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open session at 7 00 pm and we're going to begin with our flag salute i believe that we have camila from longfellow camila are you are you here with us i do not see her signed on okay then in her stead you you'll have to settle for me let's stand and face a flag brings us to item 4.2 which is roll call board member rodriguez pena president board member bo here board member cruz gonzalez yeah board member audionas president and i myself a board member i'm also here we'll then move to item 4.3 which is approval of the agenda is there a motion on the floor motion to approve 4.3 moved by board member arianes second second by board member rodriguez pena any discussion hearing none we will move to a vote and the motion passes 5-0 moving on to item 5.0 report action of closed session matters there are no uh items or matters to report which brings us to the highlight of our evening which is recognition and awards dr mitchell good evening board president greer board member superintendent and cabinet my name is dana mitchell and i'm the assistant superintendent of education services in the asus unified school district it is both an honor and a privilege to present to you the 2122 azusa unified school district parents of the year tonight we recognize the parents elected by their schools as parent of the year these parents have been selected for the outstanding ways that they have supported all students staff and other parents tonight you will hear about our outstanding parents and the ways in which they positively impact their school communities we had an opportunity to meet each parent and spend some time getting to know them during the selection process for the district parent of the year selection each of our selected parents are truly phenomenal individuals and we are grateful for their support and excited recognize and celebrate them this evening i would also like to thank several people who assisted with the process laurie ray sandra banuelos julie mcgowan natalie beltran yvonne mario lisa allen diana ochoa and annette compost thank you so much for all of your help with this process we super appreciate it tonight's parents of the year give back to our community in numerous ways which contribute to the development and well-being of all the children in our ausd community our parents of the year volunteer and serve on numerous school and district committees have a strong sense of community and also support all children in our district for community service our parents make a positive impact on our community by leading by example they have gone to extraordinary measures to take the time to reach out to other parents and have helped connect parents resources our parents of the year are a voice for our families they're not only devoted to their own children's education but they're also devoted to all the students in our district we want to thank all of our parents in our district and all the caregivers for all you've done to support our students in the azusa community we believe that parents are our partners in this work and we're so grateful for your support also like to announce that we do have translated speeches that are posted on our website so without further ado we are going to begin and we will start with dalton elementary laura clark principal good evening my name is laura clark i'm the principal of dalton elementary maricela miranda is not only a teacher at dalton she has also been a parent of dalton students for 10 years her son roman is in high school now but her daughter lucia continues to attend dalton as a fifth grade student maricela has been an active member of the pta and has served as the president for over six years our pta is a very small but mighty group it is mighty because maricela is a dynamo with only a few others to provide support she has driven our fundraising efforts and raised thousands of dollars orchestrated multiple special events for students and families and provided special materials and resources for students staff and programs each of these activities requires countless hours of her personal time and she does it with joy in addition to her drive to make a difference in the lives of dalton students maricela has been an incredible parent to her children her children are not only kind well-adjusted and good students they have been able to pursue their interests and compete in multiple extracurricular activities including baseball and dancing her encouragement and support has given them the ability to become well-rounded young people who are multi-talented and successful in everything they do congratulations maricela this honor is so well deserved good evening i'm victoria velasquez principal of victor hodge elementary school and it is my pleasure and privilege to introduce to you i hope you can see her picture melissa wilson perkins she is our nominee for parent of the year and in these pictures which appear to be foggy she is represented with her husband and her two children who are also members of the dual immersion community at hotch mrs perkins is known for her energy she is such a positive and passionate person with so much compassion her smile is radiant even behind a mask it can't be hidden she's committed to building a warm and safe community for all she demonstrates a really deep desire to affect the lives of others in a positive way through service through friendship and through hospitality she has a heart for others and loves to bring people together through her example and representation on district committees melissa has encouraged numerous parents to participate in shared learning and leadership opportunities she also leads the way as a volunteer virtually and actually and encourages others to join in mrs wilson perkins is warm and generous in spirit her desire to build our communities demonstrated through her activism positive energy and effective organizational strengths she is an all-around leader and was a major contributor to the team of the isuzu unified school district reorganization team in addition to all these aforementioned skills and attributes melissa is really a dearly respected representative on site committees especially our pta she brings people together for a common purpose our children she is truly a helpful person volunteering as i said in the classroom virtually at this time but also delivering articles personally she's truly a helpful person decorating the front of the school with her team preparing gifts for faculty organizing prize bags for the pbs system in classrooms melissa is always willing to help her selfless service is valuable and we are so proud that she represents the hodge cougars as a truly caring respectful productive member of our team congratulations mrs melissa wilson perkins next we have principal rojas from lee elementary good evening i have diana rojas principal of charles h lee elementary school and it is with the great pleasure that i present mrs melissa fajardo rivas as our parent of the year mrs fajardo rios is a model parent her respectful positive supportive demeanor is exemplified each morning when she drops off her two sons liam and adam at school with a smile on the cheerful good morning mrs fajardo rivas is not only dedicated to her son's success in school but also to our school community for the last two years she has been an active member of our pta and has dedicated much of her time to making our pta successful especially during a time when it has not been easy to do due to school closures online events and coded as our pta president this year she continues to engage parents on our campus and find ways to fundraise for our school students and teachers she truly goes above and beyond for our league community with everything she does and has great rapport with our parents at charles d the elementary school we are truly blessed to have mrs melissa fajardo rebus as a parent partner and are so proud to recognize her as our parent of the year good evening my name is jenny lee director of the azusa unified school district early childhood education program thank you very much for the opportunity to present to you long fellows parent of the year mrs alyssa pelosa this evening her husband leonardo their children ivy avion and vida are here with us to help celebrate her mrs lolessa dedications in support of our programs continuous growth and improvement as well as her advocacy for all children and families have gained her their trust and respect of other parents and a great appreciation from our staff mrs lodeza's takes on multiple leadership roles to support longfellow she is currently on the district preschool advisory committee and the superintendent roundtable she participates in training that will allow her to be a trainer for other parents such as cabbie project to inspire and families in school reading roads mr loessa's generous gift of her time and effort extends the young long fellow in december she was appointed as a library commissioner for the city of azusa in that role she will continue to advocate for diverse books and programs while working to reinstate the non-profit friends of the library group the family has built a small library in front of their home to give other children in the neighborhood free access to diverse books through her actions mrs louisa is teaching her children to be kind and service oriented just like herself thank you mrs louisa for your dedication your support of our program our school and our district b [Music] is good evening board president greer members of the school board superintendent ortega cabinet members and members of the zusa community my name is antonio flores principal of paramount elementary and it is my pleasure to introduce to you paramount elementary's parent of the year mrs angeline morillo tonight mr murillo is joined at home with her husband arturo carranza and their children arturo who is a student at slauson middle school nathan sophia and reyna who all attend paramount i've had the pleasure of knowing mrs morillo since i arrived at paramount mrs murillo has proven to be a great person and a very involved parent she along with her husband teach her children to strive for the best and that anything can be achieved with hard work and dedication she believes she believes the role they play in their children's lives is what will define them to become great adults and spread positivity throughout the world mrs murillo has also demonstrated her commitment to the particip to the participation and involvement of our school by attending school workshops and performing performing her duties as paramount elementary school side council representative and superintendent roundtable mrs murillo is not shy when it comes to motivating and sharing her ideas with other parents to get them to be more actively involved in our school meetings and functions and for these and for and many other reasons is why i am proud to once again announce paramount elementary's parent of the year mrs angeline morillo thank you now principal jenny weavey from powell elementary [Music] estudiantes next dr anthony contreras center middle school are you there can you turn on your camera now we're good when that's not um a perdamo foothill middle school good evening my name is sam perdomo and i am the new principal of gladstone high school but i've always been the proud principal at foothill middle school it gives me great pleasure to announce miriam hernandez as foothill middle school's parent of the year i'm joined tonight by her husband martin hernandez who is an employee here as well and ian who's an azusa high student and isaac who's here at foothill middle school miriam whatever activity meeting event that is occurring at fms you will be certain to see mrs hernandez at one of those functions miriam also participates and attended all coffee with the principal school side council and superintendent roundtable meetings mrs hernandez amazingly is involved with parent participation while juggling her work schedule moreover with respect to mrs hernandez being involved in her children's education miriam feels that she must always be involved with all school activities in addition mrs hernandez feels being present in her children's social and educational development but is of the utmost importance finally miriam also promotes healthy discipline and feels it is a key to productive decision making in particular where shared intelligent and responsible decisions should be practiced fms is so lucky to have miriam mirandas here as if as a fms parent volunteer we are lucky to have her for another year congratulations mrs hernandez principal walker lawson middle school good evening i am yvette walker the principal at slauson middle school i am pleased to have the opportunity to speak proudly about mrs jamie greener mrs greener has volunteered much of her time at slauson as part of the school site council she has attended many parent meetings as well as school functions and fundraisers here at slauson mrs greener's input is well respected and valuable she is friendly as a and has a genuine personality it is evident that she has established positive rapport with staff students and other parents mrs greener and her husband mr greener have two amazing children sela and caleb greener who were adopted from ethiopia her loving relationship with her children reflects a sincere desire to not only parent but to also be collaborative and work towards what is best for all students mrs greener has also volunteered much of her time with her church who works closely with azusa's homework house and has been actively involved with a food pantry outreach program we are truly honored to have you as a panther parent mrs greener please join me in congratulating miss jamie greener slauson's 2021-2001 parent of the year thank you dr gomez high school good evening it is with great pleasure that we recognize christina castaneda as the azusa high school's 2021-2022 parent of the year miss castella has two daughters and one son the oldest daughter is in college and like miss castaneda is a proud aztec alum the second daughter is a ninth grader at azusa high and her son is an eighth grader at foothill middle school she is supported today by her kids husband and family along with the azusa high school administration team ms castaneda has made several contributions to azusa high school and the district over the past years es castaneda supports azusa high as parent representative for school site council she has attended parent meetings and she has been highly involved at azusa high's competitive cheer ms castaneda has also been a volunteer for the city of azusa for many many years she has coached chair for the junior all-american azusa raiders foothill middle school and is currently the competitive cheer coach at azusa high school she has also supported many local fundraisers volunteers her time at city events such as golden days parade veterans day and wrapping presents with the mayor i have witnessed firsthand how ms castaneda motivates students to be team players while teaching them good principles and character by giving them her time throughout the years she has played a role in many students lives in moting them into adults that they become today she is a member of the community that the old and newer generation can depend on the effort energy and ideas that miss casino brings to azusa and the community as a coach participant volunteer and advocate helps to create a positive experience for our students and parents within the azusa unified school district her mentor was the late mr dave lewis the drama teacher and counselor at azusa high school she has shared with me the impact that mr lewis made on her life she has never forgotten his guidance compassion and the generosity he had for her students and promised one day to pay it forward she is doing that now miss castinera acknowledges her husband her children and her faith for giving her the energy and strength to move on all of these services that support our ausd scholars while doing her best to also manage work and life christina castaneda's efforts are truly valued at azul high school and she is deserving of this recognition as the highest parent of the year for her contributions to our school and to our beautiful city felicidades christina mr fernandez gladstone high school good evening uh board of education superintendent ortega and cabinet we are here with uh my name is gabriel fernandez the former principal at gladstone high school and i would like to introduce our parent of the year miss cecilia ford she is here with her family her mom pat her daughter raeleen her son philip is the current gladiator and her uh nathaniel her nephew over the past few months cecilia has been a mom on the move she's been everywhere for her son supporting our asb the band the interact club the dance team she's a member of our school site council and she's also moonlighting as a security guard here too making sure kids will get into class she is tireless in her support for all children here at gladstone and her perspective about the programs at ghs and all the kids are always positive cecilia is a great member of the wider community here and that wants the very best for all the kids in azusa unified her work ethic and love for everyone's kids makes a difference daily and in gladstone as well as the wider community and we think that she will all be able to make a difference daily for all this all the kids here in the community she is a huge benefit to our school and all the schools in azusa unified and we are definitely glad she is with us thank you miss cecilia mr stout sierra high school buenas noches my name is high school in delano um yay thank you so much congratulations again to all of our night parents of the year we are so grateful for everything that you do and have done to support our students our staff and our families one more round of applause for all of our parents thank you and now i would like to invite principal adrian acosta to come to the podium principal of ellington k8 and now please join me in recognizing and congratulating the azusa unified school district 2122 district parent of the year from ellington k8 ms anna valencia ready come on up for president greer honorable members of the school board superintendent ortega members of cabinet and everyone present today and at home good evening my name is adrian acosta and i am the very proud principal of ellington k.a school on behalf of our school staff students and parents it is a great honor that i present to you anna valencia ellington's parent of the year and the 2021-2022 azusa unified school district parent of the year most children have two main educators in their life their parents and their teachers parents are the prime educators until the child starts school and they remain a major influence in their child children's learning throughout school and beyond the school and parents both have important roles to play and their roles are strengthened when they work in partnership at ellington mrs valencia is our storing eagle a person of integrity who is a positive role model for our parents students and her 20 grandchildren six of them who are former students of ellington tonight we have the privilege of honoring mrs valencia who is accompanied here with her family her husband fred her son freddie along with his wife donna her three daughters alyssa linda and michelle who is presently a member of ellington's pto and her grandson caleb mrs valencia has been an active grandparent at ellington for the past 14 years while her six grandchildren have been enrolled at our school often leading up fundraisers planning events and serving on ellington's powerhouse pto mrs valencia has assisted with many activities including collecting food organizing baskets for the canned good drives organizing our lost and found so that students can find their missing items setting up our stage for lunch special lunch on the stage which is a pbis incentive and supporting staff with students morning drop-offs and dismissal mrs valencia is always actively around ellington in the mornings mrs valencia is often in the front of the school talking with parents and answering their questions she volunteers whenever there is a need decorates the office doors and bulletin boards and assists other pto committee members with their path while on campus anna valencia watches out not only for her grandchildren but also for all of her ellington eagle she helps monitor students in the mornings and direct students to always follow our school and motto that is treat others with dignity and respect encourage other never give up and do your best the ellington community greatly benefits from having anna valencia on campus her commitment to our students and parents is tremendous thank you anna for the literally hundreds of hours that you have provided support and service to student surveillance thank you for being a great mother to your children your grandchildren and for being a positive role models to the ellington community ladies and gentlemen please join me in applauding mrs anna valencia ellington k8's parent of the year and the 2021-2022 azusa unified school district parent of the year i want to say thank you to everyone i also want to give a big thank you to mr acosta the students staff and parents at ellington school my family for pushing me to be the person i am today this is definitely a night i will cherish always thank you ellington and go eagles at this time i would like to have melissa alcantar from foothill federal credit union to come on up have a presentation good evening my name is melissa with foothill credit union and we are a proud supporter of the azusa community so i'm proud to be here and present this 50 gift card to azusa's parent of the year ms anna villain all right i'd like to go ahead and invite board president greer to come forward so and i want to present you with a couple couple of items here this is a certificate uh from the azusa unified school district board of education says azusa university school district 2021 2022 parent of the year is proudly awarded to anna valencia in recognition of your support and commitment to our district students and community we present you this award and express our appreciation for your dedicated service to the azusa unified school district dated uh this evening we also have for you this plaque uh which says azusa unified school district congratulates anna valencia parent of the year 2021-2022 thank you and just to add to that yes congratulations uh to you anna and and for we are we're grateful for your commitment for your dedication for the ways that uh you have faithfully served uh this community the ways you faithfully served not only your own uh students but so many others and we want to extend also congratulations and thank you to all those other parents who are joining us virtually from their school sites and some from home we we appreciate you and again uh recognize that you are uh just a tremendous part of what makes this this district and this community great so thank you um any of my colleagues yes i want to congratulate all the parents and recipients uh for for their award and i want to thank them for volunteering their time at their school sites i've seen many of you on google me but i still miss having the casastito with the panduster right and maybe hopefully soon we'll get together again um i want to congratulate of course uh anna varentia from okay to a ellington parent of the year congratulations to all parents guardians family members for your support of students mrs valencia congratulations to you on this very special award your work is recognized by all of us in the azusa community and i would be remiss if i didn't i'm say that tonight makes me remember my mother as a parent volunteer and looking back i always wondered as a child why she was always at school and now sitting here i realized that's what it takes it really is a labor of love over a period of years and so thank you mrs valencia and to all our parents and guardians and family members that support our students oh and grandmother right your grandmother yeah i also want to congratulate all the parents of the year um i think it's i think it's so important that we recognize um a parent at every single school but that we also recognize that all of our parents um really support our students and really make their education what's valuable um and um to you anna valencia i want to thank you so much for um the support that you give both your kids your grandkids and our schools um our our families are really multi-generational we need each other to support right so really to see that how strong you've been there at ellington with just not only your grandchildren but also other kids i just really appreciate that your commitment to our students our schools and our community i would like to go ahead and take this time to congratulate all our parents that were honored tonight and our parent of the year miss anna valencia and i've been a parent of this district for 13 years and volunteering when you volunteer it's not only for your child it's for everyone else's children it's to help out the office staff it's to help out the teachers there's there's an immense of love poured into it and i can i can see that our our district would not be the same with without parent volunteer grandmothers volunteering aunties sisters taking that time to volunteer in our schools to make things run smoother for the students so i want to take this time to thank all of the parents that were honored today our parent of the year and for those parents that you know what you didn't make it this year please keep on volunteering please keep giving of your time because guess what the more that we are involved in our child's life the better education our child and other children will you know will get in the classroom so thank you guys for all of that and so once more then for all the parents out there in the community um to the the winners the the the who were awarded parent of the year at their respective school sites and and especially for you anna valencia um a round of applause okay as we transition on into this next portion of our meeting and actually before we move into our public comment there's a statement that i have uh prepared that is on behalf of the board and also includes some of my own personal comments and reflections but i'd like to take some time to read out to you all so when i graduated from gladstone high school in 2004 there were twelve thousand one hundred and thirty four kids enrolled in the azusa unified school district today our district's enrollment sits at seven thousand eighty four students that represents a forty two percent decline in the number of students populating our schools now than when i attended some of this is indeed due to families who have chosen to send their students to neighboring districts but the vast majority of this reduced student population is due to fewer and smaller families from a declining birth rate as well as many of our friends and neighbors migrating further east three years ago the board the azusa board of education realized that in order to ensure the best possible opportunities for our students we would need to consider creative ways to maximize our resources through a number of options including the consolidation and reconfiguration of school we then voted to consolidate two of our campuses into surrounding ausd school site after this decision we tasked the district of going beyond kicking the fiscal can down the road to the next year and instead zooming out to consider the next five 10 plus years of the azusa unified school district instead of merely asking what do we need to do to not fall off a cliff today we shifted the question to how can we reimagine the best possible version of our school system here in azusa and set out to do the hard work of bringing it to fruition we made a commitment to seeing azusa arrive at that reimagined future while also accurately assessing that when we got there it would not like it would likely not look how any one of us individually would have hoped or preferred along the way there have undoubtedly been decisions that have been that have disappointed you the same could be said for each of us on the board who have at one time or another found ourselves voting against a decision that was carried by the majority most of us on the board have either attended azusa schools ourselves had children or grandchildren who have attended azusa schools or currently have children who attend azusa school i myself attended longfellow mountain view elementary slauson middle school and gladstone high school i had hopes and dreams of my child attending some of those same schools with some of the same teachers but of those four schools that i deeply loved and which richly shaped the person i am today it has been decided that longfellow will be the only one that remains into the future though this decision was a painful one for me it was worth the opportunities that will be available to our students and the generations to come as a result as we're sure you've all heard by now the board of education recently voted on a number of challenging topics in recent weeks since then we've seen a tremendous amount of inaccurate information spread throughout the community so on behalf of the board of education i'd like to use this opportunity to provide clarity and accuracy while we have your attention first we have actually been discussing reconfiguration details at school board meetings for over the past two years now in addition over the course of 11 months the district held 16 meetings consisting of parents teachers classified staff and administrators who met and discussed dozens of different versions of this preferred future for azusa schools collectively at board meetings and school reorganization meetings participants weighed in on topics including but not limited to which schools are to remain open or closed how many high schools should ausd have if our mascots should remain the same or change what our sports programs will look like as a result of these changes which programs will be at which school sites how many administrators and support staff will be at each school site which of the various facilities and infrastructural investments should be prioritized and so much more on the other side of those heated and impassioned conversations from those highly involved and knowledgeable committee members they sent forth not one but two potential options for the board to consider and every committee member we spoke to implored us to please not accept either of them because each one of them on their own they considered flawed in some way so again we recognize and celebrate the fact that so many are now tuning in to the conversation but contrary to what might be widely believed this conversation didn't just begin a couple weeks ago it's a conversation we've been having publicly for years and one that has required each of us to make nearly impossible decisions second it is accurate that we voted two weeks ago for the aztec to no longer serve as azusa high school's mascot there have been many who have shared loudly and on public forums the great pride they sent from the aztec warrior having served as a the ahs mascot it's important to note that there have also been many from our own community though not quite as loud and not quite as widespread on facebook who have for years communicated the deep pain and harm caused by the misrepresentation the tokenization and the caricaturization of indigenous peoples for centuries if you tuned in to our last school board meeting you might have noticed the dozens of individuals who spoke some from our own community and many who are not from our community i'll speak for myself and i'll say much of what they shared that evening and much of what was contained in emails sent our way prior to that meeting had little to no impact on my vote rather it was the personal conversations with the zusen's specifically ones from the indigenous community which prompted me to dive deeper into the history and scholarly research documenting and revealing the real negative impact of using indigenous people groups as mascot i would encourage everyone who has an opinion against changing the mascot just as i once did as recently as december this past december to also spend time looking into this research and hearing firsthand testimonies themselves of those who have been negatively impacted my faith compels me to always look out for the marginalized the disenfranchised and the underrepresented experience has taught me that the loudest voice isn't always the right ones and history has shown us all that sometimes the right decisions are met with tremendous backlash before they are broadly recognized as being right in the long run as far as azusa high school's colors we've asked a group of parents uh students and community members to make the decision on whether to retain blue black and white or if they recommend that we bring about new colors during the reimagining of this new azusa high school and we encourage each of you to participate in that conversation lastly the cost of changing azusa high school's mascot was never projected to be anywhere near two million dollars the most recent conservative estimate was set for 890 000.
