so this is an example of one that's a year further because we need them to have a full second year of school to know who stayed for that persistence Factor so this would be the cohort of 2019 and that those students who returned fall of 2020 which another thing to consider is there are some kids who even as upperclassmen may not have necessarily returned to school that following year and then this next one again breaks it down by um types of Institutions so you have public and private um the drop off for us that was a little bit higher was those number of students at private institutions um and whether or not they persisted that second year and here's our most common institutions um so the top two um are our obvious closest Community College Estrella Mountain and GCC our most common in-state University for public university is ASU and then NAU um our two highest private universities is Grand Canyon and Ottawa um I would be curious to see how Ottawa increases as we've built more Partnerships with them as a district in how close they are to us but you can see those are um the list of all of the universities and the number of students who have courses enrolled at those and of course a kid who's particularly a community college student might go to GCC for one class and another class at Estrella because they're close by so this is this could be multiple one student taking classes at multiple places um one great new thing we got this year is the Helios education center has partnered with Ade and with the State University so the information I'm going to share with you will the next couple slides reflects ASU U of A NAU and then all of the state um Community College Programs um including like Yavapai and um Central those all of those different programs and what they were able to do was get us way more in-depth information in terms of um what majors are kids earning when they get into college what are their full-time part-time status um what types of GPA do they have and then a slide we'll share a couple with you that share how our kids do when they take those one in 200 level classes compared to everybody else in the state who's taking those classes so the first is this is our state university feedback so 370 students from the cohort of 2018 went to our three state universities 41 of them entered with community college credits so that's a huge Testament to our dual enrollment program because the only other opportunity would have been if they chose to take something in the summer before they got there so a large number of our students who are going into the university are entering with college with college credits um and community college credits um of those cohort 2018 87 of them entered as full-time students and 80 of them had a 3.0 or higher GPA which means they're finding success when they get there um the top four majors sought by that group were the Bachelor of Science just general science Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of Science in nursing and a Bachelor of Science in engineering and the really nice thing um that we'll be able to get um and we're working on our four high school principals getting passwords now as well is they'll be able to see for their specific campuses and then you'll be able to do really great strategic College and Career planning so if one campus has a lot of kids that are going into a specific thing then you can really Target the conversations people are having with what they're where they're going when they leave us um so it'll be really good information for them to use as well so when our kids go to um the university I just pick classes that had high enrollment numbers from our camp or from our campuses so really common freshman sophomore level courses um biology chemistry physics math English and history um the First Column the enrollment success percent is the number of Dysart Unified School students who successfully complete and earn Credit in a course when they've enrolled in it and then the column the second column is the Arizona percent um average so you can see that we are at or above and all of them we're a little bit lower um in the first couple science classes but doing um very well in the humanities and English courses as well so this will be great information for Dr assai and I we actually scheduled with all of our curriculum Specialists to be able to say you know take this and if kids are struggling where do we need to redefine or look at our scope and sequences and things so that they can continue to work on those pieces so it's another way for us to use our data to inform our district so the Community College um this is looking at cohort 2017 we had 793 students who attended any of the AZ Community College public community colleges 62 percent of the kids enrolled part-time which I thought was really important because that when we look at one of the other slides from information provided by um the CTE programs is that students are working and going to school at the same time because um they are doing all their things Beyond just going to school full-time so the top degrees earned by them coming out of the Community College were Liberal Arts and Sciences General Studies and Humanities and physical science the other piece of information we get from the community college is what college certificates or industry credentials are kids getting and so the really the top ones that came out of the Community College was EMT and paramedic Corrections fire science and firefighting and criminal justice and safety studies which I thought paired we have several CTE specialty programs in our district that coincide with that so I thought that was a good reflection of the work we're doing here in the district and then similarly they provided us success information about our students who are enrolling in um Community College and these had some classes that were a little bit different in terms of high numbers or participation and again I think it reflects to our CTE programs the highest success rate and one of the most popular um disciplines for the Community College was Allied Health all of our high schools have some type of Allied Health program or CTE program that they work in um and our students are doing very well in those when they get to the Community College and then the other really popular ones were obviously the core required classes and then um computer science which students are doing very well in as well and then as I mentioned we get our CTE placement information and we share this with you at other times in the year as well but um one of the really important things that the CTE department does is when they um kids graduate they make those placement calls to follow up and find out so you've left us you've um done your CTE sequence what are you doing now and these are based on the far right column is that 2019 data um and you can see as I mentioned a lot of students who were in Community College part-time they're indicating they're more than 50 percent of our district students when they graduate are working so they're not going to full-time University and um getting to not have to work most of our kids are working which reflects that part-time Community College information you also can see there's been a little bit of increase in the number of students going into the military and um the number of students who are in post-secondary or trade school so when CTE collects their information they combine both universities and Trader technical schools together and then what are we doing to make sure kids are ready for post-secondary um so CTE has provided all of the um schools with major Clarity which is our tool for post-secondary planning our students do their e-caps in it there are great tools for um learning skills interest inventories thousands of universities they can research so if I know I want to go into veterinary medicine it gives you all that information about you know Public public private costs um you know is it in a tiny little town or is it in a big major city so all of that information is available to students in there and the counselors and teachers use that with the students both in their advisory hours and then when the counselors go out and do those lessons so those are um the major tool that we're using with our students to provide that post-secondary planning all of our high schools are right now in the middle of doing phospha nights getting kids to do that um financial aid planning and they've been able to as students finish that we are able to load it into our data warehouse so we can let schools know so you have fifty percent of your seniors who have completed the FAFSA here's the kids who have and haven't so they can be targeted in their response to students and making sure that kids are completing that important document because they may not think they want to go to college but even you may change your mind and you want to make sure that you have access to financial aid when you get there um all of them of course do College and Career nights College fairs we just had the big District's Expo um Dr Kellis just did a um super in 60 on our AVID program which is one of the greatest ways that we provide supports to students on preparing for college and then um that dual enrollment both AP and um dual enrollment classes AP classes CTE dual enrollment classes and all of those CTE fares so we have lots of different activities that occur to help us ensure that our kids are ready for post-secondary Success when they leave us and with that I will answer any questions so have we always had first of all thank you for your presentation have we always had um information from Helios no so this is something new they just released um uh Aaron the research coordinator and I went to a huge meeting with um them um ASU was there and then superintendents and directors across the state were there um and it's new this year and they're started with that 2017-18 and they're working their way so that we'll actually have multiple years of data I was going to say this is this is amazing to have this because it can give us a lot of reflective information um because it's one thing to find out which I still don't quite understand how we determine who we capture as far as you know who's like I I can personally say like I've never gotten anything from the district as far as okay where are you now as far as my two girls graduate from Dysart um so I don't I don't know how we make sure that we get this feedback from maybe every Dysart graduate but um that being said the whole knowing how we're doing so like for an example I'm pleasantly surprised about our English scores but Matt but math for an example are a little bit lower in some of the areas so hopefully we can take that into consideration and do what we need to do to then make some improvements to our math curriculum or programs is that is that like the purpose of it yep and then also um I wish and again I just wonder because again as as involved as I've been in the district I don't think I completely understood dual enrollment to where on the surface it was like well why would I pay for a dual enrollment class when I know in our situation my girls are going to get scholarships anyway and they're going to get it for free why pay for it well because then when you get a scholarship and if you go into a university or wherever with a lot of college classes under your belt perhaps that four-year scholarship now can you if you have two years out of the way can perhaps pay for two years of Masters yes not know that so hopefully too with this great information we can continue to educate our community and students as to why even if you think you're getting a scholarship why still how dual enrollment can really work for you but I really like the way that now we have this information because it's just so helpful to see where can we grow and what improvements and um um different supports we can put in place to make sure that if we are lacking in any areas we can prepare these students to do well post-secondary and I think really nice piece of the part where we saw those one in 200 level courses that takes out all our kids who took dual enrollment because they go in above so that's all of our students who didn't even take a dual enrollment class because they would have already had those experiences so that's saying I didn't even take a college level class in high school and I still was successful when I got there thank you um excuse me on scholarship information on all campuses what does that look like I mean I have to know to go to the counselor's office to pick up something or so there's a variety of different ways um there's evening events where they will do um kind of a with the phosphonite talk about different ways to apply for scholarships um all of the different counseling departments either have websites Twitter accounts various things where they advertise um what scholarships are available so kids know um most of the time when you walk through the scholar the counseling section there might be Flyers available for different ones that are available um or their advertising like I said through social media um in senior classes it's not uncommon to walk into senior classes and see such and such scholarships due on Friday or you know those types of things so they advertise a variety of ways but they also try to do it during night events so that parents know um you know here's how to apply for them these are the types of things that are available or um criteria that go along with those like scholar essays or or anything like that okay just have one quick question for you miss herchin um you were talking about students opting out of the national Clearinghouse what are some of the reasons why students opt out choosing not to share their data I mean I think probably just that privacy thing of not wanting to share information really kind of similar that they can choose to not have their parents see their grades or see access to any of those types of you know I think sometimes it's I'm an adult now and I'm not gonna that's my personal opinion I'm not gonna let anybody see how I'm doing for being honest so so with that said I don't I don't know if that's what you meant when you said that we can't tell if the students are employed or not depending on the privacy so how was that reported then the employment students who are working that comes from when um Jim's department and all of the teachers make all those phone calls um that's what students report the Clearinghouse information so if I'm a student and I go and enroll at ASU one of the things I do is whether or not I'm willing to have the Clearinghouse information shared back and so then the national Clearinghouse sends US Reports um a couple times a year that just gives us that information and that data couples not every University chooses to participate in the clearing house and then students may choose to not have their information shared back to their high schools okay um I guess what I'm asking is like um so I yeah I understand the phone calls and and the manual data reporting pieces um when you say that I think you said Helios is providing that information when it's available is that directly from FAFSA no so they're um reporting from what the universities those three just this three state and um so what they've given out in scholarship funds the information we get back is not individual student level we're getting big picture pieces they're not we don't get in a report that says Johnny Smith went to ASU this is Johnny Smith's GPA it's not Burger King correct no it's not that detailed it's a it's a summary of students who have had this school code on their transcript this is the data that relates to them um each of us have our own little high school code and that's what they pull that information off of and when do they opt into that information is it something they do when they're still in school saying hey I'll I'll go ahead and allow my information to be shared it's when they enroll out when they do the registration at the University level so it's some sort of form or something that they I'm gonna guess it's electronic now I'm I'm multiple years removed but anybody who's done it with their kids lately I'm assuming it's electronic all right thank you thank you moving to item H5 Dr Kellis thank you madam president members of the board members of cabinet Dr Dean will present this item good evening Madam president member of the governing board Dr Kelsey members of cabinet has previously shared with the governing board Karen winterstein will be retiring at the end of the school year capping a more than 40-year career in education Miss winterstein has served the Dysart Unified School District for 18 years and during her principal days was awarded the National Distinguished Principal of the Year award for the State of Arizona under Karen's leadership the student services department has become the One-Stop location for parents community members and administrators in dealing with many components needed to ensure our that our schools are safe it's been my pleasure to work with Miss winterstein directly for the last 18 years we're not here tonight to celebrate miss winterstein that time will come before the year is over this evening we're here to talk about how we move forward in the student services department with MS winterstein's departure Ms winterstein the student services department with Miss winterstein currently is a department of two with one vacant position Miss winterstein and an administrative assistant field hundreds of phone calls each week and just in the last three years those two positions have accounted for the following stats they have accounted for 3841 phone calls from the community to that department 760 emergency email notifications and facilitating the emergency response related to such 50 800 student 74 student referral assistants in which they work with our school administrator to provide proper facilitation and documentation for the referral as well as appropriate legal response and they've conducted fourth hour or worked with 4 303 student suspensions over three years including facilitation with our long-term suspension hearings assuring that we adhere to all legal processes in all processes within the school district as you can tell miss winterstein's leadership capacity will be greatly missed in order to effectively meet the growing needs of our school district as it relates to student safety and in conjunction with this increasing number that we see with student needs in the campus it's recommended that we restructure the student services department for the 22-23 school year in the following manner if we could please put the slide on the screen that would be great or I could just describe to you what the slide will say the recommendation is as follows that we would eliminate the current positions in the student services department all three of them which included the director of student services the support services safety coordinator position and the student services manager that currently exists that would be a budget decrease of approximately 253 thousand it's also recommended that we restructure that department then with the following pieces we would have a director of student services for middle school and high school a director of student services for K-8 schools and an administrative secretary to position those positions would result in an increased mno cost from what we're paying currently on an average of approximately forty thousand dollars as the number has been provided from human resource I'll be more than happy to answer any questions as we propose restructure of a student services department okay I'm confused already so you said in the beginning that it was a staff a director and the administrative secretary that yet here we see a support manager and a safety specialist so is that in addition to Madam president member Grant if I um use the word secretary in their current structure I apologize that would have been misspoken currently the position yeah currently in the department we have three positions right we have a director of student services which is Miss winterstein Miss winterstein has an assistant who is the support services manager thank you yeah I didn't you didn't say secretary I apologize you said assistant and that's where I got confused with there's no assistant here so that's the support services manager correct and then the safety and compliance specialist is bacon that is a vacant position and then the director of student services for high school and middle school is that one position that would be one position so we what we're recommending is two directors and one administrative secretary for the restructure of the position so there would be a director of student services for Middle School slash High School and then a director of student services for K-8 schools supported by an administrative secretary 2 position and then it's increasing forty thousand so what is the current budget minus the 253.
so the the current the current three positions account for approximately 253 000 budget capacity we are we are representing on this slide eliminating that to appropriately show that that would remove that department and that department cost but then in bringing those positions back on the bottom half of that slide it would be we would return that budget amount and increase by approximately forty thousand dollars so the 253 is coming back in it would come back in yes for the entire department that's because I couldn't figure out how we could yes correct through those three positions for forty thousand dollars that would be a magic act it was I was gonna thank you I'm sorry I was just confused no worries and I apologize if I provided confusion no putting it down to the other three positions and we want to increase that budget by 40 by 40 000 yes correct and that would be an m o cost correct Mr Hicks I have a couple thoughts or questions with that um on the surface I always feel I'll say sorry for a bit lack for a better word sorry for people who do a wonderful job for a certain salary and then they leave and then there's added supports or money like I feel bad for that um my you know I wish we could have given Karen a forty thousand dollar increase rather than lose her um but aside from that piece of it in principle I'm concerned that we're getting rid of a safety and compliance specialist just in today's day and age and also just wondering in general again because we know that I mean we have round about the same amount of students I know we've structured it out differently to where now it's like well we have middle school buildings K buildings and high school buildings but it's still I think round about our enrollment is the same um I don't know why we need to if anything why not just take that salary and and restructure it in an equitable an equitable way to between those two positions but definitely not get rid of the safety and compliance specialist like I'd like to know more about why we think getting rid of safety and compliance is a good idea Madam president member Pritchard thank you for the question there excellent question the safety and compliance specialist has been vacant for two and a half years the responsibilities related to the safety and compliance specialist are being absorbed by the director of student services all of those responsibilities are being completed by Miss winterstein currently and those responsibilities Would Not Fade Away with the restructure they would be appropriately allocated to either the middle school high school person or the KA person to answer your question in terms of the need for two separate pieces similar to the restructure of Educational Services a few years back where we brought a director where we had one director for curriculum in the past and we split that into a director of curriculum for high school and a director of curriculum for K-8 schools the needs of middle school high school differ from the needs of our K-8 schools and the responsibilities related to each director would reflect those needs as well but Karen but miss winterstein's been doing that both right that is correct so what would it look like if we did not increase our budget by forty thousand dollars and work with what we had because the other piece too is I I we haven't done it in a while but I always hesitate on becoming a top heavy school district and adding too many directors and um because we've seen that Miss winterstein has been successful for all these years in her current role managing all of that I'm just wondering why we would necessarily need to jump to an extra forty thousand which is a teacher position actually around a coastal teacher position um when we know that the responsibilities have been done extremely well by one person Madam president miss Pritchard a couple of pieces first I would indicate that we run very lean administratively in our budget percentage compared to other school districts and if incredibly lean compared to Charter Schools the second piece I would indicate is that the job has been done incredibly well by Miss winterstein incredibly well I have made every attempt that I possibly can to convince her to not retire I believe she still has eight years left in her and I continue to work every day to talk her out of of retiring however I understand and and wish her great success in her retirement I'm a little bitter that she's retiring but we'll get over that because she's so she is so extraordinary in her position Miss winterstein is doing the work of multiple people as we have several directors that do and I understand your concern related to a person leaving and then a recommendation to replace them with more staff I completely understand that the recommendation is a compliment to miss winterstein and a concern for our ability with capacity to move forward with the current structure of the of the department I just don't know how it's a compliment like I wonder if she would have stayed if she would have gotten more money she would have she would not have had she let me rephrase that in our conversations she would not have however I can't speak for Miss winterstein directly I'm not putting her on the spot I'm just thinking out loud it's just anyway those are my another 40 Grand and I also you know do we need I I guess you know I feel like we're being redundant we have director of student services for high school middle school and then director of services for K-8 which is overlapping the same grade levels so if we want to have a director of students for high school and middle school and then a director of or a director for high school and then director for K-8 you know if you want to divide that up however you want to but I I guess I'm just a little cautious of increasing by another 40 Grand why can't we just take that budget that we have stick it into what stick it into that next column and then divide it up however you want Madam president miss Chapa that certainly is an opportunity I will tell you that the positions that currently exist are differentiated in the salary structures the I believe that there are all three exempt positions however each pays a different level so in terms of taking that 253 thousand dollars and dividing it by three that's not something that would be in our current structure our current structure has a director at the top of that department and then who certainly would be the highest paid position in that department and then two positions that that in which the pay scale is less than the director position well could we just change the service for high school and 4k8 Madam president miss Chaffin I would encourage the district not to consider lessening the position that heads that department of less than a director position okay not being defiant but can you just explain to me why the amount of responsibility that is associated with that position qualifies for a director level position Miss Chapman if I could jump in there um a lot of our administrators look to this position for guidance at the school level and typically when a principal is seeking guidance that guidance should come from somebody with a higher level of administrative responsibility than um than a manager and as we are considering the needs of the district as the board is very well aware of this week particularly you can imagine the the demand upon the department is great it's not just with taking phone calls if it was just taking phone calls that'd be great but it's taking all of the if you can imagine we have 23 000 students one person is taking all the complaints that's overwhelming then you add on the administrators who need supports legal legal Direction then you add in the the Safety and Security of the district responsibility for all of our safety plans our emergency preparedness as we work with fire police and then you add in all the social workers which is also under this department these are a lot of responsibilities we could push these off of the position and give them them up to other people but this recommendation is based on what our current needs are because in the past social workers were supervised by ESS man president in the far past perhaps in the most recent past they were under Federal programs and then under student services this is 2013-ish 16.
yeah it's years ago and then can I ask reference and pay grade between the director and a manager Madam president Miss Chapman I would defer to Dr crotto I have to research that can I ask this while you're looking this up the director of student services for K-8 would be just for those Ka schools correct Madam president Mr seenfield that would be for the K4 and the K-8 schools as the name correct as the needs we are finding there are different needs but in with students who are in the seventh and 8th grade at K-8 schools as opposed to those in Middle Schools okay and right now miss uh winterstein although I do have some rope in the car we can we can tie her to the chair um the safety and compliance piece you know I I share Miss uh pritchard's issues with that but um those issues are being looked at by Miss winterstein right now that is correct we are not missing a beat all right just wanted to make sure thank you so in theory though since that position has been vacant and there's a salary attached to that position already if Miss winterstein's been doing or if this story let's just talk as far as a position this position has been absorbing those responsibilities of the safety and compliance specialist then technically that salary is still available to her if you wanted if you were going to eliminate that position you could take that extra and filter it to the two different positions if you wanted to but still staying within that 250 000 Madam president miss Pritchard the budget uh approximation of three two hundred fifty three thousand dollars includes an encumbered amount for that position so it's being held even though nobody is the salary for that position is still held in our budget even though it's vacant so the 253 thousand dollars in the First Column um for elimination include the salaries of this director of student services the support service manager and the safety and compliance specialist salary that we have on hold that's what I understand I understand that piece of it what I'm saying is though feeling like there's a lot of F plates where if we split it into two technically some of that money who's that's being held it's not being spent in that safety and compliance specialist if you wanted to you would be able to increase the salaries of those two other positions and still stay within that 250 000 correct rather than increasing it by another forty thousand Madam president miss Pritchard the the amount would still be approximately 253 000 regardless of how you sliced it but down here at the bottom with the proposed proposed going to be a budget increase forty thousand dollars that's what it says the the difference in Pay between the safety and compliance specialist and another director is approximately forty thousand dollars Madam president members of the board what I'm they promise um but can you tell me how many um positions report into the director of student services Madam president miss Densmore the director of student services currently oversees two positions in the school district yet supports 23 000 students all of their parents and all of the school administrators in our school system as well and and thank you for bringing that up the social workers are housed under student services yet they are evaluated by the school principal is that correct they're evaluated by the school principal yet they are overseen in general by Miss winterstein okay so in the overseeing of the social workers how much of a if you could quantify that in a day or a week or a month I mean how much time would you be spending on social workers sorry good evening Madam president governor rumors um I've been chomping at the bit back there because and I don't know if I'm stepping out of line um I you're leaving that's right yes I am I love my job but it is truly my life has been consumed by this job for eight years and if I had had another cohort person to help me I could stand up here and say without a shadow of a doubt every single one of my dozens of responsibilities would have been done at a hundred percent capacity there are days when I don't get to everything parent phone calls admin phone calls I get to every one of those every single day emails but as far as the safety compliance specialist we did hire a person in that capacity um I believe part of that might have been a flaw maybe on my part because just as Dr Dean had alluded to to work and provide guidance for our site administrators every day it I don't I could never have done this job unless I walked in their shoes for over a dozen years I was an administrator for 18 years and there's no way that I could have provided the necessary guidance unless I had that background and the person that we hired was fantastic at safety compliance absolutely no experience in a school setting or had never been an administrator before so it there just wasn't that same relationship or trust that was able to be built upon so I truly believe that to separate the responsibilities of the director of student services into two separate positions and please note that there would be an emphasis um different emphasis with with each person that has not been finalized we have we've started a conversation about what it could look like but of course we would never move forward with that conversation without um and the the reorg approved by the governing board but I Envision it as you see that K4 that K-8 position so much of that especially with the new laws in place that would really focus on the PBIS aspect the alternatives to suspension because that's where that's needed in that grade level band whereas maybe more of the safety compliance might fall more heavily in the middle school and high school position but that discussion will take place once the reorg is approved and then all of the dozens of responsibilities that fall in this department can be delineated they would definitely have categories that they would both equally provide the schools that are assigned to them and then there would be overlapped too such as if there is a an emergency or heavy need in there gosh you have another person to to collaborate and work with would be amazing and I hope that gives just a little bit of oversight I apologize the social worker question as with any one of the responsibilities that fall on my plate it depends on the week or the day I don't talk to a social worker every single day but I am responsibility for their professional development calendar their PLC groups I meet with them monthly I also communicate with them regularly so that expectations alignment of understanding those kinds of I'm responsible for that but there is a social worker lead who also provides that support to the group who I communicate with almost on a daily basis thank you and just to clarify Mr Dean and governing board members I don't I don't care whether it's split into two positions like I can understand where you're coming from sunshine I'm just asking that the district try to work within the world budget I understand thank you yes ma'am which one numbers did you want um what is the difference in pay grade for director versus manager please a director is on the admin schedule um so they start at 91 774 and that's without benefits there's nothing and the safety and compliance and the student Support Services managers are hourly they're on the exempt hourly exempt scheduled and uh they are on level V which is 23.21 an hour so roughly then if you multiply that out what is that per year like 40.
