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okay thank you we'll wait to that okay next to testify o satori tui president hsta aloha chair kidani and members of the committee on behalf of thousands of teachers mahalo for taking up this important bill which addresses whole swaths of teachers who have been denied longevity salary step increases over the years after years of this problem not being addressed many affected teachers have already are beginning to qualify for retirement and see little reason to stick around they love their students but that's just not enough to make up for years of sacrifice every experienced teacher we can retain is one less that we need to recruit passing this legislation will also address those with as little as two years of service under their belt teachers are actually taking home less pay this in next school year despite contractual verbiage that speaks to annual incremental step increases and that teachers not at the top would receive steps if they had an effective evaluation we do have a couple of requested amendments that are in our written testimony and once again mahalo for recognizing that this is a problem that needs to be resolved which will have direct and immediate benefits for hawai'i's keiki aloha thank you also next to testify is he a coalition director sherry nakamura aloha senator kidani senator mercado kim and members of the committee coalition stands on its written testimony in support of this measure thank you very much thank you sherry next to testify julie reyes oda is julie there julie hi i'm here but mine was on um 28 20 also okay we'll hold you for then thank you julie sorry next to testify elizabeth wiggins elizabeth wiggins tiffany edward hunt recess calling to order the committee um reconvening the committee on education sorry for the mix-up folks we are taking testimony on senate bill 2819 relating to teacher compensation um i don't have the correct list with me so if there is anyone on that wishes to give um public testimony can you make yourself known i had martha and i believe sinclair or susan rocca but they they are for another bill and that was uh and sherry nakamura was the last one that i had on here can you see the names i can't see it from here is there logan okita yes ma'am go ahead please proceed thank you aloha everyone i'm logan o'keefe a national board certified teacher at nimitz elementary and vice president of the hawaii state teachers association this is my 16th year as a teacher in hawaii i am in the middle of our salary schedule at step 11 along with 2568 of my colleagues many of whom have more experience than i do i have missed step increases a few times during my career and will hopefully reach the top of the salary schedule near my 25th year of teaching if we receive a step increase every other year going forward teachers who i admired as a high schooler 20 years ago still have more to give to hawaii's keiki but are ready to throw in the towel and retire because they can't imagine reaching the top of the salary schedule after all of these years please address our salary com compression so that we can keep qualified educators in our schools mahalo thank you logan next we have amanda langston amanda aloha hello can you hear me yes aloha cherokee donnie vice chair kim and committee members my name is amanda fong langston i am the president of the hawaii public charter school network um the network supports the intent of sb 2819 with strong recommendations for change to include support all teachers with cost of living increase in alignment with the current inflation rate of 6.9 percent and support all teachers with a step increase to the traditional collective bargaining process delete as negotiated between the state public charter school commission and the exclusive representation of collective bargaining unit in a memorandum of understanding to address compensation this section violates 302d under charter school law as the individual right of the governing board to have the right to negotiate with the unions thank you thank you amanda next aaron kubo yes hello committee my name is aaron kuble and i'm an 8th grade social studies educator heal intermediate school recognizing years of experience and service is important to demonstrate the worth of qualified teeth educators and keep them from retiring or quitting for other jobs having that recognition reflected in their salary with incremental step movements is one way to convince experienced educators to stay where we need them in classrooms teaching our keiki we need to pay educators better by decompressing the salary schedule and place them where they deserve to be reflecting the years of experience second you need to continue to move teachers consistently upwards on the salary scale otherwise they will end up in the situation again with thousands of educators compressed and underpaid such a move will almost be enough to keep up with hawaii's current inflation rates if nothing is done many educators are going to leave the profession either by retiring or because they can make more money for less work and stress elsewhere and the students we serve will suffer as a result please vote and support us senate bill 2819 thank you for your consideration thank you aaron and the last testifier is lisa morrison thank you aloha i'm a teacher at maui high school and after um after nine years at maui wanna actually the intermediate school i moved up so it's been a real joy to connect with students that i taught before and it's reminded me how important the consistency of relationships between teachers and students are to their full educational development there's a comfort and security for students when they return to the adults that they know and trust at school i can't provide quantitative data on the value of this but i can tell you that it's absolutely worth the money to pay teachers according to their years of service and expertise because the reward is priceless and the payoff is lifelong i had teachers i loved and learned a lot from when i was in fourth grade and at the time my mother was very active in events at our school and 20 years later when she passed away those same teachers sent me a lovely condolence card what struck me is that they wrote it together because they were still there in the classroom making a difference for kids all those years later please support proper compensation for teachers so students can continue to enjoy this thank you very much lisa that ends our uh the testimony but we do have over i think it's close to 150 written testimonies all in support so with that members let us go to the next bill which is senate bill 2820 relating also to teacher compensation let's see sorry yeah now i hope this is the correct list to testify superintendent kitayashi good afternoon check your dhani vice chairman kara kim and senators keith ayashi interim superintendent the department supports senate bill 2820 which funds various teacher differentials i strongly support efforts to recruit and retain qualified teachers for every classroom as they are critical component to ensuring student achievement the areas of special education hard to staff geographically located schools and hawaiian language immersion programs have typically been challenging to recruit and retain qualified teachers while also containing large percentages of the department's most at-risk vulnerable students addressing the multitude of issues related to covin for simultaneously employing effective recruitment and retention strategies will require require collaboration with hsta and all interested stakeholders including the legislature the department is committed to working with its partners to identify and execute solutions that positively impact all students securing qualified teachers for every classroom is vital to achieving optimal student achievement thank you for this opportunity to testify thank you superintendent next yvonne lao thank you chair kidani vice chair kim and members of the committee we stand in strong support of st 2820 and deeply appreciate this committee and the senate's recognition that our public charter school teachers also deserve to be compensated accordingly i stand on our testimony and support thank you thank you and next martha guinan and ivali sinclair special education advisory council uh chair kidani i'm susan rocco and i am testifying on their behalf from the special education advisory council thank you so much for this bill because seac is very much in support of pay differentials particularly for special education teachers over the last two years we've seen a tremendous increase in available qualified teachers in the classroom and our kids who are performing at the lowest point of all the subgroups really need that consistent support from teachers that know what they're doing so thank you for this thank you susan next to testify also tooie president hsta hello cherokee donnie vice chair kim and members of the committee thank you so much for taking up this important matter plainly put shortage differentials work and have benefited our students tremendously recent data from the department has confirmed this with increases in recruitment and fewer vacancies to fill addressing special education geographically hard to fill areas and one immersion takes care of some of our neediest and vulnerable populations of students who have time and again been neglected by the system through no fault of their own providing these shortage differentials technologies that these students are entitled to highly qualified educators just like their regular education peers their peers in urban areas and their peers in non-immersion settings doing the right thing takes investment and passing this bill would be a worthy investment indeed we do have one requested amendment that is contained within our written testimony mahalo thank you osa next to testify shari nakamura director haye coalition aloha kidani vice chair mercado kin and members of the committee again a coalition stands on his testimony in support of sb2820 thank you very much thank you sherry next to testify julie oda julie hi i'm julie ray izoda i come here today as a math teacher at nanakuli high and intermediate school i'm a classroom teacher and i've always been my whole career the bill listed issues teacher issues plaguing the teaching confe profession and identified some but not all of the issues that cause teacher vacancies i support this bill is this is the sped differential dollar amount left out for a reason if not can the bill be amended to include the amount if the legislature believes that the state should offer shortage differentials for sped immersion and hard to staff locations to address the high number of vacancies why for only one year is it possible to amend this to a five year plan vacancies don't happen in a vacuum we're not the only state to have this problem but due to our isolation we're different from the continental states i hope that all of these education bills aren't coming up due to elections that are happening in november teacher compensation is an important topic that needs to happen as we talk about recruitment retention and morale taking on these issues is the right thing to do regardless of elections thank you for putting teacher compensation up for discussion next to testify elizabeth wiggins hi chair the not present to testify tiffany edwards hunt also not present thank you i believe that is all the testifiers that we have but we do have 144 written testimonies with that um shortly says okay reconvening the committee on education we are now on senate bill 2819 and the recommendation of the committee is to pass with amendments and the amendments are to take the suggestions from hsta and insert an amendment to remove the current classifications from statute and making future classifications subject to collective bargaining we will also amend the charter school appropriation to require an mou to be negotiated between each charter school governing board rather than the charter commission also noting in the committee report for consideration in the next committee ways and means an appropriation as noted in hsca's testimony members any questions with that chair votes eye recommendation is to pass sb 2819 with amendments chair votes i vice chair vote side all members present recommendations adopted manager thank you and for senate bill 2820 recommendation of the chair is also to pass this with amendments the amendments would amend the charter school appropriation to require an mou to be negotiated between each charter school governing board rather than the charter commission also noting in the committee report for consideration in the next committee an appropriation as no testimony and as uh some technical and non-substantive amendments also members questions and before we take the vote i just wanted to note and thank uh superintendent hayashi for the discussion uh that he came to me with and having us take a look at this again and to take the suggestions from hsta as well as the of permission so thank you uh superintendent so members 2820 pass with amendments chair votes eye chair votes eye on senate bill 28 20 pass with amendments is there any member president voting with reservations any member voting in opposition hearing none all five members voting in affirmative recommendations adopted thank you vice chair meeting is adjourned you
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good morning i'm braden and i'm bryson with your morning announcements for monday january 31st now dispatch with your weather monday today will be a high of 39 with a low 28 tuesday will be a high of 54 with a low of 40 and wednesday will be a high of 43 with a low of 27 back to the announcements are you a senior that has not ordered their cap and gown yet see better get information on how to order yours so you can be in the ceremony there will be a youth and government meeting thursday morning at 7 15 in mr bailey's room now to sebastian with your lunch today's lunch will be baked chicken tender and mac and cheese back to the desk starting the year out stepping out of your comfort zone with a challenge that could earn you up to 200 the greensburg optimus club is hosting their annual contest february 22nd give a four to five minute speech on the topic of staying optimistic and challenging times application forms are in the office and all all information can be hung up on the fl found on the flyers hung up around the school for more information see mrs koelkermeyer nada sebastian with sports there are no sport news for today back to the announcements lost and found items currently in the office coat shirt jewelry sunglasses shoes jacket sweater t-shirt please claim items before being taken to goodwill please follow greensburg safety on instagram to stay up to date in our community the decatur county parks and recreation department is accepting applications for summer employment for lifeguard pool cashier and concession position for the allen memorial swimming pool contact teresa cavacci at the parks department for applications or details have a great day and be sure to follow us on twitter snapchat and instagram at gchfires also be sure to listen to live gtv radio on live these
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call this meeting to order and hand it over to we'll start with kevin i'm sure you have a lot to enlighten us with sir i do i believe i do mr i believe i do good good evening everyone um and i'm happy to see everyone this evening and um but i i was really hoping to have an opportunity to prepare the committee for the workshop tomorrow night and speak to some of the overall budget drivers for the 2223 budget and so what i would like to do um is present put up on this share my screen with the subcommittee and john and i will speak to the items that are driving this year's budget i'll provide kind of the opening an overview if you will and then john and i will kind of tag team and then circle back at the end for any questions that the committee might have so please let me get this up on the screen [Music] i was just encouraged to close all of my things that were open on my screen and now i can't find anything okay here we go and so the the budget this year um for the for the board members um that are new to um this process with us i think you're going to find that tonight and tomorrow as we provide kind of an overview it's important it was important for us to kind of walk the committee and the board in the community through the history of on the approved budgets over the last number of years speak to the challenges that are before us in terms of staffing and ongoing enrollment growth and then immediately on the horizon what's ahead for the 22-23 school year and the budget that we feel like is appropriate to meet the needs of our kids and and improve student outcomes here in the district so let me just move on and so as part of that story and just kind of an overview of the presentation this evening and so for the board members that are not aware we receive danbury that is receives less funding per student than any district in the state of connecticut meanwhile enrollment continues to grow with the disproportion of those new students to the district requiring additional services like english language services and special education additionally growing enrollment causes our financial challenges to compound and i think that those things are well documented budget drivers that we'll be talking to talking about tonight aim to continue to continue our current operations while also enhancing services and of course this includes the opening of the amber career academy last but not least um without a significant increase on the district will struggle to meet its basic goal of staffing a new academy in 2425 and we firmly believe that this process knowing that we're not going to be able to drop in um 15 20 plus staff members at once we know that this is going to be very important that we do this we do this in a very staggered and incremental way and so these recommendations are addressing our needs now but then potentially could address our needs um as we move closer to open up the new academy and so i want to start with it and get straight to it um and the proposed budget for the 22-23 school year is 8.7 million dollars or a total increase of 6.2 percent but that number um also comes with a couple of asterisks that i want to walk the committee through and so the board history i'm sorry our budget history that i was referring to earlier and so over the last five years these are the approved budgets and approved increases that we received and so you'll see last year our increase was a little one to three at 2.87 2.54 the year prior pretty much flatlined in 1920 3.1 to in 1819 and 1.79 in 1718.