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those should be 2021. um but the recommendations for the text amendment included a uh recommendation to rezone the south state street area between oak brook drive and i-94 and east and west eisenhower between south main and the railroad the state and eisenhower area was selected by the planning commission to be the first one or it was recommended to be the first one carrying forth that um request we held we put together some materials and held an introductory informational webinar on november 9th 2021 for all the owners residents and tenants inside the proposed rezoning area as well as extending a thousand feet from the area and it was open also to anyone who cared to participate and join that webinar the tc1 district itself as i mentioned it is a newly created district and it was created as a meaningful achievable realistic way to simultaneously address the a variety of different but related goals expressed across all eight documents that comprise the master plan i'm sorry the comprehensive plan such as sustainability access and choice in housing housing affordability reducing vehicle miles traveled reliv a relieving vehicle congestion supporting existing transit service and supporting and expanding non-motorized transportation the staff report of this proposed rezoning as well as some of the background materials goes into more specific goals and objectives that the tc1 district should accomplish now specific to the matter at hand um we have put together a proposed ordinance to amend the zoning map we zone 68 parcels centered around the state and eisenhower intersection extending north to oak brook drive east to the railroad track south to i-94 and west to south main street parcels in the proposed district either have an address of south state or east or west eisenhower or they have a boardwalk drive victor's way address there's also one or two that have a briarwood circle and marketplace address those are streets that connect between firewood mall and state or ice power parcels in the district range from in size from about 9 000 square feet which is 0.2 acres to 13 and a half acres the average parcel is about three and a half acres of the 68 two of them are open space they are undeveloped two additional ones are developed but not with buildings they are either a parking lot or um one is a storm water management pond part of a office complex there is a table in the staff report and i have it available but i won't screen share it it's very small for screen sharing purposes but a table lists the parcel id number the address the area and the current zone zoning designation and a brief description really brief of each parcel proposed for rezoning the district um is defined in an area that can makes um logical blocks or large but logical blocks um the district meets the general and specific intent of the tc one district they parcels are a long approximate to an existing transit corridor with regular fixed service provided by triple a ta and they're established commercial and office sites the tc1 zoning designation will replace either oh office c3 fringe commercial p parking r5 hotel m1 light industrial or pud zoning designations most districts in this parcel have the ability to be have placed a midsize apartment building or a townhouse in the front yard or on the surface parking lot which is encouraged by the purpose of this district this is what we are hoping to achieve the reasoning has the potential to add hundreds of homes in an area already served by transit system our transit system and it will help transform the area into a mixed-use neighborhood offering the three foundations of a complete neighborhood places to live work and play play or shop applying the tc1 district as proposed is a concrete action toward fulfilling the city's land use sustainability affordability and transportation goals and needs the staff we are recommending approval as proposed um i believe that i covered all of the material so i will turn it over for the public hearing and then the planning commission discussion and as i mentioned i'm happy to answer any questions about this city initiated rezoning thank you very much all right so i will um now um open up the public hearing it's an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the city-initiated tc1 rezoning petition for the 69 properties in the state and eisenhower area we will first call on individuals who are present here in council chambers and then remote participants again to speak during the public hearing remotely please press star 9 if you are joining by phone if you have joined through the web link you can use the raised hand feature on the center bottom of your zoom screen and if you're watching us now and want to call in our dial-in number is 877-853-5247 and the meeting id is 977-6634-1226 mr leonard will call our select callers that have raised their hand um calling on you by the last three digits of your telephone number or by the name that you've used to access the web link um you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak 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 do state your name and address at the beginning of your comments is there anyone here in council chambers that would like to speak at this time all right mr leonard do we have any hands raised online we do we'll start with adam josekiewicz you have three minutes to address the planning commission hello my name is adam juskewicz 1430 las vegas drive in the fourth ward i'm calling to express my support for the tc1 rezoning in the state and eisenhower area we are in a climate crisis and in order to meet our a20 goals we need to reduce vehicle miles traveled this increased density and mixed use brings us that much closer to a 15-minute city people will be able to live closer to their jobs there will be less need for people to commute into ann arbor it also means more neighbors more things to do close to home and more transit riders hopefully making faster and more frequent service feasible all of this will benefit the city as well as will any additional tax reform we are also in a housing crisis there are not enough homes in ann arbor for all the people who want to live here and prices reflect that rents are going up as many found out recently while in renewing their leases this change will allow more homes to be built in the city i look forward to seeing the development this zoning change will enable and i hope planning commission will approve this tonight additionally i hope planning commission can take on similar rezonings for other major corridors in the city's city as soon as possible such as the west stadium corridor adjacent to my own neighborhood washtenaw plymouth packard and platte and so forth without tc1 in these areas we will continue to see suburban-style car-centric development which is not what i want to see in my neighborhood or my city please vote yes thank you thank you kirk westfall you have three minutes to address the planning commission thanks kirk westfall 3505 charter place still i'm very excited to see this coming forward for hopefully for a vote tonight it's coming at the end of a long road and hopefully it's the beginning of a road down uh many more rezonings um i think it's a great step forward certainly things will be tweaked but overall this is a a really positive step we shouldn't be banning high density development out of the city and the more we can do to make all of our urban area um focused on dense development focused on the opportunity for mixed use i think the better [Music] i hope that through this process there will still be a limit on the the amount of car storage that is allowed in these areas um not all of the tc1 areas are going to develop at equal paces and i think that's fine [Music] i think it's really important that we insist on high density and walkable uses and not give into car centric kinds of office spaces and other types of developments that are more appropriate for suburban areas um because once it gets developed that way it's locked in for 40 or 50 years so i look forward to this discussion um i hope you vote yes i'd also if somebody could clarify the difference between 68 and 69 parcels i think uh both of those figures have been mentioned and i was just curious about the discrepancy thanks so much thank you i'm not seeing any other indication of speakers yet oh caller with the phone number ending with three four zero you can unmute your phone and address the planning commission for up to three minutes yes greetings uh planning commission my name is luis vasquez i'm located at 909 barton drive in the first ward of ann arbor michigan and speaking in favor um uh in support of uh tc1 zoning uh rezoning um [Music] i share the sentiments of mr jeskerich and kirk westfall and that i would like to see this happen in other areas of the city we are in the midst of a very severe housing shortage in ann arbor and this kind of zoning this kind of rezoning helps us to meet the goals stated goals of our city in terms of climate change um reduction in the use of cars so thank you very much uh please vote in the affirmative for tc1 zoning thank you thank you and again if anyone else has joined us remotely you can press star nine to raise your hand or use the raised hand feature if you've joined through the web link adam goodman adam goodman you can address the planning commission for up to three minutes hi there i'm adam goodman 400 virginia avenue um i wanted to again i feel like this is probably the fourth or fifth time i've said this to you to this group but i want to again say that i'm i'm strongly in favor of this and you know really excited to see this process moving along um i if anything i think this is way past it's way past time for us to actually be doing this the the city's comprehensive planning documents and many rounds of community input have shown strong support for this idea and you know especially on the along the south state street corridor there's a specific uh comprehensive planning document for that that came out nine years ago that you know i don't know if it said transit zoning by name but it certainly said mixed use and improved transit and all the things that we are trying to do with tc1 so i i think you know this is i to me this feels like it's obviously the right course action um i'm i'm also on team we need to do this in many other places uh there's so just today i saw that the site that uh was discussed by a previous commenter this this um proposed bank drive through bank on on west stadium now has a sign that says uh it's an it's an opportunity for a car dealership which i think is what it was before um and and like i i think we have again a lot of comprehensive planning documents and community input that says that is not the type of use that we want in that corridor but if if that's what the zoning says can be built there that's the only thing that really matters at the end of the day so we we really need to get moving on on changing things across the city but south state street is a good start good start and i hope you all support this tonight thank you thank you vicky rios you have three minutes to address the planning commission thank god you ain't funny can you repeat that miss rios we will come back caller with the phone number ending with five three four caller with the phone number ending with five three four you can press star six to mute your phone and address the planning commission for three minutes hello again this is tom stallberg calling from the heart of lowertown in ann arbor those of you have been around for some time would know that i've been a long time proponent have spoken at planning commission a long time ago in favor of transit oriented development concepts those of you who have been here more recently would know that i'm disappointed with the process that this went through and that i think we would have had a better outcome if we had followed the proper process which we did not follow however here we are today and you are likely to pass this so i'd like to ask you to address some specific questions that i have that might clarify things for other people as well uh the parcels that are zoned pud now that will be rezoned to tc1 if you could talk a little bit about what happens to their pud development agreements etc also in terms of the recently passed uh new thresholds for site plan review uh would you clarify that if i uh i'm understanding correctly anything that would come in even once tc1 would pass through city council at that point in time these parcels are all zoned tc1 any site plan at that point in time that came in meeting the tc1 standards if it was six units or less my understanding is it would not go to planning commission but it would go to the planning manager and i'd like you to discuss the notice that would be given because it's no longer going to planning commission if i'm correct in that similarly any parcel of those 68 if they meet the tc1 zoning criteria their site plan would no longer go to city council based on the recently passed change in site plan thresholds so again if you could review what the notice requirements would be so that the public will know that by the commission is the one who has the power at that point in time to approve the site plan and then it will not go to a public city council and will not get a vote at city council again if i'm correct in my understandings so it would help to clear that up for us the public thank you thank you eric zuchar you have three minutes to address the planning commission eric zakar my apologies from mispronouncing your last name you can unmute yourself and address the planning commission for up to three minutes thanks can you hear me okay we can okay thanks i was muted still it's eric zecker but thanks for the effort brett i'm at 2435 prairie and i just wanted to call and say how supportive i was of this going forward i appreciate the idea of rezoning this area it's kind of like a dead zone in the city especially near the mall there if you do live in the area you know that you kind of have to drive everywhere to get to anything but you're often just driving past places that are just ripe for redevelopment i also wanted to kind of echo what a previous caller said in that we can put forward an idea of what we want in this area but we can't force anybody to build what we want them to build we can only give them our vision of what we want in the area so we can't force anybody to make like a beautiful mixed-use village with like narrow streets and things like that but we can allow it and we definitely haven't gotten it with the zoning that we put in the area right now uh the area's just kind of full of eyesores and and huge parking lots that are currently empty except for giant snow clearing equipment so i think it's a great idea i also echo a previous caller that we should expand these to other areas i live up on the northeast side of town and we have some actually really great shops here but we could probably use more neighbors up here so that we could support these shops like songbird and rapport and i just think it's a great idea i think we need more space for people to live we need more places for people to shop we need less places for people to not park their cars because of all of these empty parking lots so i appreciate the planning commission looking at this and thank you for your time thank you no other speakers are indicated all right last call you can press star 9 to raise your hand if you've dialed in or use the raised hand feature if you've joined us through zoom just like everywhere else last call always gets somebody brian chambers you have up to three minutes to address the planning commission yes can you hear me we can this is brian chambers i reside at 2815 ember way in the fourth ward i'm calling in support of this initiative and the ordinance the zoning change for this area kind of reflecting the concerns of some of the previous callers we can't really control what comes back from the developers that may have an interest in doing something here but i at least want to give a shout out to the intent or the objective for this to be a transit oriented development initiative to fuel more use of the bus lines and to restrict the use of cars the theme that we've been hearing as well that's a big ask um and and i i'm hopeful that uh it'll come to fruition um but just to be clear when we're speaking of these densities that can actually affect transit so people shift out of cars in and use the buses we're really talking about a development for this area of 3 400 to 5600 housing units i know others have just said the word density they want more density they want enough to actually support bus transit and have people shift out of cars research that's been done in terms of best practices uh globally has found that until you hit these densities and even a village style development which i'll classify ann arbor we're not a metropolitan area the size of detroit or chicago or some other larger area we still have to hit these minimum thresholds of housing in order to actually shift people from cars to buses in a meaningful fashion so this is a shout out to really try to compel i don't know developers to come back if they're listening on the line with significant density-based proposals that are in that range now we have multiple parcels any one may be developed one at a time maybe somebody's going to come in and buy up a bunch but we need to start talking about what we mean by density at what level for true transit oriented development that support for its plus transit 30 more seconds light rail speaking of transit and that's for this type of development in [Music] that range i've sent you some information separately in previous times i'll i'll resend it just so that it's fresh box but then we affect the equation thank you any other callers mr leonard daniel adams daniel adams you have up to three minutes to address the planning commission hi good evening my name is daniel adams i live on the north side of town you know i just wanted to say how much i support this and view this zoning change in this area and in future districts as a really positive step towards a set of zoning set of zoning laws that reflects our priorities as a community and is set up i think more importantly to you know reflect the values that we have and facilitate the type of developments that we want and i'll contrast that with the vision of this process that's shared by some not me under which we all have some type of say or ad hoc access and veto rights to shape and block and halt and prevent progress and development within our community being more permissive about our zoning but doing it in a way that again is reflective of our values and taking some of these veto points out of our process an earlier caller mentioned you know these notice requirements that they'd like the the committee to address and that's just not something that i i care that much about i want the laws that we erect to um enable and catalyze developments that we're all going to be proud of and that are going to help us attack a housing crisis that is decades in the making and what we're doing what you're considering tonight i think is is really tremendous and for me it's like many of the callers earlier i would echo the sentiment that i'd really like to see every you know the city move faster we need more of this more speed um to because again it's going to take the market time to develop around the changes that we make we can't force that but we can do this and we should do it quickly thank you thank you no other speakers indicated all right maybe really the last call if there's anyone else star nine raise your hand all right i will close the public hearing and before i read the motion though do we know because the staff report the motion and the agenda have different that's where the different numbers are do we know which one i should be reading yeah uh mr leo can you clarify the count um so the count is 68.