48 roughly with Benefits you add benefits into those numbers show benefits the 253 shows benefits in all those areas so 253 Madam president miss Pritchard just for also for clarification that the starting level one that Dr crota mentioned Miss winterstein expressed the the need for somebody with experience um so we would be looking for an experienced principle to to fill this position although that would still I mean I understand what you're saying um it's not probably a perfect numbers game but even two positions at 90 000 or 90 I guess 91 so and plus a forty thousand dollar uh job that's like 221 thousand dollars which is still under that 253. so that sort of that's the only way that's where my head's at so I'm gonna be looking to see if we can use fit work within our current budget as opposed to increasing it a teacher's salary Madam president member Pritchard those numbers that you see up there include benefits so it would be well above that when you include benefits that 253 includes uh the benefit packages so the numbers I shared with you do not have benefits in them so if you if you sorry rounded those by the time you put about 33 percent in the benefits you're about at 292.
and that's if we added another director level correct position as opposed to a manager yeah these are bottom this is not the top of the director so correct and and for experiences so we're not looking for somebody to come in at the 91 774.
we're looking for someone to come in with several years experience so that's going to increase our cost even more if we have two director positions which I completely understand the need for it because God bless you Mrs winterstein for all of the work that you're doing and it is insane how much you get done on a daily basis so I completely understand your desire to split this up into two 100 understand that need I am so on board with that I'm still having this conversation with numbers like Dr Kella said um you know I do share Miss pritchard's concern about increasing another teacher's salary foreign this is an information item only and we presented this to board exactly for this conversation and to receive your feedback thank you very much thank you I had one question also um once we get everything squared away um this would be opened to um industry would we be trying to tap in District administration okay we would be seeking the most highly qualified person for the position okay thank you so we'll advertise externally as well Madam president miss Pritchard we will advertise with HR internally and externally is there a reason why it's an administrative secretary too and not a one I I just was curious Madam president Miss Grant the administrative secretary 2 position allows for the opportunity to operate on the same calendar as the directors of student service as opposed to as opposed to not being available at all times the directors are available thank you okay thank you all right moving on to Ida information item six Dr Kellis Madam president and members of the board and members of cabinet Mr Hicks will present this item good evening Madam president members of the board superintendent Dr Kellis colleagues and community members last month the district released us released a survey to help get some input on the capital needs and a potential bond to our community helping requesting to get some feedback and some input into making a recommendation as noted in the survey only the governing board can call or place the bond question on a ballot traditionally school districts would put together a committee a bond committee maybe solicit 15 to 20 community members to provide some input and help guide it some districts just bypass that all together so there's no one general standard way last time we did do the community members 15 20 trying to get more community members this is a little bit different take and so we um posted the survey out on our website promoted it through social media email tax press release newspaper social media social media social media push push push and we put it out for 18 days we had a total of a thousand respondents and one question we did ask to help differentiate it provide some information is how many people if those that are responding do you have a direct connection direct connection means do you have somebody in your household that either attends or works for Dysart School District so we can differentiate between those people and those that have no direct connection with the Dysart School District and so the other thing was we identified 10 projects to place out in the survey and the respondents could put a value of anywhere between one and ten one being the highest priority 10 being the lowest priority on in rank value each project that did not require the respondents to provide a unique number meaning you could only have one one one two one three so it did not Force rank it in and so they could put 10 on every project and say none of these are a priority or they could put one on every project it's a everything's a priority and just looking at some of the results or looking at the results not everybody responded to every question so of the Thousand fifteen I don't know that there was over a thousand respondents on every single question or project identified and there was also just a quick little summary of each project of what that entailed so we're going to just go through a little bit of the results and some of the input that we received from this survey looking at it I'm just looking at all the response a thousand people that responded how many had of these projects had the number one ranking listed for these projects so safety security was the number one with over 350 respondents saying that that is the number one most important thing next with site improvements High School land and student transportation so you can see the top four there if you're looking at for a differentiator for I mean a 250 was the line right there that you can see is a little bit of a break that you have those top four but clearly Safety and Security was number one then we just just looking at how many had 10 what was uh what projects got the most tens and so if you look at all the projects too clearly Stand Out is Athletics which had turf fields involved in it and Performing Arts centers which had the Vista a little component of the restrooms on the Vista also identified in it but those two had over 160 so they clearly had the most least prioritized projects of the 10 that were presented to the community also just looking uh wanted to look at some of the results and seeing let's just look at the three highest so total how many people put a number one rank it the most important how many people put a number two ranking the second most important and then number three the third most important so if you could see once again Safety and Security continues to be the number one site improvements number two and student transportation number three four and five are pretty close High School land and then technology so looking at okay so these were the three highest I then wanted to look and say what about the four highest and does that change anything and so then now adding up to four if it was ranked either one two three or four add up the total of votes Safety and Security still number one very close with site improvements student transportation number three so not changing and high school land number four so there's a common theme of where you could see a prioritization I did not go to number five because on this scale you had one's a high priority ten very low priority there was a large number of fives placed and fives just my interpretation was they're neutral so this wasn't advocating for or against anything they're just saying seems okay but I don't know enough give it a five so I did not want to include the number fives in here because it would bring everything closer together because there's just a lot of fives given across the way so really just looking at these four are standing out as the safety Security Site improvements student transportation and high school land we also received some feedback from the emails that were forwarded to me I think there were posts on website or emails directly really just a lot of good comments so we did have an open comment section so some asking specifically don't do this if the ROI is not there don't do trans technology because the books die before the bonds are paid I mean just some very intelligent uh conversation comments um there's a few bad bad bad there was a few I hate all bonds there's a few I hate all taxes but there were a lot of just good comments um within it we had about 400 that provided comments on the survey and um uh and I thought they were very useful I would say a lot of the comments actually were talking about student growth and so although an elementary school did not rise up to the level was not placed in there that doesn't surprise me because 80 percent of the people currently are tied to the district now which means they probably want their school or their site identif addressed before a new school is built in that sense just a interpretation we could all have our different interpretations of of that and so it did not come but I thought this was a very good information I got a thousand pieces of data coming in to help influence a recommendation and so we wanted to present it to the board have it listen to any comments or questions but the anticipation would be this will help frame a recommendation that would come back to the governing board in January regarding a bond question so I'll stand for any questions could you talk about Safety and Security was it just that's the question every project had just a very small so one of the things is um I don't know about you but when I'm doing surveys I hate very long surveys and so we're trying brevity was very important and so we're just trying to give very quick little Little Couple sentences and so with Safety and Security would be talking about increa um and proven to our district school sites and buildings to improve would be fencing and proof fencing keyless building access so we don't have enough key card accesses right now so and then also safe and secure places within the building and so just general statements it did have dollar amounts to all of them so they were just broad estimates we have not gotten quotes or gone down the path of any major to identify it's just in general what would this cost just with Ball parking it just to get an estimate so that they could make a judgment on some of these and is there a reason why um I see like when you say Elementary School number one Northwest number two that's to build another Elementary School is there a reason why the choice wasn't on there to build a middle school um that was some comments um in the report or at the end was to ask why wouldn't we be building a middle school in that sense um there is no great reason of why I was putting together an elementary school the list of what our needs are and so that could definitely be a consideration I was just curious as to I mean now that we've gotten got to adding a middle school year and there Madam president members of the board that was probably my own biases in that that we have Pairs and we've got feeders and so it's not off the table we could definitely talk as we'll put it together for a recommendation in January we'll definitely take that feedback under I was just curious yeah what was the reason for not having a committee so we've had committees in the past and you're getting 15 to 20 people's opinion that's got a thousand and so the thought was I think I've heard criticism you know I internalize a lot of when bonds fail and and how and what I look at other districts I go through there seems to be a criticism of whenever you have a committee that the Committees the deck has been stacked and you got only people that care about it so this allowed us to get more opinions so those people that don't like it instead of just getting yes people we wanted to hear from all people thank you [Music] and I'm really happy to see that Safety and Security is one of the the high priorities of the community but I do wonder I mean with your um explanation just now with the Safety and Security maybe with the fencing and the technology with the the key tags not to say that those things are not important because I think that they are um but I wonder if some people in our community have a different mindset of what Safety and Security means maybe they might mean increase in Social Workers maybe they might mean additional school resource officers but you didn't touch on that so and we all know that a bond doesn't cover things like that but some people in our community tend to confuse over rise and bonds pretty often it's pretty common theme so I I would like to know a little bit more about that maybe see maybe the comments will answer that what they mean um Madam president members of the board I mean I read all the comments okay there's a lot I can't remember all of them to know if it will answer that question specifically but I will say we did spell out right before the question exactly what this means or is similar what it means and know where where they're people involved and so I I don't necessarily know but I don't know that there wasn't a comment about that so see in the comments we'll help you also formulate that but so I think if we were framing it um properly but I live in this world and make assumptions and I use ackerman's acronyms and everything the alphabets all over the time so I don't want to presume everything on that so that's good feedback too um it was the capital needs survey to um it just clarified I'm looking for the front page that the district's Capital needs and get their opinion the help frame a recommendation to the governing board because only the governor board can call for a bond all right I don't have the first page Madam president no okay do we think that that would be important to see how much Community Support we would even have because how much does it cost to even put a measure on the ballot like um last time it was I think two dollars per registered voter I think we have a hundred thousand registered voters so two hundred thousand dollars roughly so what changes with every election but we might want to have that information I mean I I see what you're saying about um getting more respondents through the survey because you have a thousand versus the 15 to 20.
but um the community the the bond committee was you know actually able to hear some of that discussion and the thought process to see like would they really get behind it just even though I mean just with 15 to 20 people it's also not a representative sample of our entire Dysart Community just like a thousand people aren't a representative sample but I'd be interested to know if that question was posed to them would they would they be interested in supporting a bond measure and the only other thing that I would ask I know there was reference to a January meeting I would prefer that we have some information around this prior to an action item to put it I mean I need to have the information have some time to process it before I would come back and know right away okay I want to support it or not thank you if that's possible thank you yes I also have a question what prompted us to send out a survey was that just because we didn't want to we're bypassing the committee um there was no Madam president members of the board no bypassing a committee there was no committee to bypass it was to get input to help make decisions uh recommendations to the government board to our community about our Capital needs and so this was just one way of collecting that information so you're just collecting the information to to make a presentation for recommendation to the governing board I think that would be a good piece I I still go back to what I had said I'd really like to know whether it be through a follow-up question or we have a bond committee still just to because if our community if our community isn't behind it then it's a waste of two hundred thousand dollars just to put it on and I'd also like when you guys gather the information to bring to the information item in January if you wouldn't mind also including information about our bond committee I don't know what you call it Community like a pack or like what it and I know we're not really involved in that piece of it technically but how it's going to be marketed or can't be like who's who's going to be spearheading that and how that's going to roll out the approach to that the organization of all of that Madam president members of the board so first I would start with I don't think I should do a follow-up question we have engaged um a company to do some surveying for us if we do that they get better accurate demographics part of the committee problem is we get people that support schools that want to do this that want to say yes and so as you look at some of the comments there's a ton of yes yes yes I support everything every single time it's blindly we would get a lot of that because that's their interest and so this allowed us to get a little bit more that's not always those that are for it but as far as getting information on does what our community support this support meaning the successful passage of a bond means that we would need someone to get the survey data out to the representative of our electorate and so you would need a good cross sampling of the various Depo parties in that sense and those that are expected to vote and so I would I would say we would need to hire somebody to do that an outside person and not me just sending a a survey question that would probably not get that information in that sense okay well like and I you can do that for a living so I understand however you feel like the proper way to do it I sorry however that works I my main thing is just getting the information somehow to get an understanding of where the community sits with it but I remember when we were going over the results of um I think it was the year we went for an override and a bond and one of we had a workshop and one of the things that I had suggested is specifically reaching out to the parts of members of our community that had there was a lot of no votes and finding out and learning why they voted no what could bring them to a yes you know what just to kind of break down some of those barriers so as far as getting a representative sample I understand like the district seems to use a lot of the same people for their committees um which I side note would like to change I want to get more of a representative sample but I I understand you went to those same people I understand you're saying like they'll always say yes as far as doing things to support the schools possibly I shouldn't say always lots of times because they want to you know provide better transportation and um building improvements and things so that's why I think it's still important because the members that vote no are still valued members of our community and still want to be able to get their feedback we have that information aren't we able to reach out to them not just the the community members that we typically have on our committees um so Madam president members of the board I've had two override Bond committees and never had the same outside of the designated DEA represent and others almost at no point are they the same committee so I don't have I've only done it twice I haven't had the same people on my committees maybe committees the wrong one because it seems like there's always the same players around our bonds and overrides so maybe we're taught maybe I'm not communicating president just for clarification are you talking about the the pack are you talking about the committee who would be making a recommendation I'm sorry yeah well both the earlier part of my question had to do with the pack and wanting to know how it's going to be organized this year but the specific specific question is yeah just making sure we have a representative sample but if you're saying those people are always different and they're not the same then okay then okay you would know that the committee as a district than when we put together to determine if we're going to make a recommendation to the governing board for a bond and override those committees I've done twice and they've been different people except for a couple Representatives standard people that we have on our DEA representative or DSA representative so there's only a couple people that are the same the others have both in those two committees have been different and we posted it on our website for interest yeah and collected everybody and ran those can those committees that way so interesting then that you you'd still think that a lot of them are always going to give like the the support because they're involved like if it's just a random sampling um it's interesting that there's not you're saying they're usually always supportive they usually are yeah because sometimes our results don't show that um when you have 15 people that's from an email or a Facebook post if you want to you know show up at this time that's not a representative sample of the people that are intended to vote of registered voters electorate that will vote yes that is correct however you think would be best I just if possible I just like to know what the community thinks as part of the present as part of the information bring brought back to the board to make the decision well and I would like to Echo Miss Pritchard I would like more information also but I think when we ask the community for their input we also need to give them the information on how much we spend an interest on our current Bond we need to give them information on the bond we already are paying on how much interest how much it's cost the duration of it so we need them to know like the whole picture like we've got this Bond over here are you okay with us asking for another Bond over here because we pay a boatload of interest on these bonds every single year us taxpayers I'm not sure how you would word if I'm understanding what you're asking I mean I get it kind of like I want to know ahead of time if this is going to pass or not but to me it would be very difficult to go back out and say would you support a bond well that's what we need to know because well wait a second I want to know what that money is going to be used for I mean my first instinct is going to be why so you have to be able to go back and say we would like to do a bond if we did a bond on one to give them four or five things otherwise somebody's gonna say well why are you doing a bond well we have we have that information now right the top three but we don't know if you send this back out who the people aren't going to know what you just can't say do you support a bond you'd have to say would you support a bond to build another school would you support a bond right Transportation safety and school side improvements that's where you're leaning right is that what this presentation is about Madam president members the board based on the data we now do have some information what I'm hearing is that we need to do new different surveying polling of registered voters to likely now that we've narrowed this down for example technology so many people not wanting it technology is out Athletics is out performing so we've now used information to narrow this down to a list that now we could work with our um the vendor to look at doing some surveying or pulling of our district to see if they would support this and get that information yeah that's what I would like can you clarify what the the timeline is um as far as requiring a vote to get it in time to the county um superintendent to be on the ballot Madam president members of the board the legal and I don't know the exact date so I'm just going to give you some ballpark ballpark Board needs to vote on it before by the first week in June would be the time it has to be finalized so there are some sometimes additional information so it allows us to the end of June to finalize that so that attorneys and other things could finalize everything the first week of July so June okay um you always hate to wait until the very last meeting for something in case something happens in the board meeting so I've always pegged the end of May is kind of the get the question in front of the board that was my next statement I just I I don't want to be waiting until the last minute and it being up to us to not table it to make a rash decision and sometimes without all of our information or all of our questions being answered um so if you can help us prepare for that as best you can I I it's I would appreciate that okay I also think it's important to ask tasks payers if they want us to spend the money to put the bond on the ballot because that is a significant amount of money that taxpayers may not always be aware of so I feel like in addition to current Bond information how much interest we spend in the past few years on this Bond how the duration of it I think it's also important to ask them if they want us to spend taxpayer money putting it on the ballot because that would give us an indication whether or not they our community wants it on the ballot without actually asking them would you support this Bond I feel like that makes a difference does that two hundred thousand dollars include if we have a governing board election um it might reduce it a little bit the the even year election with it being uh all the different things so it'll be on it we'll share some cost so it might come down a little bit but we still pay if we have two or three openings and we have six people running as a district we still have to pay to get the candidates on the ballot Madam president members of the board we pay some this adds to that cost I'm just saying yeah I don't want to say that 200 thousands are cost no matter what to say that this there is a realistic cost to asking the question and so but this is that's a question we could also feed to our pollster as they're going out they could find out that information as well we're going to feed the information or the question to your pollsters we could that's what no about the cost of the the question that you said let's ask our community if they want to put the bond on the ballot with the cost knowing that there's a cost to the question will you identify that cost to them I feel like transparency is a win for us because if our community is fully aware of needs wants and the cost they can make that decision on whether or not they want a us to put it on the ballot and B if they want to if they want to pay the extra taxes so as long as we present them a whole picture I feel like they'll be better and informed voters and that will give us an idea that will help us gauge what our community wants Mr Hicks have a question for you um on our website where it says District budgets and finance reports one of the quick link says the current Bond information is that information about the interest um yeah quick link Madam president members of the board last time I clicked on it that was just our 2006 Bond program and updated so that people knew because although it was approved in 2006 the expenses ran out to probably 2010 2011 and so they had all the projects in that okay so it's not part of the the link in there okay um thank you very much for all your comments and input Ed for a second I'm gonna be disrespectful okay as as Governor board clerk I'm calling for a recess sure foreign yes she's like I know I'm gonna call the meeting back to order thank you for your patience and while we recessed so we're going to be moving on to item H7 Dr Kellis thank you madam president members of the board and members of the cabinet Mr Hicks will present this information thank you very much good evening Madam president members of the board superintendent Dr Kellis colleagues and community members at the request of a board member I will talk about our protocols our process and laws regarding governing board expended or governing expenditures first it is identified in the uniform system of financial record keeping the usfr and also supported by Statute that all expenditures are required to be approved by the governing board this includes both accounts payable and payroll expenditures in addition the usfr looks to verify that the district has effective controls to ensure that expenditures are for allowable purposes I mean they're legal and compliant Auditors will verify that the process demonstrates transactions are properly approved and are for an amount within the budget capacity or available cash and also that our system and process is there to protect employees from allegations of misuse that everything's done proper and flows you know the approved manner the district has a process in place to separate responsibilities so different people preparing the voucher are record keeping different authorization who's approving different ways different things along the way amongst our staff we have budget control groups that are in place that we utilize in our software that allows us to ensure that there's budget capacity and or cash balances available prior to approving any of those purchase orders and or authorizing expenditures and approval structure is based on our account code and that creates a routing process to help ensure that the appropriate People review and approve all the expenditures districts are also required to create a process to ensure that the accuracy of the expenditures this accuracy of the invoices done and is also helping with assisting and preparing the voucher and is also completed and reviewed by staff a process is also in place to help reduce the risk associated with payroll expenditures the epar process helps us ensure that this happens on the payroll side and this entails staff reviewing documentation verification approval and approvals to ensure that employees are appropriately compensated reviewing time cards reviewing position or position or supplementary compensation approvals the district is required to implement a delayed payroll system which we do for our hourly staff and then also allowed allow adequate time for any payroll adjustments within our payroll process so these processes are in Pro in place to put in that we put in budgets in detail and we use the software to ensure that they are maintained we have various people various stages I know that's a various various comment of people that are looking at different things our approval routing process you could have a federal project expenditure go through and maybe six seven people look at it for various things to make sure it's compliant it's won't even allow them to enter it if there's not budget capacity and so we use our software to make sure that it routes to the right people to review it for the right purpose and then ensures that it goes through in in a compliant way um we make sure that we're in compliance with all of our usfr and other statutes via our Auditors come in and randomly test a lot of our transactions to ensure that's happened and that they're in compliance with all federal state regulations in order to complete these process in timely manner we do have vouchers that are identified to be ratified by the governing board so I know I just went through verbally really quickly a long process that is a bureaucracy that we create within the business system that slows things down to make sure that things are done in a proper and appropriate Manner and so hopefully the summary helps with the discussion with the governing board on our expenditure vouchers thank you for providing that account information actually um what triggered this question for me and I figured well it might be just good discussion not just just wondering if the board had similar question but then also for our community to understand um was after the last meeting when we were taking action on the nsba membership piece where we approved that expenditure in the consent agenda and then when we later voted to end our membership and there was discussion about obtaining a refund I was like well if we just approved it then the money shouldn't have gone out yet so there'd be no reason to look for a refund so I figured I must be missing something um because I or help me understand Community understand if the board has to approve these costs then why would we have been in a position to where we need to ask for a refund because in theory maybe it shouldn't have been paid yet if we hadn't approved it yet I uh Madam president members aboard I think I heard a lot that I was trying to make little notes of and so I might not have caught everything so please ask follow-up questions but so how does it go out because we do have a ratification process so expenditures happen um and so that allows us to still get the governing board approval for expenditures while still operating The District in an efficient manner efficient manner is paying bills on time so if it was once we expend something or once we produce a purchase order and we send it out we now have a legal liability to pay for that expense that expense is verified on the front end during the routing process of a purchase order to verify that there's budget the budget has been approved by the board so we approve it in total where the budgets are in some lines and so that there is money that it is illegal and compliant so we have people looking to make sure that it's legal and appropriate and compliant and so it goes through those vetting processes once a purchase order is issued we now are legally it's a legally binding contract purchase orders are and we're legally liable to pay that we a lot of them are net 30 days so we have 30 days to make these payments a lot of them we use ebts or our P cards to make payments which then the payment of the credit card is even delayed another month after that and so a lot of these are coming in after for the board to ratify those expenses okay so I think you clarified a key piece so these expenses were probably in some line item in the budget that was board approved so in theory that you're not as long as you don't go over that line item amount for whatever that category is than any of the Little individuals uh Ticky talk type expenditures along the way as long as they fit in there they've already theoretically been approved in a sense to where the fact that you're paying them before the board approves them really isn't an issue because we've when we approve the budget we've approved that um that payment expense um Madam president remember what yes Essence in essence yes because the board's approving and you can see an m and others on that page two of the budget there are all those different categories have what it purchase Services how much and purpose services in the classroom at the administration at the executive Administration so there are the governing board when they approve the budget is approving spending this amount in these