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and so these numbers in some communities might address their ongoing needs given the ongoing enrollment growth in our community and um i think the statement that many board members particularly our prior board members will hear is the number to keep the lights on is typically four to five percent and our contractual obligations oftentimes is at least four percent um and so receiving a number under four percent um positions us and challenges us challenges the school district significantly the budget drivers and i just wanted to outline those for the committee and so contractual obligations were started this is the greatest percentage of our school budget so our obligations um the the increase for our general fund will be 2.44 this year at 3.4 million um health insurance claims i'm sorry that's supposed to say claims it's a increase of 2.3 or 3.2 million transportation costs an increase i'm at 1.3 at a cost of 1.8 million john's going to speak to a little bit about that later special education increase at 0.15 or about a 215 000 increase for next year state mandates one of those state minutes include overhauling our k5 curriculum or literacy k5 that comes at a 1.33 million annually for the next three years so all of um districts recipient of alliance funds and alliance funding are required are required to um implement the new literacy mandate um in danbury's inclusion in that mandate our mandate plus enrollment 25 credits for graduation this is something certainly we had talked to the community about last year staffing before the 25 credit mandate continues those challenges at the same time enrollment continues so it's not just about making sure we have the staff necessary to make sure our kids can graduate with 25 credits which is an increase from 21 just last year but but now we continue to have more students coming into the high school which is just compounding the challenges at the building also as part of our feedback from our parent forums there's a outcry for enrichment and extracurricular activities families are asking for ways to engage their kids and address some of the social emotional and opportunities to socialize with other kids in a meaningful way so this is an estimated number at 200 across the district and then there are other items we currently have a security grant in order to realize we would have to budget for about approximately 250 000 certainly supplies is always part of a typical district budget and then some facility upgrades that we're also looking to make i meant 0.33 part about 0.33 of our budget and 1.4 million this total is at 12.8 million which i understand is different from the ask on the previous page but and our strategy would be we would apply grants for areas that are eligible so for example the k5 mandate is at 1.3 million um it is we we anticipate that the literacy overhaul will be eligible either an alliance eligible item or perhaps one of our federal grants that are expiring eligible our special education health insurance claims are two areas that have been parked in reserves for a rainy day with the city and so our strategy would be moving forward and to go to those two respective reserves uh to pay these two issues and the increase in total new dollars for 22.23 um and so and i'm sorry and then the same goes to transportation which we've also um feel pretty confident that there will be some eligible expenses those those two items will be eligible expenses and some of the grants that we um can spend down for this year um i'm sorry for next year and so with the subtotal is 12.8 at a 9.2 percent increase however once we apply the grants and reserves uh we would be looking at a 6.23 in general increase increase to the to the general operating budget at a total new dollars 8.7 million and then uh the bus the budget drivers uh with a little bit more explanation uh john's going to walk you through and then john and i will come back at the end for any questions the group might have john oh thank you kevin um salaries and wages you know as everybody knows are really driven by collective bargaining and what we do with the bargaining table the um you know if you're not at the if you're at the top step you're you're really the only uh group that's getting what we call the the gwi or the gross wage increase if we you know settle a contract for three percent and you're at the top step you're gonna get three percent increase but if you're not and you're at a a lower step you're gonna get the gwi plus a step so the younger teachers are more apt if we had a three percent increase for example they're more apt to get four or even four and a quarter as they they move up this the step function so our increase there is uh four percent um that's higher than uh we're settling our labor contracts for um but it's really to recognize uh steps and and we do have um many more uh newer teachers and younger teachers who are not at the top so that's why that number is higher than we've been settling for and we also at the moment uh have two or three contracts that we haven't settled yet we'll be doing that uh in the next couple months and for those uh we've put in a uh estimate of what we think uh they might settle for but um of course that will depend on on what happens and sometimes you know you can get to june 30th and and still not have a contract settled but at least this budget anticipates that everything will that should be settled by june 30th will be uh with um you know typical increases for what's going on so the next one the health insurance claims you know we self-insure for health insurance cigna is runs the program but the claims that are uh whatever claims are incurred that's what we actually pay so uh we also use a broker slash consultant gallagher many of you know of them they've been in a couple times in the last month or so they recommended that our employee premiums if you will go up a little more than six percent to pay for the increased in claims uh but there's also a lot else that goes into our uh insurance program aside from just paying the claims for example we with us we have an hsa program and our as the employer and through our collective bargaining agreements we pay certain amounts each year into those hsa plans so that that's added in also our our custodians uh you know they're not in that plan they're they're teamsters they have what's called a welfare fund that's a misnomer it's uh what we do is we pay uh so much uh per payroll uh to the teamsters and they take care of the the health and health insurance and what's there and then uh other things that go into it you know every year we have an open enrollment period like most employers some people may switch back and forth between employee only coverage or employ or employee family coverage and so when we go to put the budget together like you have in front of you it considers all of these things there may have been a shift from a year ago where we had more uh employee bluffs family and now we have more just employees so um that's why the the total increase of a 3.2 million may not be exactly six percent but it reflects all of uh the things i said and we can get more into that as we get into the you know looking at our budget uh in the next couple weeks the transportation uh the uh we do a combination there too of course you know our our biggest our contractor is sta um you the board had a did a very smart thing a year ago um extending that contract with four percent increases and uh who would have known that the districts now that are going out to bid or didn't extend their contracts they're seeing much higher increases the bus companies are under the same inflationary pressures as everybody else they now want more money they're having trouble uh hiring drivers too so uh that was a a smart thing um but we have a number of other things that go on besides just the uh home to school buses as they call it uh that you see we for example our special education transportation for kids who are placed out of a district we'll use other carriers we might use our our resk at advance uh to do some of that transportation you'll see those vans um you know with the sign on tops carrying school children and they're much more efficient than than sending a big yellow bus out of town that's a part uh there's other contractors like that connecticut transportation solutions between them and at advance there's probably six hundred thousand dollars of expenditures that go into that um and then we have a a bunch of other things uh that go on um for example uh we pay the money we pay for the monitors who ride on those special ed transportations those are um we they're their employees but we pay um you know for if we need a monitor on a bus they'll they'll hire them but but we pay for it and then we have things like the pre-kindergarten buses we have some wheelchair lifts some midday runs that go back and forth it's a pretty complex program and once again when we get further into the budget uh process we can lay out exactly what we did but we built this budget bus by bus from the ground up and um so that that's what you're you're seeing there so that that's uh also a driver um special education itself uh that's um very that's a very modest increase uh we uh spend close to probably three million dollars a year um that's not a lot for a district our size uh and that's not going up very much percentage-wise uh next year uh uh 215 000 i don't want to say only 215 that's um it's still a lot of money but it's a very small uh percentage increase um on the total uh see next page uh kevin mentioned the uh curriculum overhaul i think the uh important word there is that's a mandate uh that's been handed down to us from the state of connecticut uh as mentioned uh we're gonna try and spread that over three years to make a little easier on the budget and by doing that it would be 1.3 million uh each year and i'm sure carol will explain more uh what exactly uh we'll be doing uh my understanding is uh the first year will be the lowest of grades and and will move up from there the box that says mandate plus enrollment there are a couple things going on there when we say mandate there's a new the state board of education um determines what we what kids have to take or i should say the number of credits they have to take to graduate from danbury high school and and that's going up uh to 25.
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i i think it been 21 something before but more credits mean more electives that students have to take and you need teachers uh to teach those electives so we have to add additional high school staff to to be able to offer those things and then we've we just have rising enrollment um across the district particularly um students who english is not their first language so we need uh more bilingual teachers uh tesol teachers that kind of thing uh we'll explain more there um but we we you know we when enrollment goes up um you know we have to have teachers to teach that's stating the obvious i'm sorry um and as kevin mentioned the enrichment and extracurricular um you know we some of you have been on the family forums we've had we've had two of those they've been great we've heard some uh excellent ideas right and i think with dr ann mead um we've really gotten some good input from parents as to what uh they'd like to see i'll let kevin uh explain some of the details but they'd like us to have more things after school for their kids and and discussions i think have started with chip our athletic director uh is a intramural program first i think targeted at the middle schools and then trying to grow uh things from there won't be just sports uh but that's i think one of the uh the exciting things uh that they're planning on uh with this money so those are the drivers i i think that's the pages uh for me kevin yeah okay so preview of coming attractions thank you thank you john and so i just wanted to end on this uh just a reminder for the number and the ask then assuming that there would be questions um i can take the presentation down now but i'm happy to jump back in there if any questions and one of the committee members wanted to see a specific page mr chair can i ask a quick question please i'm going to assume that's a yes um i just uh first of all thank you guys i think that was really well laid out visually so thank you really quick on the increased enrollment the 2.2 million for the the credit mandate and for the increased enrollment this is anticipated enrollment that we're building in is this um building off of the increased enrollment we've seen this year can you just kind of give me a sense of um if it's if it includes planning for next year as well and it's it's both kate um it's acknowledging where we are now and then projections across the system k-12 of what we anticipate by the time we open our doors um in september okay thank you kevin are we going to get a presentation tonight on the k-5 curriculum uh overhaul or would that be for tomorrow night no to tonight and tomorrow was not going to be about the presentation on the literacy tomorrow uh mr russo was going to be a more comprehensive presentation on the budget um and so giving and and i'll ask john and eddie to make sure they can give you give you and kate at the very least kind of a preview of what that looks like tomorrow but really a preview on the budget meaning you know walking the community through our enrollment over the last five to eight years and how that's impacted impacted us relative to the monies we've received to operate the district it will kind of walk the community through our ask in the different revenue sources that are coming into the district and our ability or inability to fund initiatives and kind of mandates that we've opened up with tonight but but tomorrow will be more about the budget and just just kind of providing a little bit more information regarding the ask and providing that and certain providing that rationale not terribly different from what you've seen in previous years thank you kevin i have i have a question about the 20 new 25 credit limit what kind of courses are going to be created and the teachers needed to fill the gap between the uh 21 credit level to the 25 credit level yeah that's a good question so um i remember some of the courses um between karen kelly i'm sure they remember the the other ones um i know there was an increase for example in business courses that was required for students but i'll i'll just let karen kelly speak speak to that question sure it was around pe health and world language as well so we had to basically double up on some of those courses in order to make sure that that kids would graduate in time with a second health class for example so we used to have one one health course now there's health one and health two and so this year's junior class is the class that was a most affected by the was affected by the uh the change over to 25 credits and so um you know so each student from that junior class up had to take four additional credits before they graduated um and so so while this kind of started a few years ago we really haven't caught up with the staffing that's needed to make sure that um we get everybody to have those credits before they leave so the high school has been very creative with the way we've been grouping things and and scheduling courses and sections but we're definitely at a tipping point if you will of number of teachers being able to teach the number of sections that we need to make sure that we graduate everybody on time with the courses that they need so kara i'm going to share a screen real quick that might help with the outline sure and just kevin while you're doing that just add there was also the addition of a personal finance course under the new graduation requirements that is another course students are required to take that's the business yep right and this kind of just outlines the 25 credits and then the breakdown the breakdown in those 25 credits and where they could be pulled from kevin um do you want me to speak just briefly to the right to read legislation yes please i think that'll be helpful and yeah and and please also um care if you don't mind when we do have a curriculum committee um that certainly will be one of our bigger agenda items when we talk sure sure so um this past summer is passed as part of the implementer bill um legislation passed the the right to read legislation and so what that did is it it established um effective july 1st of 2021 um the the push to establish a center for literacy for research and reading success and so the department itself the state of connecticut department of education um has to create a center specifically dedicated to reading and reading research and success they're in the process right now of populating a committee in this center that will help to drive changes in reading instruction across the state of connecticut and so they're still in in this process of forming this but the goal is um to post a list of five research based literacy programs that meet um a particular criteria um that's behind that that falls in line with the science of of reading so uh one that is evidence-based focused on companies such as oral language phonemic awareness phonics fluency vocabulary uh auto naming letter name fluency and reading comprehension so it's very specific criteria and so the center will evaluate several reading programs that they'll use to create sort of a cut list of acceptable programs and districts will have um you know by january 2023 to start coordinating and selecting their program and then by july 2023 danbury as well as other school districts will have to implement one of those programs and so what that means is that in this next budget cycle we'll we will need some funds uh to begin that process of purchasing curriculum over the course of next year to begin training um in readiness for a 2023 school year implementation whether or not that takes place in two or three year phases it remains to be seen it depends program that we end up selecting um and how complex that any training that's involved will be and how much in terms of staff we have to help implement and build capacity for the program um so we don't know how much this will be we don't know if if some of the items that you have on that we use now will be on the list um districts can can apply for a waiver so um you know if we felt that what we were already doing met the the test of of the criteria um you can apply for a waiver but um we you know we believe that there'll be we have a hunch of the five or six programs that we think will be on that list we're happy with some of our k2 uh phonics structured program that we have but we do believe that some of the upper grades will not make the cut in terms of the programming that we have so um we were in the process of looking to replace some of that and meet some of the uh the literacy uh changes that we've already started at the middle school level we were working backwards so we did put that work on pause a little bit when the implementer bill came out um to see what the state would produce um and so that we could just make an informed decision and wait to spend our monies uh when that list was posted so um we'll hear probably by the spring we'll have a better idea but but the deadline is july 202 for this for this new center to declare the programs that the districts will have to back into our cdt team which is a group of our curriculum administrators and our supervisors have already started to invite some of these groups in from these programs that we believe will make the cut score just to get a head start on getting familiar with what they have to offer and to begin to get a sense of how much this would cost our district with any one of these programs