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voters exempted funding from 301 from the expenditure limit by passing prop 104 in 2002 however when prop 301 was extended by the legislature in 2018 a similar provision to exempt the funds from the limit was not included this means that the funding that the funding prop 301 generates over 300 million now has to be counted towards that limit lastly third over the past few years the state had been working to restore district and charter school additional assistance which was cut during the great recession as funding has been restored over multiple years which is a great thing it has added funding that counts towards the limit combination of these things have put us in this position for all those reasons uh the limit will be exceeded this year and into future years when does the legislature have to address this issue well the constitution requires the spending cap must be addressed by the legislature no later than march 1st what happens if they don't address it by march 1st 2022 school districts will be forced to reduce their current budgets for this year and then going into next year so what does that mean for gilbert public schools well in general for this year current year 2022 using available budget balance carry forward money to help offset that stop any additional spending immediately and hiring freezes which goes along with the second bullet as well but we kind of have to stop what we're doing to regroup to be able to budget for next year as well and then next year we have to right size to a permanent 40 million annual reduction so as our budget moves forward next year in subsequent years we just have to count that we're gonna be 40 million dollars less what does that mean well it could mean a reduction administrative certified and support staff for the next year increased class sizes for the next year unrestricted capital budget moved to mno and other potential discretionary decreases when you have a budget that's basically used and made up of primarily people you have to look at those types of things if you put it in perspective i know some districts have put it like their amount would equal x amount of days of school we could equate that to 40 million dollars to be between 700 900 employees all classifications so that doesn't mean seven to nine hundred employees would be gone that's just what 40 million dollars is worth in gilbert public schools so it puts some things in perspective we don't know yet where that's going to end up we've talked to some folks down at the legislature there i'm still wondering what's going to happen in the next couple weeks but we have no indication as of yet if action will be taken we're hopeful that it will because that that impacts not just gilbert public schools but again 1.1 billion dollars that's all of education in the state of arizona sheila if i'm understanding this right this is just a fluke that happened as a result of of everything else that's happened to us is there anyone down there that all at all that has i've been trying to you know follow in the newspaper and i haven't seen a lot about it which isn't amazing most of the stuff i've seen has come from the teachers association and things like that is there anybody that's even introduced a bill or i think there is i just don't think it's been heard yet is that correct there's there's no bills assigned to committee representative jennifer has filed two bills one to address the short-term um this year of the aggregate spending limit and the other one is to do away with it entirely i mean it's it's really outdated the way that it is calculated is outdated there's so much more that we're doing in our schools than we were in 1980.
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okay very simplistically um uh part of the requirements of the american recovery uh act is that you have to have approval of the cove mitigation plan for the district which you did back in july it's supposed to be reviewed every six months for changes but anytime you do make a change you have to get board approval again so that's the purpose of this agenda the reason why we're moving it through tonight versus next week is is uh quite simply we're at at a point where the volume of cases is becoming overwhelming uh for some of our issues to give you perspective in the first 15 months we had 205 cases across the full 15 months probably a 50 50 split adult to kids in last semester uh in the fall semester we had approximately was a 550 550 cases last semester uh since january 3rd we are just short we're at 438 cases so just or excuse me 388 cases were just short of 400 cases within basically one month and so where we we thought the first year five or six cases a day was hard to sustain with the contact tracing in particular then when you popped about 20 cases on average last fall that became difficult we had a eight day stretch where we ran somewhere between 30 and 60 cases a day and so the the ability to do the contact tracing especially in light of the changes with the cdc and so specifically what i'm talking about there is with the cdc which is the same thing adhs which is the same thing pinella county health are doing first of all they not just that they move the uh the period of isolation be it either in isolation for a positive case or uh quarantining for close contact down to five days with then depending on where you looking and who you talk to recommendation to wear masks after that but they had the caveat under quarantining that said if you are able to quarantine then you just wear a mask for 10 days and so even in my conversations with pinal county health they recognize that with that caveat the first time you made an exception you basically just opened up the door for everybody to do 10 days and so we're spending an inordinate amount of time and i shouldn't say we i mean there's principals that are doing it at their sites their administrative assistants at their sites there's the technology department there's kayla there's deanna i mean there's lots of people that are that are i don't think people understand just what it takes to go ahead and get all this information out you basically can lock up a school two schools depending on number cases plus a good portion of the district office just trying to figure out contact tracing getting letters out apprising people of everything and and in many cases the individuals who would be close contacted are shown up to school anyway because there's a caveat that they can show up to school if they wear a mask we're not mandating they wear a mask we're strongly recommending it very difficult to to manage that because which kids on five days from uh coming off a positive taste test which gives on five days coming off of a quarantine which gets on five day or ten days on a quarantine uh you know which kid got uh came off one to go back on another one so it's just getting it's just getting very very very difficult and i don't know that it's effectively taking care of the issue that we're trying to to do um and so as we as we look to see how do we become how do we continue to move the district forward uh administration has looked this and said this is this is really just not sustainable so what we're really looking for tonight is very simplistically uh you can't discuss anything within the coveted mitigation plan and we can pull it up on the screen because the way the agenda items worked what we're specifically asking for is that we would no longer contact trace there's any number of districts around the the state that have have gone to that just for the very same reason we have uh just the the sheer volume of of what's taking place we would continue to notify parents what that notification looks like we've talked about it and i would ask for some latitude over the next couple of days for us to fine tune it i want to get your opinion on what you think the notification should be but we're still working on what the what the uh practicality of that would would look like so that we don't just create another problem uh within within the notification process that is really at this point in time the only change that we are are asking for uh relative to the plan there may be other things that you may have concerns about that would be more than happy to discuss just as a notion on a procedural level um what will happen based on your decision tonight uh if there is a change to it if there's not a change to the current plan then we wouldn't do anything but if there is a change under the american rescue plan we are required to get public input so what we said we'd do back in july which we'll continue to do is very similar to what ade does on most things is you guys can make the change we put it out for comment if there's substantial comments from a significant number of people about a specific issue of what the change was then we would bring it back at the next board meeting to discuss uh in most likelihood when we did this in july we had comments but there was no pattern we had some people on this side of the fence some people on that side of the fence um some people quite frankly didn't i don't think read it and so their comments were really um counter to they wanted us to do what we were already doing so so if there's nothing there then we would just continue with this and if we decide to make any other changes in the future we'd come back so just know that's the procedural piece that'll take care that will take place after this but the bottom line is all we're asking is do we eliminate the contact tracing and then we would notify parents for clarity we would notify parents on exposure and then the parents would have to make the decision as to whether they wanted to keep their child home or not but if they called us and asked us about a contact tracing with my child in a situation where they were close to a person we would have to tell them um we do not know because we're not doing that so i'd open it up for discussion but that kind of sets the table for what we're asking for tonight okay why don't we just start with one one at a time we'll start with you stephen i don't have any questions okay um i'm looking at one of the attachments which is the us department of education interim final ruling and under it um there's a capital letter a universal and correct wearing of masks so i'm curious as to if we go to the five-day quarantine period it's the the other yeah and then if you scroll down to the keep going keep going keep going keep going help me i'm sorry maybe it's the one but it's the one that's um has the four pages to it and it's page number three of four i think it's the other attachment because that one has five pages okay okay so if you stop there so if you see the capital letter a universal and correct wearing a mask i'm wondering with the um cdc change and five days of quarantine and five days of wearing masks do they mandate and require mask wearing or do they recommend they're wrapping that i'm trying to see how that fits into what's up i believe and again some of you that also worked on this but my recollection is that they did not come out with a mandating a mask it was a strongly recommended uh language that was used by the cdc which created some of the some of the issues even even within this um uh there was not a mandating of masks uh even through the cdc strongly recommended or i think was a term they used i'm looking out the audience guidelines should wear a mask and so so there is not a mandate in anywhere and so we're we're back to that same issue um relative to anything to do with masks and so we have adopted when we came back this uh for this semester we just use that same language i mean we might have used strongly recommended but but not a mandate because it's not being supported by cdc guidelines as a mandate so there is no mandate of it and even just to be totally honest trying to track that becomes very very difficult when you have x number of kids in any sort of setting we do the best we can but it's a very difficult situation so there's there's no mandating that's my question okay chad sure um i actually i think i think this is a great idea i think it hopefully will help out and if everybody all the principals were on board with this idea as well then that's a good thing too um i know before what we were criticized for was not necessarily jumping to this but our understanding was that you know the language from pinal county right was that we were doing exactly what we thought we were supposed to be doing is that correct the language so did the cdc guidelines change recently which is making this uh this is not possible yeah the the the change was back on december 27th the issue that comes up with pinal county again just in having their conversations they understand what that change does to school districts relative to what's taking place the other piece that i have not seen um uh is is some changes relative to to the legal aspects of contact tracing and and how we can communicate uh with pinal county so even with contact tracing we no longer communicate contact tracing with pinal county we just provide the data for them for positive cases um because there's a ruling out there that they may violate ferpa so there's probably two or three things that that have changed since uh december and the cdc's new rulings on the 27th that have placed us in this position that um i would say we we i don't know if it's more latitude or it's just that that things are evolving and it's not quite as as cut and dry as as maybe people were saying in the past well i just a comment and then a question that but my comment is just i think it's been a admirable and herculean task to try to keep up with what we were trying to keep up with and i i understand the parents that were upset um seeing other schools who are kind of already moving to something like this but since that wasn't what we were asked to do um i i appreciate the integrity of this district and you dr wyman and the principals and everybody trying to just do what we we knew was trying to do what was best for students and the teachers and follow what the guidelines said and uh waiting until a moment like this where the cdc now gave us some guidelines that allow us to to now go move in this direction my only other question is um i know that you're saying that the the only thing that you want you're asking for is to is is that one thing is there anything else that you would like as well second on the list no the the only other part would just be the the the we will continue to notify parents of exposure so if if if a kid comes or an adult quite frankly comes with positive a positive test then there will there will be a form of notification um uh may change from what we're doing right now we're still working on that there would be a form of notification to parents of the exposure but not other close contact um and so that would be the second part of it but at this point i don't believe there's there's anything else i think any other things that we do um or decisions that we do would make in the next month or so we probably have a little bit more latitude just the way uh the plan is written the current plan the way it's written is very specific that we will follow the cdc guidelines which if we do this and the cdc guidelines say at least you will be doing contact tracing so we have to change that language because it does not comply with with what's in the current plan okay well i think that's i i'm i'm grateful and glad that now that that there is some more leeway for us to to move in this direction i think it's great for parents to have the choice right uh lisa do you have any questions comments my my only comment is that i think that um i'm in agreement i think this has been a very taxing process and well when we started we didn't quite know how long this was going to go on and it's gone on for a very long period of time which has made it really daunting and so i like the fact that parents are still get the opportunity to be notified but yet we're moving forward with how the cdc is also making their changes so hopefully this will help us move forward to the next step okay um i'm definitely on board i'm i do think we need to have our kids in the classroom so um with that i will take a motion i'm hoping to approve the update to the district's 2021 22 cover 19 mitigation plan as presented second uh all in favor hi hi aye uh did i hear yeah yeah okay motion carries five to zero so we will i'll just uh um i guess i'll make a motion to adjourn at 6 15. second all in favor hi hi i i lisa did she say all right all right bye thanks guys [Applause]
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if even a supreme court justice can be deceived by false information we should all be looking carefully at our own beliefs to make sure that our fears are based on fact we in the us and especially massachusetts which prides itself on being at the forefront scientifically should not be lagging behind when it comes to what we're demanding of our children i'm strongly against requiring masks in schools it has never made sense for adults to be able to shop attend shows eat in restaurants or go to sports games without a mask while children are forced to mask entire days in school and it's time to speak up for our kids and let them return to regular life so thank you thank you stephanie tinashenko hi thank you my name is tina shanko i live at 66 ethan allen drive in boylston and i'm terrified so i'll just start by saying that um i've been a boylston resident for over 20 years my four children three are graduates of tohonto and my last is currently a junior i'm a registered nurse and my husband is a surgeon i would like to voice my concerns over masking our children in school it is time to stop wearing masks or at the very least eliminating the mask mandate our children are suffering the effects of masking for long hours each day the science is clear healthy children are not not in exceedingly low healthy children are at an exceedingly low risk for death or serious illness from covet 19.
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this is for a subtotal of 12.8 million which is a hundred thousand dollars more i believed in last night that we talked about and then we would pay down the 12.8 and bring it down to eight seven with grants and reserves to the eight seven uh that that you saw in the previous slide for the ask um and john is gonna similar to last night he's gonna give a little bit more detail around those budget drivers um he'll take you through the next several slides and then i'll come back to wrap up thank you kevin i wonder if we could just go back to the slide just for a second i want to just lead into something here because this one's a little less intuitive but if you look at the first two items here our our salaries and wages and our health insurance the 2.44 that's a quarter of our increase of 9.2 percent and same with health insurance that's about another quarter of the point two percent so those first two items there uh that's half of our increase and and that's um that's one of will be one of our messages and then as as kevin walked you down the list if you looked at the three of the last four the the enrollment and the enrichment activities uh together they bring it they're another 30 percent of the increase so one of the ways i like to look at it is if we didn't have that 30 percent increase our total increase would only be going up about 4.4 percent so it's those three things that are really part of our message tonight and that's what we're going to dive into a little closer so if we go to the next slide uh yeah uh the first one salaries and wages you know um of our employees are um represented in collective bargaining or are members of the union and um the labor laws are that if if you have a union or unions in our case there are three things that you have to bargain for at the bargaining table salaries and wages is one of benefits is another and working conditions is the third so you can see here that our two two of our biggest drivers and as i showed you half of our increase is really coming out of our collective bargaining agreements and some of the things we've negotiated so as you see there the what we mention is uh we have about a four percent increase in some of those and um it's not that we're settling we've settled our contracts with four percent increases but when a labor contract uh settles particularly in a municipal environment frequently there are step functions each year you go up a step until you reach the top step so if we settle a labor contract for three percent uh the people who are at the top step the next year get three percent but if someone is not quite there yet they'll also get a little bump from uh from moving up a step so a three percent uh settlement uh many employees could get closer to four and as our staff gets younger uh with as we've uh tried to meet some of these enrollment needs we're bringing them in of course at at the lower steps so that's why that number is four percent even though what we've been negotiating is much closer to previous inflation rates also as i said benefits are negotiated too and and you know largely we might be uh negotiating how much the employees will pay of the health insurance or or what type of plan it is ours is uh hsa plan health savings accounts uh but we're also self-insured for health insurance um experts will tell you that's uh usually the best way to go we pay only the claims that are incurred rather than a premium to a health insurance company and and if things go well uh they they're the winners we pay just the claims and what's hap we have a a consultant uh a gallagher we've used for many years who uh helps us project what the claims are going to be and it's if if you remember from last year the 2021 year our claims were down we gave money back to the city because we didn't need it for health insurance but they were down uh because of covid and many at that a year ago a lot of people our employees included were not going to the hospital or not going to the doctor for different reasons they didn't want to uh some hospitals couldn't do some of the elective surgeries that might get done for a while so the claims uh were lower than than they typically would be uh but our consultants now are telling us um that claims are going back up at a normal pace there's a lot more outpatient work going on and they've told us what to increase our health insurance for the um it's not just the claims however we have insurance policies on top of that in case someone's claims gets really high insurance will come in and cover it so we don't experience a loss we also look at how much we're getting from our employees depending on what a plan they're signing up for so we take all those factors uh put them together and um that's how we come out with our totals so that's that's health insurance claims uh but again those two uh drivers are are half of our increase uh transportation uh that's primarily our contract with sta uh the bus company and um last june uh the board um wisely uh extended that contract at a very uh reasonable rate of a four percent increase so when we built this budget we looked at the number of buses uh those contracts you pay per bus per day so we simply put the price that had been negotiated uh against the number of buses we have on the road and that becomes our our new budget that one's actually pretty easy uh to predict but we have a a little more uh transportation going on uh both in uh special education and in regular education where we've had to add a few buses because our enrollment's going up so that's a little higher but i i have to say the four percent was awfully wise bus companies are experienced the same type of inflationary pressures uh we all are uh they're having trouble getting help uh their fuel cost is going up uh their cost of parts and just about everything i think a few months after that sta probably wouldn't have wanted to extend they're also the bus contractor in greenwich also about the same size they didn't extend they wanted to go out to bid they greenwich opened bids a couple of weeks ago they had two bids one from sta was up 23 percent uh another company from new york was up 12 percent so they're changing bus companies so in hindsight uh we're looking very good there uh next slide okay um we met uh special education uh we say it's going up six hundred thousand dollars uh that's not a big percentage increase but what that expense is largely driven by individual educational plans ieps or 504 plans that become mandated and programs and services we have to provide it's it's not a big percentage increase as i said but um it is uh 600 000 but it's those next three items there that's what i mentioned that's that that is our message tonight kevin will dive a little into that but uh we have a curriculum upgrade upgrade in english and language arts start at the lowest uh grades uh and over a three-year period implement that new english and language arts curriculum uh about a third a year or a million thirty uh 333 000 each year for three years uh that's something we have to do and that's that's pushing our budget up more on that in a second um estate mandates and enrollments we're putting that together i'll show you some details but the state of connect the state education department has changed our graduation requirement at danbury high school where students could graduate up until now with 21 credits of classes now they're going to need 25 so what that means for a student is they have to take more electives and we'll need teachers to teach those electives so that they can graduate so i'll break that down for you in a second but we also our enrollment is rising you saw that uh in the chart it's it's unusual because the rest of state is going down but if you have more kids and you need more classrooms you need more teachers and we'll show you that in a second uh and then finally the 200 000 for enrichment or extracurricular um you know we've had some uh very good uh parent forums uh over the last two weeks where we've listened uh to hear what do parents want uh us to do with our our budget and we're hearing um more activities uh primarily after school uh one of the ideas that will be coming up first uh will be an intramural program at our middle school we're very excited about that uh and then we think that we know that can grow uh from intramurals and into some great things um uh i'm sure we'll we'll also have some uh offerings in uh music and art and things of that nature so the next slide so let's just look at the numbers uh for a second uh if we go to the chart uh so th this um here's your your budget uh what we have this year uh in this second column what we're proposing next year the dollar increase uh the percent and um what that uh those dollars mean as a percent of the overall increase and this looks just like the report you've been getting each month there's a summary page on top these are the uh categories uh that we use i i talked about salaries and benefits um it's more than just uh salaries we have other things that go on related to the click the bargaining agreements for example the coaches on our sports teams the some of the advisors for our clubs and activities they're in there as well as some of the extra things that you see uh going on whether it's staff at the football games that help out and those kind of things we actually have 44 different lines of types of salaries that we we have to subdivide because at the end of the year we report that to hartford uh it's also in the in the report we give you the port there's other benefits uh besides health insurance for example social security employers and employees pay uh seven percent so our portion of the social security uh is in there uh things like workers compensation insurance unemployment and so on and so forth so that's a 30 million dollar category when you uh add it all up what we call professional services when you look at those lines those are things like um when we uh use attorneys to help um help us in collective bargaining or help us with some of the lawsuits that are brought against us uh or um the biggest thing in there is some of our uh tutors and uh which uh they're not one-on-one tutors at home like you might think these are people in the schools uh every day working with uh groups of students that's where we classify it uh in that line that's a that's a big item too uh and then just uh some of the other things we do uh with just to keep things moving and existing services nothing new in there uh for next year our property services that's really um our repairs and contracts for our boilers our elevators uh that kind of thing um our computers you know we need to keep service contracts on that to refuse removal is another one to keep our buildings in shape the other purchases i wish we had a better a label for that because it sounds kind of miscellaneous but it's that's where the sta contract is that i just talked about and that's where we put uh the tuitions we pay when uh special ed students are placed in special schools out of district that it goes right on that line supplies self-explanatory that's what your kids use in the classrooms or on the athletic