areas and so then it's up to the administration or whoever's in charge of those almost like component units and that's in charge of that amount to execute that and so that could be through various different expenditures so does the law state though does it have any regard for whether or not the board approves particular the um the expenses of certain items that that I don't know if I'm explaining this correctly now so let me slow down for a second I understand that as long as you don't exceed the budget I mean that's that's the biggest piece of it because we've approved the budget the way that it is but the laws you're referring to as far as the board ratifying these expenditures is vouchers that is a different process that they still want to see that the board ratifies these vouchers or expenditures so Madam president members of the board I I think maybe maybe I'm hopefully using this correctly the approval of the budget is almost like the pre-authorization to spend it all here but the statute still require the governor board to approve every expenditure it doesn't become an expenditure until we pay it and so then we have to have you go back and expense all of this I see so now and some of this was maybe sorry I didn't mean to no go ahead um um I go back to my way way long days before we had all the technology and the county printed every school district's checks and a lot of times they were looking at the early beginning you get a voucher summary page the board would sign it you would take it down they'd give you your checks that the board has approved and all of this stuff things happen now with electronic transfers and Technology really quickly but a lot of in the late 90s there was movement to ratification of all vouchers so that it didn't slow down the process because if they would not release checks without that well then you need a governing board when he's doing that so the operations of the district slowed down dramatically if you're not having a ratification of that process okay so I think where I was getting hung up was it the money it's just the specific areas of How It's spent the specific items need to be ratified under the statute per law yeah right okay under President Miss Pritchard if I could also ask Mr Hicks to explain that there is a threshold however I think what you may be a lot of this discussion has to do with lower cost items you do reach a threshold where we can't go out and spend without getting more approval through the procurement process um Madam president members of the governor board so that's a different so it's not a hundred percent alignment but yes we do have also purchasing procurement thresholds that then lend into so even below the hundred thousand where you're thinking we have to go full Bid And You released I think multiple bids approved multiple bids on a consent agenda to go out to RFP on those even at the 10 000 once we see that we're getting quotes so we're still required to do a threshold of procurement at all things that doesn't necessarily involve the governing board but there are two different things but yes when you trip over a hundred thousand if we don't get the governing board approval through an RFP or Through official solicitation then we have to go to something that's already been procured out there an official manner in an appropriate Manner and so those are some of the Mojave one GPA consortiums got B some save types that were allowed to piggyback onto their expenditures because they've had somebody go through that process officially and meets those requirements so dovetails a little bit but not 100 but we're always making sure we do procurement on anything over ten thousand I appreciate you explaining that and I know it it may seem like it no one no one said this but I know it might seem like a silly agenda item because it's like you know you've probably been doing this forever but I think it's good for the community to hear the discussion it was good for me because I learned something tonight but I mean I think in general it goes beyond just a board member's understanding because when the community hears our discussions about getting a refund for something that was just passed or thinking well why did they spend it without board approval this is transparent clears it up so I do appreciate you taking the time to break it down um thank you very much for those comments member president Madam president members of the board I do think it's important because I think I've heard those same questions of people saying how could they approve something the same night and why didn't they prove that ahead of time so if you think through what do we have three four thousand purchase orders we probably have a hundred thousand transactions that happen over the fiscal year the governing board to approve every single one of those transactions is the most inefficient way I could ever think of running uh in operations and so we set up systems and processes in place to have coverage and make sure we're doing things in appropriate manner in that sense so I think it's a good point to bring it to light just to explain all the processes we do already have in place to make sure that we're doing everything proper and within total compliance well thank you thank you Mr Hicks I'm glad you guys that uh information regarding back in the 90s when you actually had to hand carry that down to the county send somebody down to go pick up the checks and send somebody down there so um and ask somebody that has um created hundreds and hundreds of those expense vouchers they can be a pain because everything has to be match up match up so perfectly so I do appreciate everything that you and well all right so I'll give it over there marydell and her staff does because it is a lot of tracking and you do put you have to put a budget in there in order for it to for everything to come out thank you so thank you and I'm I'm glad that you did bring that up because I think you're right it does need to get out to the community on what the specifics of the gratification is so Madam president members of the board maybe we could bring like fixed assets and other things that we'd like the community to learn of things we do to make sure that we Safeguard all our taxpayer assets so thank you very much thank you very much next we have item uh h8 information on social workers Dr Kellis thank you madam president members of the board members of cabinet Dr Dean will present this information Madam president members of the governing board Dr Kellis and members of cabinet I'm going to turn this over to our current director of student services and retiring at the end of the school year Miss winterstein we're trying to get every penny out of this poor woman wow we've already established is underpaid I still have seven months Dr Dean yes a good evening Madam president government board members Dr Kellis cabinet members and audience um it is my pleasure to give you um an update on our social workers it's on Denise I might need your assistance let me Begin by saying that um our school social workers um uh they were hired in their position several years ago they do not provide any type of therapy counseling any any clinical kind of support for our families we do work with Southwest Behavioral Health Services directly as well as other agencies to provide that Denise are you able to change the slides for me okay well I have to tell you that in a perfect world our social workers have a plan for their days but I can tell you as this year has progressed they truly are responsive to the ever-changing Daily needs of our students and the situations that present themselves within a school setting our social workers wear many hats every day on a daily basis they are doing Crisis Intervention with our students they also provide scheduled check-ins uh student referrals students can refer themselves administrators teachers they're doing mediations they're following up with discipline such issues that might resolve like a mediation or or something that would need follow-up they also do so much to provide attendance support for our families and our students several years ago we were connected with the cuts program with Maricopa County however that partnership was no longer put into place because their staff was cut by so many that it really did not provide us a service and there really isn't wasn't anyone at the school that had time to deal with attendance they do countless numbers of as threat assessments on a daily and weekly basis I'll provide some data at the end they do the bulk majority of our DCS reports in addition they are the site contact for mckinney-vento here at district office and arrange support for those students and family members they are very important in our reintegration process when students have not been in school for a while for a variety of reasons and then also to follow up for safety plans support plans separation plans that might be needed to be put in place for students again the the direct contact with the Southwest Behavioral uh clinicians that provide that tier three support for our students they attend a variety of meetings every weekend every month and I apologize for the acronym soup right here the RTI process which you're familiar with IEPs individualized educational plans for our students bip the Behavior Support plans or Improvement plans diar is ducks in a row and that would be for an ESS student to brainstorm how to support before a meeting CFT is a child family team that is that helps with those wraparound supports and then also provide classroom management support specific to student needs that are in that classroom um skipped aside so supporting students is their main goal and I want to preface this by saying anytime that a scheduled check-in or a mediation or any of those things that I mentioned on that first page with the exception of Crisis Intervention if a student is having a meltdown they're not going to get parent permission first they're going to go in and work as a team to support that student but everything else with a contact with a social worker is done with parent permission and that these are some examples short-term small groups to support students in the area such as grief anger drug diversion problem solving goal setting stress anxiety and coping skills are huge right now because our students are dealing with so much it is amazing the amount of loss that our schools have gone through our families for a variety of reasons whether it be the immediate family or extended family and kids especially in the last couple of years it's just very difficult for them to get a hold of that those feelings that are often being felt for the first time so um and again it's within the school setting so the support is not grief overall like a therapy or counseling but it's just gosh when you're sad you know what let's have a picture of of that person here or or write a note so it's it's um just helping them cope with getting through the school day um in these groups the individual supports and check-ins such as for safety plans or support plans especially after a threat assessment or suicide or self-injury screener those are just making sure that they are they're safe within their day and that they have the supports that they need or use utilizing those strategies that can help them get through their academic day the threat assessment teams are they're they're such an integral part of of that team as well as our RTI mtss Behavior de-escalation providing those strategies for our students but also for our staff members in assisting and I say academic and behavior intervention because once behaviors are in place the academics naturally are a positive outcome and when when I have conversations with social workers the percentage of students that they actually work with and and have those parent permissions and and are providing supports School supports are relatively small kind of when you think about that that triangle that pyramid of RTI just as with the academics that top portion of the pyramid so the social worker would be working with the students that are at the top portions of the pyramid in that that tier two and what we're seeing is that because they're working with that smaller percentage of of students it's really benefiting the entire school because the distractions in the classroom are reduced the students are more effective when they are in the classroom when they're utilizing those strategies in there and those coping skills so that they can attend to the instruction and be more successful academically so for supporting staff and families the staff support is in a variety of ways um two of the the most important ones are the de-escalation of that student behavior and then giving the staff members whether it be the school aid that's out on um providing supervision during lunch or uh the classroom teacher saying hey these are some strategies so when they're when they're not getting longer having some conflict these are some redirections that you can use these are some strategies that are successful with these certain students so that is um just benefiting the everyone Family Support is is huge for our social workers as I mentioned the CFT let's say a student is and I'm going to jump down to that re-entry plans re-entry plans are for a variety of reasons such as after a suspension we want to make sure that the student is um you know feels welcome and ready to return to that academic setting we have many students that unfortunately for a variety of reasons are inpatient or hospitalized and so it's important to have those plans for support for them to come in so that they can be successful so a CFT is one result of that so if let's say they're receiving outside um therapy from a clinician and we want to provide uh wraparound services in that if they're working on certain skills outside um if there's certain terminology or certain skills or any information that as a school I know as a previous administrator those were important conversations to have to make sure that we had the information just just the necessary information to know how to support that student those would be conversations in a CFT and then educational plans that fit and meet the student needs our social workers are having conversations with the families and saying you know what is best for your child and having that conversation because what how the student presents at school might be different at home and having those conversations the food pantry we have so many parents in in every one of our school schools that receive weekly food pantry for the weekend to get them through the outside resources to coordinate which is such as McKinney vento the kinship we have so many family members that are raising family members that are that are not their biological children and then coordination of donations that is really big right now in the holiday season but it truly takes place all year long I want to provide you some data so in the first 77 days this was December 1st I know this doesn't seem like a lot for our numbers but district-wide we had 82 911 calls often those were because of a student in crisis or a need received in my department so far and sometimes it takes a while to get to them we've had 227 threat assessments and they're broken down by the individual type right there for you uh the high as you can see the vast majority are are suicide unfortunately out of school suspensions we've had 1512 as of December 1st this year a huge increase the number that you see below that is last year so please understand and on the next slide you'll see the number in red that is the year that we I call it our quiet year because we had just gone through the school closure in March everyone was very apprehensive in coming back to school those were in person we were socially distanced it lent itself to a much more quiet climate and and school year last year so you'll see that that number 457 is one third of where we are right now and the year before the 1372 that was the year in which we only had three quarters of a school year and then the the 1364 was that last full year 1819 that we had so you can see that our Behavior referrals have have increased with the exception of um uh last year so continuing with our first 77 days of those discipline referrals that have been processed we've had 69 assaults so far this year the the red here is 61 in the end please note that the the numbers in parentheses indicate the total number for a 180 day school year with the exception of the the middle one because we only had three quarters of a school year so I know that's kind of hard to so 69 assaults 1178 Defiance disrespect this has been an area of Need For Us for years as you can see our last full year is that last number in that sequence of three in the in the parentheses so our last full year had 39 uh 3930 for the entire year this is the most common referral we have because it's that talking back that disrespect it can be verbal it can be non-verbal it is it's a very broad range category of defiance and disrespect uh just so far we've had three 232 disorderly conducts and you can see what the previous year's comparisons are 252 fights 83 instances of instigation 847 physical aggressions you can see these are the these are the um more aggressive acts that we've seen on campus I can't I can tell you as an administrator the time spent in helping students process and finding the reasons for the root cause it takes a lot of time so as an administrator I would have loved to have had a social worker on campus Because as I was calling that parent I'd say hey would it be okay you know this is what Karen did XYZ would it be okay for for Karen to check in with the social worker just to make sure that they're on track if so what they're doing now is administrators getting permission those that those parents that agree the social worker can follow up and just make sure that Karen or whoever else is on track and have what they need if it's if it's an anger issue if it's a conflict with a teacher or with someone else those can be addressed so as you can see we know that there's a need and so schools have plans in place to address the increases some are increasing more depending on the situation or what's going on at certain grade levels or with certain students so in a nutshell our social workers are very important members of our our school teams um they work hand in hand with Administration our health office staff our attendance um whether it's the attendance Clerk or the art at a K-8 um especially at a non-title school title schools have additional Personnel such as a data Specialists or now Family Outreach specialist and all of our non-title schools do not have that so the social worker becomes even a more important resource that is available to the staff and to those parents who wish to take advantage of that support so with that I will stand for any questions I'll go ahead and start um you were talking about the threat assessment teams how many teams do we have every school has a trained team of Staff members on their threat management teams okay and we also have a district team District team okay all right um so with that team that goes out and does whatever needs to be done who helps the the team when they have an issue I do um there's also we we have a District's right assessment team which is comprised of myself the lead Psych the lead uh social worker the lead behavior um person um the lead nurse and a couple of other uh key people but there are teams all of these threat assessments are completed by the school site teams there's anywhere between 7 and 14 people trained on these teams um we rely on those that are out of the classroom to do the bulk of them even though like we would have some ESS staff but if they're with students that they wouldn't be the go-to's for for that if anyone has questions was I get questions all the time they'll call me and I can help them if the site believes they cannot uh best support a student for whatever reason after conducting a threat assessment then they would reach out to the district threat assessment team to to support them and and provide support and input so I guess I I don't maybe I didn't clarify correctly so the threat assessment teams help students and or staff who helps them to get through they may have gone out for a particular situation and something that they saw or they felt was grading on them and all of a sudden they start to break down so who helps them that's a really good question the school members help each other they're depending on the type of screener or threat assessment that is conducted more than one person is part of that process so they can kind of tag team especially with the more difficult ones okay if that answers your question for staff for staff yes because if someone is on the threat assessment team and they go out and they help that student or help that staff member all of a sudden they get back to their office and they break down and I want to make sure that our staff are getting fed or helped because they may have been laser focused on helping in that assessment situation and when they get back to their office they break down and that is part of the the training that is provided to anyone that is on the threat management team at the school okay I think it's usually like and then there's still like a mandatory debriefing for the flight team or the um maybe not so much as the threat assessment team but like the flight teams when they go out there'd be like a debrief for staff absolutely yeah and last um the first 77 days that's not even half the school year it's close hmm so those numbers may increase a lot it's very busy year it's been quite a year it really has it's very very different from last year okay thank you so with a seemingly increase um in in the violent incidents are we tracking it any differently than we have before um can you explain by what you mean by tracking uh Madam president do you think that maybe we're more focused on on things or maybe categorizing things differently do you think that that's a possibility or do you think the the data is correct in the way it's reflected there's always a chance when a president um I'm in my conversations with uh administrators uh on a monthly basis I am very cautious of the of the labeling of our infractions especially with the more egregious Behavior such as assault I'm very careful um because we have other infraction titles that can be assigned depending on the severity of the uh of the behavior we look specifically at the behavior and make sure that it's labeled appropriately I would just think that the idea and the concept of having social workers is to really try I know we can't do everything we can't fix you know we can't fix everything we can't do Miracles but ideally having those social workers in-house we could reduce some of those numbers but it doesn't seem like that's happening well I um Madam president um what we're seeing is that our social workers this year are not able to be proactive they're being reactive and um depending on the site that might look a little differently but they're oftentimes if they are called out for a student that's in crisis or a a very a dire Behavior situation or a student that it needs an immediate uh suicide or self-injury screener those small groups have to be canceled because they're they're needed elsewhere so I wish I could say that everything that is scheduled for them has been done with Fidelity but you know in a real school setting it's if there's an emergency or a student situation especially when it's regarding safety it's all hands on deck and the and the first person that is called needs to respond and oftentimes that is the the social worker that is asked to do those threat assessments and and suicide screeners and in potential threats of self-harm are you seeing any Trends whether that is primarily in high schools are we seeing an increase in middle school type age kids or maybe at our actual you know five through eight schools are we seeing an increase in any of that the trend Madam president has been uh usually in our sixth through eighth grade maybe ninth grade um but we're seeing interesting spikes I went to my mailbox today and uh took out about 15 more packets of uh and just as I scanned them I'm seeing more and more 11th and 12th graders but then unfortunately I'm seeing some fourth and fifth graders in in the pile as well and it is at all I can honestly say they're happening at every one of our school whether it's a K4 K-8 middle school or High School well and can can you clarify for me what does it mean when you say the social workers can't be proactive instead they're reactive by proactive um Adam president member Chaffin would be by holding those small groups if they've um contacted parents got permission for a small group and let's say if it's anger management or anything else uh if there is a Christ if they're scheduled to have to meet on Wednesdays during their lunch time if a student is melting down and having a crisis uh that group has to be canceled so by being proactive means you'd be following through um it's it's always their intent to follow through but if they are needed then unfortunately that group needs to be needs to be canceled if a student is um sorry if a student is in conversation with a social worker and they happen to share that they were suicidal or having depression or having some other sort of medical situation Health Care Mental Health the social worker are they bound to communicate that to the parent absolutely okay and that would include if they were undergoing gender dysphoria yes okay thank you sure when we talk about as a follow-up to her question about Trends I'm just curious if you're seeing it like the the true middle schools because now they're blending students that have not been together whereby before they were students that had basically been together most of since Kindergarten now we've taken these five through eights from a different school and now they're together is there anything do you see that as being a possible trend for some of the aggressive like we want to be the kingpins type thing Madam president member Grant yes we have seen an uptick in the um the events in middle school and when when you look at your your blending two middle schools typically those more aggressive behaviors do happen in Middle School so on the other end we're seeing uh a vast decrease in referrals at our k-4s so when you but when we separate and say okay these were two separate middle schools and now they're together the numbers they're not doubles so it's yes they're increased because they're a middle school but not quite double as what they were last year if that makes sense yeah curious because they're now having to get along with students they didn't yes they are there is definitely so if I compared the four middle schools data from last year to this year it is increased not necessarily two-fold because they have twice as many of those middle school students but they there are increases at those four schools [Music] and I'm trying to remember this isn't there a new law that we cannot suspend below third grade it's actually um the the law covers students that are upped through fourth grade there's two parts to that law any student under seven years old cannot be out of school suspended anyone that is between seven years old up to through fourth grade there is a criteria that is very detailed that must be met in order for that uh out of school suspension to be assigned to that student so what's happening with those students that are defiant aggressive Etc than what's happening to them as far as how that's being handled are they just being put in one-on-one I mean are there services within the school available are administrators in our school teams are being very creative on how to support those students the social workers are working with the families that have given permission and those students um it's it can be challenging absolutely well they're being disruptive to the classroom and it continually continuously continuously being disruptive in the classroom so I was just wondering they're being creative on how they're handling them they are being very creative I'm sure yeah it depends every student presents unique situations and challenges yes a couple questions um just in listening to your presentation you reference that Southwest Behavioral Health Services is contacted at times and what in what situations would we need to call out for additional social service support when we have our social workers in the building um Madam president member um Pritchard Southwest we have a referral process so they would not be called in a crisis situation that's if the um parent uh if oftentimes our social workers will reach out to our families and say you know I maybe they've been given permission to to speak with their son for a couple of of times and if the social worker feels that they need more than what they can provide as school support then they would refer to with parent permission refer them to Southwest Behavioral because we have that mou with them and then they would have a separate intake once the referral process is done the school Personnel are out of it and then that is a conversation for more intensive support for that student or that family that happens outside of the school or the school process okay so the only reason why Southwest Behavioral Health is identified more so than another community resource is because we have a an mou with them to where it's offered free of charge parents don't have to go through their insurance or set up with some sort of a fee for service type agency that's the benefit of it is that it's it's free it happens at school short term Madam president member Pritchard that's part of it actually because of the federal grants that are available just about every agency will provide resources for families it's not that if a parent in that conversation with school Personnel indicate that they have a preference for a different type of Ages Touchstone or Aurora then they will gladly provide those resources as well okay it's not the only resource we provide okay and then also again in your presentation just looking at all the assaults disorderly conduct fights physical aggression a lot of those things fall into law enforcement categories do we have do our social workers collaborate with our school resource officers or is there a school resource officer on I know all of our high school campuses right how many of our uh do you have any in our Middle School we do not have sros that are um any other school other than our four high schools however I have not shared this information yet um officer Thomas who used to be at Valley Vista is uh in a new position with the city of surprise and the City of Surprise has offered Dysart an opportunity to extend that diversion program to our sixth seventh and 8th graders the families that live within the city of surprise so we are in a discussion about that and of course I once that we have more information I'm happy to present to the board more information on that diversion program okay well that's exciting but that's that's be just for our surprise schools not not El Mirage um and then just just refreshing my memory initially our social workers were a pilot correct and we started them out at the high schools and then we rolled out to add more through our uh elementary schools are we still considered in that pilot phase I know we were doing we were using mips money or like remind me of that whole situation where we're at now with that president member Pritchard I believe it was a spring two or three years ago we did a pilot in the spring and I want if memory serves me it was four or five schools and I believe it was some high schools and some k-8s okay but um I'd have to go back to notes and that was run by Miss Hill through Federal projects so we took the pilot and if I recall I brought that back to the board I went district-wide that next year so that pilot of the semester served its purpose from what I recall in terms of funding I'd have to ask Mr Hicks about that Madam president members aboard yes it's entirely funded out of our mips program okay all right and you know just to because I was wondering I know a pilot you always kind of want to reassess and evaluate and make changes here and there as needed and administration's been aware and probably you miss winterstein um still having some confusion and Community feedback regarding our our SEL program and the social worker role in that has that been sifted through do you feel like we're all on the same page now as far as the roles and I mean because the way you present social worker function is really what it should look like in our schools I mean that's that's that's what it should be um but it sounds like maybe different social workers or different sites are using them in different ways have we and I'm assuming since the boards had discussion on it there's probably been some further discussions in between board meetings with administrators on addressing those I mean do you feel like we're making any Headway with that Madam president I absolutely do I'm having conversations with the social workers regularly with the principals regularly as shared earlier the principals do evaluate the social workers I just am not physically able to be at the schools frequently to to provide enough observation and feedback me personally I think we are becoming very closely aligned do I know every single thing that is happening as a principle I couldn't tell you that I would know that in every one of my teachers classrooms but to be honest with you our social workers do not have time to go in the classroom and provide tier one they just don't have time to do that as I shared with that list of what they're doing their days are completely consumed with providing what is needed on a daily basis and it would it would appear that they wouldn't you know have time with everything you've just outlined in in the physical assaults and things like that although I would say that really doesn't sound like a social worker issue it sounds like more of an SRO issue or a Law Enforcement issue but obviously if it's on the campus they're they're at least dealing with the students who have been impacted by it on that emotional level so I can see where it falls into their realm but um but yeah it's I know when we had social workers years and years ago they were ultimately by another Administration completely phased out because it was felt like they weren't being used properly and it took forever to get them back and I would just I I just don't want to see that same Trend um especially in looking I just happened to in preparing for this item our social workers are paid average fifteen thousand dollars more than our neighboring districts I mean we have Peoria starts at forty thousand one to forty one nine if they have a masters Deer Valley 41 7 Buckeye Union 416 and Dysart is 55 000 or 57 6.
