In late January, after his initial coaching had occurred, um he made a comment about our daughter's dating relationship using her name alongside a male classmate in what was framed as an an instructional example. Um this is all ways that he's continued to to violate her boundaries and her feeling of safety in the classroom. Our concerns extend beyond our daughter alone. He's continued to uh maintain classroom order. There's multiple instances of the entire class becoming disregulated. The administrative response has been to remove these problematic children um to send them to another fifth grade teacher. We've been told that our daughter has the option to leave the classroom to go to the bathroom if she needs. She's been given the opportunity to speak with um a social emotional teacher as well. This is all about what she's been doing wrong and the focus has been on what our daughter should be doing.
Sheila loves a good spreadsheet and she had a lot of spreadsheets on each employee and exactly the work that they were doing each and every day. So we were able to to really hone in on exactly what that pay structure should look like. We assessed the three- tier pay structure. We ensured equitable pay across the all of the different types of jobs. There's a lot of different job bands that that take place in the transportation department. Um we'll continue to value experience. Our veteran drivers, we appreciate all the work that they do. They do a great job and so we'll continue to value that experience. Uh fair pay for shuttles, field trips, out of district trips. We've talked a lot about the fact that we do have our base pay and then drivers can do a lot more outside of that if they want to be paid um for additional work.
Any questions? Mrs. Shell and Starkey. Um I would just say preschool registration's going on this week. Kinder Kindergarten roundup was last week. So that's exciting. Um also a huge shout out to Jason and his staff. You know, it's not like they had to uh take out five or 10 phones. It was like five or 600 phones and replace them. >> 700. Okay, sorry. >> [laughter] >> So there you go. Um and then to come back, it's working on that front on that even that Saturday they're in here. And then the junior high is paging and the page is coming through at Logansport High School. And so anyway, but all those kinks have worked out and so now it's everybody just kind of getting used to, oh, my voicemail shows up in my email and all of those kinds of things but I honestly like it's been very smooth and that's because of Jason and his staff.
Kyle um to um share with us anything that you may have for the superintendent update. Thank you, Ms. Beckwith. So, we have a few things. Uh MCAS testing is happening at all levels. ELA uh MCAS will be wrapped up this week. We are participating in the biliteracy online testing for high school students now. Um we also just had our third in a series of five professional learning strands in the district for safe and supporting safe and supportive schools. Um we had High-Five Friday on Friday, April 10th, and we just wanted to thank our first responders for their collaboration and efforts to you know, build a positive relationship with our kids and um and it's always it's nice to to have them with us um as a partner. Um we've also completed an audit of all of our phone numbers and IP phones in the district.
care of. I mean, if we want to do that, you guys would have the ability to do that as well. So, I'll put that as the next board meeting and maybe visit with Ms. Branda just a little bit. Are you guys open to that at least a little? >> Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. And those are the items that I have for now. Uh they're going to bring that up during this open discussion. So, Okay. Board member report. I have a quick question is not really a board bit. On the summer school program, that 25 to 30 was that all CPES students or would that include Wilson students? That was only CPES. Was anything offered to the Wilson students after the summer school? I did not put it out there, but we can we can we can offer that. >> Right. Okay. Um I just hate to see them get left out of their education for all the kids.
We have allocated membership funding. And HVAC units for $75,000. We must have $400,000 in our capital reserve at all times for this. And you know, and this is just a standard practice in going to the law conferences, the Arizona Association of School Business Officials conference that Mr. Jay and I have attended, you have to have this designated reserve already prepared for it, because you have to use it. We had to use capital money for HVAC units the last year. We have to have our units working for us to be in compliance. The School Facilities Board is not allocating funding like this. So, I'm just giving you this perspective. Given our high-risk designation from the Auditor General risk analysis report, the Auditor General advises against districts using capital budget carryforward or reserves for discretionary projects. The Auditor General advises against districts using capital budget carryforward or reserves for discretionary projects.
The focus has been on what um we could be doing as far as taking our daughter out of the classroom. Um we've we've seen this as professionals that this is really a an obvious evidence that the teacher has not been able to build foundational trust and safety that's required and necessary for a healthy and functioning classroom. Um we have a lot of concerns about the way that the school has responded to this in light of many other allegations and things that have happened across state, across our nation and schools and the like. As somebody who works with victims of sexual assault, as somebody who has worked with trauma victims, it starts like this. It starts like with little boundary violations in a classroom with somebody saying, "Hey, I'm not comfortable." But then nobody doing anything about it. We bring all this together because like we said, we've we've tried, we've gone along the pathway of bringing these concerns up.