fields and that kind of thing program improvements that that's what i um highlighted before that's the line where you see that 30 that's where you see um the enrollment uh growth that we need uh the curriculum enhancement that i talked about is also in that line and then uh finally there's uh a line for dues fees and and teacher training in there so those are the the items just uh a quick word on uh amounts that the next slide uh i mentioned the high school uh change in graduation requirements um go to the next one so this is uh this is what we need um to uh we need uh ftes mean full-time equivalents uh our teachers when you see 1.2 um that really means uh we need someone six days a week six out of the ten days one week would be five six days is 1.2 so in our teacher business teacher that's where some of the new requirements are coming a health and phys ed teacher uh a new science teacher uh we think uh five high school teachers uh will allow us to to offer the the five meet the five credit mandate but enrollment growth um kevin will explain in a few minutes why uh why this is happening here um but uh we'd like we'll we're gonna ell stands for english language learners so the staffing we need for english language learners next year we we're going to need 5 esl as english as a second language slash bilingual five teachers at the high school for that a world language teacher that's a foreign language teacher one of those at the middle school we're also going to need five esl or bilingual teachers and another one at our elementary schools but there's uh 12 teachers uh to support english as a english language learners as we call them eight hundred and sixty four thousand dollars next slide yep so um here's our total um i don't know if we missed one there kevin but the uh the total uh staffing is uh five for um the high school graduation uh twelve for um enrollment increases and uh 13.5 for staffing improvements we'll we'll talk about that in a second too a total of 30.5 but if you remember on the very first slide uh we mentioned we need 2.2 million uh as an improvement oh here it is okay sorry john yeah that's the missing piece um so this is really just to support uh enrollment it's not related to english language learners not related uh to the high school graduation requirement uh this is uh to me um all of the students that have entered our schools this year and the uh projections we have for next year uh we're going to need three and a half more counselors and social workers at the high school we just we just don't have enough right now um and then at the middle school uh we need these uh teachers just just to meet our enrollment increases uh we're not changing the programs uh we're offering there uh on this slide this is just uh to keep the same things we have now about with more kids and uh special education teachers are another five so uh 13.5 teachers uh for that enrollment increase you saw uh kevin uh show earlier this isn't all happening next year um it's been going on and will continue so uh there's the total um i think that's that's what i had kevin is uh that's right john right yep okay thank you thank you thank you and so i i just want to pick back up pick up where john left off and provide a funding breakdown and share with the board and for the community actually how the district is funded so one 69 percent of our local dollars are contributed to the school district and so this long blue bar here 69 percent of our 100 pie is from local local taxpayers here in danbury our state funding which include alliance and priority grants represents about 21 percent of our overall available monies to support staff and students here and last but not least we have 10 percent of our overall revenues coming into the district as an example idea and title grants federal grants and so these are the different revenue sources and percentage percentages associated with each one that is helping us uh meet the needs of kids in our district so we wanted to walk the board and the community through some district comparisons and so the state our comparison groups are milwaukee and stanford so i will begin with and i think this is the slide john was alluding to earlier when talking about the unique position that danbury public schools is in this is from the 2021 data this is from the state at site and so you will note from left to right in 2010 enrollment in the entire state of connecticut as high as over 560 000 in 2010 and you'll see those overall numbers for the entire state of connecticut has continued to decrease um in the last 10 plus years and if you look from left to right you can see that decline meanwhile the red the red line represents danbury public schools and so again this is our numbers as of and you'll see our numbers have continued to incline we had a slight pause in 1718 16 17 18 18 19 and then a significant jump in 1920 when we um experienced a significant bump of enrollment and fortunately for us that enrollment has continued to climb um as you're aware we are um at the 12 000 number as we speak and so the conversation about not only enrollment board but a different type of enrollment this is also from the it's pulled from the ed site data 21 2021 and we have a significantly higher percentage of english language learners in danbury as not only compared to the rest of the state of connecticut but even our um comparable districts milwaukee and stanford and you can see we almost double um norwalk in terms of percentage of english english language learners i mean almost triple that of stanford uh to two towns that are very much like danbury public schools not also and i i know it's been well chronicled here in the district i'm talking about how the district has changed significantly over the last 10 years and you can kind of see it here the number of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch has increased by 25 over the last 13 years this is important uh because typically um students who qualify for free and reduced lunch are identified as high need and require a different amount of support instructionally but also social emotional support as well enrollment with our neighbors and you'll see these numbers are very similar in terms of total enrollment students who qualify for free and reduced lunch very similar to those columns as well you'll also note my number is actually lower than norwalk and stanford in special education um kelly troost does an amazing job with her team keeping these numbers down for the district and our general-led um teachers and staff as well but it's our english language learners that continue to we continue to have very uniquely enrollment in our district it's very different from the for my neighbors and then per student spending in danbury and then those same neighboring districts and so again this is data pulled from this data this data source i don't think it's showing up at the bottom of the screen my apologies i'll they should make that adjustment this is pulled from the state finance project and uh like norwalk and stanford you'll see that we both receive monies from the state that also receive our share of federal monies as well but unlike norwalk and stanford locally they receive 85 of their monies from local taxpayers and they receive around 12 um of their total dollars from the state and three percent from federal grants uh we receive conversely 21 of our our monies uh from the state of connecticut and then approximate then 10 uh from the federal government and so in the now taxpayers are paying at 69 of our total revenue and so um we just wanted to wrap up before we got to questions on this note um annually like every year uh we are meeting with our lobbyists we had met with the lobbyists earlier in this school year a couple of months ago on behalf of the challenges and reimbursements we were hoping we are hoping to get for the purchases of chromebooks and the loss that we had taken with food services during the 1920 and 21 school year so we are optimistic that we'll have an opportunity to get monies through the city not exactly exactly sure how that would benefit the district but i would like to think if the money is going back to the city that positions us well one way or the other secondly build community support for budget requests and so after tonight and after the board has approved a budget my team and i we will continue to educate and inform the community and get feedback and just continue to just educate the community work with our subcommittee community relations committee hopefully and continue to get the word out about the budget engage the next bullet engage with city officials to evaluate and address short and learning some financial needs i shared with the board reece most recently that the mayor is very excited and embraced the idea of forming a task force specifically for this purpose um i'm sorry specifically for um helping to open and staff the new academy for us but certainly there will be opportunities to talk about when we will not only be talking about long-term goals but also short-term goals in order to get us there to open up that building successfully and then last but not least um certainly my team and i i i have an obligation to make sure we are working with all the revenues that has come into this district to minimize the ask of the taxpayers and maximize the various revenues that has come into this district we felt um very responsibly we've done that as part of our ask our ask was actually 12.8 but we feel like through through our grants um and in other federal dollars we're able to pay down on some of these requests and reserves i'm sorry reserves to paid on some of these requests which leaves us an outstanding ask of 8.7 million so i will just leave it there i will stop the share for right now understanding there might be questions but i'll be happy to bring it back up if the board would like me to um focus on any particular page rachel i have a question when it's appropriate go ahead joe um i'm not sure who this is for john kevin um i saw the transportation increase and john i agree if if the numbers have gone up so far then it's a good thing we we extended and locked in when we did is there any savings to be had based on what we didn't get this year from transportation we had a whole with a bunch of new buses that were supposed to be rolling in the fall we didn't get them and as far as i know we still don't have them um there's a whole bunch of routes that were supposed to be being run in the month of january a whole bunch of routes didn't get run and as far as i know we're still not back to 100 are we kevin i think we're still doubling and tripling routes in some spots um is there any savings to be had based on what they didn't deliver i mean i recognize everybody's got problems but you got a contract to deliver what you're contracted for or hopefully there's some savings to be had um i i expect savings uh in this year's budget uh coming from two sources uh one is uh the buses that we didn't run especially uh in early january uh it was really uh terrible to have to send out that message that we wouldn't have service on certain runs uh so of course we won't be paying for those and so there'll be a savings uh this year uh i've also called them in um and and they're agreeing to negotiate a lower billing price when if one of their drivers is out part of the day's sick and they cover it with another driver but they run it late uh we're not going to let them build the regular price for that it's it's going to be much lower and they've they've agreed to do that they do it in other districts uh but that also will be uh this year uh the budget for next year um is built that they'll have all the drivers and all the runs uh that we uh want them to so um there's there's no uh real savings projected for next year like when i'm talking yeah when i'm talking about savings i'm talking savings specifically from this year that hopefully we can roll into next year um and i'm also thinking especially about we were so we we contracted with them we came up with money to add a whole bunch of new buses right in september we didn't get those new buses as far as i'm aware we have the buses but they never wrote they never rolled those buses as far as i'm aware did we ever implement those new new buses or they were kevin i don't know if anybody knows right so the the new buses that i am aware of joe are the buses for brookfield obviously um but i think the additional fleet to help cut down on right you know cut down on the right student writer's time um i don't think we ever met the true number um i'll have to get the detail around that i don't know if john you know that offhand um but i don't think they i ever met the the exact number of people hoping to open up the school year with and i recognize it's hard it's hard to figure out when people are out with new buses and new routes and brookfield and everything else like it may not be an exact science i just wasn't sure if there was money that we were saving this year we could roll in that we're allowed to roll into next year's budget thank you anybody else questions from board members mr walleston so question just jumping with an opportunity joe i i i will look up this information to find out exactly what the number is that was uh contracted because i think that's what i'm hearing if yeah if the bus company promised 100 and they only did it delivered 90 right of that number and make sure that we're credited in some way yeah that was really the question and and i recognize it's not an ex it's not an easy number to figure out because it might be more like 732 runs and we got 687 runs and then another day it was 822 runs so i recognize it's not necessarily a round or easily calculable figure thank you thank you um oh go ahead al i apologize man i'm sure i will yield to the chair go ahead oh that's okay um my question was uh for the 25 high school credit graduation requirements that's not something that's new i mean so are we after this year are we done phasing in the student classes that have that new requirement so that that's a great question um so this year is actually year two of the uh implementation uh so it was last last year's ninth grade group and so and now this is year two and so what we are finding um because and to your point rachel last year uh we had made a similar request and kind of had a bracket specifically for the 25 credits that was also under a seven period day schedule and so we made the decision to move toward a period day schedule to try to provide more opportunity for kids to meet this need and of course you need more teachers if you're offering more classes um and that's so it's it's more class opportunities to get to the 25 but then you need more teachers to make sure kids can meet the 25 and so some of the board members on this call we may here may have heard hey my you know yes high school has eight classes but we have a lot of too many students in study hall and we have too many students in study hall right now because we don't have enough subjects to to make classes available for kids to take and so that's why oftentimes we have them in these study halls so we would be able to fill up some of the offerings for students in this case as we continue to outfit the 25 credit requirements so right now we have a ninth grade class that's in that's in there um the ninth graders now and we hired additional teachers to help support 25 credit mandate for that group um this would help support another wave of kids that are coming in and so and there'll be another wave after that and i'm just asking like when will we when will we be suited to offer everyone the 25 right no no that's a great question no that's a great question and rachel i think part of the answer is i don't have the exact answer for you in terms of the math um but i think part of the answer is with this task force because one of the questions i was asked was you know can you give us the exact number it's going to take to open up the new high school um obviously and not to mention at the same time we need to have a number to support uh staffing for danbury danbury high school plus danbury academy um so we're going to need a little bit more time to have those exact exact numbers and projections but i i don't i do not believe we're gonna need this for the next three years if that's what you're asking i i don't believe that um i think we're gonna have to stop pause and reassess you know for the entire system as we move into the new building um so i just wanted to be clear about that point our issue is that we're continuing to get more kids at the same time so the enrollment has not been static you know since last year so the 25 credit mandate plus enrollment has just kind of exacerbated you know this challenge understood and and the federal funding piece that ten percent versus uh three percent in other districts is that high because of the one-time grants for covet or is is that in our our typical are we typically 10 in federal funding so this is um actually without without um without the american relief monies um so idea for you know special needs students um the titles the title grants title one through four those grants and for whatever reasons it might be eligible for free and reduced lunch it might be english language learners um it might whatever makes our district a little bit more unique we've qualified for more money than some of the other districts got it thank you welcome hi quick question for john john off the top of your head do you have the populations of uh stanford and norwalk versus denver well um you mean the people population the census um a year in 2020 had us said a population of 86 000 uh norwalk 91 000 and stanford actually grew to this our state's second largest city i think it's close to 120 000 but i i'd have to get you the exact figure there okay thank you any other questions i don't see any um anything to add from anyone any so rachel i'll just say teresa earlier um in our meeting in preparation for this meeting you know she she did bring up the point of towns like stanford and towns like milwaukee do have more um we're you know we're certainly closer to norwalk in terms because she was asking a question about why are we compared with cities towns like norwalk and stanford and so the state you know based on their algorithms um tell us that these are our districts most like us uh but to teresa's point she made a great point um you know i i i don't want to put words in her mouth but she thought it was somewhat unfair like a city like stanford as big as they are and john just kind of demonstrated that with 120 20 000 um in the community but but certainly those are the districts we are most compared to we're looking at this data so al thank you for bringing that up and theresa thanks for raising that point earlier yeah yeah kevin i just looked stanford's actually 135 at the 2020 census okay and norwalk i think is 91 i think that's about the number we're really close to norwalk okay we have to be compared to somebody right i mean that's it's kind of by default like you have to compare something yeah and we would much rather be compared to norwalk norwalk than bridgeport you also have to understand the differences is that we're going to say teresa well stanford look at the tank space they've got skyscrapers i mean right it's apples to oranges it's they got a lot more money a lot more businesses their tax base is huge compared to ours yeah i think that's no it's unfair that's a good point teresa um i've been a little frustrated on the other end that sometimes when we get um to the city level for these conversations we're compared to the new britain district for example which receives substantially more state aid than we do um and you know to that end like their their tax base is much lower than ours um and they're at a much higher mill rate so you know i i agree with you i it would be better if we could just go as ourselves and and talk about what we need from the state and what we need from the city but you know unfortunately we find ourselves in these conversations and we have to do the best we can i agree i agree thank you kate okay um if nothing else i will entertain a motion to adjourn uh we will be meeting so we will be meeting again next week if if need be i i just assume that everyone would like time to mull this over and then come back with any additional questions before we head into our meeting on wednesday the 9th yes kate can i answer a real quick question i know in years past that we've seen a different breakdown of the budget brought to us and i'm just wondering um you know sort of how folks land as far as the presentation we've seen tonight and and sort of what we're looking at versus previous year's information that we've seen you know what the comfort level is there and sort of yeah um previously in previous years all board members did receive a binder with kind of a more detailed breakdown i remember asking for that several times last year at this time um i don't know if that's something that would help board members i prefer it just because that's what i that's what i've always known um but i i think the the presentation was was comprehensive and easy to understand and very well laid out any thoughts to that yes you can put in front of me and give me to uh just thinking mull over in the bible i can stand from the public uh the better presentation i can also make to them would it binder be possible with a detailed as we have had in past years kevin yeah more data is not bad yes to totally agree i think i think we were prepared to have that data set available for the 14th submission i mean forgive me i haven't um i i'm just going by what i was told was done previously um has the board received it before typically the 14th submit the 14th means we submit to the city yes certain times all depends on the schedule yeah last year i don't think we had it for the first workshop like this i think we may have got it i think to the second workshop or the meeting one or the other i don't remember exactly which one why did rachel do you remember it might have been the meeting yeah it was it seemed late last year i i recall getting it earlier in the in the budget process in previous years we did but in previous years no one had ever heard of covid so i don't know how much that affected things last year i mean two budget cycles one was normal and one was covered but i just asked the question before we adjourn uh the presentation that was just when will we receive the information that we presented hi miss koopa i i actually just sent it um a few minutes ago okay and i know you was waiting to present it tonight but you know i like to you know unfortunately you know i think it helps me as a board member and i know that he was trying to put some figures and some information together uh to at least before we have a meeting to be able to look at this and digest it this is where i'm coming i understood but we do have next week um to to ask questions and certainly i think mr walston has an open door policy if you will um should board members have questions yeah my last comment is the financial structure that you're going to be putting together to give this budget to the city how is it how is it going to be different than what we have already seen in the from last night to tonight to get the community to say i will support this budget as far as the amount that we're asking the programs that are listed that were needed we're talking about uh the 21 uh versus 20 uh one credits that we need how is that money going to be intel and put in a in a frame so everybody can sort of understand what they're looking at at the budget so miss cooper i think that um kind of circling back what i had mentioned earlier about partnering with the community relations committee um and once this board has approved a budget that they're comfortable with we will begin with dr ann mead with john and presenting the budget to the community in a way where they can digest it understand it where we feel like we've done a good job educating the community um and and with those three strategies um hope and expect that the community will then uh be in support of our budget this year so we we we are very prepared uh to make sure we're out in front of the community uh with several engagement sessions um leading up to the april date where the city approves approves the budget or makes a decision on the budget i should say we will be out in the community trying to get feedback i'm sorry get support for this year's budget submission uh thank you and and thank um your entire staff for help putting this together it is very informative and i know it's not an easy job but i i thank you and and to me it's very important uh that the community so to understand those that are willing to listen as to how we go about going before the common council asking for an increase in dollars so i and i also like to thank the finance committee uh for their hard work and and supporting and and coming in the extra time to understand uh the budget a little bit better so i just want to thank you gladys anything else from anyone before we adjourn no motion to adjourn moved by joe all second seconded by kate all those in favor signify by saying aye
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of that 890 235 000 was allocated for fresh paint and 500 000 was allocated for brand new sports uniforms both of which were upgrades that in many ways were already overdue as we looked into the needs of our schools and what our students deserve this would lead the remaining cost of 155 000 for other items strictly as a result of our decision to rebrand this makes me recognize how powerful information and communication truly are because had you heard that the azusa unified school district allocated 500 000 for brand new uniforms for all of our sports at our new centralized high school or that not only will our new high school have a new feel field as you've already seen but a new gym with new new bleachers new flooring new locker rooms fresh paint and murals this news might have circulated over these past couple of weeks but for very different reasons also as all of our high school students move to the azusa high school campus and we consolidate all of our middle schools into the gladstone middle school campus this also means that for our middle school students they will have access to a new field tennis basket baseball field a gymnasium science labs new bus routes and much more there will not be another middle school in the area that will be able to rival what the azusa unified school district will offer sixth through eighth grade students with this merge the school also decided to keep our high school name as azusa high school because it's who we are we want all of those around us to know exactly where we're from when they hear about us the strength of our community lies and our commitment to challenge encourage sacrifice for and support one another as we continue to make tough decisions our hope and challenge is for each of us to not stop tuning in when the controversy dies down and when the news cycle draws our attention to something else as the azusa unified school district board of education we have the incredible task of making decisions for azusa's greatest resource the children of this community we need your engagement we need your perspective we need your impassioned public comments at school board meeting we need your attendance at town halls and online coffees and on campus conversation we need you involved in ptas and ptos and school site councils and pac plus committees we need you to run get elected and find yourselves sitting up here in these seats making these decisions and we believe that on the other side of some of these incredibly difficult decisions we will arrive at a place of peace unity hope and continued pride in our city our schools and our community with that i do want to shift formally then to item 7.0 and specifically 7.1 public comment i want to remind you all that this is an opportunity for the public to address the board of education on agenda or non-agenda items individual speakers may be allowed up to three minutes to address the board of education on any agenda or non-agenda items when the public wishes to address the board on any agenda item they may fill out a blue card stand at the podium or raise their hand while in zoom attendance the board will take blue blue card requests first followed in order by speakers at the podium and then those in zoom attendance i do want to remind everyone about the three minute limit and i i apologize in advance and ask that you please keep track of the time because if you go beyond the three minutes i am going to interrupt you and stop you um as i'll do for each each commenter so please keep an eye on the clock so that i don't have to to stop you if you pass the three minute oh do we have any blue cards diana choa good evening board members superintendent ortega cabinet and all intended my name is diana o'chow and i'm a parent employee and secretary to our classified employees union csca here at azusa unified school district i am also an alumni of azusa high school and a very proud aztec mom to david ochoa who was the aztec warrior from the class of 2020.