so it would be a shame um I just want I want them to be successful I want our students to benefit from them but um I want to make sure that some of those parent complaints Community concerns that we're getting um regarding some of the social worker contacts don't continue to cause concern with families because like you had outlined there's so many Ben I do believe there's a huge benefit to having them as long as they're used you know correctly and I'm wondering though it would be nice especially hearing your little sneak peek about officer Thomas and His program if there would be a way to align somehow um that that partnership between the SRO and the social worker if because again all those things you mentioned those are law enforcement things disorderly conduct physical aggression assault you know more than Social Work Madam president member Pritchard um two things the law enforcement piece if you look at our high schools the the social worker and SRO work almost seamlessly together because it's just a natural fit as far as the legal assaults yes that is a that is a Law Enforcement issue when we're looking at the social worker um portion of this we're looking really at the physical aggression it's the slapping the hitting the any physical contact UM and the uh I don't remember what other but it so the assaults and the fights are the more egregious ones that you know again the social workers working at the aftermath or the victim or the emotional piece but it's the physical aggression it's the the other minor ones that usually it's a misunderstanding or uh conflict or they don't know how to share or those kinds of things that um where it's getting to the root cause of what what the what what caused the behavior secondly the um I'm glad you brought up the the the salary scale because Dysart is the only District that has their social workers on a 222-day calendar everyone else has it on either a 95 or a 97 or it's a actually one District I think because we have 180 days it was like 185 days when we went through the pilot what we heard resoundingly from our administrators was that they needed family support or be part of that planning and training process throughout the year so oftentimes the end of the year is difficult for our students and so they I don't know this calendar off the top of my head but they work through it right into the first week of June so that they can tie up any loose ends with parents get them connected with resources throughout the summer that was the intent of having them on the 222 calendar also when social workers come back the same day principals do an assistant principal so they can do any planning they can identify any needs that that have come up in the summer they can reconnect with the families make sure that any resources or needs that they have to make sure that their students are prepared for school are in place so that was the intent of putting them on a 222 day calendar so they're working much longer than the social workers in any other district and when did they come back you said with the principles but when is that this past year it was July 6th I believe okay and that's for clarification that's the same date the assistant principles returned yes principles start on the first of July each year just out of curiosity with the I know we we touched on the social worker um working with law enforcement or school resource officers so what would something like that typically look like do they pull from our existing sros as a contact are they literally calling 9-1-1 or are they you know just contacting the non-emergency line and getting a referral over to process you know that that potential arrest or or charge Madam president if the when I made the comment that they work seamlessly those are the four high schools so there's already an SRO on campus if it was anything that they needed a police support for the administration would make that call and not the social worker typically unless it was a student in crisis but the social worker is expected to let Administration know um and usually it's based on a larger event so that the administration is already knowledgeable that the social worker is working with someone okay so if there was a an act of violence or or a fight major injuries involved Administration would be handling that not a social worker Madam president absolutely there's a there's a strong um separation between administrative work and a social work social workers are not part typically are not part of discipline unless they're in that restorative process with that student okay and then the only other thing I I had I know that the social workers work a lot with our families as you said but do you see um potentially a need for them more so at one level versus another like maybe primarily in our high schools and middle schools but not at maybe as much in our K through fours Madam president great question the need I feel is is just as real in a K4 but the reasons for that family support would be different so our K4 maybe it's that um that parent who uh it's it's a different environment in it that transition from home into a school setting is is just overwhelming for that student or um they're but they're the need is just as great at a K-8 just the need looks differently than it would at a middle school or a high school okay any other questions thank you very much thank you all right moving on to action discussion item number one Dr Kellis Madam president uh Lisa just whispered in my ear it'd be great if y'all refreshed your apps because change in the agenda so Madam president members of the board members of cabinet Dr Credo will introduce action item i1 thank you Dr Kellis Madam president members of the board superintendent callous cabinet and guests believe it or not it is time to start preparing for the 22-23 school year so tonight in the next four items I'm bringing to you our contract language and then the issuance of the contracts as well as the notice of Employments for classified staff and then the first one in number one tonight I bring you the contract language for approval for the 22-23 school year there are no changes to the contract language so the contracts you see listed there are the exact contracts that we use this this current year they have been reviewed by Jennifer McLennan and they are up to date and we bring them for your approval and it's just the language the next the next is going to be the issuance of those contracts so this is just approving the language on the contracts question I noticed we have a school psychologist intern contract so we have a school psychologist and an intern correct there's both and is there a need for that is there a reason we need I believe it's in is Corey still here I believe it's in the process of where they are with their license so they have to do um an intern piece before they go and become a full school psychologist so it they're two different pieces that they have to do in order to qualify for the position and is that kind of like a student teacher type deal where we have to do a semester of student teaching before yes okay you can relate to that except they're partially licensed I guess so they have to fulfill that piece before they can become a whole psychologist so yes that's a great analogy and they get paid for too yes thank you any other questions or concerns this way or singville are you good oh I'm good okay I didn't want to jump the gun no no I'm good um I move sorry I moved to approve Administration administrative certificated and licensed employee contract language and benefit packages for the 2022 through 2023 school year second motion passes thank you next we have item I two Dr Kellis thank you madam president members of the board of members of cabinet Dr crota will introduce the site thank you Dr Kellis Madam president members of the board again callous cabinet guess item number two as I just described before is now for the issuance of the contract language that you just approved so Administration is recommending the approval to issue the contracts for those employees that are eligible if you read in our in our comments teachers that are on a are completing a 45 instructional day Improvement plan are not eligible for that so their contracts are held until that plan is finished if they're on an interim contract so those employees that begin in our district after the 92nd Day by law are not eligible to receive a contract they have to reapply and anyone that does not hold the proper certification may not get a contract so with that also I want to remind you I know I repeated a bunch for you in in the updates but our liquidated damages will not start till May 1st so anybody wishing to um get out of the contract just needs to contact me up until April 30th and then they do not incur the two thousand dollar liquidated damages and then we issue the contracts in February uh just so you're aware of that and they are due the Friday for for all groups um actually the admin gets their contracts on 210 because the law says they get 30 work or 30 calendar days and so that's the admin and psychologists in the certified world the teachers get them on February 18th because they get 15 work days I do not know why ones work and ones calendar but we have to do that so they are all due by March 11th again with no liquidated damages we understand life happens especially in this environment and that things change and so um with that we ask that you approve the issuance of the contracts thank you Dr croto um with that can you advise are the social worker contracts included in this agenda item Madam president yes they are they were included there under licensed employees so they are in a licensed considered a licensed contract so they are included in that category so yes they are in the licensed employees um category which is the issuance in this category for everything that you approve the language for and number one thank you with that I would like to make a motion to approve the sorry the issuance of notices no hold on okay I will make a motion to approve eligible certificated and licensed staff for re-employment with the exception of the social workers which I would like to table for our next meeting um and authorize the issuance of employment contracts for the 2022 through 2023 school year second The Madam president can you can you add can we add administrative to that I think we left that off the motion piece but to actually administrative certificated and licensed staff not the social workers we just we just left off the administrative piece it's not written in the motion but it's written above in the subject I if Luisa needs to we just need to add the administrators so technical so we can do all of them so I'm sorry where does administrative come before certificated yeah thank you um I would okay oh thank you I will make a motion to approve eligible administrative certificated and licensed staffer Reemployment for with the exception of social workers which will be tabled for another meeting and authorized the issuance of employment contracts for the 2022-2023 school year wait a second oh okay thank you motion passes thank you moving to item I three Dr Kellis thank you madam president members of the board members of cabinet Dr crota will introduce this item thank you madam president members of the board superintendent callous cabinet and guests Now we move on to our classified staff our classified staff do not get contracts they get an Noe or a notice of employment we give them language stating uh that they will have a job they're issued in May which will get to the issue part but again this first item is to approve the language that gets issued to our classified hourly as well as our classified exempt employees and I'll stand for again this to add to that sorry it's getting late um we our attorney has looked over this language has approved the language and there are no changes this year from the current language we use in our noes so with that I ask that you approve the language for our innoes the notice of employment language and the benefit packages for hourly and exempt classified staff of the 2022 2023 school year executed by Miss Grant motion passes moving to item I for Dr Kellis thank you madam president and members of the board members of cabinet Dr crota will introduce this item thank you madam president members of the board Super Dan Callis cabinet guests our last piece is the we are asking you to um or we're recommending to you that we are able to issue the Noe language that you just approved so we are looking to issue the noes in May usually the first or second week of May by the time we issue the noes and they're due back before school ends on the 17th of May and so we're asking for your approval to issue the notice and to um yeah issued a notice to our classified staff I moved to approve the issuance of notices of employment to eligible classified staff in their current positions at the 2022-2023 salary level with Benefits measure it with the position second motion passes thank you go ahead thank you moving on to item five Dr Kellis thank you madam president members of the board members of cabinet Mr Hicks will introduce this item thank you very much good evening Madam president members of the board superintendent Dr Kelly's colleagues and community members there is no change in any of the information as presented in the public hearing and I will stand for any questions you didn't add anything to your Rainbow before report not in between though yeah thank you another color another color color it's not very colorful I moved to approve the 2021 2022 revised expenditure budget second motion passes thank you moving to item action item six Dr Kellis thank you madam president members of the board members of cabinet Mr Hicks will introduce this item good evening Madam president members of the board superintendent Dr Kellis colleagues community members thank you very much for allowing me to present again tonight so this agenda item is the West Point the West Point realignment project I'm sorry I apologize um and previously in our July board meeting we had an extensive conversation about the Jason ways fund the project and such after that thinking we were done the city required additional submissions we submitted did require a change of scope we had to get our contractors back out there looking at it so it changed a little bit of the scope then we had to resubmit and we had to then recollect quotes because the original quote was back from April and so the length of the project and so we did receive all that in September and then we've been waiting for the city we have finally gotten the city's final comments and commitments and so now everything is ready to go but now the project has grown and costs and per procurement rules we are procuring this through the job order Contracting method and if it exceeds a million dollars it requires governing board authority and so now because it is now exceeding a million dollars from the original 780 was the adjacent ways but I think it was around 800 000 at that point and it's grown we now require governing board approval we are not allowed to use any of the more additional Json wage funds because that tax rate was set and so there is no more money so this has to the additional cost increase must come out of our Capital reserves and so that is where that is coming from and so we're asking for approval of the job order Contracting as presented and I'll stand for any questions and this is the crosswalk at West Point right yes okay that way if anybody was confused because that was a you know back in July you know when it got when we had the discussion we were hopeful to have it done by what August September I think I said we'd like to have it started by September but it'll be done before winter recess yes yes so we have not started it for anybody who's wondering whatever happened to that why am I paying taxes why is this not happening this is the process this is the process and just to reiterate what you said um I can't remember was it like 70 cents or something the tax yes okay that was close um so that that amount is not increasing that was a fixed tax rate that we decided back in the summer and so this is an access that we're having to this is District funds right we have to bear the cost of all additional yes correct okay any other questions on this I just thought of one so when we decide on this in just a second um when when would this start when would this the actual Madam pork Madam president members a boy that's a great question uh we still have to pull the permit so we will put in for the permits immediately um I would love to say that we'll turn around and get the permits immediately we've gone through the comment process with their um with the city from our contractor's last email I believe I heard that it will take from beginning to end three to four months and should be done by April by April that was what was been told to me so in the meantime we're still um have a heavy presence of assisting students get across the road at Litchfield and Greenway correct um it is madam president members of the board is still not a safe environment I know I think I said this staff goes out there and they try to stop kids from running across and other things but you know it's very difficult in that and so I would say that it is still an unsafe environment we are working that that is the solution to this is to create this safe operational Crossing Dr gallis and president miss uh sorry singtel so our current solution is using shuttle buses we do shuttle students across Greenway and we'll continue to do that until the Project's completed I know that we're proving this difference amount and this Project's going to take I don't know would you say four or five months three four months prices are going up weekly on products so is so we're not going to have to pay more if all of a sudden they come back and say the price of concrete has now gone up I don't know what Madam president members of the board uh you're correct where we will not at this point they've given us all the quotes and everything submitted um the only thing would be any other delays then yes that could but I don't we don't foresee any delays we're going to submit for the permits immediately and starts we need to get the purchase order in place so that we could secure all of this okay is that in writing by any chance because I just received a quote on some work at my house and there's a thing in there now that says that it's subject to any increase in materials because right now materials are hard to get so do we have that in writing on our contract that they're not going to increase the cost um attached to this agenda item is the proposal Kevin if you'd like to come up and talk anymore just a yes or no um I asked uh Mr Shipman the same question he reached out to say if this is good if we get we were waiting until December for the final comments and barring any major final changes which there were none in the comments then they said that yes all the pricing is still good we did if you see this amount this also into includes in owner contingency so we added a contingency in this to allow for additional costs if it comes through but that does they cannot just spend that they have to submit to us exactly why before we release any of those funds for additional costs for additional costs right but that's not locking in current they have submitted a quote that has all the pricing and it has a schedule of values behind it that's they've telling us how much the cost is and we will issue a PO for that amount they have their own rainbow report [Laughter] ever ate on this so with this delay pushing it out into April is that worst case scenario or is that when they're actually planning to work March April Madam president members of the board that's what they're telling us so I don't think that's worst case scenario although they've not told us anything different but I think you're alluding to just the situation that is now where everything seems to take longer hard to find labor those type of things I think it'll be next year sorry I don't think it's going to be done this school year right I believe that it will be done in April all right good question okay okay oh gosh good I moved as a governing board approved the job order contract through I Jeep excuse me one GPA from McCarthy building Companies Incorporated in an amount not to exceed 1.296 million 538 for the West Point Elementary entry modifications second motion passes next moving to action item seven Dr Kellis thank you madam president members of the board members of the cabinet at the request of the board member this item has been added I'm passing down some information that would be helpful for the conversation in addition to the numbers that you have on the handout I will add that I apologize apologize if I may have misspoken membership for asba is July to June and we are currently paid through June of membership is based on our each District's annual budget it's 0.25 percent a quarter percent of the operational budget of the membership districts you can see here that on the spreadsheet what some of the expenses currently are obviously conferences registrations workshops that's optional may not ever happen it might happen depending on if we go to those conferences annual membership you can see how that has increased and again it goes based on the each District's annual budget the policy support the policy support provides legal services for statutory and other policy advisories that um help districts to maintain their policy manuals board docs is the web app that you're currently using it's our management system for our policy and for managing board meeting agendas that is a discounted rate all of the board doc board docs clients are remembered registered through asba currently so if there's a change in membership that would result to as Mr Hicks indicated earlier it's over ten thousand dollars so there's a procurement process there to go after those additional Monies and um you see their advertising and other policy and other items our policy handbook um Mr X might need to help us with the policy Hamburg where those items are for expenses but essentially if you remove the conferences we pay about twenty five thousand dollars a year currently so with that information I'll let the board have your conversation just over ten thousand do we know what that cost is without the asba discount Madam President we have inquired about that we would have to and we understand contact the board docs company directly typically what we were informed is that they would it's negotiated so they should come and find out what services are provided we have as you can see on your on your agenda form we use some functions of board docs they have additional functions we can have more or less so they basically it would depend on the package that we purchase yeah because here I mean and like you said it could have to do with the purchase or the package but board docs LT is 3000 a year I'm sure we probably use a bigger package than that but our current uh package is called board docs Pro not listed so I have reviewed board docs from other school districts that you know just the public view of it only and it seems much more complex than what we have here in dicer it's a lot busier so I'm wondering if potentially we would have a cost savings with buying board docs directly since we don't subscribe to all of asba's policies Madam president again the cost to go with them directly is unknown and can you describe the policy support cost again I'm sorry Madam president members of the board policy services or as a Title Here policy support provides a very valuable service to each district Whenever there is a law changed or a new law is passed um currently there's a school boards Association staff which includes attorneys develop policy advisories and Sample policies that they distribute throughout the different districts Dysart has our own policy it is not the template from asba but our policy is located and managed by asba so we don't have a template but if you go to the the directory of districts you can see all the member districts policies and our I believe our policies are part of that it's a great assistance to Mrs Brown when it comes to the formatting and the the management of changes but primarily it's their their legal staff that interprets the laws passed by the legislature or any other AG opinions or or and provides sample policy for for districts to use in the past our district has considered those policies if it's based on statute and we typically adopt those as as proposed as suggested there may be some policies that are more based on opinion that we don't adopt because we try and keep our policy manual very streamlined to what is required and we have a lot of processes but we maintain our own process manual how often would you say that we just dismiss these opinionated policies Madam president members of the board if there were 30 policy advisories there might be three a lot of them are being uh and a president I mean Mr Speaker yes the majority of the policy advisories are based on law many of the statutes of the past um that pass require a board policy I might say the board shall develop a policy too um so I guess most of those are based on laws teaching that you're biased because you're a certain race gender sex you know asba recommends it we get rid of that but you know it's just things like that that have me concerned about asba well kind of what I had said the last time um when we were talking about nsba I just feel like asba has has really changed over the years um when I was first elected the board it was 2006. I remember going to my first asba conference in 2006 and it just just had a completely different feel and it seems like for an agency or an organization that's supposed to be nonpartisan they are so far one way and whether one way is the right way one way is not the right way the point is it's not supposed to be non-partisan and it seems like they're so politicized and there's such an agenda and then to not take a stand against ASP or nsba's action was really disappointing and it just it's just not the same organization that I really I mean it's a sad day because I used to really enjoy their conferences I've met a lot of amazing Advocates and people and slowly those people are no longer there and uh with the recent separation with their attorney who I have a lot of respect for it was amazing I just can't help but wonder I just I just I don't well I don't like being associated with an organization that conducts business the way that they do especially if I'm going to have to pay them to be a member and in a sense I just I cringe a lot of times when I get their emails because again they're so politicized and I don't want to be associated with that and right now we are and it just doesn't doesn't feel good to me I'm Sorry Miss Pritchard I thought you were done no I am done okay I didn't mean to interrupt either um you know even I don't know if you guys have attended any of their online trainings but when we did new new board member training and even with some of the other trainings you just hear constantly about bad bills bad bills bad bills like Ms Pritchard said they are nonpartisan it's not okay so this bill is in the is in the legislature here are some of the repercussions for this here are some of the repercussions for that do what's best for your school district there's just a constant push to go this particular way and even the emails we get it's just constantly constantly constantly and it's like why they do not reflect I don't feel like they reflect our board and our District's values and they didn't stand up for our parents nope you know that that's the biggest piece and to pay to be a part of an organization that stands behind another organization that would make such a blatantly disrespectful comment just isn't I mean you're I don't want to be associated with that type of mentality that's my opinion I don't care to continue our membership with them so I I do have a couple of questions for the board has anyone contacted asba or invited asba out here to um State as to why you're feeling this way has anybody contacted asba I have not done that myself but in November there were several senators and and representatives who did contact Dr Harrison Williams from asba and there was a response from her but she completely ignored the question or the issue which was about an SBA and their actions and how do you feel about that maybe you should you know no longer be a member of nsba they were asking aspa to to depart from them and the issue the question was not addressed in the response okay so um getting back to that that letter or um the initial letter that started the whole thing um I I guess I'm I'm concerned with the regards that we're worried about Dysart we shouldn't be worried about a national narrative or even with the state we need to worry about what's going on with Dysart and I I feel that we are trying to um take all the things that we have done and throwing them out with that few percentage of the bad things so I I don't think that we should um I don't think that we should separate I do believe that we should have asba to come out and answer what questions that we do have but they're put their feet to the fire ask them exactly what is going on why did they not um now it's okay you know the the legislators made that you know they sent that letter to Dr Harrison Williams Harrison I'm sorry um sent that letter and you know that's that's what happened with that um but I'm more worried about Dysart and what we do get out of of asba and the cost that will probably what we're going to have to do is probably hire an on-stop attorney because we won't have the legal type services that could end up costing over 000 I I don't know what attorneys make nowadays and I'm just worried that it's going to be um counterproductive instead of I just think that we need to have asba out here and ask them Point Blank before we make any type of decision um if you're talking about separating from them is that something that would be right now are we paid up for a year are we paid up for four years I two years I don't know what the heat is it paid through June right is it through June okay um I I just think that um I don't feel that we should be separating from them um I worry about the district staying in compliance with the policies that are out there the law we need to determine who is going to read all whatever comes from legislation and asba right now does all that for us through the policy advisories so I'm I'm I'm worried that we have not engaged asba to find out why well and for me and I understand that because normally I'm very much a you know if there's an issue go directly to the source and you discuss things directly but it's not a matter of hey I heard you say this and this is the way I interpreted it what did you exactly mean by that it's a matter of action so you know we could I could go in my deleted file and print out every single email that comes out from asba about their their opinion they're just they're over again the politicized emails that they send out it's their it's their platform now they're a different animal than they used to be and so there's no and and the fact that they are still a member of nsba so it's not a misunderstanding where I need them to clarify with me it's just a change in their mindset or a change in their organization as a whole that just has repeatedly I mean again one email after another it's the same type of political agenda and they shouldn't be that way and regarding the legal piece Dr Kellis we have prepaid legal right I mean do we and if a law if a policy has changed with a law then we don't need asba to tell us a law change we would be able to find out any changes in statute but in in the event that we still wanted some legal opinion we have prepaid legal for that right Madam president miss Pritchard we do have prepaid legal that's not the service that they provide is policy services to take the legislative agenda and translate it into policy um yes we do have prepaid legal they're they're not likely to do that role well and not like rewrite our policies for us but if we you know if there's a change in statute and the law says we have to implement XYZ policy we draft the policy I mean we've Rewritten all of our own policies that asba doesn't endorse when they're not the asba policies but we've written them all um and you know if we had any concern about how it looked don't you think prepaid legal would be like yeah there's nothing illegal about that policy Madam president miss Pritchard um when you say we rewrote our own policies like Dr jandris guys are contracted with Dr jandris Who over the courses of a couple years developed it's like even like Emanuel I remember board presidents way way in the past he would always bring policies that he would write he would write policy and anybody can write policy as long as it's within the law we can ratify it and if you know our attorney has I'm confident that our attorney would give us sound legal advice regarding policies if we wanted to rewrite something or if we take something and we draft a policy and we say hey we want our attorney's legal advice we want to make sure we're within the parameters of the law I'm confident that our attorney would be happy to help us write a policy he's doing that now but you keep saying our attorney can you uh are you talking about Miss McLennan we're talking about the district's attorney we don't have an attorney the board does not have an attorney president members of the board we have prepaid legal through the trust and the trust assigns attorneys based on the case um our current go-to attorney is Miss McLennan again it depends on what it is that we we need if we are having having a a real estate issue she's not going to help us with a real estate issue but the trust has attorneys who work in real estate um policy Services again that's one-offs yes but to take an entire legislative agenda and translate that into policy that's not the service