There's lots of things that need to happen with ECAs and weekend trips and then of course ultimately retention and recruitment. We've we've um continued to advertise. We've recently had about seven good applicants come in and three are going to be able to start right away. So I think we're having some good luck bringing people in and we need to make sure that we're keeping them here with us in Avon. So as we looked at this current pay structure, one of the things we tried to do is just outline exactly what was happening with each particular job band. So with each route that was run, they were called three tier routes before we started calling them 3x3, 2x two just to simplify what it is. So a 3x3 is three routes in the morning, three routes in the afternoon. Two by two by two is two routes in the morning, two in the middle of the day, two at the end of the day.
Like we could not ask for better technology staff. Uh wonderful. Right before spring break we had a successful reunification drill Logansport High School did in combination with lots of emergency management um folks in Cass County. So they simulated a chlorine gas leak in the pool. Um they had about 100 students that we evacuated to um Ivy Tech and so worked through lots of lots of different uh scenarios that we learned lots of things from it. Um and it was very it was very eye-opening and interesting. Now, evacuating a hundred students as compared to 1200 so this is just a little bite. Um and we try to do uh not try we do one reunification drill uh per year. So and I know Kelly and Amy uh from Columbia Elementary were there. They wanted to watch because I think they're going to be next. So [laughter] Kristen tell you that yet?
We're getting ready to convert to uh cloud-based telephone service in the future. So, we're busily uh preparing for that. The other thing that I I did want to share was that um last Monday, Senator Montigny's office contacted us asking us to submit a request. Um so, we we got the we got the message at 9:30 in the morning and we had to submit a request by 1:30 in the afternoon on Monday uh to submit something for the state Senate's supplemental uh budget bill. Which this is the first time that I've had that type of request. Um so, it it was great. Um they're utilizing the Fair Share Amendment millionaires tax um funds on transportation and education. So, they're they're using the supplemental budget bill to do so. Um he had requested $200,000 of of requests from Dartmouth. Um so, we submitted the school bus replacement and athletic and music equipment to um to Senator Montigny's office.
Right. So, just a little bit of a backstory on that. I know last year that there was only a few kids that went to the Wilson one. So, I think we maybe need to send something out to reach out to see if if they're interested in that opportunity. Yes. Um and then we'll have to kind of visit with parents about transportation and those sorts of things as well, but I don't to answer your question, I don't think anybody's reached out to them on that part of it yet. So, Okay. I did not. Okay. I thought we didn't want to send that out. Okay. Um so, I guess we'll kind of give report on Roughneck Reinforcers stuff and then it might also kind of transition to open agenda. Um Roughneck Reinforcers did have a board meeting last night and they did want um to ask permission.
Doing so could result in additional corrective action consequences and risk future funding. For reference, the State Board of Education in March of 2025 voted to withhold 3% of our maintenance and operations annual budget, $7,700 for the 2025-2026 school year, due to corrective action plan requirements from the fiscal year 2020-2021. You got it. I was in attendance at that meeting. I read my my my comments in the public to the audience. I was not given a chance to to try and do whatever I could to make it table the vote. They voted unanimously, 3% right away. They do that with no problem. Next steps could result in a 10% withholding of annual funding, which could prove devastating to our annual budget, which primarily funds our salaries and benefits for all the personnel. I I want to highlight that. Even though if if this would happen, the money would come from the capital.
We've asked for more intervention and yet we feel like nothing has really been done. So what we're really asking is for you to take a closer look at what the investigation has has entailed, um what the school has said that they've been documenting. We would like you to look at it since we were not able to look at it ourselves. Um and we would ask that you consider whether this is really um if the teacher has really earned his right to stay in the classroom despite several opportunities to be coached and to be given uh mentorship despite the fact that he does not yet have his license and as far as we know is not on the way towards getting his license and he may no longer be in the program. Thank you. Pat Fish. So I apologize for that. Uh I am a coach, I'm a community member, a pastor here in this community.