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um the um motion is correct and most importantly the attached ordinance to the staff report that will be forwarded to city council is super thank you very much so i will read the proposed motion which is the ann arbor city planning commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approve the amendments to the zoning map a part of chapter 55 unified development code to designate the zoning classification of 68 parcels in the south state street and east west eisenhower parkway area as tc1 as proposed moved by commissioner white seconded by commissioner dish discussion go ahead commissioner dish thank you chairman um i supported tc one as a candidate and i am delighted to be able to vote for it now tc1 is popular in ann arbor it's popular with residents it's popular council members it's popular with many people at the table it comes to us at the close of extensive learning process that receives significant human input as required by law tc one donates reflects our values as a city will help us create a less carbon intensive city a more walkable city a more affordable city the only question we need to ask since we know that it is consistent with our values is is tc1 zoning appropriate for this area of the fleet and yes it is will it create well yes it will there is no scandal in this that is how something works it will create wealth for developers it will create tax revenue for the city it will create housing opportunities for people who work in ann arbor and canada what to argue with other commissioners go ahead commissioner gabriendl i am also very supportive of this and feel like we've had a really robust public engagement process one thing i've i brought up before that i just want to keep bringing up it's not part of the zoning but i just went through and looked through every single road in this and we have so many sidewalk gaps in here so many bike gaps in here and i feel like if we are going to be asking people to be less reliant on cars then we really need to pony up as a city and move those things forward in our cip plan because we cannot just say guess what you get to not have a car and we're not going to invest in making any other way for you to get around that isn't comfortable and safe so i know there's some tricky areas i know that mdot controls some of these zones too which makes it messy but there are other areas that are just totally within the city that we just don't have you know we just these developments came in at a time where we weren't requiring people to put sidewalks in and we missed that boat but now we've got to do it i really feel strongly about that so i think we i'm wholly supportive of this rezoning i just think we need to follow it with a really robust response to make it something that actually feels good to walk and bike down other comments commissioner sovay thank you i'll just raise a couple of comment points uh public comment points for discussion to kind of close out which i think is a very robust uh conversation we've been having over the past year maybe to pick you up back off of the sidewalk discussion and to confirm any site plan that would be submitted would be required to construct sidewalks for their site only but as part of it correct yeah that's a that's a requirement so any site plan whether it's reviewed by planning manager planning commission or city council that's a standard of the city that would have to be met great thank you so we will have it but just to kind of clarify for anybody listening to it would be filling in slow gaps as development happened and so i really appreciate the comment and the reinforcement that the further we can do as a city to build this forward instead of waiting on development i agree and thank you for highlighting that um to then the overall process because to clarify and confirm because we will be rezoning this do we get louder or are you just working okay because we are re-zoning this any of these sites that are proposing development that meets tc1 because of the approved site plan review thresholds would only would conclude with an approval at planning commission in the future correct that's correct okay and then final question is for puds what would be they would be still maintained under a pud zoning or they would be tc one non-compliant they would become tc1 they may be non-compliant with their supplemental regulations alexis has uh looked into some of those a lot of those were actually puds to address the audacity of things like mixed use which weren't previously permissible in a lot of these zoning districts so i don't anticipate that there will be a lot of extensive non-conformities in those occurrences great thank you um those i really just wanted to kind of raise those as a closing point of discussion i support this wholly and i look forward to moving forward with the other districts as well thank you other comments or questions i will add that i am excited to see this before us now and while i know it was a large undertaking um and when staff kind of proposed a timeline before uh in terms of how long it would take i think many of us thought maybe it was ambitious or like both wanted to move faster but like recognize that it was pulling together a lot and i want to commend staff mr leo for making this happen um both you know seeing through the public opportunity or public comment opportunities for this answering questions and that this is the first day of february and that we have the full list and are moving to rezone i think um i really appreciate all of your efforts on that um because this is um because we are now under a new regime with the site plan review thresholds just as point of clarification too in terms of notice um [Music] the developments that are that meet a threshold to come before us again can you remind us for residential development like what that new threshold is sure so um residential development up to uh four units no longer would have any site plan required that could be that is permissible as as a building permit just as a single family or duplex has been very historically developments that are five to six units of residential those require a full site plan review they are reviewed by all the various staffs just like any site plan things like sidewalks storm water landscaping the like but the authority for those plans lies with the planning manager me in that case no notification happens for those plans once you progress to seven or more residential units or any any other use that's not wholly residential that requires planning commission approval that same site plan is reviewed by all all all departments and the like in that case um whenever a site plan cons is considered by the planning commission it is in conjunction with a public hearing we will notify all property owners within 300 feet of that it is published for a public hearing a public hearing is held prior to any action by the planning commission very good thank you very much to refresh our memory um and how that would work um [Music] yeah i think i i'm excited to be voting for this uh before we have a roll call vote last call among planning commissioners all right mr leonard i think we're ready okay so this is uh the motion that's presented to rezone the 68 parcels to tc1 uh zoning district uh commissioner mills yes commissioner gibb randall yes commissioner sovay yes commissioner dish yes commissioner clark yes commissioner weich yes uh the motion carries with a recommendation of approval the next step would be presentation to city council very good thank you um next up will be public comment mr leonard while i read the long public comment intro could you go find commissioner lee please thank you um this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about any issue any issue tonight um we will first as before call on any individuals who are present here in council chambers to address the commission and then remote participants to speak during the public hearing if you are joining us remotely you can press star 9 on your phone or if or use the raised hand feature if you're viewing this through the web link if you're watching us right now and need to dial in the call-in number is 877-853-5247 and then our meeting id is 977-6634-1226 mr leonard once he returns to the table will select callers that have raised their hand calling on you by the last three digits of your telephone number or by the name that you've used to join the the zoom link 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 and again for either method of participation please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments is there anyone in the chambers that wishes to oh go ahead uh mr leo i was only going to say i can um handle the zoom aspect in brett's absence super i was just gonna try to like kill time tap dancing i don't have a piano like commissioner lee has when we used to zoom um [Music] no one in the council chambers wishes to address us so is there anyone online mr leo we have one hand raised caller with phone number ending five three four please unmute yourself you may you have three minutes to address the commission hello this is tom stahlberg again from lowertown i promise to keep it brief i do want to thank the commissioners and staff for addressing the questions uh that myself and others raised during the public hearing so i do appreciate that i also want to point out to um council member and commissioner uh dish that the general public did not hear a word of what you said so if you had anything earth shadowing you may choose to repeat it that's up to you the rest of you have a good night bye thank you we'll have to look into commissioner dish's voice because she was coming across loud and clear here um anyone else mr leonard or ms deleo who was helping us in your absence yeah uh we do have uh two more callers the first one i will call uh caller phone number ending in three four five please unmute yourself you have three minutes um funny question hi can you hear me we can go ahead okay this is kittypen calling again um i am not surprised that tc one passed as it did i expected that to happen but i am very disappointed because there are no incentives in that zoning for affordable housing nor sustainability and every caller that called in talking about how happy they are about this zoning and how they want it to be extended to other areas of our city should be aware that there is no incentive for the developer for affordable housing nor sustainability i'm going to say that again there is no incentive for the developer to provide affordable housing nor any sustainable of whatever there are no i mean you can probably tell how mad i am about this because i feel like all this talk about affordable housing and sustainability is just talk it's so hypocritical and i hope that the public are paying attention to what's going on here okay that's all goodbye thank you and our final oh i apologize there are no more hands raised a caller 340 i think um call 340 if you'd like to address the planning commission i think you might have had your hand raised i yes uh yes i did um thank you for the opportunity once again uh luis vasquez uh from the first ward uh 909 barton drive um just wanted to uh reiterate uh what mr westfall had to say before about parking minimums and parking maximums um i i too uh like that you are considering um not having parking minimums anymore um and you know i i talked about this in light of the recent approvals for 121 east catherine street um i i would have preferred that that uh proposed development not have well have a a very minimum of parking uh i mean there is a parking structure located about two blocks away from the farmers market and that kerrytown commercial district area which is underutilized that that parking structure is uh so you know moving forward um i appreciate uh that planning commission looks at these things but once again please uh you know we we don't need more car storage in our city um so thank you very much for your time and good evening thank you kirk westfall you have up to three minutes to address the planning commission thanks um kirk westfall 3505 charter place um just wanted to voice my appreciation for the affirmative vote um it's a great step forward and again if if development doesn't happen immediately in this area i'm sure it will grow organically in other areas as tc1 is expanded i know there's a lot of misconceptions about new housing which tends to be more expensive than existing housing but the point is housing doesn't create people people with means who want to move to the community will either have their choice of where to live and if new housing isn't being created for some of the 80 000 people who drive in you know in regular times um they will outbid other residents of lesser means who are already living here or who want to renew their leases we're hearing about incredible jumps in leasing rates now that we're coming out of the pandemic or somewhat and increasing supply is a universal good it again it prevents displacement and it affords more people the opportunity to live closer to where they work and in our school district and our school district wants more people in it our city operates more efficiently the more people live here we don't have to expand services because all the infrastructure is already here so this is all a net positive and [Music] i look forward to hearing other solutions to the housing crisis if folks have those solutions at hand but the research says expanding supply is critical and doing things like inclusive inclusionary zoning where you try to extract affordable units out of developers uh it can work in places like new york and san francisco at times but it still raises the rents in the rest of the building because the developer has to make the project pencil out so um seeing more housing coming to the city would be wonderful hopefully it remains car light and and we can reinforce the transit that we have and the great communities that we're building upon thank you so much thank you adam joskowicz you have up to three minutes to address the planning commission hi adam josekiewicz 1430 las vegas drive again i just want to thank you for supporting this and i i do agree with the previous callers that the about increasing supply being critical to reducing our housing shortage um i i just wanted to mention another point that um redevelopment and you know new development means additional tax base and we have a millage to support affordable housing in ann arbor so new development does directly increase the amount of money that we have available to build affordable housing on publicly owned parcels and and so forth within the city such as some of the ann arbor housing commission projects that have recently come up on the former y lot and the development that was mentioned by mr vasquez up on catherine so um i just wanted to mention that thank you thank you any other callers mr leonard organ if anybody is joining us this is the last call for the public comment opportunity star nine if you've joined by phone raised hand feature if you're on zoom unindicated all right then we will move on to item 10 which is commission proposed business i am going to propose that we have a discussion we started this a little bit at orc about what's next what area is next for tc1 um i know that this is this is the last stop for these particular parcels for us staff still has um to prepare these to go before to go before city council but kind of recommendations on getting moving on the next batch in the next area i think is something that i'd like to discuss um among our group thank you there's head nodding any other commission proposed business then i will entertain a motion to adjourn moved by commissioner white seconded by commissioner dish all in favor please raise your hand that is all of the hands thank you enjoy the snow
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i mean technology special ed um a lot of extracurriculars there's our schools are doing way more than they were in 1980 so trying to calculate from that time to now is just very outdated so basically this could just be ignored too by the legislature and they do nothing that could happen that could happen um it has been overridden before but um in when that has happened they've had a bill filed before the session starts and it has been one of the first things that they acted on that's not the case this year so um i personally am writing to legislators and letting them know the importance of this in to our district i think it was done kind of behind the scenes real quick just you know we'd expect this to happen so we're just going to move it through and that just hasn't happened this year my understanding of reading the press i could be wrong was that these funds were actually appropriated essentially in our bank account but we can't spend them because of this that's correct right bud so it's the money's there but we're not authorized to spend it right so we would have to do a revised budget by may 15th uh to reflect the 40 million dollar deficit from the current budget level the one superintendent i attended the aspa bolts training on friday and a superintendent there and i think he's in a smaller district said for them it represents 58 days of school basically the cut they would take um so you know i think we're in a very hard place but i think other districts rural districts will really really struggle with this as well i think every district will struggle just for the mere fact that their priorities are in everybody's priorities are in different places but at the end of the day they always end up in people and so um that'll be difficult discussions and decisions if we have to go down that road if i understand it too this spending limit does not request additional money it is already money that has been issued to the districts all the legislature has to do is say yes to exceeding the cap that is correct it would do nothing to we wouldn't have to raise taxes to anything like that anything else so the money is there it's just the will to allow districts to do that it does have to be a two-thirds vote by the legislature so it isn't important that every one of our legislators understand the importance of this to the community and to our students and to families and staff if if it didn't pass and we weren't we had to cut this amount of money it would in my opinion be a nightmare but where would the money just go back into the state general fund it would just be in our bank accounts we would still have it because it's still it's ours we just can't use it wow it would be larger than the cuts that we had to make in 2009 and i was one who came down to the board meeting in 2009 and thought i need to learn how education in arizona works and understand and i in 2009 this room was packed with very angry parents and people teachers mad at the school board and i think that our understanding has moved past that to understand that it is the state legislature that holds the purse strings for arizona and to understand this correctly it's not it's not changing the size of the purse it's changing the authority that we have to spend and so there we would have money to pay for all of the things that we need but we would not be allowed to spend it unless the legislature acts and again it takes that two-thirds vote and that's happened two or three times in the state legislature so but that i think that the point i was trying to make is that there's no gain for anybody if it doesn't if they don't do anything but there's a loss for us so there's not i mean the legislature or the state budget's not going to all of a sudden gain all this money that they can use for something else so it's just a total loss for us and all the other school districts in the state that's correct i think it's also significant to note that the legislature would be treating [Music] two entities here to four known as public schools differently those in the typical public school configuration would be subjected to this loss of funds but those in the charter area would continue as they always have this could be fairly catastrophic catastrophic i mean if you think about it and my concern is the impact on students and our employees we already have a teacher shortage in the state significant shortage we have to lay people off um we might not hang them back uh serious stuff it is very serious and and take a lot of people with their heads together to figure this out in this room i don't mean to start off the meeting like this is kind of a downer we'll pick it up bonnie will talk about current money here in a second okay just right but i do want to say legislators don't hear from their constituents if they hear from their constituents and their constituents let them know that education of their children is important you know they they realize that they're up for election every one of them in november so i think that there is power in communicating to your legislator so i'm hopeful thank you dr mccord i'm i'm glad we had a chance to at least just understand what this is since we've been hearing this kind of swirling around and hopeful that we will see some progress made in the legislature by the march 1st deadline so president wood is there any movement in terms of our publication on our website and letting our community know how dire this circumstance is for us i know that some districts around us have placed factual information about the impact on their website for their public to review is that in the offing so we have we have some fact sheets that um and some factual information that we'll have for our administrators that we can post on our website don's already cued it up i told her to hold off until actually have this presentation tonight so something will go live tomorrow clarification the my understanding is a decision has to be made by the legislature no later than the first march and the cuts will go into effect on the first of april is that correct i think they we have to have them done just within the fiscal year correct because we have to send in well by may 15th because that's what we sent in our revised budget all right thank you thank you for those comments with that we will move on to 2.02 fy 2022 revised budget number two dr mccord thank you madam president governing board members now we're going to talk about this year's budget and a revision for this year's budget which is also an action item so i'll turn it over to bonnie bits and her crew to present present tonight so good evening governing board president wood dr mccord so tonight jackie will be making most of the presentation i'm just here to provide the color comment commenting i wanted to point out as dr mccord just shared the information about the aggregate expenditure limit that this budget revision does not address that potential loss at all so this budget revision is in is going to be approved um maybe just for a month depending upon what the legislature does by march 1st so we will bring that final revised budget back to you as dr mccord shared by the 15th of march so um i'm sorry 15th of may sorry the 15th of may excuse me yeah that would be really really tough right really tough yeah so um i'm going to hand it over to ms batten thank you miss betts can you hear me okay madam president dr mccord members of the governing board as ms betts mentioned we are here tonight to present the fy 2022 budget revision number two tonight's report will include an mno and capital update on our budget changes state and federal funds update a few of our enterprise funds and some other cash funds also an update to our average teacher salary please note that the items that we'll talk about tonight in today's report have been highlighted in yellow on the budget document for easy reference those of you following along at home this slide shows overall the capital and mno budget detail changes this can be found on pages seven and eight of the budget document our average daily membership increased um 1468 students over adopted please keep in mind that we had a manual reduction um of 400 on when we adopted the budget assuming a 400 student loss we are currently above the the that number by 1 468.