that they provide well and that's I mean that's a service we can we can procure I mean we it's not like we have to stay with asba because otherwise there's nobody available to help us with our policy Services why not just take the money that we're paying SBA and pay somebody else just to do policy services like who who would be writing our policies because technically that's what our job is as a board we're the ones that supposed to be writing the policies yeah I'm not saying we can't I'm saying we can contract out if we need policy if we need if we need somebody to help us with a policy and we don't want to go to the attorney or we can hire somebody to be on legislative watch to advise us if a Law changes if a lot of IFS that's a lot of ifs and I'm not comfortable with supporting a lot of ifs I um but what about our integrity I mean what does that mean I mean to to settle and jump into to jeopardize our integrity or compromise our integrity to be a part of asba who is again complete they used to they used to be a huge benefit I used to thoroughly enjoy them they have changed and they are so different and I don't even I don't like being associated with who they represent anymore and how they go about representing us and so to stay with them when this is who they are just because well they can look at our policies why not just and I understand what you're saying missing bill I mean I'm not saying be willy-nillian who cares about the policies I'm saying they're not the only organization that can do that job so who else can do it whether it be another organization that works with school policy whether it be in Attorney Services I mean I'm sure there's a solution yeah but right now you don't have a solution you don't have a solution in order for me to vote to disassociate with asba because you've got a lot of ifs right there and quite honestly I think we need to be concentrating on the bait the two issues that we're having right now um making sure our students over this past year and a half um almost two almost two years now that have struggled through covet or struggled through online learning that's another issue that we need to get those students grades and success up the other issue that we need to concentrate on is and we've had the comments and the threats and the rumors um uh just within Dysart and it breaks my heart that our kids are being um immersed in this type of behavior and something that we need to go ahead and concentrate on instead of disassociating with asba when we have too many IFS we have just too many that you want to just go ahead and because you don't like what they're preaching okay then let's call them on the carpet and tell them how else are we going to get something changed if we don't get to be a part of them to see why why did they actually do what they did so I've been a part of the legislative conversation with them and I know others in here have and for the most part we are in the minority when it comes to different topics that they um discuss the other point I want to make though is I know that our board has been very divided on things especially when it comes to covid asba took a stance the stance that I wholeheartedly disagree with and they Stu they sued our state over it you know and that's using funds from taxpayers from school boards to support an agenda that that I don't agree with so personally that's not something I can continue to to support um I don't know how the board collectively feels about it which is but that's why I brought it for a discussion um I I appreciate everyone's words and we can still talk but I do want to just throw out emotion um I move at the governing board take action to discontinue the district's membership with the Arizona School boards Association second um Madam president I could just ask for some clarification are you could you put a timeline on that immediately immediately um you said that it was through June correct we have paid through June um if I would just hate to see Bordeaux turned off tomorrow I understood more paid through so I'm just you know if without being members and not having the member right yes we have paid no vote no um and the reason I'm gonna vote no is we just pulled an agenda item questioning a budget item for a department for forty thousand dollars and we ask them to please go back and rework that now we're talking another budget item that is 28 998 dollars and if we cancel with asba we have no idea how much we're going to spend on policy support or board docs and it could be more than twenty eight thousand it just seems to me like we should do our homework first and come back with okay board docs is going to cost this amount of money and somebody to do policy support is going to cost so that we know exactly what we're voting on you have six months though to find that information and again Miss Grant I would go back to how long do you want to compromise your own art either you personally me personally or as a board District our integrity to be associated with an organization that views parents the way nsba does that is very politicized we we talk about we don't want our teachers bringing politics into the classroom well this particular organization is flooding our district with tons of with their politicized opinions and their views and their agendas so it's it's a matter of principle to me like I can't we can find some we have six months we're paid members through June so so my point is I didn't have six months to do this I'm not the one that's bringing us to the table it seems to me like to bring something like this to the table we need to know how much this is going to truly cost before we vote on it so there's a prize to Integrity it has nothing to do with Integrity we talk about taxpayer money what if the bill comes back at fifty thousand dollars I'm just asking the question I would just rather us make an informed decision that says board docs Pro is going to cost this amount of money policy support is going to be this amount of money and then who is going to lobby for us at the legislature I don't care to have them locked the things I didn't say that and personally when you walk in this door we are now school board members we may have different opinions on what political opinions outside of this room I know we do I I guarantee we all do that's the beauty of this but at the end of the day we have to be supporting Public Schools then what is political give me have you read their emails yeah you don't think they're they're politically fueled give me an example they're caucuses that are that are divided by race they're caucuses but that has they asked for us to approve another caucus that the legislature has caucuses just like that by race yes both state and federal they all have caucuses they have it by race they have it by political opinions That's Not Unusual I just don't think we should put that back to my point regardless of what as they're not school board members that's right but regardless whether board is but regardless of that when we have spent time talking about money and keeping within the budget and now we're about to approve and it has nothing to do with Integrity I'm this has to do with approving taxpayer money for something we have no idea is going to cost that's all I'm just asking for a delay for somebody to check on I don't think 30 we've already paid till June find out how much is board Doc's program cost how much is a policy support person going to cost that's all I'm asking you have six months to do that I didn't have six months I don't know I would call a question okay let's put a motion made and seconded yeah and I'm explaining my vote and I think I have the right to do that absolutely I've heard it for sure and Dr Kelly says are we voting on the motion as it stands so yeah if we terminate this immediately or do we want to do like end of January if we terminate immediately does that mean everything goes away tomorrow is Dr Kellis stated and present members of the board I I don't know I I just um I'm curious we are paid as Miss Pritchard said through June I don't know if you end membership mid subscription what that means what services continue if we're not members so that's the only reason I asked for a timeline is just for clarification is the status of our membership and the status of the services that are provided for members versus non-members get board docs going for ourselves if we lose it through asba by discontinuing our membership or we do it immediately saying we're already paid and take that chance I could agree with you guys to a point if Dysart had been singled out in anything that asba had done but Dysart hasn't been singled out well Dysart had I'll have been singled out hasn't been singled out by by asba asba has singled Dysart out for something yes can you share I don't know I'm not I'm not familiar with what you have please share because it could sway a vote one way or the other I will say this that something was shared with me um and maybe someone else can confirm this for me but I've heard that Dysart was called out um recently at an asba meeting that maybe we should do background checks or these things wouldn't happen man president members of the board that's an accurate statement pardon that is an accurate statement background checks on our employees or been terminate it I don't know I I just feel we just shouldn't quit just to quit it feels like we're doing a knee-jerk reaction and I have a feeling it's going to bite us in the keister I'm going to be nice My Hope Is that their actions will bite them in the keyster That's My Hope and as far as I know nobody well I think there's one other school district that has and they're in northern Arizona I believe that has requested to separate from asba but quite honestly since we have so many ifs and I understand your six months thing Miss Miss Pritchard I just don't want to make a decision like this without having the facts we told Dr Dean and Dr crotto just like Miss Grant said about bring back um the information having to do with the student services I think we should do the same thing asba have them tell us why because I don't think that Dysart was not singled out and that's what we have to worry about is Dysart political agendas and personal agendas are supposed to be on the other side of that door well they're in our email box or inboxes when asba sends them out I guess we can we can and it was just confirmed that Dysart was called out and in a sense we were called out or definitely they were referencing our parents or nsba is terming I guess any parents that come to board meetings and I'm not saying that some of the parents that were here that night were not inappropriate in some of their actions but that didn't represent every single parent that was here that wanted to speak and according to nsba then those parents that are in our Dysart District are domestic terrorists and asba did not did not separate from that they did not cut off their so to me it's like Guilty By Association they had their opportunity to stand up and address it and they chose not to again we're not part of the national narrative we are asba part of that National narrative yeah but Dysart was not singled out and I would have an issue if Dysart was singled out because I would fight like crazy well what about our parents though our parents were not our s were not labeled labeled ours Dysart but parents in general were I can't I can't work on generality no I think they were because they were referencing a lot of the during that time when there was a group of parents going to various board meetings there they were viewing they were terming those parents as inappropriate and going through a whole list of I mean they even I want to they've addressed it on a in emails and I wish I could pull that one up but basically that's where nsba drafted their response of domestic terrorism was from those parents that were coming to board meetings and and wanting to voice concern about parent choice and covet and everything and we did have a group of parents here that were again not sticking up for every single one of them but they were angry parents that wanted to speak and because of the political climate they were lumped into according to nsba the domestic terrorists so we did have those parents here the ones that are being referenced as domestic terrorists so Dysert was included in that just because yeah splitting hairs I'm sorry okay I don't agree and I can I can I can appreciate Tracy because in a sense I'm in a similar position do you think it makes me feel it makes me feel very uncomfortable as a social worker to sit up here and listen to or emails or angry community members talk about the social work profession of a group of people that I completely value and identify with professionally and personally it's it's difficult you have deep roots in as an asba you've held several um official positions you've had you've been a part of their boards I can appreciate that it is hard for you to be in this position but at the end of the day and I'm coming speaking from being in that similar spot you have to try and like just step away and see it for what it is and try to put the personal piece aside I have tried I have tried but again it's not against Dysart specifically and that's what I'm I'm having an issue with I think the word terrorist was wrong but the people that were outside that night banging on the doors banging on the Windows where we had to recess the meeting and escort everybody out that behavior was inappropriate after that meeting you had to read a statement saying that if anybody came here that was disorderly they were going to be arrested I mean we've had to do that for several meetings not all parents that were outside that night I didn't say or anything like what you saw in the paper or anything I'm not talking about what I saw in the paper I'm talking about sitting here listening to them banging on the walls banging on the Windows you know let us in the comments that we heard about people leaving being called terrible names the police officer being called terrible names that that's wrong that doesn't mean they're terrorists I'm just saying that that was wrong and and because of all of that it disrupted this board meeting to where we had to go back there then we had for the next couple of board meetings have to read a statement notifying parents even though the people in the audience were probably not even part of it that they would be arrested if they were disorderly I mean all of that is just keeps compounding well back to the question at hand we still don't have a dollar figure and everybody you know we've talked about money and staying within the budget that's my only concern is waiting for the January board meeting when we have more information financial information for transparency purposes because yeah just one thing you just talked about um budget and I'm thinking that if it if the dollar amount comes in too high yep excuse me um and we separate from board docs itself I don't think Miss Brown is going to want to for us to go back to board packets creating board packets and having them delivered to our house like we used to in the in the prior days um that that was a lot that was a lot we don't know what anything is and I I just don't want us to make a decision just because we're some of us are mad at aspa it's not about I do take a little exception to that it's not about being mad this is not a temper tantrum this is a matter of an organization that is driving their own political agenda representing us and they don't rep they don't have the right to represent or force a political agenda on us as a nonpartisan School boards because there are in a lot of ways they're our voice they Lobby for us they Lobby for things that we may not be behind well and I would like to state that terrorists being labeled a terrorist is a serious accusation that's not something you just thrown around being arrested a lot different than being labeled a terrorist being labeled a terrorist um you could the death penalty life sentence or death like that is a huge that is a horrible horrible crime horrible that's a lot different than being arrested and I agree I said I didn't approve of the language well I feel like sometimes we make light of this word terrorism we make light of this label domestic terrorists we make light of them we just toss them around here and toss them around there that's a big deal that's not just something you just brush aside and say it's fine we're just gonna slap you on the wrist I I would be right there with you if it was labeled as Dysart domestic terrorists can we call for a vote I feel like we're just running in circles yeah yes and I do want to clarify um do I need to restate the motion okay um I move with governing board take action to discontinue the district's membership with the Arizona school boards Association effective January 31st 2022 2022.
thank you for that do I have a second is the second stand second stance while that's while we're processing that I just want to say real quickly um we have agreed to other things like like School Board resolutions that have much smaller impact than this we're not talking about the resolution right now are we no but I'm saying we have resolved something for instance I just want to make sure I'm saying generally speaking we have made statements we've come to conclusions on things that are national that have nothing to do with our backyard I just wanted to make that statement and then call for the vote motion passes thank you next we have item eight Dr Kellis Madam president members of the board members of cabinet this item was presented at the request of a board member and I'll let Madame President introduce this item thank you so next we have a resolution that is regarding the Arizona School Board Association I hope that everyone's had an opportunity to read through it and I'll open that up for discussion a question who drafted this resolution I did by yourself or did you have help with sports I had a template that I used but I did everything myself you did everything yourself okay four be it resolved the Arizona School burst associations no longer like desert um geyser Unified School District number 89 will no longer be an active member of the Arizona School Board Association effective January 31st 2022.
I think that item three should be yes item one was really just more philosophical so for item three maybe we need to add January 31st 2022. well I will move to take I will move to approve and adopt the resolution regarding the Arizona School Board Association with the edit that on be it resolved part three we add effective January 31st 2022. second I would like to explain my vote um I would like to go on record that while I disagree with this resolution and will not be voting for it I want to make it perfectly clear I do support the parents of our district Dysart was not singled out as calling our parents domestic terrorists and I have never and will never refer to our parents as such our parents are a huge asset of the 23 plus thousand students in our district and as a board member I am always reminded why I serve I have served for the past 11 years for the success of our students Dysart thrives on the collaboration of all stakeholders and their voices we need to focus on what Dysart is doing and not try to change the aspect of a national narrative thank you motion passes next moving to item I9 Dr Kellis thank you madam president members of the board members of cabinet I request the board to prove the date of January 22nd to hold an executive session for the superintendent's mid-year evaluation January 22nd is that no it's a Saturday I was hoping we could have breakfast [Laughter] December January 26th January 26th okay is it possible to do the 19th Madam president miss Pritchard there is another item scheduled for the 19th who have a study session study session an exact an executive session do you know if we're going to have a packed agenda for that night meaning the 22nd okay you mean after the governing board meeting yes Grant typically that is held after the board meeting at the end of the board meeting sorry I moved to establish an executive session on January 26 2022 for the superintendent's mid-year evaluation shotgun motion passes unanimously moving on to item 10 Dr Kellis I think you madam president members of the board members of cabinet this item was removed at the request of a board member out of consent agenda and I will allow Madam president to I carry the conversation yeah I will open this up for discussion for the person who requested um that was me I had just concerns about different purchases that we made so maybe I just don't understand them um maybe I just need a little bit more clarification but like on page 52 we bought a gift set for bath bombs um the administrative the one on the second one so if you look on that on page 52 um of the document of the 383 wait a minute um looks like we purchased a gift set handmade natural bath bombs so I'm not quite sure what that's about you know I I think bath bombs I don't know I've never done a bath bomb could you use them in a science experiment but just to buy one gift set um that I wasn't sure about that and then on page 57 we bought kids sunglasses party favors 24.
is that a Class party are we just providing our kids with sunglasses now um and then if you want to look at page 107 we bought a bunch of business cards for people who aren't really in leadership or Administration I can understand why principals need business cards why administrators need them but we were buying business cards for administrative secretaries and then we have people who are buying business cards for they didn't even appear on a Dysart search like I have no idea who these people are I searched from I pulled up the Dysart website and I'd search their name and nothing came up which page was that the business cards page 107. so I'm just I'm gonna throw it out there Mr Hicks by chance of that kids sunglasses um the party favors is that for like student uh activities I I don't remember what the account code strand is Club funds Maybe yeah I'm thinking maybe student council or some type of Student Activities yeah Madam president members of the board I didn't hear what page number that is 850 is the Student Activities so if they're buying it out of the first three digits eight five zero then yeah it's the students paying for it that was that was 290 I'm sorry 290s mips mips oops Madam president if I may um Administration obviously is not prepared to answer these questions at this time without doing some research so we would request that we provide that information back to the board that was definitely a concern of buying business cards for people that don't even peer on the district search but um something else that you know um we have we're buying reptile lamps and Aquarium gravel we're buying Super Smash Brothers game for Nintendo switch you know again is that for a club is that that's on page 307 and then if everyone wants to look at page 110 this is what really stuck out to me is we paid for a registration for one of our employees to attend the virtual betc conference and in this conference um I screenshotted the agenda the agenda items were one of them was talking about the power of Mental Health you know teaching students how to be an agent of change the other one was talking about online radicals radicalization in schools like I'm not quite sure what they're getting at at students being radicalized online for schools and then if you look on on session 4B it's talking about safer spaces supporting lgbtq plus students in schools which goes directly against our policy 7.68 about using public Monies to train orientation or therapy that presents any form of blame or judgment on the base of wraith ethnicity or sex um and then there was also this slide talking about courageous conversations on culture issues of implicit bias equity and disproportionality in education talking about how um Equitable approaches in schools construct of culture as it relates to systems and disproportionality and then if you look on this website also it's talking about we're pressing we're presenting on the latest social and emotional learning Equity diversity and inclusion which is specified language of CRT so we paid for our employee to attend a training um on things that we specifically have said we don't want in our schools and then go ahead oh sorry I just had a quick question so um on this just for clarity this would include um items that were being purchased by student clubs like high school student clubs correct okay so potentially we could see some weird things from student clubs oh right the question related to Smash Brothers is related to Esports okay related to what clubs oh it is one of the approved games by the AIA for Esports [Music] perfect and again Madam president uh if um Miss Chaffin would like to submit all of our questions we would be happy to research those answers so I you know it's okay I understand approving these vouchers because they have to get paid but I'm just a little concerned at a few of our purchases and yeah that's basically the gist of that how can we go ahead and approve instead of sitting here motion somebody so I will make a motion to approve ratify expense vouchers 2034-2035-2036-203-72038-23-2039 in the amount of five million six hundred forty four thousand fourteen dollars and fifty cents second I don't know if I can approve K1 it's already been paid moving to item J1 request for future agenda items I have one I'd like an information item regarding the notification process and procedures concerning threats to student safety thank you I know that I've previously tabled it but I just want to make sure that it's on the record for the social worker um discussion to come back sorry oh issuance of the contract thank you are you still online Louisa for the request for agenda items [Laughter] I want to edit I'm sorry um so I would like to bring back the social worker contract issuance of contracts but I would also like to have action discussion on potentially restructuring restructuring social workers the contract or the position I thought that's what the program thank you oh I'm tired thank you thank you any other requests for agenda items okay I moved to adjourn the meeting seconded by Mrs Pritchard I mean y'all didn't bring your blankets no
is oh is yes uh um foreign uh board members if you take your seat we like to open you can take as much as you want [Music] oh uh thank you okay we're just waiting for the cable connection and we'll begin that's all right okay is um oh um i like to call the meeting to order of the regular meeting of the clifton board of education for december the 9th 2021 if you'd all please rise for a suit to our flag and a brief moment of silence i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you roll call please mr abedrabo here mr awad miss bassford miss beltran here mr canova here mr daley here dr danny here vice president casper here and president here we have a quorum is it on now mr mcconney could do somebody look at miss basford's microphone when you get a chance thank you mission statement uh mr vice president casper the mission of the clifton school district in an open and reciprocal community partnership is to provide all students with a quality education to to develop the skills necessary to become literate lifelong learners who are responsible and productive citizens contributing to a democratic society in an ever-changing world the open public meetings act the new jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right to the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provisions of this act the clifton board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be publicized by having the date time and place thereof posted at the city clerk's office clifton public library administration building senior citizen nutrition center on cable tv in the local press on the district's website and mailed to presidents of parent teacher organizations this meeting will be tape recorded in accordance with policy zero one six eight i remind everyone of the mass policy while in the building we ask that you please have a mask on if you are coming up to the microphone to speak you could lower your mask as well as board members if you're speaking to lower your mask if you show if you desire to do so tonight is a um mr vice president casper's uh last meeting here on the board of education so uh for part of this meeting i will relinquish the chair to uh mr casper to uh be the presider over the meeting and then i'll take over uh toward the end so mr casper if you could start with number seven and please address mr casper as the chair thank you very much mr president we are going to go on to number seven recognition and award presentations for the clifton high school december students of the month uh mrs baspet are you first okay who's first mr daley go ahead thank you mr casper i'd like to read the recognition for freshman aaron hatcher congratulations to aaron hatcher on being chosen as freshman student of the month aaron thanks his parents for inspiring him to be successful student he also thanks mr holland for having the greatest impact on his freshman experience so far she pushes him to be a better student through the hard work and effort aaron's favorite subject is biology and he is thinking about pursuing a field in science when he is older aaron [Applause] you got spotlight hey danny and who else well then he shouldn't do well in school especially in the first semester [Applause] all right uh up next is our sophomore mrs basford yes thank you this award goes to sophomore haroon hamdin congratulations to harun handen on being chosen as the sophomore student of the month herron science teacher mrs o'callaghan has been very influential to him because her teaching skills are phenomenal and she keeps him and the entire class engaged her room has improved his grades this year partially due to his friend omar who encourages them to study in the future her room is interested in taking advantage of clifton high school's college options right now he enjoys studying in the media center improving his grades and going to the weight room the certificate of achievement is given to her room m hampden on behalf of the clifton board of education administration for the chs sophomore student of the month december 2021 with sincere congratulations on your meritorious achievement with recognition of the resolution of the board of education the desire to excel is the formula to a lifetime of success your efforts have brought distinction to you your family and the clifton public schools signed a president of the board of education jim smith and superintendent of schools danny a robertazi [Applause] okay next up we have the junior all right i'm a little more embarrassing gabriella would you step up a little bit gabriella junior gabriella wilshere congrats to gabrielle lagos jack i'm being chosen as a junior student of the month gabrielle's favorite subject is biology she finds it fascinating to learn about the world around us and how everything is interconnected gabriella has been a violinist in the clifton high school orchestra for three years and she competes for the academic decathlon and loves playing on the girl's soccer team at chs her mom inspires her the most because she is kind intelligent and determined congratulations [Applause] hmm thank you congratulations [Applause] okay go ahead mrs miss danny last but not least is our senior student of the month senior miguel garcia congratulations to miguel garcia on being chosen as senior student of the month miguel transferred to clifton high school last year and during his junior year one of his biggest challenges was integrating into in-person learning for a senior year but he is proud to say that he has overcome his challenge and is now very comfortable with the school environment at clifton high school his future aspirations include going to college in order to study and major in computer engineering miguel credits his english teacher miss cuzio for helping him through some major parts of the college process aiding his goals in becoming a first generation college student congratulations miguel garcia okay um thank you university [Applause] for those of you just uh awarded a certificate this evening you have a chance that you don't have to stay during the whole meeting so um if you'd like to take a moment to uh leave otherwise you may stay if you like thank you [Applause] okay next up we are going to have recognition and award presentations uh miss paula raguzzo rygoza is going to do a presentation on our pbsis thank you it's louder than i thought good evening everyone [Music] president smith dr rotozi commissioners of the board central administration thank you for the opportunity to showcase yet another amazing school in our district that is currently implementing the pbs is framework tonight we're showcasing school 11 where being rare is part of being the heart of the community being rare at school 11 means that student staff and parents are respectful attentive responsible and enthusiastic so we've been talking about what pbis is you've seen a lot of the recognition but what you also have seen is the instructional pieces that go along with it which is the key component of the framework and school 11 certainly excels at it periodically throughout the year students get instruction on the expectations in the building right particular lesson plans are are designed by the rare team at school 11 and they're grade specific so that we're hitting off the developmental stages once they roll out their lessons as always they model for students the expectations and they reward through their rare points what this does for students and staff as mentioned in previous presentations is it's building that bond it's building those relationships that help promote those pro-social behaviors in the building and in our community finally students are assessed on the knowledge that they acquire throughout these lessons so let's take a look at some of their samples from school 11.