so we've already gotten with just a couple of programs that we've invited in to do demonstrations anywhere between two million and four million dollars um just in sort of the initial articulations with these groups so we're not again not quite sure how much this is going to cost but it is important to have a placeholder in our budget so that we're prepared to act when this list is posted and we select our program all right if you give them too much no one's going to want to go to your tv show oh okay i'll stop talking sorry i could go on all day i'll be with myself now she's excited about this work um kate i you asked a question about enrollment and um the projections if it's okay and we will share this information tomorrow as well uh but i just this is kind of an internal document on our kind of data for the district so when we look at these numbers um across the system and so this is kindergarten first second third all the way across and please just hold your eyes for a second um you're going to notice at the bottom it says grand total and then high enrollment projections these high enrollment projections are from our demographer and so i'm going to scroll all the way over and so these two numbers uh we're basing our budget on this 12 279 number um this is if all of our kindergarten classrooms um this is rolling up every grade so it can kindergarten students roll up to first first to second etc um and then anticipating that we get the same amount of kindergarten students that we got this year that number would be 12 279 which is about 279 more students than we have now the malone and mcbroom high um the high numbers um in terms of projections for next year by 12 346 and as you can see we're pretty close to their highest um projection and so we're basing our budget on this number as of right now um hopefully we don't get this high this soon um but you know this as you can see we're kind of in that ballparks i just wanted to circle back on that question thanks mr watson 12 279 rather than what our we know it's going to be higher than that is that correct statement that is probably correct i yes thank you um can i ask another quick question in the presentation you guys reference needing to hit a certain level of funding to you know to ensure that we can properly staff the academy um in a couple years and the way that the the spending here is broken down doesn't really make it clear how we're how we're sort of implementing that um i'm wondering if you could if that's something that's better asked at the presentation tomorrow but no no i we're happy to um answer now okay at least the best i can anyway i know the team's thoughts are but um one we we have ninth and tenth graders um our ninth graders now uh are mandated to graduate with 25 credits next year we will have at least half of our 50 of our school requiring that 25 credit mandate and i think our position all along is we need to continue to hire additional staff to meet those demands um and if we wait until the end we don't i mean kind of given our history we don't think we're gonna get enough enough enough of an increase that all of a sudden we're gonna be able to drop an entire staff um in a new building and so our concern is number one to make sure that we can keep up with the current demands that we have which will position our which would position us when we need that last bump to open up the new school uh but if but if we continue to be if we're behind kate at least how we're seeing it if we're behind we're not going to be positioned to open up the new school um i'm happy to report um that the mayor is embraces the idea of having a task force uh to meet specifically on this item and so we will be looking to work with his office to schedule meetings really soon um and the committee might recall um i believe it dates back to 2008 when mayor mark had the 2020 task force from 2008 to 2020 so may esposito is very open to the idea has asked my office to start setting up meetings and so we will um carry is you know trying to pull the pieces together um i've axed um that we used the same template that was used in 2008 which called for two board members uh representative two council two council members um several people from um the from city hall including the mayor you know his chief of staff or or chief of staff you know a designated person um certainly someone from facilities that would be antonio uh someone from finance if that if he deems them appropriate um and then um i believe we had an nea represent representative at the meeting and then i had recommended that we also bring in someone from dsaa which is our admin union as well and then of course the appropriate people from cabinet to be at the table so it looked like the previous team was all the key stakeholders were at the table and my recommendation was that we do something similar to just make sure everyone is represented so we we all working on that and given you know the green light to move forward and so i'm i'm optimistic that you know we can land on a solution uh that makes sense for the city so they can do this in a in a way that's reasonable for their budget but also meet the district's needs thank you i'm sorry teresa kevin is the presentation for tomorrow night already prepared three shots with uh i i believe there's a couple of updates and fine-tuning ed and john would like to make uh to numbers um but i think outside of that there's not a lot that still needs to be done a little bit of polishing but mostly numbers just to make sure they're fine-tuned okay my point is that uh i was wondering if prior to the meeting tomorrow a few hours at least uh the board if you could send the screenshots to the board so we could have time to read up on them before the presentation i i personally would be better well-read to bring up questions and comments and concerns and congratulations if with a little more a warning and okay i'm not a big fan of seeing it once on the screen and it it goes away and i'm better prepared if if i can get to it ahead of time that's fair and uh i'll i'll make sure you have it ahead of time absolutely thank you sorry teresa i was just going to make a recommendation for that task force recommend contacting westcon and even naugatuck valley for representatives because they have business programs that would uh end up uh our students would probably go on to those to those schools so they might want a uh you know a hand in the setup i mean just a suggestion you know their dean or or the department chairs i'm that's where i come from okay no i appreciate it i appreciate it thank you anyone else catherine i see you in there good evening gladys cooper good evening i don't know who the unidentified zoom user is but maybe michelle um yep al that's me okay good evening to you all any additional questions ladies and gentlemen okay mr wilson yes sir anything additional sir or the next step yeah so next step um at least from my perspective is walk the board and the community through a more comprehensive presentation which will include how we've been funded over the last number of years certainly which will include our enrollment over the last couple of years kind of side by sides with districts that a lot like ours including milwaukee stanford how those districts are funded how we're funded and and really to help further justify the ask we feel like with our growing population which is certainly unique in the state of connecticut so we'll be finding ways to talk the board through that tomorrow as part of the workshop and the community um and it's we we just feel like it's really important for us to try to educate the community to the best of our ability um so that the board um and eventually the mayor's office city council can make an informed decision thank you sir thank you so that that's my long way of saying that's it for now mr moose at least from our side unless there are any more questions thank you anyone else uh if the committee finance committee subcommittee has nothing else to say i see rachel celeski and and on board gladys cooper rachel you are muted in case you have any comment to make for today well i i just want to say thank you for the presentation that everyone will help put this together it was very informative and i look forward to seeing there's a subcommittee do we need a motion to adjourn we'll see you all tomorrow night thank you mr rooster we'll get back to you thank you very
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good afternoon thank you for joining us welcome to the senate committee on education today is monday january 31st 3 p.m and we are in hearing room 229. this meeting including the audio and video of remote participants is being streamed live on youtube you will find links to viewing options for all senate meetings on the live and on demand video page of the legislature's website this zoom meeting and youtube live stream event will include the three o'clock pm agenda for the comedian education in the unlikely event that we have to abruptly end this meeting due to major technical difficulties the committee will reconvene to discuss any outstanding business on friday february 4 2021 at 3 pm and a public notice will be posted on the legislature's website i'd like to take this time to remind our testifiers that due to time restrictions on our hearings we will be limiting testimonies to one minute per testifier per bill for people participating remotely please remain muted and video disabled until shortly before it is your turn to testify when i call your name unmute yourself and your time will begin after your minute is completed staff will mute you so that we can move this hearing along in an orderly and efficient manner should you experience any technical difficulties when it is your turn to testify we may have to move on to the next person due to time constraints your understanding is appreciated and we would like to remind you that the committee has your written testimony we apologize if the closed captioning does not accurately transcribe the audio broadcast if you wish to review the written testimony submitted please go to the legislature's website you will find a link on the status page for the measure thank you first item on our agenda is senate bill 2181 relating to schools requires unlicensed but accredited private schools to annually submit health and safety documentation to the hawaii council of private schools to meet the definition of private schools under the compulsor compulsory attendance law first to testify we have dr nuellen young superintendent testifying for hawaii catholic schools thank you so much uh senators of the committee on education for this opportunity to testify i'm dr luellen young the superintendent for hawaii catholic schools boy catholic schools of course is the largest private school network in the state of hawaii serving 7 000 students with 27 campuses and is a subsidiary of the roman catholic church in the state of hawaii and we support this bill with the appropriate modification to include hawaii catholic schools offices the compliance agency to oversee the non-licensed but accredited catholic schools who are not full members of the hawaii association of independent schools in agreement with both the hawaii association of independent schools and the hawaii council for private schools fortunately the hawaii catholic schools office already functions in the same capacity as hcps for all parochial catholic schools which are not members of hgis but are fully accredited by at least two nationally accredited organizations uh wasc and wcea in agreement with hais and hcps we will continue uh to provide an oversight for all state compliance measures regarding the health and safety of our hawaiian association of independent schools will work with us but hawaii catholic schools will be monitoring all of the safety checklists with cps and includes all of the state agencies and their uh appropriate uh appropriate reports uh the uh modification that we are asking is to include and submit health and safety documentation to the hawaii council of private schools or the whole office on an annual basis we support this bill again in collaboration with hais and hcbs with the state of verification thank you very much apologize for the barking dog thank you dr young [Music] next to testify bill bossert executive director for hawaii association of independent schools phil please thank you senator kadani and members of the committee we stand on our testimony and we do support the amendment that dr young has suggested and happy to answer any questions if you have thank you like to introduce my committee members with me to my right is our vice chair senator donna mercado kim and to my left senator kanuha and i believe online we have senators favela and donovan de la cruz members are there any questions if not we'll move on to item number two senate bill 2188 relating to schools establishes a workforce readiness diploma program within the department of education's community school for adults program also appropriates funds to testify interim superintendent kikayashi please good afternoon chuckydoni chairman kim and members of the committee keith ayashi interim superintendent of the department of education the department supports senate bill 2188 the department appreciates the appropriation and positions to advance our efforts in workforce development mckinley and waipahu community school for adults are an integral part of the department's consolidated statewide effort to prepare students for the career pipeline the department is committed to providing students with educational opportunities that will allow them to obtain the skills attributes and certifications they need to contribute to hawaii's workforce thank you for the opportunity to testify thank you superintendent next to testify helen senpai principal testifying from mckinley community school for adults helen not president chair hello i'm helen sante is here i'm here with um teri ushijima thank you chair hidani and committee members i stand on the written testimony that i have submitted online but would like to add that the community school for adults is a versatile organization and able to deliver the workforce diploma program as well as career foundation certificate on site for our business partners as well as other doe schools our correction correctional facilities hotels labor unions american job centers and all other partners thank you for this opportunity to testify thank you helen next to testify trevor thank you chair kadani and vice chair kim and members of the committee trevor abrasion with the chamber of commerce hawaii the chamber of commerce supports senate bill 2188 we're a big believer in work based learning at the chamber and advancing our economy through work based learning we've seen a number of different industries be able to grow their workforce without students having to go to community college or college and uh encourage student debt so we're big believers of this program and we stand in support of the bill and the written testimony i'm happy to answer any questions thank you trevor that concludes the testifiers we do have other we have 17 19 total testimonies received on this bill members are there any questions of the testifiers if not moving on item number three senate bill two three three four relating to the board of education requires the board of education to hold no less than six community forums annually with at least one forum in each county requires the board to include an open forum for public comment on non-agenda items requires a report to the legislature on implementing open and opening open forums to testify cheryl cacazu park office of information practices cheryl are you there and the only other testifier we have is douglas miller in support of the bill no other testifiers members questions moving on senate bill 2180 relating to education requires a governor to nominate members for reappointment at least 150 days before the expiration of the members term requires the senate to consider the reconfirmation of the member at least 60 days before the member's term expires clarifies that hold over members shall not serve as members of the board of education beyond the end of the first regular session of the legislature following the expiration of the member's term unless duly appointed by the governor and confirmed by the senate immediately disqualifies from service any hold over members whose nomination is withdrawn by the governor prior to holdover members confirmation by the senate requires a governor to submit to the senate no later than 20 days prior to the convening of each regular session of the legislature a list of the names of any vacancies filled by interim appointments and the number of any vacancies on the board um i'd like to make a few remarks on this bill and we have no testimony submitted at all for this bill but this bill is being introduced because of the lack of consistency with which the governor treats the advising consent process for board chairs across the state the senate has seen multiple instances where the governor has withdrawn the nomination of a sitting board chair only to have them remain as board chair at his pleasure while bypassing the constitutionally mandated advise and consent process the most heinous example of this is allowing the hawaii tourism authority chair to remain the chair for almost three years after withdrawing their name from the advising consent process [Music] during the time [Music] the hta chair was able to oversee the search process for the new president and ceo of hca stepping down shortly thereafter i introduced this bill to reform the holdover process for the boe chair but also to bring awareness to the other members of the governor's actions in this regard members questions comment um certainly i agree with your measure and can attest to what you said about the hta board we do it did introduce a measure on boards and commissions to bring in line with some of the issues that you've raised for all boards and commissions i don't believe that talked about uh if if a member withdraws then they should not be eligible so i certainly like that part of your bill and would make that recommendation to the committee on government ops or committees that are going to be seen hearing hopefully the boards and commissions that we can make that amendment to that so thank you thank you senator i appreciate that no further questions and no testimony we will be moving on senate bill 2189 relating to the board of education removes the governor's authority to select the chairperson of the board of education authorizes a majority of the members of the board to elect the chairperson from among the members of the board removes requirement that the chairperson be an at-large member there is no [Music] oral testimony there was one written testimony in support by anne freed thank you ann can i make a comment on that one yes please i believe there's most of the boards have the members select the chair i think it's seldom that i see it just a dlnr where that the governor actually appoints the chair but normally it's the board so that's kind of unusual in this case so that would make that consistent with the majority of the boards thank you thank you for that and this would be for you know should this bill pass and for all future boards by self-paced no further questions or comments moving on to senate bill 2824 relating to the board of education amends the minimum qualifications for board of education members and they have a few testimonies but one on only one oral and that is from david miyashiro executive director testifying for hawaii kids can david please aloha can you folks don't hear me yes thank you very much aloha chair kidani vice chair kim and members of the committee hawaii kids can strongly support sp 2824.