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in fact there are more than 150 comparative studies and articles that give evidence that masks do not work to control the virus and they may even be harmful when dealing with an airborne illness or disease these cloth and surgical masks are not the mask you should wear to protect yourself even n95s are not fully rated to protect against viruses and are not approved to do so by the national institute of occupational safety and health the first clinical studies done during the sars outbreak showed that not only were these masks hazardous to human health they worked almost zero percent of the time because of moisture liquid diffusion and pathogen retention there's also a possibility of creating long-term health effects when you deprive the body of oxygen for long periods of time the director of osha has actually said using surgical masks as a form of personal protection equipment may lead to adverse health effects not only are they potentially creating physical harm to our children we know there are psychological harms as well children need to see faces it is an important part of social learning and communication humans communicate verbally and non-verbally and masks impede both forms masks muffle and distort our words making understanding and learning from their teachers even more difficult our facial expressions are important cues to everyone around us without those cues communication and understanding suffer we have the responsibility to reject these ever-changing narratives regarding masking and their effectiveness and stalking the spread of quote 19.
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it was very disappointing to hear the quick decision you made regarding the aztec mascot but he was even more hurtful when the comments were with the comments being said you voted you were voted in this position to represent our community and students and to hear all our voices how could you allow an outside group to come to us and speak badly about us you didn't even mention about the pride and spirit you all have seen that we have carried in our schools and community for over 66 years we've never disrespected any of our school mascots i understand 100 110 when it comes to tradition family respect and honor but after seeing this group postings on social media saying that we won to me it was offensive and contradicting to their cause our students classified employees teachers managements deserve the best now you've taken funds that we could have additionally added to what we already have to make our facilities look even better to improve our programs to remodel those restrooms and locker rooms and put water in our pools add lights and upgrade the fields with nice bleachers and stuff and give raises and health insurance increases to our very well-deserved classified teachers and management we've heard at several board meetings that if we change one high school then it's only fair across the board that you change the other now we're hearing it's too expensive to rebrand two well isn't it still too expensive to rebrand one i ask that the district or board members um create a chart to break down to show us the funds that will never be that we will not be impacted negatively to us to our students and to the community and in closing i'd just like to say one synastic always an aztec thank you for your time thank you dino next we have angie wright good evening azusa unified board members cabinet and community my name is angie wright i'm a 5th and 6th grade teacher at magnolia elementary i'm here to give a voice to the students parents staff and neighbors of magnolia elementary as our voice was not given the chance to be heard when you have roughly voted to close our beautiful school at the board meeting on december 21st just two days before christmas break a vote that was made without discussion or to be more specific transparent discussion without consideration of data without considerations of families staff and neighbors without any consideration at all allow me to take you on a trip through the beautiful campus that is magnolia elementary that some of you have never even stepped foot on our beautiful campus when you walk on to magnolia you'll be welcomed with the aroma of roses as you stroll through the rose garden that was planted in the memory of beloved teacher charles lawson as you continue on to the sprawling landscape rounds you'll pass through the brand new wrought iron fence that was upgraded by the taxpayers only a couple years ago opening the doors to our modernized classrooms you'll observe students engaged in learning and accessing instruction through the upgraded technology and installed and purchased with one hundred thousand dollars of federal money this year our students especially our emergent bilingual students have benefited greatly thanks to the state of the art top-of-the-line speakers that are installed in the middle of our ceiling these speakers are connected wirelessly to a microphone voice lift allowing for all students to effortly hear instruction and the voices of their classmates as they engage in discussions presentations and videos are displayed on enormous screens which have also just been installed in every classroom providing all students to clearly see presentations regardless of where they sit brand new smart board projectors further engage all students in learning and access the standards our school site council voted to install the same technology into the unused classrooms to prepare for an ex possible expansion but that plan was terminated with your december 21st vote what student parent or teacher wouldn't rather be in this learning environment as opposed to one that hasn't been touched moving on to our vibrant cafeteria which is painted and wallpapered lovingly by staff it was it has also been upgraded with a brand new projector screen wireless mic and sound board for student assemblies presentations and parent ed opportunities finally when you leave and walk by the newly constructed planners that frame the office you will walk by a time capsule that was sealed by the 5th grade class of 2015 and is scheduled to be opened in 2035 as commemorated with a plaque with all the students names on it how heartbreaking that they won't be able to carry that out have you considered the negative impact this decision has caused did you even consider the students families and staff members who just three years ago had to experience a school closure when you closed gladstone street everyone was uprooted to a new school to be sent home on quarantine that very first year then to spend a year on distance learning this is technically our first full year on campus and the adjustment has been challenging but together we are persevering thank you miss wright next we have stacey munoz hi i'm cece munoz the kindergarten magnolia previously that's great i'm gonna with what um so she was talking about gladstone street now you want everyone to uproot and move them again um that seems cruel and thoughtless have you considered the logistical impact of your decision you have left the entire community of azusa east of cerritos without an elementary school we serve students in the county areas of glendora and covina as well many of whom have already requested transfer schools furthermore have you reconsidered how many students are enrolled in magnolia on an intra-district transfer or through open enrollment approximately 30 of our students attend magnolia while there is an obvious need to consolidate schools the decision you made should have the best interest of students in the community in mind where was the transparency in demonstrating that closing magnolia was in the best interest of the city the decision made by the board left the community blindsided and confused the students and staff of ausd deserve a modernized campus with the amenities that magnolia has to offer not to mention at least one school on the east side of the city how do you justify keeping open facilities that need modernization unnecessarily spending on exuberant money amount of money that may or may not exist to upgrade and just and disrupting educational programs throughout the lengthy process make it make sense to us please the community of the eastern corridor of azusa deserves a reconsiderization of this this thing thank you miss munoz next we have johnny ramos good evening can you hear me um i am a third generation azusa resident i went to i'm a product that was unified school district i went to longfellow dalton foothill in missousa high um and now i also work as a maintenance worker for the district um i want to first off say that i respect what everybody at the last meeting spoke about and as much as i respected i also strongly disagree because being a student there for four years my sister went there for four years before me family and friends after it has been nothing but honor and pride and unity and i think that speaks loudly with the petitions that were signed over three thousand were signed within hours to keep the logo but what i want to get across is i don't understand why it has to be this or that yes we get rid of it no we keep it or however but why can't we educate why can't we come to an agreement why can't we represent the right way that the tribal people bill that it should be represented i don't think it should be eliminated i think we should educate where we our crest says excellence in education so why can't we educate why can't we represent in a positive light be the change so because there are many there are many teams and schools that maybe are misrepresenting um the tribal community i feel we should change that be the change and represent the right way if there's things that need to be changed we keep the logo but we represent in the right light and have her spend with the most utmost respect have education be brought in to see to show the kids what it is to educate our future you know on what the what what the heritage is and the gentleman that spoke i don't want to mispronounce his name but he taught us that the aztec definition is the people of harmony so he said you cannot call yourself an aztec if you're not a person of harmony well why can't we teach harmony why can't we be harmonious why do what does it have to be like two lines strong or line drawn and people on each side why can't we work together and compromise so that the community that wants to keep the name can be happy that the tribal people can be happy with what we're representing at the school that i mean i don't think it should be black or white i think there's a gray area and there's a compromise that i don't think should have been decided that night and i don't think it should be decided tonight i think this is something that needs to be addressed through the community to the students and i mean i think it should be democratic have a vote you know let's see what the community and the taxpayers think because that is a lot of thank you next we have gloria sanchez romero good evening my name is gloria stash's romero this is the high class of 1974.
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the weighted student count has also increased by 1 789. these figures are as of the most recent ade reports dated january 14th the revenue control limit has also increased by 8.63 million dollars that is due to our increase in student count also again these figures are from the most recent ade reports our transportation revenue control limit hasn't changed from the adopted figure of 9.289 our mno override again no change there although there was a slight slight adjustment for the first revision but we're back down to 31.003 million budget balance carry forward that has increased significantly by 18.22 million to the 42 million this is due in large part to the final expenditures from the fy 21 afr that was not reflected in the adopted or the revised figure the m o general budget limit has increased by 26.831 and the unrestricted capital budget has increased by 2.15 over adopted again due to the finalization of expenditures from last year this slide outlines what we talked about on the previous slide the increase in adm and weighted student count the increase to the revenue control limit the budget limit due to the rcl and budget balance carry forward the budget balance carry forward increase due to the final expenditures and then capital increase due to the final afr are there any questions on this before we move on i just wanted to add that remember that the unrestricted capital is based upon prior year student counts which accounts for the fact that it was only increased by the budget balance carry forward even though we had increases in average daily membership so i just wanted to make sure that that point was made thank you moving on then to state funds and federal grants the first line there is your cap is your classroom site fund this is an adjustment made to a correction to the allocation and the fund 020 instructional improvement this is a slight adjustment based on our actual fy 22 allocation the following lines are are grant funds title 1 title 2 idea and preschool these adjustments are based on our carry forward because of our final completion reports for fy21 these were all estimated at the time of adoption fund 228 is a new fund 227 and 228 the this is part of the american rescue plan idea in preschool a total of 1.3 million dollars it's about 94 000 of that in preschool in idea basic it will be used for contracted services for teachers ots pts speech language pathologists private day school tuition and the preschool grant will pay for some paraprofessionals salaries and benefits fund 346 s or 3 we've talked quite a bit about this this adjustment is just based upon the final allocation figure and then fund question mark we don't know the fund yet from ade this is the education plus up this is a fairly new grant again from the cares act this will be used for global academy teachers salaries and benefits we'll use about 2.5 million dollars this year and the remaining balance next year and again just a recap of what we talked about on the next on the previous slide any questions on those funds there's a few other funds that we wanted to talk about other budget changes we have nutrition services again we estimated our figures for the adopted budget keep in mind that we have universal free breakfast and lunch through september 30 we have anticipated revenue including budget balance carry forward for this new figure of 18 million and we anticipate um that to be pretty steady through the through the year with a 4.3 million dollar difference over adopted 520 community school we have seen um an increase in revenue here as well so we're very excited about that we've anticipated revenue in that revised number two column so we've seen an increase there and this is new this year fun 960 we have self-insurance the employee benefit trust in our general ledger now of 32.7 million dollars do you want to speak to that at all okay any questions on that before we move on i guess my question is why is why are we now including the trust in our general ledger whereas in the past it wasn't so we had a third party provider that was doing our financial statements every month and because there was a disconnect between the communication about revenues so we would fund the trust based upon the premiums being charged to the school district or the employee and that would be accounted for during payroll runs so often the information didn't get properly disseminated to this third party provider for the financials and we were always a little bit off so we opted to move everything in in house we have a a new accounting analyst position she's responsible now for taking over those financial statements every month and now the information is very clear we can see it coming out of payroll and then it gets deposited into the same bank account actually it's just that we're accounting for it in our general ledger makes things way more clearer and understandable and allows us to monitor um much more closely what's happening with our employee benefit so it's our third party um still managing the trust for us and we're just doing the financial end or we've taken the management of that as well we still have a tpa a third party administrator that administers all the claims associated with our medical vision short-term disability insurance eap all of those components and the and of course we still have our siegel consultant who gives us input on what the rates would be etc so the only component that we brought in-house is actually the creation of the monthly financial statements and they notified us last may that they were actually closing shop and no longer going to be providing services to anyone so um it was a good time for us to take over those responsibilities okay i appreciate that information thank you also if i could add um it's been my experience as well as miss betts that the employee benefit trust is in the general ledger this isn't new to either of us that's been our experience in previous districts this slide shows some cash accounts we were excited to share this as we kind of hopefully are post-covered soon these funds are primarily school-based so the first one is our civic rental there has been an increase in revenue and then we also account for anticipated revenue there same with auxiliary operations tax credit and donations and we've seen an increase of course based upon the increase in activities and participation this year and fund 575 is our unemployment fund when we came on board it was quite a healthy balance and the currently for the last few years there has not been an employer contribution to this fund we will monitor that of course closely as we had about four hundred thousand dollars in claims last year so that was that's important that we last year we had a budget of one just under 1.1 million dollars and we had spend this is from the afr of about 400 000 last year has been our practice when you adopt a budget we just roll over budget to budget until we have the annual financial report results so i wanted to make sure that it was clear that that four hundred thousand dollars in claims was from last year not in the current year so we're seeing minimal claims in the current year and finally we have the fy 2022 average teacher salary update this grid is from the cover of the budget you have seen this before you can see we have a 5.4 percent increase over last year and a 22.4 percent increase since 2018.
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the story has changed from masks don't work damasks may work damascus work and you must wear one no two is better the uk has sensibly ended the mass mandates the british health secretary savage avid stated we must learn to live with copiod in the same way we live with the flu risk is inevitable and heavily subjective dependent upon age and comorbidity nobody has the right to force a medical intervention such as a mask onto another we know how to coexist with other bacteria and viruses and we will learn how to coexist with cobot as well the goal isn't to eliminate covid that would be impossible but rather let's teach the students about the importance of living a healthy lifestyle by building a healthy immune system through diet exercise and sunlight this is the best frontline defense among screenable communicable disease i strongly urge the board to make masks optional for students and their teachers with an emphasis on personal choice regarding self-protection and supporting those choices whether it be to remain masked or not i believe in parental rights parents know their children best and what is best for them let us decide whether our children will benefit or suffer from asking our children have sacrificed a lot since the on start of covid it is now time to give them their childhood back let them see our faces and breathe the fresh air and i just end with a smile is more contagious than kobit 19.