meeting of the board of education the special organizational meeting to order uh miss jaczynski could you please call the role here thank you very much could we please stand for the pledge of allegiance just in accordance with board policy 9120 the board is required to elect from its members a chairperson vice chairperson and secretary at its first regular meeting following the first monday in december following the biennial town election the votes of each member in such elections shall be reduced to writing and made available for public inspection within 48 hours excluding saturday sunday or legal holidays the officer's terms of office shall be two years is anybody available to make a motion the biennial election so i move that the bi-annual election officers of the cheshire board of education be conducted as described in policy 9120.
school 11 has visual anchors or their posters that are specific they're location specific and staff often refer to them throughout the daily routine to remind students of what those expectations are as you'll note the team the the their location specific posters were designed in collaboration with student feedback through surveys and staff feedback so that's how you see the specific expectations by locations along with pictures to help aid all learners in this school 11 community what you see here is every single step of the way the rare team designs whether it's a presentation or a video they create the resources to help students understand what they're being asked and most often they use students themselves to help carry that message i want to play you oh these videos are helpful for beginning middle end of year or midway year instruction they're also helpful for new students to the community so when school 11 gets a new student they get to see the videos and know what the expectations are and they feel prepared to succeed this is one example what we see next is how students are assessed and or different ways that the that the rare team has provided for their staff to see what the students are understanding so drawings jam boards google forms are presented to students and most often they use things or pictures or videos that are relatable for the great bands so um peop uh interesting youtube characters or amazing youtube characters like the kid president or good old elmo make appearances in the delivery of the lessons as stated before i love this video they actually the rare team has the students as they've gone through the years they have a bunch of great videos but they've incorporated students just teaching the lesson all throughout so i do want to show you what that looks like hi my name is adriana and my name is nico and we want to talk to you about being respectful when you are respectful you are polite kind and treat others the way you want to be treated students at school 11 can be respectful whether they are leading from home or living ritually here are some ways that you can be respectful you can listen when someone is talking you can follow directions the first time you are asked and you can keep your cameras on during class when you are respectful you might even earn a rare dojo plate click on the google form to show how much you know about being rare at school 11 we are respectful the code number on the google form is 11.
thank you mr peregini do we have a second mr grippo thank you uh all in favor it's unanimous at this point i'd like to call for nominations for the chair of the board of education mr grippo dr sullin i'd like to nominate tony peregini to be uh chairman of the board of education thank you mr grippo are there any other nominations for chairperson of the board i'll make one last call for nominations for chair having none nominations are now closed i will distribute the ballots the ballots have your name at the bottom you need to write in the person you're voting for chair thank you do we need to second the motion no okay for a chair that's a you could all i was calling for a second third nomination oh okay you don't need a second to that nomination um no no okay okay meeting so uh doctors only this is a point of order um if there is no challenge uh can we not just cast one unanimous ballot or is there it doesn't indicate that so all right right so at least for foia we have to have written written ballots are written very good on record for a certain period of time after okay thank you i know that there's not much suspense in the audience but i'm happy to announce that the vote for chair is unanimous in favor of mr peregini at this point i'm happy to step aside and he will conduct the next two elections before i do that uh thank you so much fellow board members uh it's uh appreciate your confidence i will talk more in the next board meeting uh on this and i know uh just for folks wondering all of us that were elected also we'll say a few words next meeting so i'll wait for that but thank you so much it means a lot to me thank you i'll take care of hannah news no go ahead i'll just hand these out so do the nomination vice chair so i am calling for nominations for vice chair for the board of education are there any nominations faith i nominate adam grippa for vice chair are there any nominations are there any other nominations as soon as there are no other nominations dr song will distribute those ballots oh uh sorry for that sorry um i'd like to announce that uh it is unanimous uh for anne grippel as vice chair of the board of ed congratulations [Applause] and we have one final uh office nomination this is for secretary of the board of education so i am calling for a nomination but uh i'd be honored to make one i nominate ann harrigan for the position as secretary for the board of education are there any other nominations as soon as there are none dr son will distribute the ballots sure so it is unanimous ian harrigan is the secretary of board of education congratulations dan [Applause] at this point i motioned to adjourn this organizational meeting is i want to make a motion or second my emotion to adjourn this meeting second thank you all favor thank you the organizational meeting is adjourned but please don't go anywhere we're starting right back up to the business meeting yeah because i'm you uh and calling the meeting to order uh mr zensky kayla roll call for quorum please here here here thank you carol uh usually thrown off usually pledge allegiance but uh up next is new board member introductions and uh hopefully there's folks watching for folks in the audience you just saw the organizational process of tonight um so we have a new board member as well as returning board members and myself but uh definitely like uh if you are so inclined if you like to make a statement address the public sam you're welcome to do so sure thank you mr chair um i'd just like to take this opportunity to this evening as my first day on the job to express my deepest gratitude to the citizens of our somewhat tiny but mighty town i'm very excited and grateful to serve our community as a member of the cheshire board of education special thanks to my children nina simone ava for putting up with my passion and to my husband adam for his patient listening encouragement and unflagging support i hope to do my best to make you proud as you all know i am an educator by profession and i strongly believe that being an educator is an honor and privilege in and of itself teaching is about offering hope and empowering new generations to enact change for the betterment of humanity and as an educator i feel most obliged to serve as the messenger of that calling so to my fellow educators thank you for committing to making a difference in the lives of children time has proven that what we do is simultaneously difficult and satisfying especially during these most challenging of times so i look forward to using my years of experience as a parent a passionate educator and drawing from my various community involvement to my work here on the board i'm committed to collaborating with my fellow board members and district leadership to support the vision and mission of cheshire public schools and therefore to ensure that teachers and staff have the tools to continue to provide high quality instruction to every student so that they may reach their full potential therefore my deepest appreciation again for this opportunity to give back to our schools and our community thank you sam and welcome to the board of that thank you uh mr grippers anything you want to say i'm sure thank you mr chair um i would just like to thank the citizens of cheshire for entrusting uh or giving me their trust once again for another four year term i pledge to continue to continue the work that we've been doing the last four years and uh i hope that we represent the the wishes of you going forward thank you thank you mr gripple and welcome back uh i try to keep this short i first want to thank uh everyone that voted this year everyone that ran we had a great deal of outstanding candidates for all positions it was nice to see so many folks stepping up um is these are not sometimes easy roles to perform and uh excited sam you're here uh just talking to yesterday conference uh looking forward to a lot of your ideas um so thank you for having us and i thank you for uh trusting me to help us move forward as we've been doing and to my fellow board members i just want to say thank you for your vote of confidence and allowing the chair uh you all know i don't think this role very lightly i am fortunate to go to work with a great team uh all of us and it does help make this role a little easier to perform so i thank you for both your support tonight as well as your support as a colleague uh but i don't want to overstate the the role of the chair you know we are a team of seven uh there is no i in team and that is one of the most overused obnoxious phrases around but it is true there is no hawaiian team it's it's all of us individually we have no authority to make decisions on the board of it uh outside of our meetings uh even myself in a chair role the only only authority i have is to sign a contract after the board approves it you know that's basically where it ends so it is a team we're gonna function as a team and uh i think you supporting this role because you know unfair i do listen i adapt uh i ensure that the board functions as best as it can try to break down barriers we've been pretty good in that regard uh so i know you're supporting that role but then again i think after witnessing what we've been address addressing as of late uh it won't be coming at us you might be thinking hey better him than me in that role but in all seriousness uh you know even this role i rely on all of us to help us get through and move things so forward so i can also understand why now some of you are saying we're right behind you uh my size does give us ample shield for a lot of things but all seriousness um we'll have fun uh you know that being said i just want to end with uh you know all opinions are welcome uh you know me i know most of us we may disagree on things but uh we can talk about any topic we can have uh any discussion we're able to do that i tend to operate as a chair as i do as a people coach and collaborator in my work teams so i want to see people succeed i want to just get things done and move forward and the best interest of our schools and i'll continue to help us do that and i will need your help to do that moving forward as well so you have my promise i'll continue to work together and support all of us i believe we've worked very well together the last two years and i think even better now that sam is here so welcome everyone i'm going to end it at that because it's time to get to work so thank you and looking forward to achieving some very wonderful successes this year that being said we're going to move on to the next uh agenda topic which uh unfortunately is not the student rep report tonight we actually have a different uh item that doctor someone would like to address thank you mr pergini unfortunately our student reps couldn't be here tonight but i will hit some highlights during my report unfortunately tonight i want to recognize a moment of silence for a beloved teacher who recently retired patti ayanello was a teacher at highland elementary school for 34 years and she committed a lot of her life to the kids in our community and to our her fellow teachers so i'd like to read some highlights from her obituary patty ann ayanello of plantsville passed away in the comfort of her home surrounded by her family on tuesday december 7th patricia was born in waterbury and is was the daughter of the late robert and beatrice monoi she graduated from central connecticut state where she achieved her masters in education and reading concentration she also achieved her sixth and seventh year masters extensions she was a teacher for the highland elementary school in cheshire from 1986 to 2020 where she mentored the children and prepared them for their later years the patty was the eternal optimist always selfless in every way she was a true people person and loved her family and her career as an educator services for patti will be held respects people can pay their respects tomorrow friday december 10th from 5 to 8 at dellavecia funeral home in southington and a massive christian burial will be held on saturday december 11th at 9 15 a.m from the funeral home and at 10 a.m at saint aleut aloysius church in plantsville burial will follow in south end cemetery in plantsville in lieu of flowers contributions and patty's name may be made to the american cancer society 30 spring street framingham massachusetts sometimes you read an obituary and wonder to what what degree did this really reflect the person and i could tell you that patty was kind and constantly demonstrated a love of life in children she was a pleasure to be around her loss is deeply felt in our teaching and broader community and i hope that you will join me in a moment of silence in in her respect thank you dr solon for that unfortunate news um our condolences are with miss inel and her family thank you up next we have a presentation miss harrigan would you like to make a school partnership or work presentation yes i would awesome are we on a hot mic oh yes well this is the fun part of of this job quite frankly is when we get to honor um our unsung heroes in our schools who are doing so much every day and um tonight it's my great honor to um introduce this chapman school recipient for the school partnership award ms aaron muddy and she's right here and so come closer so i'm going to say a lot of nice things about her according to mrs burns the principal at chapman school most think that either chapman has a resident artist or martha stewart swings by once in a while to set up beautiful displays at our school functions or create knock your socks off showcase exhibits if the truth be told their secret is aaron muddy aaron has been an active board member of the chapman ptsa as well as a constant volunteer at chapman chapman has been fortunate to be on the receiving end of her incredible calligraphy skills and artistic talent before one has a chance to reach out to erin to ask if she could help with a program or a function she beats you to the punch every time and offers her talents and help the really best part of erin is getting to know the lovely kind person that she is everyone loves to converse with her and enjoy her warm company individuals like ms muddy not only bright and chapman school but they bring the school community together chapman school said it is a delight and honor to recognize aaron muddy as the recipient of the 2021-22 chapman school partnership award the cheshire board of education thanks aaron for going above and beyond for the students of cheshire public schools thank you aaron [Applause] i was trying is congratulations thank you [Applause] um thank you up next is audience are there any audience members that would like to address the board not all at once as soon as soon as there are none we're going to move on to the next part which is standing committee appointments in your past in your packets are standing committees liaison appointments and school reps with the committee assignments uh for curriculum it is faithhand anne harrigan and myself and the caveat there is i may end up replacing myself with someone else on the board eventually as we have a lot going on but for now i'll be there finance it's adam gripple faith ham and sam rosenberg legislative is tim white faith ham and anne harrigan we're going to talk a little bit about that uh later this evening what that committee is going to be doing liaison it's ann harrigan andrew martelly and tim white personnel is tim white and harrigan and myself planning is andrew martelly tim wright tim white and sam rosenberg policy is adam tim white sam rosenberg pug information as andrew faith and anne harrigan transportation is tim and other board members as needed as transportation usually only happens when we're in a contract negotiation year school modernization which is the joint board of that and town council committee representation remains anne harrigan andrew mitelli and myself if and when that committee ever meets again uh just for reference the board chair shall serve as ex-official member of all committees and in cheshire while the chair can vote on committees i do not i just sit there as ex-official member all non-committee board of education members are able and encouraged to attend all sub-committee meetings in compliance with foia that means any board member can attend any committee meeting and in compliance with foia simply means that if we are a non-committee member and we're at a meeting we're generally sitting where the audience sits not at the table with the rest of the committee so as not to misconstrue the meeting as a quorum and illegal of the board but we have direct input to the committees in that manner educational liaisons uh for asus it is myself it's worth noting that uh the board of ed chairs and the asics asus districts serve on the governing board which i do for them the cheshire education foundation is adam gripple adult education is anne harrigan uh cabe is myself and uh uh it's worth noting i was appointed to the k board of directors uh this past week to represent uh our area which is district seven we'll talk more about that later the calendar committee is anne harrigan cheshire pta council is sam rosenberg advisory committee advisory council is anne harrigan the professional development committee is faith ham the school business partnerships is andrew martelly and tim white teacher evaluation committee is tim white town council is myself planning and zoning is andrew martelly public building commission is mr grippo school representatives for chapman it is anne harrigan for cheshire high school homestead it is myself darcy is adam gripple dodd is sam rosenberg doolittle is faith ham highland is andrew martelly and norton is tim white i hope this is the last of it those are the current standing committee uh liaison assignments just a couple of points on the committees that we talked about any boomer can't attend uh the and sam's probably worth this but i'm just going to walk through some some couple house housekeeping items the agenda development for committees and board of ed is uh is a little different than it has been we've been doing this last two years in the past and our bylaws allow for a chairperson to work with superintendent in developing the border business agenda two years ago we changed that to allow input from all board members and what we did in the past uh when catherine is here is the officers which is now myself and anne can't solicit agenda topics from any member of the board we'll collect them we'll review those with dr solon we'll find the best fit for the agenda and timing and bring those to the table so you have direct input to the agenda via myself or through those three folks on the committees the committee chairs developed the agenda in accordance with their respective uh superintendent team members so with curriculum it's salan planning is mr maciana finances ms maciana but you can bring agenda topics to committee chairs for gender development and they'll work together to get those on the agenda at some point so uh we have some community comes up actually a lot of things come up in january so you will see emails come out from us uh soliciting topics and then you will see uh final agenda sent around so well aware of it so stay sane we'll go for his emails from from carol as they come out the next couple weeks that's pretty much the process there i don't think anything else is mad i feel like we're missing something i'll talk a little bit more about public information committee and legislator later on in the board of ed uh uh chairs update those committees have been kind of quiet but we're gonna ramp those up this coming school year and get more into that that is it for the committee assignments reports of standing committees we not have we have not had really any committee meetings other side of finance uh but we do have i mean outside of finance report which we do have uh for november 30th is there an update adam thank you mr chair um there is a summary here and i will hand that off to mr maciana thank you mr grippo good evening welcome ms rosenberg and congratulations to all the newly re-elected board members adam and um mr paragini as well so the update there was a board meeting on november 18th and not much has changed other than we rolled into the new month and that's good news because from a budget point of view we are in very good shape i'm always pleased to report that we have no major budget variances to um explain at this point in time you know we we're all well aware that there's inflation is creeping up and i think at the last board meeting the increase in fuel prices was discussed but won't have a detrimental impact on the budget because it's a relatively small portion of our budget we continue to invest as we need to in the learning loss with the esser and the rfs are funding that does serve as our backstop for any pandemic related expenses i did want to let the board know that we did decide to extend the intraday cleaning in all our schools through the month of january we were expecting to end in december but with the increase in the number of covert cases we thought it best to extend that so we've made those arrangements with our vendor the only other thing that i wanted to mention is we are knee deep immersed in the preparation of the operating budget for next year that's moving along according to schedule but also wanted to mention that excuse me we're working on the capital budget so the board does need to approve two budgets the capital budget is actually due in january prior to the due date of the operating budget submission so what i was hoping to do at next week's planning committee of the whole is just introduce the preliminary version of the capital budget won't take long but i did want to put it out in front of the planning committee because some work does need to be done to conclude in january and that's really the highlights for this evening there are any questions i'll certainly be glad to respond [Music] it's really quick regarding the budget development for next school year uh if any board member has any suggestions uh i assume you'd rather hear it sooner and later as part of your development process so i encourage uh any board member to contact dr soler mr maciani if you have ideas that should be considered in the budget let them know uh was often times in the past we've gone through the detailed budget sessions coming up in january and um sometimes heinz science is always like you know was like hey i wish we knew that earlier and then we try to do it next year so i encourage more members to contribute if you have ideas to the team thank you tim yeah i just wanted to say um i think the same applies to the public i think it's great when the public comes to the meetings but as you kind of indicated it's difficult to make big changes at the last minute um so the sooner that the ideas get into the get into the mix the better off everything will be thank you good point uh sam um just a question what's the recommended timeline or deadline for suggestions that you'd prefer that's well we're let's say as soon as possible [Laughter] you know the reality is that as once the superintendent's budget gets presented there's lots of room to add or detract from that budget so you know if there's not if there's something specific you want us to try and include now you know within the next week or so because we have to complete the budget enter it into our financial system generate the reports and then prepare the presentations for the second week in january is when the superintendent officially presents the budget and then we go through the next several weeks of deliberations so if something comes up after the next week there's still lots of time and that's just for the board's approval because then it goes to the town council and there's still time for input as much you know as has been kind of said as much as i said as soon as possible the process is really iterative and it evolves over time you know when we present our initial budget presentation is january 13th from that point forward we will have many meetings and discuss many things but you know certainly if there's particularly a bigger ticket item inclusion earlier is definitely helpful thank you yeah and during the month of january during the month of january uh there are board finance committee meetings the whole where we all work through the budgets and uh there have been years where during that process board members have been able to successfully add ions to the budget at that point um and even uh i would say anything's possible during years where when the budget came out of finance coming to the board the vote uh even then things were amended so there's opportunities don't feel like you have to put something in but any hugs up if you have ideas you're welcome to call us welcome to give it to him thank you mr chair uh mr massian i noticed that there was a potentially a page missing from your report or is that uh for medical benefits oh we don't have the medical benefits report yet from cigna okay okay so after that it was really bad nah well hopefully not but yeah usually cigna's report comes in around the 10th today's the 9th so it didn't come in today so yeah usually we meet i think next week right so that's correct we're a week early okay i'm sure it'll be wonderful uh when we i'm not sure about that but yeah okay thank you uh is there any additional questions or information from mr macciano hearing none i conclude the finance report thank you adam uh school modernization while the committee has not been meeting and we haven't had any planning meetings ms martelly has any uh any happenings so as was mentioned earlier there's a planning committee meeting of the whole a week from tonight which is december the 16th at seven o'clock at the hummington school building and central office second floor boardroom um i believe at that meeting we will hear an update on the ed specs and the test fit for the two elementary school sites i don't know if you have anything to add jeff no that's it i mean they're like the items that i spoke about at our last meeting that were in progress are just starting to be wrapped up now and hopefully by the 16th we'll have a lot more detail to review so the the 16th amendment is the planning committee to hold the entire board so we call be legally in one meeting and get all the information and ask all questions of the experts that are there so i don't know if there'll be any action but definitely some information update i suspect will be more meetings like that i do i have reached out to um the town council uh recently and uh i'm gonna be touching base with mr slocum soon to see where where everything is i know worrying about things from colliers uh perk tests other things but i had also asked uh the town side to give a list of dates and deadlines when things are due by uh procedurally so i think we might have that in 16 too so i know uh never a dull moment on the board january is going to be probably a very very busy month for us between finance possibly modernization um hopefully it's just those two things nothing else unplanned for so stay tuned uh but if folks have questions about the planning committee agenda uh definitely ask andrew and i'll certainly get you up to speed thank you for standing committees i lost my agenda so dr sillan are you up oh i'm sorry we have approval of minutes my bad i heard it memorized by now uh in our packets is minutes from the board of ed business meeting held november 18th is there a motion to approve those minutes mr grippo uh moved that the board of education approved the minutes from meeting held on november 18 2021.