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[Music] greetings and welcome to cape may technical schools advisory celebration of career technical month yes february is a special month because nationally we celebrate what the technical school does every day we are in session learning about careers and you the advisory committees are very important to the students instruction on a daily basis that is why we take this month to thank you and to explain what's going on at the technical high school since last year when we visited again we have some very exciting curriculum to share with you but before i talk about the curriculum and share that with you there's some very exciting things that i wanted to let you know about the facilities at cape may technical we will be building a secure front entrance with the new front entrance you will have your whole administrative suite on one side and your guidance department and child study team on the other so parents and business community when you visit the tech you will be able to come into one front door and determine which direction and who you need to speak to when that project is completed this will be the implementation of round one of our grant saving our children's future if you recall the state of new jersey but voted on a bond referendum just for technical schools and our district was awarded a 5.4 million dollar project so when the guidance department and the curriculum office moves to the new front entrance and the administrative suite also moves we will be implementing a new media center where the administrative department is our culinary department and hospitality travel and tourism will be enhanced with new classrooms a double the size conference room and our american bounty cafe will double in size at the same time we will be introducing our new career 2023-24 school year that will be environmental science and sustainability which is enhancing our initiative already with sustainability and critical thinking application across the disciplines we hope to have that project completed as we are in the planning stages of applying for round two of saving our children's future bond act grant for a total of 19 million dollars at that time we will be introducing new curriculum that miss kristen schaefer our curriculum and instruction director will be sharing with you briefly but most importantly i want to thank you the members of the advisory board that take their time their expertise to collaborate and share their knowledge with our students because the importance of delivering a high skilled in demand and a decent wage is outweighed by the fact that it must be a high quality curriculum and you our board members i thank you very much your input is a very integral component to our success enjoy your meetings in our new format and we will be sending you a hold the date when we get to celebrate in person in the spring and enjoy your presence on our campus at this time i'd like to introduce miss kristen schaefer thank you hello and i'm kristen shafer the director of curriculum instruction at kate may technical school district welcome to our evening or daytime event today as we are trying to ensure safety of our members and also advocate for our students well-being as we speak about our grant initiatives here at tech i just want to ensure that with our round two of our grant we are meeting the needs of our county and are not complementing our natural resources within cape may county we have done research to ensure and analyze the needs of our county our state and our nation this global workforce is ever-changing in this environment we have spoken to various stakeholders and ensuring that our students can not only go right directly into the workforce but also attend post-secondary opportunities as we move through our meeting tonight or today we please want to advise you on how the format is going to play out your role as an advisory board member is to advise advocate and assist our teachers as we prepare curriculum that matches the industry trends and needs of that specific career we also have opportunities with work based learning that you'll hear during your meeting we implore and accept opportunities for our students to get out into the community whether it's a paid or unpaid internship whether it's a guest speaker or it's a site visit we welcome those opportunities and hope that you can assist us in creating them for our students and finally tonight as we finish the meeting if you would ever be so helpful and fill out the survey that way we can best serve and prepare our curriculum for curriculum revisions this summer and opportunities for our students beyond thank you and enjoy your meeting you
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uh can you do me a favor and just hold this livestream oh the streets oh wow you're awesome hello happy monday thank you for being ready and um for being here we are super super excited to allow you to be entertained by mostly kosher and i want you to help me give a great big round of applause and shout out to our foundation president mrs [Applause] and when we say that we have a lot of people looking out for continental to make sure that our students get the best this is a prime example because mostly kosher played in oro valley they're playing tomorrow at cpac and mrs clark thought well why don't we just get them to come to continental and so we were able to put it together and make it happen so thank you mrs cuevas for also organizing this kosher group they're part of the family he's gonna speak a little bit about the group and please show them your best mental cult behavior thank you [Applause] [Music] says oh is [Music] thank you [Music] everybody [Music] oh he was um [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] everybody's not very easy [Music] all right [Music] uh and put your hands together guys you guys are great good job everybody [Applause] that was nothing guys i need to fight a sound wave to push me back against the wall are you feeling good today hey calm down my name is lee and i am janice mountner markham we are from los angeles california we're bringing a band to you today we call mostly kosher there's only two of us but we are a much bigger band if you come to see the show but eddie really quick does anyone even know what the word culture is or ever heard that word before [Music] you know so we are representing the jewish culture the jewish heritage and that's our backgrounds you see everyone has different backgrounds and different heritage and judaism as we call it or the jewish culture and religion we're tied together through our spirituality but jewish cultures are all over the world it's a very global culture in different parts of the world such as europe and russia and spain and even argentina anybody know where argentina is which continent is argentina he said it's that way [Music] so we have our culture and people with our heritage scattered all over the world we also have a land in the middle east the homeland is called israel have you guys heard of it okay so so kosher specifically means that we are doing something according to our traditions uh usually people talk about it with food but our little joke is we're talking about it with music um janice i'll let you tell a little bit more about the history of our music and how it ties in so you heard that that second piece that we played that i started on my own that's the piece called the test and that's an example of klezmer music jewish folk music and i'm not talking about the music that you hear in a religious setting although we love that music and we play that music music as well okay but the music that we play is the music that photo musicians play that you hear on the streets they could be wandering musicians and actually i have to tell you something the class marine that were around in like the mid to late 19th century they were not thought of to be very high proud to be very elitist to be very cultured they were actually looked down upon like they lived out of wagons and they traveled from town to town but we honor those people we honor the street musicians have you ever seen a musician playing on the street maybe with a case of music case in front of them busting as we call it yeah right give them a dollar or two that is the history of what we're talking about that's where we've grown our music from so what's the instrumentation what is plasma music what kind of instruments do you think this jewish cultural music would be played on okay anyone have an idea there's a little hint right here who has a hand up you can just yell it out yes oh my gosh lucky guess violin do you have any other yeah i'll give you a little hint it's got to be an instrument that can be carried right because you're not going to be plugging a grand piano around yes he cheated right right why would they play accordion not a piano right because you can carry it from town to town it's a street instrument it's a street instrument i'll give you one more one one more guess and an instrument we're going to move on here yes green sweatshirt guitar yes you know there were string instruments like have you heard of a mandolin yes mandolin there were types of stringed instruments like guitar that exactly you can strum it you can put it over your shoulder and so this is the music that we are bringing to you and i wow what a great audience want to take it from there yeah how many of you guys um i just want to be honest that in some communities there's a lot of jewish culture and heritage and communities out there in some communities it's not a lot so how many of you guys ever met a jewish friend or been to been invited to a bar mitzvah or a bar mitzvah you guys know what those are there are celebrations that they do at 13.
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yeah and i'm madison for your morning announcements for february 1st 2022. are you a senior that has not ordered their cap and gowns yet see better to get information on how to order yours so you can be in the ceremony there will be a youth and government meeting thursday morning at 7 15 in mr bailey's room now to bradley with your weather good morning i'm bradley with your weather today you have a high of 55 and a low of 32. tomorrow you have a high of 47 a low 31 with some rain thursday you have a high of 33 with a low 20 and some snow now back to your announcements start the year out step stepping out of your comfort zone with a challenge that could earn you up to 200 the greensburg optimist club is hosting their annual speech contest february 22nd give a four to five minute speech on the topic of staying optimistic and challenging times application forms are in the office and all information can be found on the flyers hung up around the school for more information to see mrs kolkemeyer now to bradley with the sports it's for lunch but today we have chicken drumsticks mashed potatoes green beans and roll and a taco bar now back to your announcements attention all juniors the greensboro prevention group is looking for its new role model for be the wall be the wall is building a wall between decatur county teens and substance abuse if you would like to be the next role model and earn 200 scholarship towards your first semester of college pick up the application in the guidance office the deadline is march 1st please follow greensburg safety on instagram to stay up to date on in your community now the morgan with your sports i'm morgan with the sports and today there's a boy swimmy at home now back to your announcements the decatur county parks and recreation department is accepting applications for summer employment for lifeguard pool cashier in concession positions for the allen memorial swimming pool contact teresa kovaci at the parks department for applications or details have a great day and be sure to follow us on twitter snapchat and instagram at gchs pirates also be sure to
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playing service at all times and now for the next 30 letters first for our guests number three is the cluster [Applause] [Music] [Applause] number five paul gosselin [Applause] number 14. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] our country [Music] is the same we thank you for your [Applause] all service [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] hello foreign [Applause] three [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] [Applause] oh [Applause] oh [Applause] oh [Music] [Applause] oh [Applause] hey [Music] [Applause] hey watch it back [Applause] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh [Applause] [Music] hello [Applause] [Music] [Applause] okay [Applause] hey [Applause] oh [Applause] oh [Applause] got a squeeze right there [Applause] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] go left [Applause] [Music] okay you're already too late you need to take the block away take the block away don't even let him catch right here absolutely that's all good uh okay [Applause] okay oh [Applause] oh [Applause] wow [Applause] [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh [Applause] attack [Applause] [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Applause] thank you [Applause] oh [Music] oh [Applause] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] that wasn't a wall [Music] thank you [Applause] watch out [Applause] okay oh [Applause] ah oh [Applause] every time so oh um oh [Applause] [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] hey here we go [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] quickly [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] okay [Applause] uh [Applause] oh [Applause] ah [Applause] [Music] oh [Applause] yes [Applause] reckless thank you yes oh [Applause] oh yo i ain't seen number one go left yeah there you go [Applause] go out here [Music] oh [Applause] wonderful i know fourteen and seven [Music] [Applause] oh [Applause] a tackle [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] gotta get aggressive on the board gotta grab some rebounds dude they're killing you guys [Music] all right you can't go down oh [Music] yes [Applause] oh [Music] come on [Music] oh [Applause] you you forgot to check out [Music] [Applause] yo grab a rebound blue grab one wow [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh [Applause] oh you [Applause] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] what's good hey [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Applause] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh [Applause] uh [Applause] okay [Music] foreign [Music] um [Applause] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] reality [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh [Applause] oh okay you oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh [Applause] [Music] oh [Applause] coming back [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] that's 42 [Applause] check this out [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] uh [Applause] me [Applause] what he could have been doing [Applause] [Music] here [Music] oh [Music] frankie why do you look like that oh you're intimidated oh [Music] uh [Music] come on oh [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] yes guys [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] oh [Applause] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] hello [Applause] [Music] oh [Applause] watch your bread [Applause] oh [Music] okay [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] up [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] all right oh [Music] travels [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Applause] oh [Applause] oh [Music] right now [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh [Applause] oh [Applause] oh me [Applause] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh [Applause] oh [Applause] um [Applause] [Music] hey okay [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you
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the hawaii board of education is an incredibly important policy-making body and is the only board of education in the state i want to commend the great folk survey on the board this is often a thankless job and the last few years have had especially long hours with emotionally fraught testimonial issues however i believe there is a tremendous opportunity for the board to be better equipped to guide our education system into 2022 and well beyond hawaii is facing an existential crisis as we continue to lose population and many of our bright young people to the mainland school and learning cannot look the way it has been for the past hundred years and our students need an education system that reflects this complex reality more than ever the traditional silos of k-12 higher education and the workforce must come down the margin of error continues to get smaller for our kids to graduate with the skills needed to survive it thank you david members questions comments if not thank you david and we had three other testifiers two in support one with comments next senate bill 2817 relating to education annual report requirements repeals search and department of education annual reporting requirements to testify kitayashi interim superintendent vice chair mercado kim and members of the committee sean bacon interim assistant superintendent of the office of talent management testifying on behalf of superintendent hayashi and the department of education the department stands on its written testimony in support of senate bill 2817 and is available to answer any questions we thank you for the opportunity to testify thank you sean no further testimonies members questions now thank you sean moving on senate bill 3095 making an emergency appropriation to the department of education for a maintenance bay shark provides an emergency appropriation for the department of education to build a new maintenance space yard to testify kitayashi interim superintendent superintendent hayashi hello kidani vice chair mercado kim and members of oh um i do have assistant superintendent randy tanaka go ahead yesterday thank you good afternoon tirakidani vice chairman of kim members of the committee thank you very much for your time we stand by our testimony in an effort to as you know uh maintenance is a big issue for us and modernization of our facility is important and our ability to execute the work that we need to but thank you very much for your time alone thank you randy can you tell us where this maintenance base shard is being built it's we're looking at two options senator uh one is an option to acquire existing facility and the other is looking at ground zero build up honestly our preference is to buy a facility we did look at the love's bakery a former loves bakery facility but found our expense to restore that facility was of a very large magnitude financially so we continue to search for a location there are several places we've looked but they are a lease situation and that is not our preference we continue to search thank you randy members questions about further questions thank you randy moving on thank you hello to senate bill 3209 relating to teacher professional development appropriate funds for teacher professional development to testify superintendent hayashi please good afternoon cherokee dhani vice chairman of kim members members of the committee keef ayashi interim superintendent for the department of education the department supports senate bill 3209 and appreciates the appropriation for teacher professional development this will restore the 21 professional development hours that were previously not granted due to the reduction in funds that resulted from the pandemic restoration of the 21 pdrs acknowledges and fulfills the department's previously started intent to reinstate this development tool for teachers when the requisite funding became available responsive capacity building is a critical statewide strategy in the in the department's plans to recover from the pandemic and professional development is an essential component of this strategy thank you for your support and for the opportunity to testify thank you superintendent next to testify director uh reicherwata please uh aloha chair kidani vice chairman okay and members of the committee on rayquada i'm actually uh appearing today um on using my second hat as the chief negotiator for the office of collective bargaining uh office of collective bargaining respectfully opposes this measure um not so much we completely support again in my first step as department of human resources completely support professional development however this particular topic we believe is a subject of collective bargaining is not appropriate for this type of measure if you have any questions i'd be happy to answer thank you so riker my question is how is this bill that we're hearing now compared to senate bill that was sent down in the governor's package sorry i i apologize uh chair i'm not familiar with 3097.