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my family and i are lifelong residents and all attendance is high classes in 1965 66 72 78 91 and many more my brother albertson was an aztec warrior 1969-1972 my daughter lisa romero zamora was a banner carrier carrying the u in the 90s i am here to speak out about the changes that the school board is making yes i'm very upset you five board members i make life altering decisions without considering our community the alumni the people who have worked and volunteered hours for our students of this is the high same on you you called in outside energy from pomona behalf of our school and they sounded like they were scripted didn't our community make that decision our community knows glass marketing our community knows the person responsible for bringing the pomona education coalition i have never known anyone to respect our assets as a matter of fact our community has a lot of pride in aspects if this decision becomes our new reality how much how much is this going to cost perhaps one to two million dollars to rebrand our school coming straight out of our general fund so many students and parents have left this negligence of this nation why not use that money to improve our schools yet our elected board members keep allowing things like happen time and time again if you proceed with the rebranding of our school you will leave us no choice but be with petition of removal of each of you and a vote of no confidence there will be only one high school azuza one middle school gladstone but don't change our name our mascot and our color our surrounding cities have their high schools with their city name why who are you today we should change azusa high canadian city high or change the colors green yellow or gold also let's bring in pomona education coalition so we can change the mascot hey as well since they're changing all the nfl teams it would be so easy unlike the nfl teams we don't have the resources to make the changes in this scale we are working class people we don't have millions of dollars laying around this castle alternate uh pomona stay out of our business take care of your own town this is a high it has a 66 year history board members you do not mr romero sorry but thank you your time is expired thank you next we have ann bottling i hope i'm please correct me sure actually we're going together good evening aos and good evening ausd board members superintendent and distinguished death my name is ann goffning and i'm a teacher at magnolias my name is eugenia benafar and i am also a teacher at magnolia elementary actually if i uh you you need to take them one at a time uh so you can have three minutes uh and we can we can give you a couple extra seconds here but and you would go first and then eugene you can go second okay on wednesday morning december 22nd a group of teachers were in the work room when a fellow teacher came in to share that our school was closing we thought she meant that our school was closing due to the increasing rising covenant when she said it was a permanent closure we were stunned my colleagues and staff felt like we were blindsided by this decision the committee and the school board kept saying they wanted transparency throughout this school closing process magnolia school was never at the forefront of any list therefore we did not feel the need to express these facts beforehand also no discussion took place around the closing of magnolia so please take these back into consideration number one malaya school has been modernized the taxpayer money was spent to make the campus beautiful and make it a place where the parents students and staff to feel pride and value every classroom office the library the work room the teachers lounge the playground and the parking lot within the sidewalk for safety who are all updated the schools that have not been modernized will take millions of dollars to upgrade to the same standard also going through modernization is a very disruptive to the viral environment number two mammalia school has added a hundred thousand dollars worth of federal money in technology in the last year each room now has smart words and the capability to make curriculum and lessons much more accessible for all our students this is an integral part of our azusa students getting the quality education that they deserve number three i'm sorry gladstone street closed two and a half years ago displacing the students parents and teachers we had eight gladstone teachers join our staff which made up about half of our magnolia staff at the time we also had a clerk a librarian and an aide transfer to our site we had a large population of those godstone students join our campus as well we have tried hard to make the transition smooth for them even during a pandemic for a magnolia family we now have a sense of bonding and magnolia pride these families and teachers are going to be uprooted again is this really what is best for our azusa students parents and teachers thank you ms kathleen um miss venom venomfar eugenia and i'm also a teacher at magnolia point four magnolia school also has the adult education program on our campus and has used taxpayers money to accommodate these buildings to meet specific needs of these students number five magnolia school has a sprawling campus that has room for growth if need arises number six there will be no azusa elementary school on the east side of citrus avenue if magnolia closes this leaves an absence of a community school for the families in this neighborhood so again to reiterate no discussion for us took place about the closure of magnolia school throughout the process were all these facts taken into consideration before it was voted on we were very disappointed that there was no transparency in this process if there was a reason that you decided to close magnolia school please let us know because it does not seem to take into consideration what is best for the students parents staff and the community please come and visit magnolia school it's not too late to reconsider this monumental decision thank you for your consideration and time thank you miss benifar next we have louis pedraza good evening board members my name is louis pedrosa and i'm a 1992 azusa aztec school alumni i've lived in azusa for 47 years i currently have a daughter and son there senior and a junior my daughter is currently captain of her varsity basketball team and softball team and was captain of her volleyball team and my son is head manager in the aztec band and pageantry regiment changing the aztec name as a mistake as a registered half koila indian i've never felt a disrespect to me or any of my family with the aztec name nor to any other tribal names or to any other tribal names whether it be graves chiefs apaches redskins etc i've actually felt proud because of the indian culture that is around this area and our school adopted a name that represents this the azusa unified school district is going through some major changes with the drop of enrollment and the upcoming closure of schools within this district which are going to lead to loss of jobs and with the loss of jobs comes loss of health insurance during a global pandemic is the change in the asca mascot is the changing of the aztec mascot name an issue that needs to be addressed i understand that these times we are facing with society are challenging the me too movement blm far right or far left our nation is battling itself changing the name appeases one group while leaving the other side defeated can there be a compromise the money that is going to be spent on this name change i'm sure is going to be substantial couldn't this money be put to better use new book school supplies keeping a teacher's aide on longer or a school office employee to be known as the azusa high school aztec is an honor i'm proud to call my children azusa aspect they go out and represent the school as proud aztec ausd board members i ask that you read the azusa aztec alma mater or better yet if you know the tune sing it never before has it meant more to me than now some powerful lines from it i like to share azusa high or alma mater glory is thy name we're forever true that was the email that i shared with the board and i wanted to share it with everybody else now a few more words as elected officials i encourage you to listen to the citizens of this community and not some outside group that won't be around to hear when this is over do not listen to a lone wolf listen to a tribe the aztec tribe because if you don't hear us now you'll hear us at election time to all the incoming high schoolers from gladstone i understand why you'd want the name change i feel you should continue to be known as gladiators and graduate with your gladstone gladiator name on your diploma because the pride and passion you have for your school we have for ours thank you for your time mr president uh board president i would like to go ahead and motion for us to be able to finish off all the cards we've gone over 20 minutes i would like to go ahead and motion um to extend our public comment that way we can go ahead and hear every what everyone has to say thank you do we have a second second and then we'll uh take a hand vote board member rodriguez pena yes excuse me is there any discussion and board member rodriguez pena yes board member beau yes remember cruz gonzalez yeah board member ariana yeah and i'm also a yes um sarah serrano please continue hello i'm a product of the azusa district i went to magnolia foothill and azusa high three schools that will unfortunately cease to exist in the new in the near future i'm long past this district but as a member of the azusa community i cannot turn a blind eye to what this district is doing to its students this is not my first time speaking to the board begging for the district to put students first i have been up here before asking to keep programs like fashion band and art because at some point those have been on the chopping block before because in this district we struggle to have the money for students we do not have a computer lab aids anymore we no longer have accelerated reading programs we have one vice principal for three middle schools and we're even at the point of closing six pools i think it's completely absurd of you to even consider spending that much money on brandy rebranding azusa high throughout my time in this district we beg for new jerseys a nicer field and even a pool and we were always told that it cost too much and to pay for it the district would have to take away from something else beyond the money is truly upsetting to me to see the school board members flip on azusa high so quickly last meeting i cannot believe none of you have stood up but none of you stood up for the school you're supposed to represent you could have explained that at azusa high the aztec is more than a math spot i don't even think we've ever called it a mass spot because we've always held pride in it it has culture and history and there was never any malicious attempt behind it myself as an indigenous woman i understand that times are changing and we need to be more culturally aware but whenever i was faced with the problem while being a student in this district whenever there was something in front of me that i was doing completely wrong a teacher never took away the white paper and said i couldn't do it anymore it never happened a teacher would always educate me on how to do it the correct way this situation is a learning lesson a chance to teach azusa high to do better and to educate themselves on aspect culture and how to honor the asset correctly the truth of the matter is there's over the over five thousand signatures on petitions from the azusa people to keep the ass deck at azusa high because it is what the community wants to the people here tonight and to the people watching on zoom i would like to remind you that we vote for the azusa school board we vote for these individuals to represent us and to speak for us three of the school board members gabriella arianis sheila nina cruz gonzalez and adrian greer all have terms that end this year if you are not happy what they are doing for the district vote them out thank you miss serrano next we have patricia sanchez good evening board members superintendent ortega and cabinet my name is patricia sanchez born and raised in azusa and an employee of the district and a descendant of mission indians and mexico tonight i would like first like to say congratulations to all the parents of the year unfortunately tonight i would also like to talk to you about bullying here at ausd there is zero tolerance for bullying within our schools bullies threaten and push their weight around until they get what they want victims of bullying are victims because they have allowed the bullies to bully them the victim doesn't have to be a victim if they stand up against their bullies and say i will not allow you to make me feel weak afraid or small i have to say it takes a lot to be in the position you sit in today it is not easy and there is pressure from every angle to make sure you are doing what is the best for the student body and community of azusa i give you credit running and making a hard decision to do every what you do every time you sit and come to order azuza you unified school district teaches our students to be problem solvers innovators stand up against bullying and be proud proud of who you are proud of your school proud of your team proud of the work you do proud of your family and take pride in where you came from and who you will become but at our last special board meeting our board members were victims of bullying and the bullies won for the first time our board members were bullied into something they should have stood up to and tabled it until the board did their homework to make a final decision instead it felt as though the board made a decision to avoid more bullying and threats from an organization that should be educating and keeping the aztec pride alive if you would have done your homework you would have seen azusa come from a long line of aztecs not only the high school aztec but the mexican aztecs if your family is the first generation or the 10th generation from mexico you are more likely most likely a descendant of the aztec the olmec the toltec the zapotec mystic the maya to name a few our own sister city zacatecas is part of the zapotec chichameka group named after the aztec indigenous tribes to this day still have counsel a neat talk and come to an agreement but you didn't why why did you allow bullies to come in and take away pride the stories can go on but it won't because you your decision has ended it and the bullies won know this it is never too late as we tell our kids i ask you along with many others to please reconsider your decision and give back what already belongs to us thank you for your time and good night thank you mr sanchez next we have loose fields lika do we have loose with us i no longer see her in zoom attendance okay we'll check back and see if she joins us again later in the comment robert ortiz i also no longer see him in zoom attendance okay uh hope do we have any additional we do next we have ron tressel good evening board members uh assistant superintendents and superintendent excuse my rescue voice uh still raspy from coaching yesterday my name is ron tressel and i'm a teacher at gladstone high school i come here speaking on behalf of my teachers two weeks ago our school board voted five to nothing five to zero to change the mascot of azusa high school ever since this vote our board members have received hate email been bullied and have been called names even native americans who spoke out at our board meeting two weeks ago have been called outsiders to many this is seen as derogatory this is also taking place on social media platforms i understand that there are those who are passionate and angry at the school board's decision to change the mascot but expressing yourselves through hate email and name calling is not going to change things often the message is lost when this happens now there are times when i have spoken to the board and have written to the board on matters that i have disagreed with but i have always tried to do it in a professional manner i have never once sent hate email or called them names our board members are human beings have a family and have a life outside the school board they have a tough job and most of their decisions do not come easy the process of school reorganization i'm sorry the process of school reorganization has certainly not been easy this is a process that has been going on for over a year when the school reorganization committee made up of parents and school district staff began the long arduous task of reorganization now that the boat has taken place it is time to come together as a community to name a new mascot and school colors i would ask that if you'd like to discuss the decision email the board members in a respectful manner it is okay to be passionate and angry with them but please refrain refrain from the hate email and the name calling in bullying please think that please think about our students and about your own children on how you expect them to think critically behave and treat others once again i understand your frustrations and anger especially azuza high school alumni you will always be an aztec that will never change no one can take that away from you however please respect the board's decision and consider the long process that has taken place thank you mr tressel next we have emily ruiz good evening president greer board superintendent ortega and cabinet i'm a student at azusa high school and a community member i would like to begin by congratulating all the parents that were recognized this evening thank you for your support for supporting our schools and making a difference in the lives of students like myself i was saddened by your decision at the last board member meeting of changing the mascot our beloved aztec is a high school as i listened to the meeting it was clear that at least one of you for at least one of you this was very personal i would like to remind you that this is not azusa high school's fault that you had to make the hard decision of closing one high school it was a decision that had to be made in order to make our district fiscally responsible and if i can add a decision that you should have made a long time ago after the committee and many board study sessions it was made clear that gladstone high school's campus simply cannot accommodate all the high school students in our community i listened to your awards at the last meeting and i could feel the resentment and hostility towards my school our aztec warrior and our beautiful colors i would like to ask you to reconsider your decision the aztec civilization was amazing they lived around the 13th century they were advanced in architect and architecture astronomy and art they were agricultural innovators they were the dominant forests in mexico they discovered chocolate they developed the complex political social commercial and religious organizations in the region by the 15th century they were in control of the central mexican region sadly ornan cortez brought down the brought about the downfall the aztecs and our beautiful mexico was colonized i understand some of the points that were made about the dressings but i can assure you that our warrior and warrior wore them with much pride and respect with every achievement and victory of my fellow aztecs the aztec warrior stands tall and proud we are proud and happy to represent the aztecs if the aztec warrior mascot stays i propose we make sure we are all well informed as to who the aztecs were and what a privilege it is to represent them we would also be able to use those funds to better our school it needs a lot of work we don't have anything against the gladiators but since we are bringing context to who our mascots are than reality gladiators were not seen as productive members of society we are so backwards gladiators were usually criminals slaves and prisoners of war that were forced to fight other men and animals to entertain the romans if you are not willing to reconsider the aztec you should also remove the gladiators since you're going to waste the money anyways don't punish us because we want to keep our city's name don't take away our aztec warriors and colors because of the inaction of past school board members like mr ramos said earlier we have to take away this mentality of taking away from azusa high school because you closed gladstone is wrong you're not being fair you're being petty thank you miss ruiz okay next we have alan french hi are you able to hear me yes sir all right good evening everyone my name is alan french a proud graduate of azusa high's class of 2001.
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i just want to bounce really quick to the next slide so we can see the breakdown here the average teacher salary including the two percent that you approve to the base um brought the salary up to 54 105. that to same two percent plus the three percent one-time payment brings it to 55 728 that same two percent to the base plus the three percent one time plus the 1500 one-time payment brings the average teacher salary to 57.228.
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thank you [Applause] thank you tina james frangillo good afternoon hi my name is james virgila i live at 676 cross street in boylston i come here today uh with a lot of notes and i'm going to try to stick to these because i can veer off pretty quickly so i just want to start off putting uh just a few facts right um let's just these are not opinion facts right coven 19 various is a respiratory illness uh the virus is transmitted through respiratory droplets the particle size of the code 19 virus is 0.1 um in diameter it's widely known that cloth masks do not filter particles of this size masks must be worn properly to provide protection once a mass gets wet the effectiveness is decreased by 50 or more right now this is my these are my experiences i have four children uh one at assabet uh three in boylston elementary i coach uh football basketball soccer i teach other uh extracurricular activities uh on a daily basis i see many children 10 20 30 40 children um at least half of these children are not wearing a mask properly then by properly that is firmly over the bridge of the nose to under the chin that is the actual definition uh the rest they either have the mask pulled down or they're chewing on the mask my own son my five-year-old shoes on his mask it's the most disgusting thing it drives me crazy um the reusable masks they're full of saliva little food kids drawing them they're touching them all day they have holes in them for being chewed on these are not protective all right uh even disposable masks as an adult wearing that for eight hours over the course of a day it's gross uh based on the facts that i previously stated and these use cases that i've highlighted i hope you can understand why i don't believe mast are protective and why parents should have a choice my recommendation as i stated i coach year-round sports and extracurricular activities i believe that our best defense is not a mask it is rather social interaction through sports through activity that's cardiovascular activity which expands lung capacity strengthens the heart um masks actually make it harder for kids to to perform these exercises before these activities it's actually very counter to it i've said this to my wife many times and it breaks my heart when i see kids practicing and i see them gasping for air going through practice in the middle of a game i see them pulling them down just trying to catch their breath in between plays it's really an awful feeling as a coach as a parent knowing that we should have the choice that they should have the choice especially for outdoor sports i'm not sure if the school committee is aware of this but as the president of boylston youth soccer we base our our covet response off of that of the school there is a trickle-down effect not just on school but outdoor extracurricular activities sports within the town themselves i would love to see the masked mandates lifted and i would love to have a sports season this spring with parents being able to choose if their children wear masks or not most importantly i think as others have touched on are the mental risks of masks um this is just my personal experience that i based this off of but early when i dropped my kids off at school in the morning i i would see mrs sullivan i would see mr thompson i would see other teachers we would wave we would smile that small interaction that kind gesture could change my entire day and i know that i'm i'm not alone in that i know that my kids would thoroughly appreciate those interactions also um my point is that by covering the lower half of everyone's face we greatly reduce the ability to communicate interpret interpret or mimic expressions of the people we come in contact with positive emotions become less recognizable and negative emotions are amplified this is not healthy for our young children there are three types of learners they are visual auditory and kinesthetic the most prominent are visual learners which make up more than 60 percent of all learners these children rely these visual learners they rely on body language and facial expressions of their teacher to process information by masking our children this is not conducive for visual learners and it actually impedes their ability to learn within the classroom my ask of the board is that you do that you do not do what is easy but instead you do what is right we have forced restrictions on our kids for the safety of adults for too long our kids deserve better than this i ask that you end the mandate and give parents the freedom to choose what is right for their individual children [Applause] thank you james bornella quinn hi um so thanks for the opportunity to speak tonight my name is barnela quinn i live in berlin and i'm the mother of two boys that uh were in the school district for about 15 years uh currently i work as a public health advocate primarily with youth substance use and prevention um so as we've heard tonight time and time again the data is clear that school-age children have the least amount of risk when it comes to becoming seriously ill or dying from coronavirus of almost any other group so thankfully vaccines and other therapeutics are available and have helped mitigate the impacts to the more at-risk groups such as school staff and faculty we have many more tools in 2022 than we had in 2020 and our school policies should shift to really reflect these advances since there have been some notable risks associated with children wearing masks eight to ten hours a day the decision to wear them or not really should be a personal choice in fact the who advises several factors in determining whether or not these children ages 6 to 11 should wear masks at all and they include one the potential impact of wearing a mask on learning and psychological development and two the ability for a child to safely and appropriately wear a mask so if there is an at-risk child they should most certainly have that choice to wear a mask but this choice shouldn't be a requirement for everyone else especially when that choice has a potential negative outcome on both learning and mental health so three very prominent infectious disease specialists um epidemiologists and professors at medicine i'm sorry at boston medical center tufts university uh medical school and the harvard medical school have recently co-authored an essay that was published in washington post calling for schools to make masking optional they write quote in the beginning this was to flatten the curve and then later to protect the vulnerable intended to be a short-term intervention if we accept that we don't want masks to be required for our schools forever and we need to decide you know when is it the right time to stop these mandates as the omicron wave begins to ebb that time is now our students have been made to feel like they are disease vectors while failing to recognize that they also are growing children in need of social interaction for proper development there is a you a youth mental health crisis in this country yet punitive actions that limit social interaction and normal life continue school should be a place for children to feel safe and supported aaron bromash a professor of biology at umass dartmouth who's worked with both governors of rhode island and massachusetts in an effort to reopen the schools um does advocate for covid mitigations but now believes that the minimal reduction in risk that comes from masks is being outweighed