So we try and and each one um has a specific pay structure for that job band. We also have some who are doing, you know, and a lot of different um opportunities for drivers and some make the choice to only have two uh runs in the morning, two in the afternoon. So that's the four run. Um two tier is what we used to call it. Now it's just two by two. Um we have the three tier standby. That's a little bit more challenging. The 3x3 standby. They're sort of our subd drivers who will jump in and go anywhere. And and there's only a handful of them that that are able to really go to any jump on any route and just go and know exactly where the stops are in neighborhoods and and that's challenging. So there is a little bit of a premium for those those positions.
No, she actually didn't. She told us it might have been a you know a That's next year. for you So anyway it's been passed to us. Learned lots of things. So it was it was great. It was also cool to see our um fire uh safety kids at the Career Center. They were taking part in it. There they were in their student uh fire gear taking part. So it was it was great. Um and it was combination of lots of folks working together. Um Let's see. I wanted to also give you an update on the CEP program which is the community eligibility provision. As of when we look back and compare August to March from last school year to this school year we have served 28,586 more breakfasts and 30 Sorry. 36,184 more lunches. And we still have two full months to go. So that's pretty amazing, right?
We received word from the senator that um it was included in the budget, the state supplemental budget bill, and actually he amended it to be $270,000. Uh and the Senate voted to approve the amendment on Thursday. So, that's great. Um we'll have to see what happens with the rest of the legislative process, but uh the bus is about $150,000. That would leave about $120,000 for athletic and music equipment, things that we had on our capital improvement plan. So, we uh you know, we're we're incredibly grateful to be included in part of that process and and hopefully we uh we actually see that funding in the final version of the state budget. Um so, the the only other thing uh in terms of budgeting capital improvements that I wanted to mention is that we had received unanimous support by the Select Board to submit the statement of interest for the Dartmouth Middle School to the Mass School Building Authority, and we have done so.
They would like to do a digital screen in the gym. Like about the size of the the American flag or the scoreboard. Or somewhere around that size. Um but since it would, you know, actually require being wired in and some work. We wanted to make sure that we got permission from the school board to do that. They are going to be doing some electrical work due to the shot clock and stuff anyway. And it would be paid for by the Roughneck Reinforcers. So, it's not that they're asking for any money or anything, but so, that was one thing and then they did move to move forward with buying new seats, new chairs for like the volleyball team and stuff. Some padded ones kind of like Allen Wood has for theirs. Um We talked about new goals in the basketball because like all the side the side goals.
The Auditor General looks at our audit every year. They would see this. They would know that we're under corrective action plan with 3% being withheld. The penalty won't be to penalize us from capital, but it would penalize us from annual. And that's where most of our budget goes towards the salaries and benefits. This would be devastating. I I can't stress that enough. okay? Um we demonstrated collaboration with the booster club earlier and most recently at the January meeting our IT manager Mr. Simon provided us some AI-generated pictures and we can show them right now. See a picture of the way the booster club is in cooperation with the USD to place a memorial and the brick solid piece will be sold as part of the fundraiser to help with the football program and actually funds as my understanding so that the district would not have to use funding from the capital budget to help with the matching funds requirement for this football program.
My wife is way more put together and wrote out uh what needed to be said. But I will just say this, um we tried to do it the right way. We worked with the principal, we worked with Dr. Mitchell and everyone has been fantastic um in trying to again alleviate the stress. The reality is my daughter hates going to school. You all don't know my daughter but she loved school. She is her mother and was one of those kids that just loved to read, loved to not like me that wanted to run around, but wanted to be in school. That has been taken away from her. Fifth grade's hard and I get that fifth grade girls are hard. I'm learning that. But again, on spring break, when she's coming back to school, she's not worried about the drama that's waiting for her, she's worried about her teacher being inappropriate.
And we talked about part-time standby as well. And then also looking at, you know, just identifying sort of these extra runs and as we're short on drivers, there are times when drivers have to do these additional bits. If if they want to, and it's always their choice, but if they run a 3x3 in the morning and they've run their three different runs and they're finished, then they can always pick up another segment. Each time they do another segment, it's $37. In the past it it ranged from 30 to 37 and we just landed on we're just going to go with the highest number and make sure that they all make that amount. Um we and anytime outside of those job ban times there's there's extra hours. Sometimes they have to if they're cleaning buses or if they're calling parents or if they're doing some type of training there's additional hours that are work.