this was so amazing to see the kids get totally bought into it especially seeing their peers present to them what is expected it's amazing but the fun doesn't stop there so in order to instruct the students staff in the building have to be aware of what's happening so the rare team does an amazing job at turnkeying the information whether it's during a staff meeting or creating google slide presentations or having google drop-in sessions to ask additional questions the staff at school 11 feel prepared to promote these instructional events during the year so you see here the as mentioned at the top of the presentation the rare team designs these lesson plans gives them out and then along the way every time that something new comes up there's clear instruction for staff in the building what i want to point out is the um slide the the slide pasted in the corner in the right hand side corner what you see there is one of a non-rare team member a staff member out at school 11 went out of their way to create their own because they were so excited about all of the things that were happening and all the instruction that was provided that staff member wanted to make it particular for their class not only their grade but their class so that showed great buy-in school 11 believes that the fam that family support is key to the success of their framework and this is why they work in collaboration with the community family members parents guardians through various modalities the first thing they do is they make sure they have a pbis or a rare table at all of their back to school events of their hsa communications they they're they're working closely with the hsa to make sure that that that that flow of communication is happening what you see in front of you is the school 11 brochure and it talks to parents about what being rare at school 11 is school 11 has a parent manual for their pbis or rare framework which clearly and detailed walks the parent on the expectations the proactive strategies and how their reinforcement system works here is a a wonderful event that just took place with the hsa collaboration with the hsa on movie night as you all know we are very fortunate to have a district-wide movie licensing and the hsa and the school took advantage of this and made this a wonderful community event i thank you all so much for giving the opportunity for school 11's rare team and rare framework shine i would like to take this moment dr robertosi president smith vice president mr casper if we can kindly um uh present school 11 rares team with their certificate of recognition thank you so much from the bottom of my heart and our hearts [Applause] so miss laura to now [Applause] miss amanda rhodes thank you dr ronnie estrict principal of school 11.
thank you mr gripple is there a second ann harrigan seconds any discussion or changes on the minutes amendments i do not have any scenes there are none the motion is that the board of ed approved the minutes of the board education business meeting held november 18th 2021 all those in favor raise your hand all those abstain there's one motion passes thank you sam dr sone do we have any correspondence so far this evening uh we do not i don't know i'm sorry i apologize and this is correspondence from a second the secretary i apologize i didn't see any in the packet but if you do have any correspondence we'd love to hear it i have no correspondence i'm brand new at this job future correspondence can be sent to ann harrigan [Music] i wasn't available until earlier this evening oh i'm sure correspondents will be coming at some point but thank you man great okay up next is the much anticipated superintendence report so dr sullivan that's uh it's yours mr paragini thank you for that build up uh the first item is kobit 19 emails we don't have any relevance this evening's meeting um i did promise some information from cheshire high school in lieu of our student report tonight i was excited to participate in the supermarket challenge earlier this week tuesday night at the right in southington uh it's kind of like nothing i've ever seen before where uh chs teams including our team with myself dr gad um mr trophone and mr tartarelli our team name was unshelvish uh that's where our success ended is with the team name however we were able to collectively with all 23 teams of four shoppers each descending on shoprite at the same time the look on the people's face when they came in reminded me of when i used to shop around eight buses in dc and the people would walk through and you'd have 400 kids in the food court it was that sort of shock but there was a lot of success we had 1800 pounds of food items worth more than 2 300 donated to the cheshire food pantry through that effort i want to thank dan lee and all of our folks at cheshire high school chris stewart mary flood folks who contributed their time and energy to make this possible and provide this as part of our week of giving campaign at cheshire high school the english department team time t-h-y-m-e time to shop took first place for the second straight year i will just say they have an unhealthy approach to this as they've been studying the flyer and i'm not even kidding to win this event but good for them we had a very successful winter concert uh series at dodd this week where we did open the event to people to be able to attend in person socially distanced and we also simultaneously streamed the event and had over 800 views online so it was very successful i encourage you to check it out i appreciate the incredible hard work that our musical team and students put together not only there but across the district but you get a taste of it on our youtube channel the varsity sports season began last week so we look forward to our students competing in the very near future they'll start uh actual game competition at some point next week depending on the team uh and we start to host more home games in earnest in january the cheshire education foundation is a philanthropic group that was formed more than 20 years ago to support the cheshire public schools they are just a dedicated group of individuals who are really have one focus and it's how do we improve the educational experience for our students by supplementing resources and should be either tomorrow or early next week we'll be sending out a message and a flyer to our staff if anybody is interested in submitting an application for a grant we certainly welcome that and you know most recently i know that our high school science department was really excited about the digital microscopes that they received oftentimes these are grants that start of a project or it's a first effort with something these were our first digital microscopes they've proven to be very successful so from there on the operational budget would pick things up we also started a coffee cart at highland elementary school that's been very successful the two that we have at dodd in it at chs as well as a lego program at chapman elementary school so really great stuff pay attention for that and i'll share more uh in the coming months about the grants that they've approved finally i i don't want to steal tony's thunder with the cave workshop but i don't ever really get to tell board of ed jokes and this was kind of a board of ed joke that i heard at the connecticut association of board of ed's conference yesterday and it was how many board members does it take to change a light bulb and the answer is none the board simply says let there be light and it's the superintendent's job to figure out what kind of light bulb is going to be in there and what the wattage is or if it's candlelight that and it just really talked about the roles there were a lot of great uh presentations at that uh conference yesterday and um one of them by none other than mr peregini and myself so it was a really nice event quick kobit report the vaccination status of our students is very high in our community and we're grateful for the support that was provided to us by tresparcott to help make that possible the 12 to 17 year old population has a 66.7 vaccination rate 18 to 24 which obviously doesn't only you know brushes upon our students at 18 19 is 81 and the 5 to 11 population right now fully vaccinated is 26.4 percent because a lot of our students just got shots this past weekend they won't be fully vaccinated for two weeks uh we're anticipating to fall at about 50 percent the koben rate in the community just like across connecticut is it certainly bounced up after thanksgiving um unfortunately there was a youth athletics incident that also had a substantial negative impact on our kovid rates but what we're seeing in the last couple of days is it's kind of falling back what i did i like to compare periodically our data now compared to data from the year prior on the same day just as kind of a snapshot of where things stand if you have a question about our data it's available on the cheshire public schools website under covet information at the top of the page current conditions so on december 9th 2020 we had 124 students that weren't able to come to school because of covid and that is the result and that in that circumstance by the way that was you know partially remote we had a good percentage of students that were remote learners at that time obviously now we have all of our students in school and we have 117 students unable to attend due to covert related issues are unfortunately our positives last year at this time were 30 this year it's 49 our quarantines 94 last year 68 this year the real difference in our positivity is around highland where we had a real spike and so i met with chespercott and the nurse and the principal jeffrey and our nursing coordinator nancy stanton we all met with trespasca on monday and went case by case to evaluate this there's really no indication in reviewing these cases that it's from in school spread we can connect them to in in almost every case a parent a sibling a um somebody in their community in their sphere that got positive to say that i i can't definitively say that there was zero command i don't know it's impossible to know but we can certainly identify in most every case where this person came in contact with somebody who we knew to be positive and in those cases it's predominantly if not exclusively outside the building um other coveted related information we decided uh to permit fans to attend athletic events masked um the winter season uh typical it's typical our attendance to not have a packed gymnasium um boys basketball does tend to see a large crowd periodically and in our first home game for our boys is after january so other communities i know around us are also permitting fans to attend and um you know we we can certainly pivot if need be but right now we're on track to have people in attendance at our games and have them be somewhat normal our games in our student athletes by the way are required for ciac guidance to wear masks at all times during competition practice et cetera until december 23rd when school lets out at that point we've permitted student athletes for ciac guidance to only remove masks during game play so if you're you know basketball player on the court the mask can be removed if you're not um on the court you must wear the mask on the bench the other you know item that we have related to kovit is substitutes well we we do have some staff that are quarantined uh we have permitted them to teach from home rather than just take sick time if they're healthy enough to do so because we certainly believe that's in the best interest of our kids i have to pay you sick days anyway i have to pay a sub to command you're a much better resource for our kids than our our sub who's going to be in there with all due respect you don't know the students the way that the teacher does and so we do allow them to teach from home but we need a sub in the room and that takes subs and as you know there's a sub shortage across connecticut uh i solicited our alumni again and we have over 25 volunteers already the you know the invitation just went out last week and so that hopefully will be very successful again for us and provide relief in the in the buildings for substitute coverage so that's all i have i'm certainly happy to entertain any questions uh mr grippa uh dr sullin you just mentioned the teaching from home um are the are the teachers or is the classroom itself uh utilizing our um in-room technologies to better have the teacher better communicate does does the classroom shift to be able to use that or is this the head on a laptop situation when they do that the worst case scenario would be that the teacher is predict projected through the smart board at the front of the room the best case scenario is that we leverage the is our high school marketing class called them the ramplified classrooms the amplified audio in the room and that's you know those classrooms are certainly outstanding to be able to facilitate that sort of instruction um we've certainly increased the number of classrooms we have that offer that but we're nowhere near 100 on that is it is our current account i think was it 60 it's about that yeah it's about right about 60. and are most of them at the high school or is there no no they're distributed throughout the district i mean proportionally yes you have a large number at the high school but they're proportionately distributed throughout the district right okay thank you sure uh tim yeah thanks tony yeah jeff since march 2020 since it started have we had any hospitalizations of which you're aware um but i believe there have been um i if you're asking me to designate between student i know that families have been impacted okay i you know students staff and parents um we've lost members of our community to it adult members okay so um it's been impactful okay the the incidence rate though maybe you know at this point in time certainly among vaccinated people we know it to be very low the rate of hospitalization i know that as of tuesday morning there were 500 people in connecticut hospitalized due to coven 19 complications five of those were school age people so it's it's it's rare okay um you mentioned the vax rate [Music] uh for students 66 percent for the 12 to 17 and 26 percent to the 5 to 11.
miss melinda de chalice [Applause] congratulations thank you thank you uh miss sam segda [Applause] thank you congratulations ms gina matano [Applause] congratulations and last but certainly not least ms sarah haycock post sorry absolutely um come on guys okay [Applause] the microphone you know i'm getting there all right our next topic is adoption of minutes so i'm going to need a motion please to second approve the minutes from november 19th on november 18th so i had a first from mr abadrabo and second from dr danny any discussion all right roll call please mr abadrabo yes ms fastford yes miss beltran yes mr canova yes mr daley yes dr danny yes vice president casper yes president smith yes motion's carried okay up next we have dr robert robertosi with the superintendent's report thank you mr casper just give me one second good evening chairman casper mr president smith commissioners central administration community members parents guardians faculty and staff um i love recognizing staff and students that's just reinvigorating right that's that's the only reason why we're here right none of us exist if not for kids and staff so i love that i love starting off a meeting that way i'd like to update the board on as i mentioned previously had last several board meetings i'll be updating the board of education at least once a month on our referendum projects as you all know at our last board meeting the board appointed a construction management company called epic and right now the contract is complete our attorney is reviewing that contract once our attorney signs off and says that's uh it's good to go epic will begin their work once they're on board they will begin to attend our design meetings with our engineers and they'll be on site every day a team of eight people we have completed the walkthroughs for all schools for new pa systems and emergency notification projects we expect a quote from a state vendor very soon so we can get started on that decisions have been made on the baseball field at woodrow wilson middle school as per the recommendation of our engineers and architects the field will be flipped there will be a field house and the soccer field that will also be there will be bigger than the minimum size needed to have a regulation soccer game and that was a concern that some members of the community had uh our field engineers have completed about 50 percent of the documents on the rest of our projects we're awaiting a final coordination with our environmental consultant big part of this of any project in a school district is you have to worry about asbestos so um by the end of next week we'll be able to provide the board with a set of progress drawings which will show the scope of work at each school and how much if any uh asbestos abatement will need to take place on certain projects our security cameras we've completed walk throughs at ccms woodrow wilson middle school and clifton high school the big three what we like to call and that's for our security camera and our door access projects we held the final design meeting and received quotes uh from companies uh a cooperative company which means we do not have to competitively quote which is great and makes life easier for everyone we hope to begin that work really very very soon and even though it's only those three buildings to start it's important to note that all of the elementary servers and recorders are included in that project because that's where they'll be based they'll be housed at chs and the administration building we'll be conducting walkthroughs in the elementary schools in the coming weeks and i'm just real happy to see the vision start to take fruition start to come to fruition the public probably won't see anything noticeable until the springtime but there's a lot of things going on in the background now some some good news and some fun things from our schools like to congratulate the woodrow wilson middle school student council who along with their peers raised two thousand four hundred dollars for families in need students purchased feathers to decorate their grade level turkeys and the fundraiser was so successful that the students earned a pajama pant day right before the thanksgiving break so congratulations to those students that's a really fun idea speaking of fundraising i am eternally thankful to all the members of the community all the board of education members and faculty and staff who participated or attended the first annual clifton public school district versus the harlem wizards fundraiser basketball game which the the purpose was to raise funds for the superintendent's scholarship fund we really had everyone i talked to had an amazing time kids were so happy they were getting autographs from the players and the players were so friendly and so exciting and it was it was really really a great time it was so much better than i could possibly have anticipated thank you to the faculty and staff who volunteered to be on my basketball team i was the coach i don't know anything about basketball but i like to think i'm a good motivator and although we didn't win i don't think it could be blamed on the coach it wasn't it definitely wasn't the coaching thankful to say we raised four thousand eight hundred dollars in that one night for the superintendent scholarship fund so thank you all to uh who came out participate got a lot of things tonight guys but you know a lot of good things so please allow me the time i want to congratulate school one who continues to successfully implement the pbsis program as everyone knows this is a huge district initiative we showcase a school every month school one continues to do a great job with it and this month they're doing monthly teacher awards who catch a teacher doing something nice and i specifically like to recognize a student by the name of maya wiggins who is a second grade student in mrs rhino's class who worked with her mother to organize a coat drive she's a young lady that saw a need in our community as a second grader had the leadership skills to organize this along with her mom to make a positive difference in our community so congratulations to maya at some point in the future i think we're going to invite you to a board of education meeting and recognize you we're doing so many great things that school 4 this month school 4 conducted a toiletry drive for the women's safe house of clifton school for students and their families generously contributed personal care items to help others in our community and uh also at school four we have a basketball star i don't know mr casper were you part of the elks uh basketball competition so congratulations to camilla antonori in mr zeiden's fourth grade class who came in first place in the clifton elks club basketball shoot competition way to go camilla what'd she get for that mr casper cash i'm just kidding at school five the students had their traditional thanksgiving feast last month and it was in it was provided in recognition of their hard work organizing and supporting the thanksgiving food drive for saint peter's haven i know our board members and most of our community are aware but if you're not aware of the great work that saint peter's haven does to to help support the the hungry in our community and our surrounding areas and and school five really took great pride in making school-wide announcements visiting the k-4 classes to discuss the importance of giving back to the community and organizing the food for pickup so thank you to school five and thank you to all the community members who contributed to that school nine hosted a fabulous stem night where the clifton high school robotics team joined the fun with their photo booth and their dodge ball robot i don't think we're allowed to play dodge ball in school anymore i was always the kid who got hit and got knocked down first but i guess this is a robot so it's cool students in grades three through five participated in math activities throughout the night and ended the night walking the plank like a pirate so it was a great night for students and staff and some more fundraising school 15 students have done an outstanding job participating in the raise craze fundraiser it's a pbsis fundraiser and it has students focused on completing acts of kindness and i just love that to date they have completed over 150 acts of kindness and they've raised over fifteen hundred dollars and i know they're all really excited to win the ultimate prize the grand prize is they get to slime a staff member so that's pretty cool hence the reason why they're so motivated i would presume um and those are all great things and so on to a couple um more serious things that i'd like to update the board on and the community tonight on the agenda i have recommended to the board of education that we substantially increase the rate for substitute teachers custodians secretaries in our district we are struggling our teachers are struggling with a lack of coverage so that a teacher who gets maybe one break a day is oftentimes forced to give that up to cover an absent teacher's class because we can't get people to work for we just raised it a couple months ago to 125 and 135 a day so as a temporary measure to show our teachers that we're trying our best and that this board is trying to help you i believe the board the board will vote tonight to improve an increase for substitute teachers to 240 dollars a day for the county substitute certificate and 250 a day for the njdoe certificate this is a temporary measure through may 1st the reason why it's a temporary measure is for two reasons one we want to see if it works if it works we can extend it we can put another resolution on and extend it if it doesn't work we can stop it may 1st uh and then the second reason is it this is going to be paid for out of some of the coveted funding the additional coveted funding that we've received from the state and the federal government so depending on how long we have that and other budget priorities we're going to do our best but i hope our staff realizes that this board is doing their best to try and and and help because we know we understand and uh we're with you today i was really proud to um have with us representatives from the new jersey department of education the new jersey state police the passaic county prosecutor's office the passaic county sheriff's office and our local clifton police department who came to our district to provide technical assistance at clifton high school in both of our middle schools with security drills so the doe does this from time to time it's a it's a surprise they just kind of show up but it's not a gotcha the purpose of these technical visits are to um see how we're doing to do an after action on how we can do better it's not a gotcha nobody gets in trouble all right the important thing is you drill and if you make mistakes when it's not real you learn from it so that god forbid if something real happens you're a little better prepared so i'm happy to say that overall our schools did a really outstanding job with our security protocols we don't want to ever use them but i want to assure this board in our community that central central on down security is number one where we find lapses we fix it but i want you to know that our children are safe every day in school and it's because of our faculty and staff when i get the after action report i will share that information with the board a few days ago sunday night i sent out a letter to our parents and the community and our staff regarding covid and since i sent that letter out i've been hearing rumors and i don't like rumors but i'm hearing rumors that people think schools are closing and i want to be very clear that as long as it is my decision and as long as i believe that we can keep our faculty students and staff safe we're not closing so there's rumors i'm hearing things that i don't like to address rumors but you know it's becoming so pervasive that sometimes it needs to be addressed that the governor is going to shut down the schools it's not happening i would be shocked if that happens i don't anticipate that there will be a statewide shutdown i don't anticipate closing any of our schools however we have had instances where we've had multiple cases in a classroom where we've had to shut down individual classrooms but if that happens and when that happens our teachers are prepared to go remote on a minute's notice so when a whole class has to go virtual the teachers prepared and they're good to go let me be clear once again i am not closing schools unless the health department tells me i have to or the state shuts me down so i can't be any clearer than that having said that we have to remember that there is a pandemic going on and that this is real so in my letter that i sent sunday night i reported to the community that since the beginning of november there were 68 cases reported in our schools but 36 of those right more than half were just from returning from thanksgiving break now i sent that letter sunday night and since sunday night we've had an additional 30 cases in the district okay now we're a big district we have almost 11 000 students we have 20 schools so yeah 30 cases is a lot and if they're clustered in particular schools or particular classes that becomes problematic just today our region the state our region of the state went to an orange transmission level which is the highest level which means now if you are an unvaccinated student or staff member and you are deemed a close contact the quarantine period changes from 10 days to 14 days and and i believe the entire state is orange don't quote me on that but i know we're in the orange which is the highest level please continue to follow the protocols we have in place it is very upsetting to me when i find out we have to shut down a class because a parent sent their child to school knowing that the sibling tested positive for covet or knowing that the child is waiting for a the results of a test please please we need your help we're being very very lenient's the wrong word but we're being very understanding about attendance if you're quarantining right that's the last thing you need to worry about but you have to think of other people even if you're not concerned about this virus yourself you have to think of others and while i'm grateful that the vast vast majority of cases and children are not serious they bring that home to their parents to their other family members to sometimes their extended family members who may have pre-existing conditions who may be elderly who are more susceptible so please this isn't no time to be selfish this is about protecting others i had a heck of a football game last sunday i want to congratulate the clifton high school football team on an outstanding season [Applause] what an incredible group of young men and leaders i've been in education now 24 years i was a high school football player i was a coach i was a high school principal i know a little bit about high school athletics and i've been to a lot of high school football games and that game sunday was one of the best football games i have seen in my entire career and i want to publicly congratulate the east orange team for winning that game in three overtimes but i would be remiss if i didn't address the fact that the game ended on what the the njsia called a controversial ending in which i was publicly quoted yesterday saying it was a travesty it was arguably one of the worst calls by a referee that i've ever seen but what compounded the problem because we know humans make errors even if they're standing in the backfield looking at the ball what compounded it was that in these state championship games we had the use of instant replay and although every replay i've seen from every different angle shows that it was clearly a touchdown the instant replay didn't overturn the call on the field and our boys lost the game on that play and i also want to be clear that even if it was called a touchdown the game wasn't over didn't mean we automatically won but the game should not have ended on that play so take nothing away from east orange and and there were a couple players who were very very classy after the game um but our boys it's just heartbreaking to me that our kids have to deal with something they work so hard for and because adults screwed it up our kids get hurt so we will honor our football team and some of our other outstanding teams our soccer team had an incredible season we've had some amazing individual accomplishments in track and field and we'll honor those students at the january board meeting and you'll have a chance to say some words about that but great job to the to all of our coaches and and all of our student athletes on an outstanding fall season finally mr casper i know tonight is your last board meeting and i just want to tell you that it has been an absolute pleasure to work with you on this board of education you were one of the original nine board members who interviewed me and ultimately hired me and for that i will never forget you i will never forget the faith and trust that you had in me and that i believe you still have in me and i just want to say that you've always looked out for the best interest of kids you've always looked out for the best interests of staff and that's all that a superintendent could ask for in a board member i thank you from the bottom of my heart i wish you all the best in the future whatever that holds for you but thank you for being an outstanding board member and supporting our kids i want to wish everyone in our community a happy and healthy holiday season our next boarding board meeting will not be until january 6 2022 which is our reorganization meeting and so uh we'll see you then thank you mr uh mr casper thank you dr robertosi uh mr president do you have any announcements oh yeah before i do that why don't we um why don't we let our student representative andrew give his report so he can leave a few wishes hello good evening everyone i have a few things to say regarding just general academics here at the high school this week there have been instant decision days for high school seniors where they can get an immediate decision from college admissions on their acceptance to city college and universities i'd also like to say for nhchs families present listening watching uh be aware that quarterlies are beginning the last full week of january i say this because i looked at the schedule and i was frankly surprised by it because it seems very soon and i think it's because of the winter break just please be aware of that so you can plan accordingly a few organizations here at high school are running holiday drives collecting items to donate the athletic training club has been running touring book drive donating the items to st joseph children's hospital the last day to donate is next wednesday the 15th the triad music honor society is running a toy drive giving the items to toys for tots the last day to donate is next friday the 17th and the interact club is collecting winter coats until next friday the 17th please please please do not donate if you are able to student council members should be coming to homerooms to collect the items if you have them which is what we did for a key club and decca's thanksgiving drive as of last night clifton high school performing arts winter concerts have officially begun uh the acquired concert slash dance recital was last night i was in the audience and i can attest that it was wonderful it was great i can also attest as someone who will be on stage for the next two that those will be equally great the orchestra concert is on tuesday december 21st and the band concert will be next january in 2022 on wednesday the 19th it's important to know for the band concert that we do not do standard tickets instead we accept donations for cold weather gear winter gear and now masks which are promptly taken to st peter's haven right after the concert i also think it's important to note that the annual holiday show for students at chs which is usually held on the last day of school before winter break the half day is returning this year it's very exciting instead of having upperclassmen in the audience like we usually do it's going to be live streamed i believe for students across the school and for the first time as far as i know the orchestra will also be included in the program instead of just our madcaps concert band and dance classes with the fall sports season now being over varsity winter sports are officially underway uh both girls and boys basketball had their first scrimmages this past tuesday swimming had their first meet on thursday the 2nd december hockey has an upcoming game next monday the 13th cheer has begun practice for their first competition which is going to be in the new year in january bowling played bergen county tech today i do not have an update for how that game went though but i imagine it went great indoor track has their first meet coming up on the 20th and wrestling has its first match on the 18th student council association has a few plans for the winter that i'd like to share we're looking at organizing a badminton tournament during the winter for students this is something that is still very early on in the planning stage but it's something that students like myself have joked about you know wanting a varsity badminton team for years should be very excited about i'm looking forward to it absolutely the freshman class seen uh student council officers are looking at organizing a student-teacher survey now that we are near the middle point of the school year to better gauge how to finish the year strong and i just want to say that i think it's very impressive to see these scots officers who were only appointed after the school year begun when i was appointed in october taking this initiative to do something for their class this early in their careers in student council and in the high school things great there are various gram initiatives that are being ran by all four classes as well as the sca officers most recently the sophomore class ran a holiday grant candygram fundraiser and soon we'll be running a hot chocolate graham fundraiser this is to uh not have long lines form across the school and still be able to do something for students and raise funds lastly i do have three general issues but most of them have either been discussed or are very near being resolved students as of today still don't have ids but this issue is being resolved very very very soon i mean very soon i talked with miss brown about it yesterday and he even advised you know not to even bring it up because it's that close to being resolved but i still think it's important to say uh there have been an issue or there is an issue but it's you know mostly being resolved by this point um because there's been an increase in anonymous social media accounts using closing high school name and talking about clifton high school events but while a lot of them i don't believe have been with have had ill intentions and have been known for the purposes of just having fun or promoting school spirit a few of them have gotten much nastier unfortunately um if you see an account like this i implore you to please say something you know report it on the platform email chs administration and tell them and to otherwise just ignore it now i will say it is very important to note that at least the account that you know i saw that spurred me to include this was very small it did not have many people at all following it so this is something that a majority of students do condemn and do recognize is not right but it still is worth noting uh that being said that account is also i believe by this point gone so it's great uh the last thing which i won't really you know stay on too long because i think dr roberto said it very well in regards to coven but it's something that students are talking about a lot you know i have heard the rumors uh even today about oh what are we gonna shut down you know how want a place about how long you think it's gonna be um but something i do think students do realize is not realistic that being said i implore students parents and faculty listening to please please please continue to be diligent in taking safety precautions and please continue to remind your peers to be safe as well i'm a student who wants to stay in the classroom and i firmly believe that i represent students who want to stay in the classroom so please continue to do all that you can so that we can stay in the classroom thank you and good night yeah so just to remind um everyone parents you should have received the the date of the winter concert dates for your child's school concerts will be starting next week i believe the first one is on december 14th and they run through december and some into january so please make sure you uh you get a list of those and [Music] any that you can get out to to uh be part of that would be great support for the uh students that are performing in that i again remind everyone to go to our district website to review the peach jar announcements this is what all these are where all the happenings are hap going on in the district uh through each individual school who's running a fundraiser so if you please go and look at that uh there are many different things going on that you would may like to participate in so please take a look at that and where you can support our kids please do so that's all i have for announcements for today thank you mr president we have one uh policy for first reading for this evening which is zero one six seven public uh public participation in board meetings next up is mrs kusalevich on presenting of reports from administration advisory committees and special committees okay good evening commissioners ladies and gentlemen of the audience it's a pleasure to be here with you once again as uh we go back to talking about standardized testing data we had a bit of a break from that during the pandemic but it's back so tonight we're going to be talking about state start strong assessments our local assessment data and then some district actions and highlights so what is start strong we never heard of that before we used to take a test called njsla and njsla is still there njsla and now start strong are statutory requirement mandate mandated standardized assessments start strong appeared during the pandemic what happened was in 2020 we were not able to take our regular nj sla assessment in that spring because of the pandemic shutdown the following school year after a year of disruptions this new jersey was granted an opportunity to not take the njsla in the spring of but to postpone assessment to the fall of 2021.