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very cool and if you haven't you've got two new jewish friends right here how you doing let's uh have a nice pool party later thank you and also the the we talked about you heard a word lesbian we said that we talked about the word kosher coaster is like usually used for food klezmer is more the formal word of what the sound you're hearing right now and the street folk music that you're hearing there's other things that come with it more than just not just more but also in addition to the violin the accordion another one by the way anybody in band here yeah anyone playing clarinet you don't realize it buddy but you were you were a porn klezmer player that's right that's right clarinet is a very popular popular instrument as well but if you're a saxophone player don't worry trumpet trombone we'll get you in there but yeah clarinet was originally doing a lot of klezmer too all right moving on there's languages did you notice i was singing on the first one what language was i singing it right i think hopefully you can hear it it's a big room it sounded pretty jewish though it was very jewish sounding english um there was one word in there that was jewish did anyone catch that word to life you guys remember try it the word is the thing it did it's gotta it's got it in it like yeah so let's go let's try it again i'll say to life to life to life to life yeah the fire means to life it's usually done when you're gonna cheers and you guys are excited about something and the energy and you're about to toast so one more time take your imaginary glass and hold it in the air to life to that's right life exactly so that language that we speak we have a bunch of different languages because like i said we're around the world some of it is hebrew which is a language that they speak in israel another language is called yiddish have you ever heard something that's the new word everybody is a yiddish word and anybody said oh i kind of left my kids to school ever heard the word schlepping schlepping is i've got a dragon kicking and screaming that's you know schlepping is the yiddish word so we do sometimes you'll hear yiddish words and your parents or your grandparents might say but that being said um this song that we're about to play for you is a yiddish song from a long time ago and it was a love song and it's called i love you much too much the yiddish for it is a lot of uh so i hope you guys enjoy this is i love you much i want to just mention one more quick thing i want you to listen to the different rhythms and the sounds and see if you hear something in there that might bring the sense of another country or another feel or another style of music listen to that [Music] oh is [Music] i love you more [Music] uh [Music] is [Music] [Applause] that came from spain we speak a language that's called spanish speakers in the room okay very cool nice so you might even understand some of the words of this next song this next song i'm going to play on the piano it's about a biblical story but it's not it's not a religious story it's more of a folk story about the characters and one of them have you guys ever heard of the character abraham right so there's a story about a jewish spanish story about her mother and that when abraham was going to be born he was in danger the king at the time wanted to hunt him down hunt the mother down before that abraham was born so this is a story about how she ran off into the wild to have the baby so that she could do it in hiding and make sure that abraham was born because he had a big role to play that you guys might have heard right this is [Music] it's is [Music] you guys keep that hey so we um have something that happened to us ten years ago we started our band but five years after that we were in los angeles we're doing jewish heritage music for museums and festivals and both for the community that are our jewish community as well as those who want to hear some new and cultural cultures such as yourselves you are a very eclectic school here for bringing us something thank you for that eclectic means you've got a lot of diversity we love that now what i'm going to add is that we got approached by a really big organization you may have heard of it the president of this organization is well he's a mouse and he's got big mouse ears mickey mouse how quickly they got it like in two seconds anybody know what organization to talk came to mostly coaster five years ago because they're interested in finally doing what you guys are doing right here like let's bring this cultural music to our audiences too we have never had they hadn't had it in over 60 years ever actually yeah they were the parks have been around for 60 years and so they asked if we would come into the disneyland parks and not only play one show but they wanted us to put together the jewish cultural heritage production and you know how many shows it was six shows a day seven days a week for two months around the holidays yeah we're very tired we're very exhausted um but it was a lot of shows because what that means we got to play for so many families and so many people like yourselves and people who never heard of it before we're starting to hear about our kind of music and i see that there's a question and i really agree that we'll have some time for some questions at the end so don't forget it okay now i just want to say that that once we hit the disneyland parks in california uh there's another disneyland park you guys know the other one in in the other side of the country right so we also were able to bring our show to disney world to epcot and we were the first band of our kind the first jewish cultural band to ever have representation like that as a production of the disneyland parks and that was a really big deal for us and that is also part of who we are is we're always constantly trying to bring our cultural music to new ears um the other part of who we are is when we go and we travel like we're doing now we like to take the music and not just do what we did but we showed you some folk songs and we and those were exactly how they go we did we tweaked them a little bit we didn't write the words the words were from hundreds of years ago we also like to write new songs so what we do is we take from the old and we listen and we get inspired and we respond the other things we're really big about is social justice i don't know if green valley has a rising um crisis of homelessness does anyone know if homelessness is here in green valley i know that in tucson it's growing i think that the adults know that in phoenix phoenix is growing in phoenix i saw the numbers it's like 7 000 people on the streets just trying to survive in los angeles county guys 65 000 people are without homes yeah it's pretty intense so we've started doing work in shelters and prisons to try to bring music and use music as a way to find a better motivation and sense of purpose but as we're doing it we're listening to these incredible stories and this next song i'm not going to go into it was about trying to understand who doesn't have you can't understand their story just from looking at them ever heard the term don't read a book by its cover right so this song is about someone who seems like you really don't understand where they're coming from they're really angry they seem to be really uh so different from you they might be yelling really loud and you just feel scary but instead we're taking a moment to ask ourselves let's be patient let's be patient with each other and to our neighbors even the ones we don't understand how they got to where they are and let's hold respect for them let's so this one's about hail to the king the king of the weak because they're fighting for something they believe in and no matter how we feel differently we've got to respect each other the king of the week the king of the meek hail let's even if they feel like the world is crumbling around them let's hold them in love so this is hail to the king oh yes we took a small latino song you guys remember latino what country was ladino from again remember right we took another song and we took a little piece of it and i want to take this melody and teach it to you and hopefully you guys can be part of the song with us the part of the song that you're going to sing it's very easy don't worry no words no latino words we're just going to sing it on live so and so if you guys do me a favor i'll sing it first i love that i see some people already going for it and some of you guys are a little shy just remember it's not about singing good singing bad that's not important here it's about singing together so i'm gonna try it again and start singing along with me janice will sing with me too here comes try that one more time with me so now i'm going to sing the song hail to the king a song we hope that helps us all love our neighbors a little bit more give me one step [Music] the world's [Music] your eyes is [Music] well [Music] crazy [Music] things this world is [Music] [Applause] [Music] you is i keep saying keep it going come on one more time over time can't [Music] after school gets out and if you guys want to tell your families to come and see the whole show there's so much to share with you and we can't wait to see you again we're starting to close up um so we have some uh how much more time do we have if i may check with our team here five minutes so we have five minutes for some questions and then we'll close with one more little piece um good i've got you on standby and then i just want to say that also we'll be releasing a brand new album next month or this is february february 24th and if you guys want more information we're hopefully gonna have some uh do we have alex do we have postcards and things posters we have posters for you all and if you like you can get a pre-saved black and white and post it and share it if you guys are on socials or have your families do it and that way you can stay in touch with us as we release our album soon it's going to have a lot of themes like this social justice and love and trying to have mutual understanding are there any questions about the klezmer music the jewish culture music some of the songs you've heard about us specifically about disney i'm sure you might so let me start with this young gentleman over here i'm going to come to you guys so what's your name charles charles what's your question um how much money did you make here's a great question how much money do you make it's very hard to make a living but when you do work for disney it's nice because you don't have to just wait for the weekends to play a gig disney has shows going on every day of the week so what i will say is that when we have our shows at disney it feels great that you can be doing art every day and being paid just properly for it and will our most of our artists that work busy this is what i will say i won't tell you a number but it will say if they play with us and they're also doing disney they're lucky that they don't have to do other day jobs they actually can play music as a full-time job in los angeles and if you know los angeles rent is expensive so there is a way to do it it's hard but also a lot of us also teach music as well as to play music and that's another way that we make our name too where okay right here what's your name please stand up and share your questions i love that she asks do we play any other instrument um you play a little bit of viola and also you use some cello right and then um and then i play clarin i was a clarinet major and an opera mate dress in opera director so i do a lot of those things and then the other instruments you see here i have one instrument in the back i might show to the band later on in our workshops but very good question i'm going to go this way around so in the back but we also hope to keep coming back we've done some touring over the years and we've been excited about that in los angeles i'll tell you that we are pretty much the premier klezmer rock band we play uh for pbs television there all the time and on for live broadcasts representing hanukkah and then with our work between disney we've been able to grow our national and even an international audience so we're excited to also keep seeing it grow i'm going to try to sweep over and she's curious about this one this is our a jewish symbol it's called the star of david and this is a tambourine and so we like to call it our jewelry um and this instrument is handmade by friends of ours so that we can get it into this shape and it's a nice professional instrument thank you for that question right here so we've been in east coast how many states yes oh my gosh we did an east coast tour um we've also been through the southwest in this area a few times we really really love coming out here uh yeah we went to florida and then um we're actually planning to be in canada montreal and and toronto and looking into the future we're going to do a pacific northwest tour you know through oregon and up to washington in april so if you have any friends up there um you know we'll we'll keep in touch with you guys right there in the blue yeah what's our favorite piece like of our pieces or like in and out in the world the whole world um i'm trying to think of something that you guys might know i love jamie coleman he's a jazz piano player and a singer what about you what's your favorite oh world gosh that's that's that's really hard um i like a lot of 40s and 50s music i like george gershwin blues like summertime that's probably one of my favorite songs right there yeah thank you man this new album is going to be on spotify on amazon music on apple music it's going to be all over we will be selling albums and finals uh yes tvs too for those that still have cd players and um if you are on socials you can find us at mostly kosher if you're not on socials we have a website mostlykosher.com i don't know what age people start getting into social so tick tock we just opened a new tick tock tac okay right here yes that's a very good question i'm mainly the main vocalist although we all do sing in the band and then disney we have we hire other vocalists because it's hard for me to sing seven days a week for two months straight so if you ever come to disneyland parks to see us there during the holiday season we have what we call a rotation uh performers so there's people who learn to sing the songs just like i do and sing with us and we and we love them and they all sound great right over here thank you did you also have a question although honestly i'll take that that was great thank you for saying that that means a lot she shared it she thinks we're awesome right here i can play a little bit of guitar i can do some strumming and i can also do some picking but we have some phenomenal guitar players that we play with and on the album is one of the best guitarists i know named will brong who's here oh that's a long story which i'll tell you guys another time but i will say it was an accident and i'm sorry to tell you this teachers but it started because i lied someone asked do i have a pleasure band and i didn't know what plasma was but i said yes and then i had to go middle class because they booked us they booked us the best instrument i think i think i'm not really the best at any of them uh they call it jack of all trades with a master at none but yet it's better than to be a master of one i think my trooper skills are great right here performing and it's such a pleasure to be here with you all and thank you for being such a great audience really yeah we have time for like i mean i only have time for maybe two more guys we're running over time but don't don't hold on to your questions and you can maybe share them with your teachers and get them back to us sweatshirt yeah we've been playing for almost 11 years and i started when i was in we i started the band when we were in unit when i was in university and i met janice at um my you know what a church for jewish people they call it a synagogue so i met janice at the synagogue and we played together for our services there and then she joined me it was really nice a special thing this year that i'm gonna share with you guys as of this year i have been playing the violin for 50 years right now [Applause] wait it's so dry here in arizona [Applause] all right guys are going to finish up with one last little bit of music before we go i know there's more questions maybe we'll have a chance to meet you more if you come tomorrow to our show we'll have a chance to meet you even more then at cpac in the meantime everybody do you remember the very first thing i shared with you the very first word you learned it was about raising your glass and having interiors what was that word say it louder that's right so we're gonna play the first song a little bit of the first song we did again but there's a very important part when i count us in two three four you're all going to say that three lines the three lines are this to life to the live love can you try that [Applause] and then you have to make sure you raise that imaginary blast way up in the air because we're choosing to have such a beautiful life together with you thank you so much for having us everybody [Applause] i just want to say also before we end bonnie thank you for bringing us in the foundations [Music] all right here we go if you guys do this right you'll all start to be able to play at disneyland i'll get you the game [Applause] [Music] all right here we go if we could take a picture with you would you guys like to do that we're going to take a picture we'll try to share it with you guys and maybe we'll see if we can find it where's waldo each other uh teachers you want to facilitate that all right [Music] thank you to everyone watching in class someone should be
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i'll look it up right after this um okay we'll come back to you then yeah and we'll i'll submit a response as well thank you next to testify yvonne lao public charter schools thank you chair kidani vice chair mercado kim and members of the committee thank you very much for the opportunity to testify in support of sv 3209 we simply ask that should this measure move forward that we please include our public charter school teachers as well thank you for this opportunity and we look forward to working with you on this thank you yvonne next to testify nathan morata dean of university of hawaii college of education not present chair in support next junior president hsta osa hello laverne moore speaking on behalf of osatui we support this bill and we would like to see it return with our negotiated 21 hours of professional development teachers this is a way to retain teachers teachers in the neighbor islands cannot afford to to pay for courses even to travel they they have great difficulties this is a means if you asking us to do professional development you need to pay us for it it is extra time on our part bring back the 21 hours for professional development that was not included in this last hsc contract we can negotiate it it's in the best interest of teachers we need this in our contract thank you thank you laverne no further testifiers members any questions i'm not sure if riker is still there if you can answer the question i can answer the question hst um i know over the years that um there have been some give and take in leo of higher pay and so forth where the government agreed to give all of the sick leave and vacation time up front whereas everybody else has to earn it as they go along so as hsca recall what was it that they they gave in and got for that for that measure to be included in the collective bargaining agreement i i'm not familiar with that collective bargaining agreement but i i do understand i was there from 1970 that we are 10 months employees and what happens is 20 of our paycheck is withheld for our june and july pay so that we become 12 month employees so that is what i know on how as 10 months employees when we retire we get credit for the 12 months but in retiring if you retire in december you would own earn 12 months if you retire in june you have 11 months of service for that year so i believe it has to do with retirement okay can you can you maybe look into that and maybe write a commitment to that too because i know that that was given and you're the only only um entity that has a friend and the problem we have with that is that when um members do run out of sick leave or run out of vacation because we're on the automatic payment system that the checks are being written and as a result doe has one of the highest ever payments than any other entity and it's because they get paid overpaid and then they don't pay back on a reasonable time and then people leave the system people um and we can never collect that again and those are overpayments so i'm not sure how to get to that with the payments but again it's because um teachers are the only ones that get it up front and you probably negotiated that in year of something else so i would be interesting to know what was that something else so okay i will bring it back to our president and i would think the doe and their accounting system should know about this there needs to be records of how that is happening yeah there is now what happens is the employee the schools themselves do not then do a manual manual leave like other departments will do a manual leave when they know that they're out of vacation time and sick leave time and so as a result that information does not get to the computer on time so that they can pull it out so they automatically will get their full pay thinking that there was vacation or thinking that there was sick leave and then when it's not when the state tries to get the employee to pay it back um you know they get like 25 a paycheck and sometimes it's thousands of dollars and then when that employee leaves for whatever reason they have a balance and there's no way to collect it so i mean that's you know hopefully we can work that out between and hopefully the state would buy a better software program that would deal with that issue yes obviously we're trying to update it but in the meantime again you know because because you you folks are the only ones that that do it that way so okay thank you i'm going to appreciate it i'll go follow up thank you uh uh senator mercado kim we'll i'll check with ourselves to see if we have any history on that as well um uh cherokee nani uh to answer your question um sorry the fantastic question and we are frantically scrambling around trying to figure out what happened here um we are communicating with budget and finance and we're going to follow up with the governor's office um what we so far have figured out is that the admin bill specifically refers to lost mou contract hours and collective bargaining and uh the current bill senate bill 