those checkpoints, since last year was a pilot year, and we did not have very much data, as we shared before, um having a lot of new data, not too many people knew um what that looked like.
The room was still used on December 20th, 2017, halfway into the school year. How many times she was put in that room, we don't know. 2018 2019, Ana was restrained school year, Ana was restrained on three separate occasions. All three restraints took place in a one-mon period. two within days. During one of the restraints, the vice principal provoked and scared Ana to where she climbed a tree to flee to a safe place. The DOE team then pressured us to sign documentation to continue to allow the staff to restrain Anya even after we raised significant concerns about the adverse effects of restraints and we vemently disagreed with this approach. 2018 2019 on another occasion staff kept Anna after the bell inside a classroom with a closed door for 20 minutes with no explanation to me while I was instructed to wait outside. These are just a few examples of what our family endured while sending Anya to public school.
So uh members of the board of education under the um uh uh leadership of Mr. Januzi board presidents. Uh we were um we ensure that um all every dollar spent on this budget were accounted for and directed towards students education and their success. I like to extend a special thank you for the operation committee. Um their strong commitment to fiscal responsibility played a key role in um uh the shaping this budget mission statement. Every budget allocation you see tonight is align aligned to our core promise to support multicultural community that provides an innovative and academically challenging programs while uh offering a variety of other um co-curricular and extracurricular programs. Vision statement our vision is to provide comprehensive educational program. What is comp comprehensive educational program? The that means we providing a full scope of educational programs. Uh not just the one academic area but we are preparing the students for life after the graduation and providing educational opportunity both within and outside of the classroom promoting academic and personal growth for their entire life.