do you have any suggestions on what we as a board i could do personally i think it'd be good to get those rates up if we could do you have any thoughts from it i i think the 26 for the 5 to 11 is artificially low because we have a higher rate that has received the vaccination like as of this weekend but just not yet become fully vaccinated two weeks after the second shot as a matter of fact i was curious in durgby there's only one district with a higher vaccination rate than us in west hartford is at 29 we're 26.4 so i think we've done an exceptional job in that respect you know i think it's um we'll continue to make vaccinations available to those who want them um they're not required you know that i think we've done a lot to promote them that the access and we've seen a lot of people take advantage of that we have one of the highest staff vaccination rates in connecticut we have you know we offered in house i mean i think the board and the administrative team has done everything that we possibly can to bring horses to water if they choose to drink and so um i i just continue to stay the course with this and hopefully um we're in a good place just adding that my five and seven-year-olds were both this week they got their second dose yeah so they'll ultimately you know bump that number up significantly the the crew that got the shots this past weekend do you happen to know what the teacher uh faculty staff vaccination rate is free i believe it's north of 98 okay that's great yeah okay it's exceptionally high and then just the last comment that i'm going to make because this has been on my mind for a few weeks now at least is that intersecting with school modernization the public health health aspect of this and the air turnovers you know so this is all part of i think it does need to be part of the discussion with colliers um public health aspect is part of it new buildings mr macian and i attended a virtual webinar on last friday provided by [Music] department of administrative services focused on the impact of school design on student health and it was really interesting and that those elements when we go to actually you know god willing design a school here in the near future are certainly you know paramount considerations as well as i know that you know the green content of the building is you know also really important so hopefully we get to that point where we're discussing that in [Music] earnest thank you any other questions for dr solomon as superintendent oh sorry i knew someone faith please just a couple of just you said the subs uh you said the subs are volunteers or are they paying no no we pay the substitutes so the kids will be paid yes okay yeah okay unfortunately the uh last year was a little bit different we didn't it was uh easier the pipeline from our alumni to get into the classroom because of an executive order that expired and now we have to submit all applicants through the state which adds a layer uh they're required to background check and do things we were doing background checks too but the state process is longer i appreciate the state chief talent officer uh shauna tucker has been very helpful with us to try and get our 25 people through asap and um so do you going to your vaccination rate do you have um an idea of how many are have received boosters and are you hearing anything out of dph that once cdc gives the uh blessing blessing i guess um that the dph will also make the booster mandatory to be fully vaccinated i haven't heard that they would make it mandatory to become fully vaccinated only today faith what a contemporary question the fda approved the booster for 16 and 17 year olds so really it's a very small percentage of our students that already have the booster it would be anybody 18 and up so it's a very small percentage of our overall population and it's only a percentage of those kids that have already accessed the booster however i talked to kate glennon today at chespercott they're working on making a booster clinic available for our community they're looking to see if they can do that they haven't made any promises yet i i you know we're but we are trying to determine if that's something that's viable because we know all of our clinics have had substantial interest okay and then i just said one more um is there any way for us to detect the asymptomatic is really impossible to detect um and i think that's in part uh the reason that we need to be vigilant around notification when people are with a positive individual um that we're taking the right steps that are recommended by a medical professional so if you have a positive child at home and your child's not vaccinated then there's a set of rules if they are vaccinated there's another set of rules but it can get complicated we encourage you to check the nurse to check with your school nurse i will say that you know our nurses have been extraordinary throughout this process they've had to juggle frequently changing rules and regulations they've had to do communications that at least triple what they've ever had to manage in their career as a school nurse and they do it um not only exceptionally but they do it without complaint in in knowing that they could walk away tomorrow and probably find a job that pays significantly higher and so the credit they deserve i i would be here all night talking about what you know they meant to us over the last 18 20 months i would ask you know respectfully i appreciate as a parent that it's really hard when the school nurse says well your child's demonstrating a coveted symptom you need to uh have them tested before they can return the school nurse is only following the guidance there and they have a really tough job i understand as a parent it's hard to keep your child home i would argue that our school system has done more than most um to make sure that our kids have access to school as much as possible and i i hope that people can uh demonstrate some patience and respect for our school nurses if that's where you're getting the message from if you've got to take it out on somebody i'll give you vin masiana's phone number or mine and you can contact us but sir please go easy on our nurses they deserve our best and not our worst side yes sam that's stolen can you just kind of um for peace of mind elaborate on i'm going back to when the kids are quarantined and what the workload expectation is they stress upon trying to make up work what's or is it building specific sure teacher specific it's really more teacher specific we um have worked with our teachers to try and find a balance when a student can't attend school and what students are engaging in when you're in pre-k i mean we have preschool students that are quarantined you know we're not going to have them on camera all day and sending home you know large packets of work for them to do or anything like that we want to keep them connected to the building at the high school level we you know many teachers elect to just they think that at this point in our curriculum and instruction let's turn the camera on and engage students some kids are engaged in group work other students all right well at this point in what we're doing i'm just gonna send you something home others i have um you know kind of a hybrid approach it's really specific to the individual student need the individual student capacity the individual teacher curriculum and where we are in the process what i would recommend is if a student or a parent has a question and their child's being quarantined that you reach out to the teacher definitely first and foremost they'll be the best point of contact if that's not you know if you're concerned after that conversation certainly the principal is a great point of contact uh then you know k through eight maybe mr hanlon or at the high school you know miss solano or myself um but usually you know reach out to the teacher and they can help clarify and certainly you know the vast majority of our teachers if something's not working for the child they want to try and do that i would say all of our teachers want that so um that's that's kind of the point or the path i think to support those issues uh any other questions for the superintendent's report thank you dr sone appreciate the update and uh i think our we all received a couple emails from davidson today and some other more detailed updates i have not read them yet dr solomon by selling over the weekend and of course anybody has any questions on those please let dr sullin know up next we don't have any old business business uh i'll keep this short so uh dr solo and myself and samantha had a chance to attend the cave leadership new board of ed member uh conference yesterday uh it was uh nice to see uh colleagues finally get together since we've been pretty much on lockdown for code it was pretty well attended um as dr sullin noted uh he and i had an opportunity to uh lead a discussion on civility and divisive times and uh well it may not feel make us feel better we're not alone as a board for our neutral members uh lots of school districts are facing um criticism at various topics and levels and you know there's just unfortunate undertone of incivility in some cases for a number of reasons but uh it was interesting to hear some of the stories from other school districts and uh a lot of great questions were asked that one of the things that we were asked actually dr stone was asked was hey you know what do you guys are going to do in a post mandate environment with mask how you determine that because it seems like districts are trying to grasp that should that day come and i hope it does where school districts have the ability to decide on masks what criteria we use and it's still evolving i think dr sullin you're attending a number of uh caps discussions on that but it's evolving so um but a lot of issues around mass i also noticed by some of the questions that uh board members won't necessarily get along in some uh some boards and so some incivility within boards so as uh as ugly as it may be sometimes for us and it hasn't in a while we have it pretty good so i'm not gonna win it stays that way but uh it was nice to know that um that meeting that was held in august that started all this is watched a lot by boards all throughout the state and referenced a lot in a good way so um they all complimented how the whole board uh they being cave leaders uh managed that situation so uh you know thank you and do know you're being recognized for for helping in that regard a couple things that came up throughout the conference um in fact it's funny tim internet tim mentioned hvac uh one of the things that i think the state department had talked about was uh or cave did as part of its priorities for legislature was you know additional funding and there's also an hvac component i believe related to clean air so i know there's a lobbying effort to get more funding around that but essentially increased funding is something that cabe is focused on with the legislature both in general per pupil funding as well as special education excess cost i did talk about the fact that we run into a cap with that and that they're trying to get that cap limited another big topic that came up was mental health support funding and the issue of just not enough medical mental health professionals available to assist with school districts every school district has a need for it i'm going to predict we're going to see some of that in our budget but finding those professionals is challenging because demand is so high and the other update that was discussed quickly was that the state legislature is studying remote learning from last year uh not so much here in connecticut but looking at other states to see what work didn't work and i did ask the question whether or not um connecticut would be looking further since it is in the backyard and cheshire in particular we spent a great deal of investment off in our classrooms so that being said i intend to reach out to that community to see if cheshire can be consulted to share experiences of what worked and maybe didn't work because i think we were on the leading edge of that here in connecticut uh so again great conference a lot of topics discussed i'm sure sam was overloaded with do's and don'ts but uh thank you for attending yes it was nice to chat with you too it's great to see you there and i encourage all board members to take advantage of some of the cave seminars um be it policy financial topics uh cultural awareness et cetera while they're not the end-all be-all as a reference they're they are helpful in many regards that being said i somehow i don't know how this happened but i found myself now on the k-board directors and it's it's uh it's interesting because i always felt cabe while is a good ally uh and certainly helpful reference for us don't tend to focus too much on districts like treasure uh more irony districts so the fact that we are represented there is a plus so i can tell you i we have the years of cape now and i plan on trying to get them uh to hear us where it makes sense so it's a good thing you know we'll see where it goes i know one of the things i'll be helping them with is setting up a legislative breakfast sometime in february for our area seven which includes cheshire wilkin of other schools but that's to be determined that being said uh the couple of committees we uh highlighted earlier uh was public information committee and legislative we've had these committees i i know our intent last year was to use them but because of cove we really didn't engage those committees but with school modernization um we all know there's gonna have to be strong messaging and outreach so uh we'll we're gonna be working with that committee to see what we can do there legislative everyone i've spoken to and you know reviewing the the assignments we're all concerned um to make to make sure that harford uh helps cheshire and our reps uh do that by and large where they can uh but i know we have some concerns with funding uh a number of topics so i to be determined at some point uh the legislative legislative committee will schedule a meeting with the board of as a whole looking at the dates we're going to figure out when and how but i know uh dr sol and his team have a list of legislative priorities much like the town council does when they when they uh they need to discuss what they like their reps to look out for them in hartford i like to try to do the same thing so uh our reps are very supportive of us i talked to liz and leslie often uh so they could have a two to get them to come to one of our meetings and dive into some of the things that um we're worried about so if you have topics for religion committee please afford those with tim and dr sullen we'll collect them and we'll put together a meeting soon for for discussion yes who wants to ask a question adam uh well it wasn't so much a question as an addition to your comments um when we attended the the cave conference back in november um i attended a a talk on i guess legislative uh priorities for cabe um and uh that me you know the room was full of superintendents and board of ed members and um i mentioned um in the meeting our great uh remote learning program with the new technology that i spoke about earlier and they were very interested in the technology and how we used it so just to piggyback on what you're saying about having a voice at the table there uh a lot of people that were very interested in that so just want to make that comment yeah and i i think even some of the members uh those these were mostly uh board members and attendance yesterday uh we're interested in that too i saw a couple of hands go up i wasn't sure did you guys have questions i'm sorry tim first and then sam or sam sam first i just want to echo what adam said because there were some really um comforting and encouraging comments that we were the model uh board that they looked to so that's i felt good coming on board here um and i know tony is there potential that the workshops were great um is there potential to bring in-house some of those topics that we saw yeah uh senate samurai had a chance to the talk which is great and you know uh we both felt hey you know it's not always easy for programmers to go through these things as a way to bring them to us and we've done that in the past we actually had uh patrice mccarthy come down uh three four years ago and just walked the board through some just general legal lease things but uh there were a number of uh cultural commentators one of them the legislative priorities um so uh yeah there's definitely an opportunity and i guess the question is let's think about what we like to hear from them and i can certainly work with them to schedule some time with you know to come down here and dive deep on us maybe you know give us a speed on things but also hear from us on some of the topics that you know that are near and dear so yeah absolutely yeah work on that um so beyond cabe uh this was a large part of the day i happened to attend the cheshire chamber of commerce annual um holiday get-together last night in auction and uh uh i ran into doug lovins doug levins is uh the community engagement director here at cheshire ymca and i managed to somehow sign myself up to for the ymca slope or plunge challenge doug is very persuasive in that manner as you know he's a huge uh advocate for ymca and helping our community so i did forward to board that invite in case anyone interested uh i said it was a cool way to do a team builder but uh ingest of course but uh yeah i will be there i'm not gonna chicken out i prefer to write a check well i'm hoping that the the and this is kind of funny because there's a bad weather day to march i'm like you want cold bad weather for the plunge i'm hoping march will happen if it's warmer but we'll see nonetheless it was fun um good turnout there last night uh that's really all i have uh on my update uh oh and the civilian discussion i i did want to say um i hope we're well those are nice to do um i i i once it wouldn't surprise me if we have uh board members and others which reach out to us over time uh because i i ran some board members that say i know how do you guys handle this how do you handle that and uh so i pointed them to you all too because at the end of the day it's not just uh what we we do up here but things we handle one-on-one so you might be getting reached out by some board members our districts it's a good thing and i encourage folks to build those relationships because we do tend to share and learn knowledge from each other faith um wow i'm really excited about that deep dive into what is it mixville park not your dive in march yeah it's a it's the polar plunge yeah yes have a good time um we'll hold the towel for you hey i um i just wanted to i i don't know where i read this i think it was ct mirror or something that the state is actually looking at um uh remote learning is a viable alternative to in-person learning and i know when we finally meet perhaps with our legislator our legislators i'm going to say i'm going to ask them to back off because i think we are seeing so much uh fallout from this and granted we are a suburban uh more wealthy community than others but i just if cabe can also reinforce that we have seen very little good come out of remote learning and um just dissuade legislators who somehow think this might be another way to reach i i you know it should be used as a last resort yeah and i apologize i might be uh confusing the topic so um i really meant to say hybrid learning use of you know remote learning in that scenario you know our students were home disconnected from the classroom it was uh synchronous learning right so the idea is and and cabe is not taking a stand behind that uh yet way another but what is happening what is actually happening besides the news media pundits that are publishing this stuff is that in hartford the legislator did commission a study to find out what did work and what didn't work so don't know yet there could be a possibility that down the road the goal would be to [Music] possibly allow school districts to somehow incorporate hybrid technology learning into its academics which we can't do today only if it makes sense we're not there yet so that study i don't think is going to be done until and reported until uh mid to late next year uh no 2024 and that was kind of the joke was oh it's gonna take two years three years after the pandemic started to see if we can you know the speed of government sort of thing so so hang in there but uh no one's taking a stand on that yet that's all i have i'm going to kind of leave it there because i did promise everyone and talking to you all we're going to keep these kind of efficient so that one more that's it thank you mr chef um i just wanted to say i misspoke i did not mean remote learning i meant synchronous learning um they are very interested in in the amplificat using technology to amplify learning to reach out to more students um the example that i gave specifically was that when we have our learners come in from new haven that we have a significant drop off when they hit high school and that there was a potential to use that kind of technology to be able to keep them learning here in cheshire and they're very interested in topics like that that's uh so i misspoke thank you no it's uh so it's not come our way so we'll definitely get into it that being said uh before a motion to adjourn a meeting oh by the way and i apologize i meant to acknowledge our esteemed colleague sylvia nichols from the town council earlier this evening uh so i know if i don't put you on a spot but if there's anything you wanted to say or enter the board but thank you for hanging out with us tonight good to see you uh i'm not going to read all the upcomings but uh the the most immediate ones are december 13th to 7 p.m is the curriculum committee meeting at hunston boardroom december 21st at 6 30 p.m is policy committee i think the agenda has a 16th but it should be the 21st that will be in the and board room and december 16th at 7 pm is the planning committee meeting of the whole also the homestead boardroom and then uh the school has winter break from december 24th to january 1st and then in january 13th uh kicks off the next budget process with the presentation of the superintendent's budget here in town council chambers at 7 30 p.m um that is all i have thank you board members for sticking around this evening welcome newborn members that being said any uh motion to adjourn the meeting mr gripple is there uh your motion to adjourn seconded by ms rosenberg all in favor ayogianamus that means adjourned thank you everyone out there for sticking around this evening you
instead of doing the normal njsla they gave us a baseline assessment called start strong is just one piece of data it's one point in time and it only looks at some content that should have been learned last school year it is not a comprehensive assessment so we're using it as a single point of data together with our local assessments which we will be discussing further start strong is scored in three levels of support it's intended to provide a baseline and predict which students may need strong support in level one some support in level 2 or less support in level 3. when we look at our language arts performance in grades 4 through 10 which are the grades that were tested by start strong we see that approximately 30 percent of our students may need strong support when we look at our math performance in start strong in grades four through eight we see a range of 42 to 55 percent students may need strong support in algebra 1 it's 72 algebra 2 only 34 and geometry 59 and when we look at the science assessment we see that in sixth grade 53 percent may need strong support in ninth grade 58 and 12th grade those are not the typical grades that we test science we typically test our science students in grades 5 and 11.