3209 does not um that being said i do think just as i was looking at 32 30 97 it does look substantially similar and so we may be um withdrawing our testimony i i will follow up with this um after the hearing of with your committee thank you i appreciate that members further questions if not moving on to the final bill on our agenda senate bill 3098 making an emergency appropriation to the department of education for lead abatement provides funds for lead abatement measures at the department of education elementary schools to testify superintendent keith hayashi oh thank you um yes on behalf of myself hello senator chair kidani vice chair marcotte kim members we stand on our testimony presented it's it's a critical item for us so we stand by your testimony thank you very much for your time thank you randy next to testify dr debichar director of department of health aloha chair kadani and vice chair mercado kim and members of the committee i'm dr diana felton standing in for dr char in the department of health i'm a toxicologist and one of the co-leads on the 2021 wind project that tested for lead in the drinking water at the schools and child care facilities and the department of health stands in our written testimony in support of this measure an effort to reduce childhood lead exposure across hawaii happy to answer any questions and thank you for considering this measure thank you dr felton next to testify also to a junior president hsta aloha laverne moore speaking on behalf of osa tui junior president of hsta we stand on our written testimony and i have a comment first of all this was a national issue back in the early 90s dealing with children living in public housing in our schools it is unconscionable that our public schools in hawaii have old plumbing fixtures that are resulting in trace amounts of lead being found in drinking water sources hsd years ago were asking for support with our facilities and we believe it is time with the federal funds that this situation be remedied right the right way thank you thank you laverne members any questions any questions senator kanuma has a question for randy yes senator um hey randy i know this appropriation for i'm sorry assistant superintendent uh um for elementary schools were were elementary schools the only schools tested or these were the ones that only had lead in them now that was the first round of testing and lead impact is more affected the the lower grades so that was the first round of testing what we have what we need this funding for is we think it's possibly the fixtures and i may ask dr felton to to comment on this uh and so we need the funds to replace these fixtures and then go back and retest but that's what we think it is okay dr fountain pitcher sure i'd be happy to add a little bit of background so the project to test the drinking water was funded by the epa in a 2016 water infrastructure improvements for the nation act they required prioritization of use of the funds for kids most affected by childhood lead poisoning and that means younger kids so the project targeted child care facilities in elementary schools for that reason and um assistant super intended tanaka is correct the majority of the problems were found uh with the fixtures as opposed to the deeper plumbing or for instance lead service lines so repairing the fixtures will make a significant impact in reducing the lead in the drinking water thank you dr felton further questions members thank you we're going into recess [Music] reconvening the committee on education the recommendation of the chair will be to pass out senate bill 2181 with amendments the amendment is to incorporate the suggested amendment from hawaii catholic schools during their testimony [Music] any comments any questions share both sides [Music] de la cruz are you okay we're on two one eight one with amendments senator de la cruz you're muted with amendments hi i thank you five members all voting an affirmative recommendation of doctors thank you for senate bill 2188 recommendation of the chair is to pass with amendments we'll blank out the appropriation amount but insert the amount into the committee report for the consideration when it comes to ways and means committee chair votes eye hr is recommending to amend sb 218a the five members present do i hear any reservations or any opposition hearing none five members present no recommendations adopted for senate bill two three three four the recommendation of the chair uh this is to require the board of ed to hold no less than six community forms annually recommendation of the chair is to pass with amendments but we're going to defect the date to july first 2050.
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okay recommendation of the chair is to pass senate bill two three three four with amendments uh the chair votes i members anybody voting with reservations any uh an opposition hearing none five members i was holding your provider recommendations thank you for senate bill 2 180 leading to education dealing with the appointment and reappointments of board of education recommendation is to pass as is chair vote side recommendation for 2180 pass as is any member voting with reservations any member voting no hearing none five members are voting by recommendations thank you senate bill 2189 relating to the board of education and selection of the board chairperson recommendation of the chair is to pass as is chair bonsai recommendation senate bill 2189 passed as is any members voting in the opposition any members with reservations hearing none recommendations of doctor with five members present thank you senate bill 2824 also relating to the board of education minimum qualifications for the members recommendation is to pass with amendments defecting the date to july 1 2015 cheerful time senate bill 2824 pass with amendments any member voting no any members voting with reservations hearing none five members voting on recommendations adopted thank you for senate bill 2817 [Music] to education and new report requirements recommendation of the chair is to pass as is chair mozart senate bill 2817 passed as as is any members voting no any members voting with reservations hearing 95 members voting on recommendations thank you senate bill 3095 making an emergency appropriation to the department of ed for a maintenance recommendation of the chairs who pass as is chair votes eye recommendation senate bill 3095 pass as is any members voting no any members voted with reservations hearing none five members voting eye recommendations thank you senate bill 3209 relating to the teacher professional development recommendation of the chair is to pass with amendments to insert the contents from governor's bill 3097 into this bill chair votes eye recommendation senate bill 3098 to pass with amendments any members voting in opposition any members voting with reservations here or not share them i'm sorry by sure that was three two zero nine oh sorry with amendments again voting on senate bill 3209 pass with amendments any members voting in opposition any members with reservations hearing none all members voting on recommendations thank you in the final bill senate bill 3098 making an emergency appropriation to the department of education for lead abatement recommendation of the chair is to pass as is chairman's eye recommendation senate bill 3098 pass as is any members voting no any members voting with reservation hearing none recognition thank you members that concludes the business for the committee on education meeting is adjourned you
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i'll call us to order good evening and welcome to the february 1st 2022 meeting of the ann arbor planning commission this meeting is being held in person as well as electronically and public comment then can be made either in person or via telephone or zoom to speak during the public comment opportunities via phone please call 66 877-853-5247 12 26 this information is available on the published agenda in the public notices section of the city website and on the broadcast of this meeting on ctn channel 16 at t channel 99 and online at a2gov.org slash watch ctn and you'd select a good government channel please note that it's possible that telephone or electronic public comment may encounter technical difficulties that prevent participation so for the greatest assurance that your comments will be heard please submit them in writing ahead of the meeting or attend in person is that what i need to read at the beginning mr leonard okay super can you help us then with the roll call item number two commissioner mills present commissioner gibb randall here commissioner sovay commissioner abrams commissioner hammerschmidt commissioner dish president commissioner lee commissioner clark commissioner weich here we have a quorum very good we're on to item um number three which is approval of the agenda may i have a commissioner move the agenda moved by commissioner sobay seconded by commissioner gibrandal any discussion of the agenda all in favor uh please raise your hand or say yes that are that's all the hands so we'll move on um to item number four which is the minutes of the previous meeting this is the minutes from the january 20th 22 meeting can i have a commissioner move those minutes moved by commissioner weich seconded by commissioner clark any discussion of the minutes all in favor of the emotion please raise a hand or say yes that's all the hand so the motion carries next up is item five reports from the city administration city council planning manager planning commission officers and committees and any written communications or petitions i want to note that we did receive several um both uh um when the packet came out earlier in the week as well as uh some just today um commissioner dish uh city council has not met since we said all right so your report is quick mr leonard um just a reminder uh in sharing with the public the working session originally scheduled for next week has been cancelled going forward working sessions we do anticipate will be held in this room um however there was a conflict next week so they will be resuming in march that's the basis for that cancellation any commissioner off commission officers or committee liaisons have anything to report i'll report that orc did meet last week and i am we had a robust discussion but i can't remember in what topic help me commissioner parking minimums thank you i think we covered most of parking minimums and the broad swath of areas to cover including if we're looking at ev parking and parking maximums and we're looking at bringing uh the redaction of parking minimums to this table for vote correct as the first step and tackling the other um through further discussion thank you very much yes commissioner give randall so does that mean we're not going to have a working session on it prior to i think that our discussion was that the that rather than have because in particular because the working session is canceled this month that if we decide as a group that we want to postpone voting on it but that we could have some of that and a lot of the elements within it are things that we've discussed before or that are based on you know our tome of planning documents okay so um okay because i just saw that there was some correspondence about that this last week about parking lot replacement and you know things like that and how that might or might not trigger things so exactly so we had that discussion within orc and i'm glad it was actually i'm glad that the correspondence to kind of orc issues make before the whole commission um so i think i expect that we would take that up okay then and clarification i think that our intention is that it may include the ev the the draft that we'll see includes kind of changes to evs because right now we're in this hole since site plan review thresholds have been changed there's not very many things that trigger eve the ev ordinance so we want to fill that hole as well got it i see okay yeah that's absolutely right i can do a quick just a quick overview of the the the big components that we're looking at are the elimination of minimum parking requirements at this point as mentioned we're not considering any additional maximums with one possible exception is the tc1 district because of the construct of that district it actually relies on the current minimums for some considerations we are looking at ev parking to more successfully align those standards with the construction of new parking lots or the re significant reconstruction of parking lots and we are also considering simplifying that to two categories of ev spaces rather than the current three okay okay thanks for the update yeah anything else all right we are on to item number six then which is public comment i have this up all right this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about an issue that's not listed as a public hearing on this agenda we will first call on individuals present to address the commission and then call on remote participants to speak during this public hearing or to speak during the public comment period remotely please press star 9 if you're listening by the phone or use the raised hand feature if you are viewing through the web link for phone access again the number is 877 and our meeting id is 977-6634-1226 mr leonard will select callers that have raised their hand calling on you by the last three digits of your telephone number or if you've joined us through the web link by the name that you've entered in you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak and when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we can hear you clearly for either method of participation please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments and again to be clear this is an opportunity for persons to speak for and about an item that's not listed as a public hearing so we will have a separate public hearing on the tc1 rezoning petition so for any other matters now is an appropriate time there's if anyone in the audience would like to speak all right mr leonard is there anyone online there is mr westfall you have up to three minutes to address the planning commission hi good evening commissioners uh 3505 charter place kirk westfall um i'm thrilled that the minimum parking standard elimination is going forward i i still remain and i spoke at the ordinance revisions committee about this i i remain troubled by the proposal to abandon additional maximums in the city uh outside of tc1 and i'm troubled because we're already seeing proposals for car only suburban development in areas that are slated for tc1 uh the freestanding bank on stadium was one example had that been proposed without a drive through i think we all recognized that we would have had to approve that um uh so i wonder if that would have felt appropriate um do you think that this kind of project would have helped with what the community has stated are our goals with regard to housing or transit or walkability or the environment um i think that freestanding banks and fast food restaurants are going to keep coming as proposals in places that are slated for tc1 and elsewhere in a situation where rezonings are anticipated it's normal practice for a city to put a moratorium on development in those areas so i asked you know you either consider doing that or better yet consider a simple singular parking cap on all new developments city-wide of something like three spaces per thousand square feet um [Music] a parking parking space along with all the associated driveways and aisles is about you know 333 square feet so uh that's basically saying three of those spaces is about a thousand square feet so that's effectively saying the interior space has to be equal to or exceed the area devoted to cars so i don't think that's a very high bar [Music] and putting a simple cap on new development wouldn't be a problem at all for residential development it would just stop additional drive only development that contradicts the community's goals we we tax ourselves adequately for transit i think they're actually going to ask for a millage increase in the not too distant future there's were a sustainability mill just being floated 30 more seconds and my opinion is that these make no sense if we're going to keep allowing development that require car usage so the buck the buck stops with you guys and it starts with you guys so i i hope you would consider some kind of parking universal parking maximum thanks very much thank you any other callers caller with the phone number ending with five three four caller with the phone number ending with 534 you have three minutes to address the planning commission um hello my name is kitty khan i live in the fifth ward and i wasn't going to call in but after hearing mr westfall speak about wanting to limit parking it reminded me that i had read something about google and some other companies who have offices downtown moving or desiring to move because they didn't have enough parking for their employees so that is something to think about as you think about wanting to get rid of parking or limiting parking to only i think mr westfall said he'd like to see only three spaces per development or something like that so please think about realistic needs of people who want to have businesses or live in ann arbor as you float these pie in the sky unrealistic wishes okay that's all i wanted to say thank you goodbye thank you caller with ending with five three four caller ending with five three four you have three minutes to address the planning commission good evening this is tom stallberg calling from lowertown later on we'll talk about the pc-1 rezoning i want to talk about something that's related to rezonings um when you have a rezoning there's a whole spectrum of possibilities that you can get that would meet the requirements of that zoning category there's no certainty of what part of the spectrum that we'll get so i know in the documentation for tc1 there's some hopes expressed of certain things like you know mixed-use village concept and i'd like to remind people especially commissioners who are recent to the body that the lower town comprehensive plan calls for mixed-use urban village called for pud zoning we got neither there uh we got and and if you look at what the principles of tc1 are and you look at what the planning commission in general would like uh that would be exactly what you would have wanted this body sitting now would have wanted for the lower town site a mixed use urban village as the comprehensive plan calls for so how do we end up not getting that and in that case we got over 99 residential only uh accessory commercial use for there so i want you to think about that as you do rezonings and design things that there are hopes and prayers of getting certain things on the spectrum but there's no guarantee of what you're going to get we could find out for tc one for example that all we get are high-priced residential developments it's up to the marketplace the way we've designed it others of us would have designed it differently others of us wished you had had a comprehensive plan revision and that would have involved entertaining certain aspects of meeting community goals directly through the process that didn't happen that's water under the bridge unfortunately so as you move on from one thing to the next i want you to look at the failure of lower town the failure to provide affordable housing that value to meet a mixed use urban village concept and think about these other things that we hope the marketplace will deliver but it doesn't have to deliver thank you thank you that's all the speakers all right and seeing no one else in the chambers i'll move on to the next item which is number seven the public hearings that are scheduled for the next business meeting mr leonard do you have them i do we have one new public hearing scheduled for february 15th at 7 00 pm right here in council chambers that is a for 38 74 research park drive site plan for planning commission approval a proposal to demolish the existing building and construct a 130 300 square foot research office building on this re research and orl office research limited industrial zones site five lots are proposed to be combined totaling 16.9 acres you may recall that previously this appeared before the planning commission for a recommendation status with the recent changes to the ordinance it comes back to you as approval for that site plan thank you i was wondering i thought we had just talked about this one thanks for that um all right um item we're in um regular business now so we're on item eight a which is the city initiated tc1 rezoning petition for 69 parcels in the state and eisenhower area for city council approval we'll have a staff report and presentation the public hearing and commission discussion of this item commissioner lee yes due to my conflict i am recusing myself of this particular matter thank you thank you we'll come and get you when we're done discussing is mr leo joining us remotely this evening yes i am yes all right a little bit of a tech check you all can hear me and maybe see me we can great i can hear you and see you as well um all right i have started a quick screen share which is a rezoning map and i am here with a staff presentation um and then i will offer a recommendation and answer any questions about a state and eisenhower area re-zoning this is a city-initiated rezoning of actually 68 parcels um initiated on behalf of city council and planning commission um the action was requested by the city council as part of its approval of the ordinance which established the tc1 district in july of this past summer alexis sorry for interrupting we're working on some tech here because it's extremely small on our screens can you give us just a minute so we can see the slides better yes um it is the same i've only used the same materials that are also in the staff report anticipating something like this might happen brett just solved it for us i think um it's yes it's significantly better thank you mr leonard all right thank yous uh please carry on just for disclosure or what i am screen sharing is simply attachment a of the staff report it is the state and eisenhower area rezoning map um so a little bit of background on this rezoning um in november of 2020 city council directed the planning commission to create a new zoning district in the unified development code that would support high density development along transit corridors and they also requested the work include a recommendation for preliminary geographic areas to be considered for the new district best forward and the planning commission held public hearings on that on the tc1 district i think now i have a typo in my staff report i apologize it says the public hearings were held um april 6 of 2020 and april 13th of 2020.
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we'd like to welcome all of you to the work study and brief board business meeting tonight tuesday february 1st 2022 at 6 pm and thank you for being here those who are here and those who are joining us on live stream or recorded later we appreciate your attendance we'll start tonight with the call to order which i've just done and then we'll move on to 2.0 one aggregate expenditure limit and gilbert public schools it's in a presentation and discussion topic so dr mccord thank you madam president governing board members i'm looking to hook up to the screen and maybe changed maybe john no hold on there it is i just wanted to see if you'd make the walk thank you i appreciate that here good man still not there yet don't sit down oh here it comes we should do this in unison 309 like the kids do in class right hmm there we go well welcome again to everybody thank you for being here tonight i just want to go through briefly about the aggregate expenditure limit in gilbert public schools if you've read the news or you've talked to anybody in education as of late there is uh something looming about how we're going to be funded or will we continue to be funded as we finish off this school year into the next year and i'll kind of give definitions of of what the aggregate expansion limit is we call it ael and then we'll go through and how that pertains to gilbert public schools what is ael well in 1980 arizona voters passed a measure that limits how much k-12 schools can spend in a school year which was done when the state implemented its funding formula again back in 1980 this limit is known as the aggregate expenditure limit which is the total amount that k-12 districts are spending as a whole each year the limit fluctuates based on the previous year student enrollment charter schools are not included in this because they did not exist in 1980 and most schools are most school funds are counted in limit with the exception of things such as esser federal grants budget overrides things of that nature so right now what is our limit well we're 1.1 billion dollars over that limit and how does that impact gilbert public schools well that's to the tune of 39.9 million or we can just call it 40 million dollars okay and we'll get to that again in a minute the aggregate aggregate expenditure limit has typically been a technical budget issue that's managed behind the scenes however it's been brought to the forefront of the conversation for a few reasons first the legislator was discussing this year's state budget it was projected that the expenditure limit would decrease because of decline in student enrollment last year because of the coveted pandemic decreases in school enrollment last year mean a lower spending limit this year second prop 301 was passed by voters in 2000 to levy a six tenths of a cent sales tax to support education it was set to expire in 2020 but was extended by the governor and legislature in 2018.
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okay you guys we're gonna be live here thanks for joining us okay i'm going to call them meeting to order at 6 p.m i need a adoption of the agenda i move that we adopt the agenda as presented second all in favor aye aye aye motion carry five to zero we do have everyone in attendance today ms carr is on via zoom so yay let's do the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay do we have any public comments no we do not all right so no information and discussion items we'll move right into our action item discussion and consideration for approval of changes to the covet 19 mitigation plan for 2122.
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so far our districts have practiced the cdc recommended layers of prevention strategy which acknowledges that schools are potentially high transmission communities and take steps to mitigate these three layers include a high level of vaccination rate for the community the ability to maintain a socially distant environment and the use of high quality good fitting masks for all people and with these layers of prevention in place our schools have remained open students are learning in person and our infection rates have been moderate unfortunately our community has been infected by the latest armicron surge the district covent tracker indicates skyrocketing infection rates on all three campus campuses 10 fold greater than at any other point during the school year understand that without all three layers of prevention in place the impact of oberon would have been dire it is not the right time to consider removing any of the three layers of prevention from our schools to that end as we was referenced just a moment ago the massachusetts board of education authored a document stating that schools reaching the 80 vaccination threshold can take steps to remove the mask mandate data for our district has not been made available but the cdc reports as of yesterday that our county is at 71.4 this means we've not met the threshold to remove masks additionally all three of our campuses house preschools students still ineligible to receive the vaccine not likely to be vaccinated until after the school year ends so while our county may be at 71.4 our district community taking into account our preschoolers is not there yet we have a ways to go that means that until we have a verified 80 vaccination rate in our district masking is the only layer of prevention that we the community can control can offer as safety for our children for our staff and our faculty on a personal note we pulled my oldest from preschool like most like a lot of you when this whole thing started we elected to homeschool his kindergarten year and halfway through he said mommy i just want to go to school with friends that are not my brother with a mom with a teacher who's not my mommy and then we moved to berlin so my son was taken without warning from his preschool gangly managed an isolated year of kindergarten and then was moved to a whole new place now this is making credit he's thriving he skips to the bus every morning because of the independence he feels at school because of the learning opportunity of being in community with others the idea that school would shut down again because of infection rates climbing when we know how to control it it's just too heartbreaking to imagine and let's be honest without the mask mandate that's what's likely to happen teachers and staff will get sick there won't be people to run schools let alone healthy children ready to learn the mask is our first and best effort to control the spread of infection it is what's allowed us to keep our kids in school so far even during the recent surge now we must continue to mandate the mask to keep everyone protected to keep our students learning thank you so much kyle brian connor thank you so much i appreciate that thank you thank you i appreciate that because people at home want to hear um and video issues this entire time i think i might have fixed it i'm not entirely sure okay thank you sebastian i'm just a reminder to state your name and your head thank you so much brian connor 36 longleaf road in boylston the past two years have been a challenging for all of us for my family we felt lucky our kids were barely three and one when this started surely the madness would be over by the time they were to head to school or so we thought i watched as masking became a way of virtue signaling profile pictures changed to mass photos and worse people seemed excited to share pictures of their kids in mass early on i began to realize mass will not go away so easily i was assured though once there was a vaccine the kids will no longer need mass after all they were wearing them to protect the elderly vaccines came massachusetts led the way one of the highest rates in the country okay the end is in sight but wait the kids aren't eligible the goal post moved a little further now kids are eligible but wait let's get to 80 and then maybe we can drop humanity let's think about why the mandate started mass were a small layer of protection when there was no other options but today every parent here has the option to fully vaccinate their child equip them with an n95 mask to protect them against the virus that has a zero percent fatality rate and healthy children with that information in hand do we as rational adults say no that's not enough i still don't feel safe bringing my child to school however if we mandate your child to wear a cotton spiderman mask which the cdc has admitted provides virtually no protection than now and only now is my child safe that type of thinking is irrational and rooted in fear the time to end the mandate is now kids are resilient i agree they are whoever not indestructible mass affect kids i saw this firsthand little coaching t-ball when five and four and five-year-olds were forced to wear masked outside on warm summer days we were following science the practices felt robotic the kids weren't connecting communication with the kids was a constant challenge halfway through the season the outdoor mandate was dropped not one kid showed up to the next practice with a mask on the atmosphere changed kids connected and as a coach i could easily talk to the kids the difference was night and day masking kids is a science experiment a failed one there is zero evidence these measures even slow the spread but there is growing evidence of the negative effects british psychologist albert moravian founder of the 93-7 rule states that seven percent of meaning is communicated through the spoken word 38 through tone and 55 through facial expression and body language when you cover a child and teacher's face how much of that communication is lost for the past two years we've made a lot of mistakes and our kids usually brunt the worst of it we closed parks removed basketball hoops isolated kids told them not to high-five or hug their friends the time has come to give kids the childhood they deserve for two years we've been told to be patient follow the science now the science is clear unmasked kids thank you [Applause] thank you brian um lisa mayer thanks so much for letting me speak um my name is lisa mayer and i live at 31 ball hill road in berlin um i have a master's degree in food science and nutrition and also certification in functional medicine for years i worked in laboratories and today i read medical research daily as part of the work that i do and i've spent probably over 100 hours reading the mask research and i'm convinced that if more people would read the actual research instead of you know filtering it through the media nobody would be wearing a mask there is a hierarchy of quality of scientific evidence and the highest quality of evidence includes meta-analyses and randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews the lowest quality of evidence includes like laboratory experiments mechanistic studies reports and editorials the highest quality of evidence does not support community masking at all remembering that the meta-analysis is the highest form of evidence in 2020 alone there were six meta-analyses and systematic reviews that found masks are ineffective for respiratory viruses and also there was a large randomized control trial which is that you know second top tier quality of data they found no difference in sars kobe 2 infection among thousands of participants that wore masks versus ones that didn't wear masks now i'm not sure why but public health authorities have ignored this high quality of evidence and for some reason chose to focus on the lower quality evidence like case studies with incomplete data mechanistic studies and flawed lab experiments um and then the editorials that like reported on them they also got widely publicized so like everybody just believed that masks worked but not realizing this was low quality evidence now to be clear masks do stop large droplets the ones that you can see but sars kobe 2 is not spread by large droplets we know that it is spread by tiny aerosols that go through your mask and they go around the edges of your mask and research does show that um masks simply redirect airflow and that they even create hazardous leakage jets out the sides and around the back of the mask and i have citations for all of these statements that i'm making and if anybody else wants them i'll give you i'll give you that too um and you you don't even need to see the citations because you've seen the evidence of this yourself when you're when your glasses fog up when you wear um a mask with your glasses or if you go outside in the freezing cold and you can see your breath everywhere that is happening whether or not you can see it it's happening in classrooms it's happening in here right now all of us are emitting our aerosols and we're all breathing the same air so it really does not work um and on top of that the cloth masks have been shown to increase rates of respiratory illness so not only do they not work you know we know that they redirect airflow but then people tend to get sicker when they wear them now n95 masks in theory might seem better because they have a smaller pore size but still if that pore size is larger than the sars kobe 2 aerosol and they can create a better seal to eliminate those leakage jets right but you know there's reality to consider the code of federal regulations stipulates that people need to be medically cleared to wear an n95 it needs to be professionally fit tested and the people need to be trained in proper use is that going to happen in schools or in the community i don't think so um also if you wear them and then an n95 properly um you risk actual sickness and death and um 3m has that on the boxes of their and 95 masks most research has shown that most people will not wear an n95 correctly and just a tiny three percent gap out of the edge um you know like of the seal of your face renders them ineffective so zero efficacy if there's a gap now people who do wear them correctly have issues um healthcare workers complain of headaches migraines fatigue brain fog um and you know also like facial issues like skin issues but none of this is a good um you know condition to be in if you're trying to learn so in terms of the real world evidence an n95 masked mandy in bavaria failed to prevent a huge spike in cases and everybody was wearing them there outside and inside and you can see it there's a graph there that you can look at now on a happier note in sweden i'm almost done okay um oh okay all right in sweden um they never um took kids out of school they went through they went to in-person school through the height of the pandemic and they did not wear masks and they didn't really social distance not one kid out of two million kids died there were a couple that were that were hospitalized they had like just like a handful and they had severe like you know other comorbidities and then there have been recent analyses in schools um one from the uk and one from florida that showed that there were there's no relationship between mass mandates and infection rates so in summary abundant high quality evidence demonstrates that masks don't work for respiratory viruses that spread high aerosols the evidence to support masks is not policy grade and nobody should be forced to wear a mask based on low quality of evidence thank you so much [Applause] thank you so much lisa next we have kevin haglund so uh good evening kevin haglin five mill road boylston um i have two daughters first grade and fourth grade boylston elementary i have a whole list like some other people here that i was going to read out about all different facts and stats and everything like that um i'll save the time for that we're going to find one professional that says you know we need to wear the mask for all these other reasons we're gonna have another professional that's gonna say the same thing uh the opposite side that we should that we don't need to or due to i'll just tell you how it is with my kids my kids are struggling with the masks um my youngest daughter is having a real hard time learning how to read uh being able to follow the teacher and learning um in first grade my fourth grade daughter is having a similar problem but kids are just having social i feel that my kids are just having some social issues being able to connect with other kids reading facial expressions um i just think that it's time to remove the masks the vaccines are out there if the people want to get them there's masks out there that the children staff can wear if they choose um and that's their choice go for it wear the mask get the vaccines i think it just should be every person's choice um and i think we need to remove the mask mandate [Applause] kevin thank you um marie phillips um marie phillips haywood street in boylston dear school committee members and superintendent zangy thank you for the opportunity to share my experiences regarding masking children i'm a public school teacher and i have been teaching a person since august 2020 therefore have had approximately 15 months of experience around children wearing masks first and foremost if masks are not worn correctly they are ineffective correct wearing mask according to the who are as follows before putting on a mask clean your hands with soap and water cover your mouth and nose with the mask and make sure there are no gaps between your face and the mask avoid touching the mask while using it if you have to try to clean your hands with an alcohol-based hand rump or soap and water before doing so replace the mask with a new one as soon as it is damp do not reuse single use masks to take the mask off remove it from behind do not touch the front of the mask discard it immediately in a closed bin and clean your hands with alcohol-based hand rub or soap and water are students and staff following these guidelines if not then perhaps masking is causing more harm than good where are students placing their mass during recess lunch or mass breaks are masks being placed in a sterile area so they are clean and not full of bacteria that they are introducing to their face and lungs when putting them back on how many outdoor mask breaks are students provided throughout the six and a half hour day especially now in the cold weather every student should be given multiple opportunities to breathe fresh air without a mask i am very concerned with how masks are affecting early childhood students as a first grade teacher regarding auditory processing speech delays and phonological awareness i am especially concerned for children with hearing loss as they rely on lip movements and facial expressions and clear masks cause an increase in sound degradation degradation i'm curious to see if there's an increase in special education in our rti support for students in this district with speech and language delays our student athletes are suffering from headaches fatigue nausea i challenge any one of you to play basketball for five minutes with a mask on your face the athletes are pulling them down over their noses because they can't breathe they're pulling the masks down and if they're playing the mask down how are the masks effective there is an inconsistency with the enforcement of mask wearing which also lessens their effectiveness the massachusetts governor governor's office sent a letter to colleges and universities presidents yesterday urging them to end the campus mandates and restrictions the letter darkly warns administrators about a twindemic of covid plus social isolation and decries the mental health epidemic affecting our young people the letter encourages higher education institutions to be leaders to lead the shift back to near normal by rolling back college restrictions and investing in mental health services and they're talking about almost all restrictions and testings the letter says early in the pandemic we made trade-offs and veered on the side of remote learning and isolation overly strict protocols that inhibit any level of social interaction are counterproductive at this time now is the time to reconsider these protocols help promote a return to healthy social interactions including by removing remote learning restricting or discouraging social group activities overly aggressive surveillance testing and mask type requirements i am urging you to lead the way in massachusetts public schools and lift the mass mandate it is questionable how effective they are against the spread of viruses they may actually open up more opportunities for unsanitary conditions and they are having a negative impact on the developmental physical and mental health of our students [Applause] i would like to call stephanie faire hello uh just good distance um thank you for this opportunity my name is stephanie fair i live on summer road in berlin we all know that these last couple years have been trying once there's so much information going in all directions it can be hard to tell what is trustworthy so today i am just focusing on facts and i did email um a copy of this with all the graphs and studies and everything and i'm sure some of them have already mentioned i will say some may desire that mask squaring be dependent on vaccination levels in the community as has been mentioned in various places but we need to consider the vaccines are no longer claimed or intended to stop the spread of covid or the cdc only to lessen symptoms since this is the case consideration of mask wearing should be made solely on the merits or lack thereof of mask wearing itself the delta wave rose and fell across the u.s and the globe in a similar pattern masking was irrelevant to that cycle a comparison was done of european countries as well as u.s states pinpointing when each government began mass mandates it found that mask wearing seemed to have no effect on the spread of the virus for example in sweden where they have never mandated masks their death rate is significantly lower a 2020 stud study by the new england journal of medicine concluded we know that wearing a mask outside healthcare facilities offers little as any protection from infection the desire for widespread masking is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic at a danish randomized control trial with 6000 participants found no statistically significant effect of high quality medical masks against sars kovi 2 in a community setting there are many more studies some of which i've included in my letter even unicef which is pro mask in general strongly advises against kids under 5 wearing masks and recommends mask wearing for children 6 to 11 only in certain settings they also caution the potential impact of mask wearing on an individual child's learning and psychological development should be considered in the uk even during the delta wave their elementary schools were open without masks a pediatric infectious disease specialist working in london who has worked on their governing policy said the uk has always from the beginning emphasized they do not see a place for face coverings for children if it's avoidable the potential harms exceed the potential benefits and their strategy has worked with the uk just this month being able to drop their covered restrictions including masking globally the tide is starting to turn and a growing list of nations have begun dropping mass squaring and all covered restrictions which include the uk ireland france and netherlands denmark's prime minister announced covet 19 should no longer be categorized as a socially critical sickness the who says that europe may soon be able to end their emergency phase due to omicron being a much milder variant and that we need to evaluate the evolution of covid from pandemic to endemic illness recently during the osha hearing supreme court justice sotomayor client claimed false information saying a hundred thousand children are currently hospitalized with covid when in fact that number was under 3 500.
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foundations i would like to start the meeting by reminding everyone that it is being reported and your image or voice may be broadcast i would also like to announce that susan henry has resigned from the school committee effective last night in her absence as vice chair i will be assuming the role as chair please have patience to speak with me as i attempt this unexpected role it is also a building policy to wear masks and we ask that you be respectful of that policy um before we begin i just wanted to review how the meeting is going to be run it we're going to we're going to begin with a listening session where towns people will be given an opportunity to directly address the board and the audience we will call names from the sign up sign up sheet in order to determine who speaks when when the speaker is at the microphone they and they alone have the floor board and audience are silent please i ask that we all be respectful we all have different points of view in different realities we ask that you keep any cheers or jeers for later it takes courage and conviction to speak let's all be a friendly audience no matter our personal opinions after the listening session the board will move on to new business this is where public comment ends and the board begins its business during this portion we will discuss the district's mass requirement it's going to be tempting to shout out questions thoughts or corrections that is not allowed under open meeting law once we move out of public comment the audience becomes spectators i ask that you email us it's a very effective means of getting in touch with us if you have comments to make after we move out of the listening session so just i want to give you an idea of how things are going to be run once our discussion has ended we're going to move on to a vote discussing the district's policy and the vote can go many different ways we can vote to maintain the district policy we can maintain vote to revise the district mass policy we can postpone any votes to a later date there are options other than yesterday [Music] so lastly before we begin um there are significant amount of people that reached out to me personally
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uh theresa brutaid here rachel chaleski is here michelle coelho is here kate canetta here gladys cooper i i saw glitz there she is lauren daley here joseph de silva here catherine hodgston here albert russo here and luisa thank you so we're we're all here um this is our first workshop of two that we have set aside to go over the budget for next school year so we have plenty of time for discussion and questions and answers and time to digest it all but i do just want to um remind everyone that we are on a timeline we do have to have this to the city by i think it's february 14th correct me if i'm wrong yes february 14th so we're looking at a a vote at our february ninth meeting correct yes yes okay so i just wanted to remind folks of that timeline and um with that said i will turn it over to you mr walston thank you thank you so much so i am looking forward to sharing the long-awaited budget overview given the feedback over uh the last year and certainly this year heading into the budget process there was a request to try to simplify this in a way where indigestible bites where the board and the community can understand it and make a better informed decision so i certainly hope we've accomplished that this evening so share our screen and just circling back on yesterday's conversation in which we had talked about the ask and so you will recognize several slides from last night but we have made a significant number of additions uh to further uh represent our case uh for the for the for the 8.7 million so let's just share and i'll put this in presentation mode and so this evening i'm going to present out on the beginning and end of the slides and john will appropriately present in the middle where it is more of a focus on the numbers and then of course john and i and the cabinet will be available for any questions that might come from the presentation so to begin with our vision and mission statement these were concluded during the 18 and 19 school year and approved by the board so i'll just give you a moment to review these then of course going to the next page so board of education who serves to help us realize that vision and mission statement we thank you for your service of course and um the leadership team and more specifically the district cabinet and then our story so to begin with um and we will further highlight illustrate this demonstrate this i'm in a presentation this evening but danbury's enrollment continues to grow while other districts throughout the state of connecticut continue to decline not only are we growing but we continue to add a disproportionate number of high need students who require services like pll and special education and at the same time dan barry spends less money per student than all the other districts in the state of connecticut um i know these things have been well documented over the last couple of years um the district has not increased has not been increased sufficiently over the last last decade to keep pace with enrollment increases in student need we'll have slides later on that speak to number one our budget history but also speak to the increase in enrollment growth specifically for danbury and this imbalance has caused budget deficiencies um to compound year after year uh driving us us for rapidly approaching cliff as the board um our board members who with us last year the board members are aware and our new board members i think you're also aware we have we hired positions to address some of our social emotional needs and academic learning loss needs through our recently the american relief monies um also called esse2 and s3 we budgeted positions into those two major grants and then of course addressing this cliff question we want to make sure we have strategies and an appropriate budget will help us address falling off that clip as we have talked about so often over the last two years this budget the budget drivers in this in this presentation will help us sustain district operations while enhancing academic programs but also preparing for the opening of the new career academy and our position of course is without a significant investment we will struggle to not only meet our primary staffing goals but also compromise our ability to open up the new school and so the budget history and just want to provide a backdrop for the board and the community dating back to uh 2017-18 you'll see the request the board approved numbers from left to right and so the categories are the year um the the number in which the board approved the board approved increase and then the number that the city approved and ultimately the number that was approved by the city in that increase so going from left to right you will see increases of 1.79 [Music] 3.12 in 1819 essentially flatlined in 1920 2021 we had a bump up to 2.54 and then last year we had an increase at 2.87 and then this year's budget we are requesting um proposing a budget of 6.2 overall in terms of money is 8.7 million dollars and just want to walk the community and the board through the ways in which we build the budget and so i'll start at the bottom first with school allocations individual school budgets are primarily determined by enrollment and unique student needs i mean so this varies from building to building certainly district priorities which include the superintendent goals strategic planning priorities painting parent and community feedback also inform the budget and state state mandates are also included in those district priorities the revenue is is calculated from from various local federal grants and other funds and so it's important for us to make sure all of those revenues that are coming to the district um are considered as part of our ask and then one of the most important ones is to ensure standard service for everyone we allocate dollars uh based on the staffing model and the enrollment informs that staffing the budget drivers and just reiterate these from last night um salaries and wages this is a slight adjustment from contractual obligations we just thought it was cleaner to say salary and wages given that's how you repeat your monthly reports health insurance claims and john spoke to that last night he'll do so again this evening transportation and special education projected costs state mandates you might recall dr castamero speaking to those last night and ongoing increases in enrollment um including the 25 credit mandate for the high school after-school enrichment and extracurricular activities k-8 throughout our k-8 schools we've had families request and request for support of extracurricular activities particularly in light of the pandemic and requesting for additional engagement opportunities for kids for their kids after school support for high need students and so in the opening opening of our story talked about the disproportionate number of students coming to the district whether they be um free and reduced lunch eligible students or english language learners and or special net students we continue to receive students in our district at a disproportionate number compared to other districts in the state of connecticut and then last but not least items like facilities security ups grades and supplies and so budget drivers with a little bit more detail and you will see salaries and wages new dollars at 3.4 million health insurance claims at a projected 3.2 million john will speak a little bit to that later transportation at 1.5 million uh special education costs projected out of district placement specifically six hundred thousand these two line items have been adjusted since last night as they were able to make some clarifications uh so alex jones provide an update for you afterwards k5 curriculum upgrade um this is the literacy mandate that the districts and districts across the state of connecticut are required to implement state mandates including enrollment 2.2 those are positions which will have some more detail for you in subsequent slides and then the student enrichment extracurricular activities that i talked about with our families project that at 200 000 and other items that had mentioned previously facilities security and supplies um 370 000.
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