by the detrimental side effects that comes from wearing them the omicron wave will soon be behind us i urge you to educate our community on personal choice regarding self-protection and support those who want to remain masked it's time that our school staff is allowed to get back to teaching and supporting our students it's time we stop worrying about what others are doing and start focusing on protecting ourselves our children have sacrificed a lot to protect us now it's time for us to give them back their childhood with all that we know about mental health the new omicron virus and the effectiveness of mass we should no longer require a mass mandate for our children in school thank you [Applause] very much natalie adams evening everyone and thank you for letting me speak tonight uh for those of you who don't know me my name is natalie adams and i'm a middle school english language arts teacher at tohonto when i began my tenure in 1999 a long time ago i was immediately struck by the safe environment that we afforded students there was an overwhelming feeling that everyone was working together to provide a safe nurturing environment for them as i began to spend time at the elementary schools i felt the same way a student needs a safe environment to learn successfully anything less can seriously impede a student's ability to be successful even if that student has the drive to do so the challenges that all of us have faced in education since covid began have been significant no one could have ever imagined a world where we would need to put in place the practices and protocols that we have furthermore the times we're living in have put a new meaning into the word safety i know that people have different opinions on masking believe me i dream of a day when it is no longer necessary but now is not that time the department of elementary and secondary education is the governing body for public schools in the commonwealth and they currently have a mass mandate in place that the district is bound to follow officials at the department have stated that the current mass mandate will be reviewed on february 28th i feel it's in the district's best interest to wait until this review to make any decisions on the masked mandate in our district desi has public health experts that collaborate with their leaders in order to make the safest decisions possible for students and staff new testing protocols are rolling out currently and time needs to be taken to see how that goes second we risk a serious public relations crisis do we really want to look like a district that is not acting in the best interest of students and staff do we want others to perceive us as not caring about the safety of others i know that is not the case in reality but removing this mandate could give that perception third many students come in contact with upwards of 90 students on a daily basis making us exposure a significant issue if there is no massive date now more than ever we need to do everything we can to keep our students secure to keep them learning to make them feel that we are safe space let's continue that safe environment that told me that this was the place where i wanted to spend my teaching career let's show the students and staff that we care about their well-being in addition to giving parents peace of mind let's make a decision that will benefit all students and staff instead of creating an atmosphere of anxiety and fear thank you natalie tara koziak good evening on behalf of the berlin boylston educators association i'd like to thank everyone for taking part in this evening's discussion i'd also like to recite the latest requirement pertaining to mask wearing set forth by the department of elementary and secondary education which was updated on january 10th it states the mask requirement remains an important measure to keep students safe in school at this time consistent with the authority provided by the board and after consulting with medical experts and state health officials the commissioner is extending the mask requirement through february 28 2022 the department will continue to work with medical experts and state health officials to evaluate the mask requirement beyond february 28th a survey was conducted among our membership and the majority of the respondents are not comfortable at this time unmasking in our schools thank you thank you tara we're gonna check the other list is there anyone here that wanted to speak that did not sign up okay um i'd like to entertain a motion to review the district's vast policy we have a second we're gonna organize the microphones okay so we're gonna also open it up um for the board to discuss between ourselves and i'd just like to remind you at this point this is when the board talks to one another and it's going to be tempting to add something in her open meeting law it's just the board having the discussion and we appreciate everybody that stood up and read tonight as i said it takes courage and conviction and it was really brave thing to do so i appreciate everybody no matter how you feel about masks i want you to know that your message reaches us would any members like to make a comment or anything about before we start the discussion about how they voted or why they voted i didn't know if anybody wanted to discuss that you don't need to you want me to go first since i have the mic and we can pass pass it okay so um laurie do you want us to talk about why we voted last week the way we did yeah yeah so um last week uh i was the only one who's currently present now that voted to not have this meeting i am in favor of sticking with the desi mandate our administrators our teachers are all licensed under desi which is the department of education for the state of massachusetts um us as a school committee we're required to follow state mandates or you know attempt to uphold state mandates um and you know regardless of how i feel about basques i think the right thing to do right now is to stick with the mandate when the mandate is dropped and we can discuss it at the local level these comments are great um and i'm definitely gonna keep everyone's comments and i think we've got at least 20 25 emails right um in mind but i just don't believe that this is the time to do that i think we need to you know for the sake of the teachers and the administrators um and the district quite honestly we don't want to open ourselves up to any type of litigation i think we need to stick with whatever deci is mandating um so do you want me to talk about my feelings on masks or do you wanna it's up to whatever you guys think if you want if you would like to you have the floor okay yeah i might as well say everything and then we can pass it that way because it'll be hard to debate without the microphones i feel i feel famous um so as far as the masking goes um i honestly before this meeting and both well i should say before this week i was dead set on you know masks are mandated they need to be mandated i think some of the people tonight brought some excellent points as for why masks need to be optional in specific we got an email from somebody who suggested and i don't know if we're supposed to say who but somebody suggested you know perhaps having masked mandates moving forward during surges and then dropping them when cases you know drop below a certain amount some of these ideas are great um i just don't know when or at what point i would feel comfortable with dropping masks um for me um i'm thinking about everyone in the community the teachers the students the special needs students that may not be able to wear masks to school every day so it's really difficult and then when you throw in the mental health piece there's no way we're going to be able to please everybody but i think right now i'm not comfortable you know even if jesse didn't have a mandate right now with the amount of cases and the levels of the hospitals and you know based on what the teachers have said i'm not comfortable with removing a masked mandate right now so gloria my concerns on this mask issue first of all for everyone here thank you for coming and giving us your opinion i learned some things tonight that i did not know on both sides of the issue so thank you when i think of the mask issue i think of it through the lens of equity at our january 11th meeting we learned or we were told that some of our population specifically the english learners some of you tonight spoke about how language skills are being lost or not coming along as fast as they could be because of the facial awareness and visual learners and that issue i want you to imagine that you're a foreign student and you come to this new school and you don't speak the language you're trying to learn english you're seven years old you're sitting in a class everyone's face is messed up and you don't know what your teacher is saying in your own she's not speaking your own language you're trying to learn the new language and you're trying to read in that language with a mask on unable to see those facial cues in our district the number of english learners we learned a couple weeks ago has grown 625 percent over the last few years so to me those kids struggling already with masks throw on top of that you don't speak the language you're sitting in class trying to listen to charlie brown's teachers or parents it's got to be difficult i don't think that's equity we also learned that 17 of students in our district that's almost one in six kids i believe if the math is correct there are what they termed economically disadvantaged which means maybe they don't have all the necessary resources at home that other kids might have at home uh that concerns me i have a first grader at bms and she comes home with her anxiety over reading not being able to read not learning how to read she doesn't like the mask issue she doesn't like having a good man she doesn't like it just can't see her teacher but i'm not worried about her because we have the resources to get her the extra help we need we can pay for the tutors we can pay for that extra care uh last year during remote school a lot of people had to pay a lot of extra money for this extra help with their kids that's still going on so i'm not concerned about her she's got the ipads she's got the different games that she can play the educational games i'm sure she'll be just fine i'm concerned about you know you you mentioned we need to consider all students that's equity right all students how do we how do we help these i know the school is offering additional resources for both these groups but are they able to take advantage of it i don't know i would like to know more information about that aspect of the situation the learning loss the how are things going along we have the aims web scores we have mcas testing but that's all official data how is it just going in real life how is this how is how is your kids school going that's what i would like to know that's uh my comment for that i think i don't know what we do tonight i don't know if we do anything or what we do tonight when it comes to that point i might have a couple suggestions but another parent that spoke that struck me an email that we received uh i believe she spoke tonight too uh her daughter uh is being afraid or fears just taking her mask down for a second just to catch a breath take care of her allergies pick the cotton out of her mouth whatever it happens to be because it's been drilled into them now this culture of fear over the punishment of not wearing actually been threatened with detention whatever that punishment is i don't know what the official punishment is for not wearing a masking school i'd like to know that and perhaps that's something we can change through policy tonight jeff do you know what the as to mike's question what the current disciplinary action is for students who don't follow the mass mandate well we use progressive discipline for any any any infraction in the school so as to what the exact punishment would be i don't know so thank you for everyone who attended this evening and who spoke tonight um it is helpful to hear from everyone who's willing to to do so and i think it informs our decision-making um i do feel that the time is now to be talking about this although i don't feel the time to change anything is tonight because there are 15 school days between now and february 28th when we expect deci's going to either extend or change their mass policy however if we just sit here and don't talk about until then we're stuck in a very difficult position then to collect the feedback we've gotten this evening so once again thank you for everyone who's shared emails and spoken tonight it's very helpful as we move forward two other points i just want to make as i listened this evening you know i listen specifically for anyone who advocates masks to claim that the disease itself is severe enough in children to be worth mitigating in the first place because i ask myself three questions when it comes to the mass requirement first question is is the virus itself causing snowfall illness in school-aged children then i ask does masking students reduce transmission in the schools and the third question i have is does vaccinating students produce transmission in the schools and that brings me to questions on the vaccination threshold at the time when we were given an off-ramp if a school reached 80 vaccination we had an expectation that vaccination would prevent transmission i think we can see very clearly now from the data that vaccination does not permit the transmission of omicron so i would even hesitate to remove the vaccination threshold at tohonto if we weren't also able to do it at the same time at bes and bms because the vaccination itself is not shown to prevent transmission to an extent that that should be the offering so i'm going to have i think some more questions on that topic as we move forward and the last thing i just want to point out you know there's a mental health crisis and someone mentioned i think spoke to the letter that the secretary of education wrote yesterday urging the higher ed community to lead the way towards a return to normal when it comes to this i sit here and i own wpi there's been seven seven suicides at wpi in the last six months the day after the seventh suicide wpi removed all requirements to mitigate covet 19.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
i wanted to take a moment tonight to share some interesting findings in relation to the school the first is how the aztec came to be associated with the campus it turns out that the aztec was voted on by the students over the arabi and the cheetah those were the three finalists and the students chose the aztec the school yearbook which is called i apologize if i um don't get this name right the turquoise happened to be the name of an aztec chief the aztec sun the school newspaper received its moniker because the aztecs worshipped the sun i also read about the sun calendar which was selected because the aztecs used a calendar of this nature with the face of their sun god on it it was a symbol of the aztec sun and the colors of the school which have remained unchanged were deemed and i quote an overwhelming choice you might be wondering where i found this information well yours truly came across all of it in the 1957 azusa high yearbook which is the first annual the school produced in addition it should be pointed out that turquoise is a significant part of aztec history my research has found that turquoise has been a part of aztec poetry and rituals and it was used in the making of items including mirrors and jewelry and as we all know turquoise is one of the colors of azusa high based on these findings it is quite clear that the aztec was held in great reverence during the school's early years that has continued through subsequent decades in the present day in the last couple of weeks many alumni have declared how proud they are to be in azusa aztec and individuals who are of aztec descent have also shared their pride and happiness that the aztec is part of the campus and i can tell you that i've read accounts from gladstone high alumni saying the aztecs should remain likewise i feel the gladiators should be continued should continue to be a part of gladstone high as do many others contrary to the opinions of some who spoke two weeks ago the aztec has nothing to do with racism only respect and pride the aztec is synonymous with azusa just like the foothill drive-in sign the shopping center near apu and the big a we see in the mountains the pride surrounding the aztec is nothing short of extraordinary therefore i am asking the board to reconsider its position on changing the aztec and azusa high colors and to also listen to those who hold the aztec deer it is not a caricature it never has been nor has it been mocked it's been a symbol of pride for countless students and i can tell you scores feel that way and a class on the history of aztec culture would be a great addition to the school curriculum and it would rightly honor the aztec the saying is absolutely true once an aztec always an aztec and also i just want to say congratulations to all the parents uh honored tonight you all should be very proud thank you mr french next we have christina castaneda hi thank you guys for um for allowing me to speak can you hear me yes ma'am okay thank you good evening my name is christina castaneda i've been a part of ausd for the past 33 years i'm first and foremost a pal panther i was completely devastated to hear that my school a borderline school is about to be shut down i was actually a product of being a borderline student without this school my brother my sisters and i would have never been a part of ausd and let me add that my brother sister and myself were named parent of the year for ausd my sister was also named district parent of the year and the school that made us is about to disappear i'm devastated for all of our schools i'm also a proud ahs alumni an aztec parent and a current coach for azusa high school i hope that when i speak today that i'm speaking to a committee that is fully committed to being transparent with its community because although we knew of the possible changes we were not prepared nor advised that our aztec was an issue we're asking for an opportunity to learn with all due respect the aztec has never been a caricature as a cheer coach i know firsthand what the aztec warrior means to our students and our community we hold our warrior with the utmost respect if you attend any of our games you would see the love and pride that we have for our aztecs please educate us connect us with a proper indigenous organization so that we can continue to respect the culture and as some of you know san diego state went through the same issue not that long ago with their mascot they stood their ground and they made the decision to keep their aztec not as this mascot but as a spirit warrior i know this wasn't an easy decision for the board um to make or the the committee um to make but i do hope that you reconsider our aztec not as a mascot but as our spirit leader as well one's an aztec always nasty thank you ms castaneda next we have alex munoz good evening i'm alex vignes and i'm a senior at disney high school the aztec has been isis our highest mascot for well over 60 years and we've been proud of it there weren't any major complaints until now and they were from outside our school district students and their families have never felt anything but honor when it came to this form of representation as a largely hispanic community like ours like to trace back our ancestry to the mexica how often do you see schools do this to have this form of representation it's rare on top of this rebranding can cause the district i don't know how much money money that would be much more useful to help our high school grow i still don't see how changing our mascot to satisfy another group's demands benefits to students academically i'm sure the situations were reversed and gladstone had to rebrand they would be people trying to stand up for the gladiator they would be people who would be taken taking initiative against that waste of money thank you for your time and i hope you make a decision that will actually do something to impact our school instead of squander money thank you thank you mr munoz next we have margaret g i'll get you may i meet your mike can you hear me yes we can okay thank you good evening school board members my name is margaret guillen and i am a teacher at magnolia and formerly a teacher at gladstone street elementary i am here to share my concerns about closing magnolia elementary school and i'm also here to give the voice to the community of medvela's parents and students closing magnolia would be detrimental to the city of azusa and its residents with the closure of gladstone street and now the closure of magnolia and powell there will be no elementary schools east of cerritos this will cause many current students as well as future students to go to glendora or covina schools concerned parents have already begun to search in other cities parents have stated that they feel blindsided as magnolia elementary was never originally or fully discussed as a potential closure they were never fully given the opportunity to present their feelings to the board magnolia was not the recommendation of the organizing committee therefore this decision was not made by the majority of the stakeholders but by three individual members of the school board also children who moved to magnolia due to the gladstone street closure will be moving again after only three years one and a half of those years being virtual learning students are now just feeling connected to their magnolia school site is this the message we want to send to our children a message that their school homes are unstable magnolia is also a modernized school other schools that would be remaining are not modernized this will cost the taxpayers millions of dollars to upgrade will the community vote for a bond for these upgrades when they have already had an upgraded school to go to also magnolia just put in one hundred thousand dollars of new technology into their classrooms this technology cost ten thousand dollars to install per classroom is this another message we want to send to our families that our students do not deserve the upgraded facilities or state-of-the-art technology don't they deserve the same quality of equipment that surrounding districts enjoy what is the reasoning behind closing magnolia what information is there that shows that closing three schools east of cerritos would help azusa retain its student population where is the data from this committee that supports this decision as a 22-year veteran school teacher of this district it is very hard to be a part of and witness these changes that deeply affect students and their families the decisions that seem to be made with no supporting data to back it these decisions impact the lives of students teachers and the future of azusa district as a whole i urge you to reconsider the closure of magnolia elementary school thank you miss margaret next we have michael a michael you may have mute your mic hey you there yes we can hear you okay if we're going to close the schools then we should go ahead and make it welcome to azusa high charter school and we should make all the charter schools to make all the schools charters get rid of all the teachers and bring in the ones are going to be knowledge and be there for the children yes we can hear you and also they should put a bridge from azusa high to foothill school and go ahead and put some stuff out there for like an rop for all the students to learn because i know all the students that going to go from sierra madre all the way to gladstone before they even get there they'll probably be high or drunk we're just saying forget about schools too far and they're going to make it more harder for all the single parents and that's going to have to drive all the way down there drop off their kids and come back back on the freeway it's going to be ridiculous there's not going to be enough buses all these buses here sometimes they speed down the streets anyways they don't care either you should go ahead and put them mod be monitoring them on their speed but putting you should be monitoring you know on like they said earlier giving them better benefits giving them better insurances raises fixing up the schools more for their education and if you're if you and you graduated with twelve thousand twelve thousand students and there's only seven thousand he should have said something a long time ago because you guys are just there getting free money it's all right well i look at it and also if you see it if oh you're gonna go do all this stuff everybody who went and added on to their houses and went and had to pay so much to the schools they should all be reimbursed their money back since they're not in a sense they're wasting money well they may they should be reimbursed all their money and not even have to worry about it no more also it's also you guys are just over here wasting money more just having all this stuff over some little kids from pomona like they said this is all ridiculous you know you should be focusing on education like i said before about all the children who are having problems from the pandemic not able to go into school and educating themselves or losing value of time we when we went to school hey we went to school with teachers that molested got loaded by drink beer at school and look at what happened hey they got rid of them you got to keep on going better and stronger and all that equipment you said that you guys lost you guys had some ripped off baseball somebody ripped it off and you guys got that reimbursed anyways somebody went and donated or gave your guys all the equipment baseball equipment a couple years ago i don't understand how you guys are over here saying that they're gonna the money's gonna go to this this and this and i i would like to see a breakdown of all the items to itemize everything to show everybody and all these people that are voting it should be the people that are voting who are back in the 60s 70s 80s not the ones that come over here come and get an education for a couple years and then fly back they should have no vote it's going to be it should be the residents that's been here for years that who are aztecs i don't understand why you guys end up go ahead and let them you know get let them get votes if that's the case then we should bring other people in to vote thank you mr michael so my three minutes are yes next we have yvette valdez hello i am an alumni a parent of current ausd students and a current employee of the district i participated in the reorganization team as a parent and rebranding was never something we recommended i understand completely that what cultural appropriation is and i can tell you that the azusa mascot the aztec is not a caricature nor a fashion statement the aztec is more a symbol of pride and strength than it is a mascot i attended gladstone high school and although the gladiator was my mascot growing up the aztec was an image i knew and gave me a sense of inclusion because it was part of my culture and i recognized it by removing the aztec from this community you will not only further alienate the people of the community being affected by gentrification but also newcomers who come here to meet their families and seek a welcoming new start if you do move forward with the rebranding make sure you do it right because everyone will be watching for the hypocrisy of the decision such as rebranding to something like canyon city high mountaineers hikers or whatever the mascot might be make sure you don't aid in the gentrification and alienation of the people of this community who have lived here for generations the 800 000 is better spent in upgrading the aztecs image to an accurate representation and or teaching our students of the indigenous people who were here when it was associated thank you ms valdez next we have andrew hi good uh good evening my name is andrew alvarez i'm a teacher at foothill middle school and as such i've had many opportunities to visit the azusa high school campus and i was always stunned by the beautiful artwork honoring the aztecs uh all over the buildings um you know some of it's student done just uh i never thought of the use of the aztec as offensive and i am aware of the controversy that has been brewing for decades over the concept of naming sports teams after native american tribes and i got me thinking are there any examples of places where this has been done well and it turns out there are quite a few the one i found that was most striking was florida state seminoles who have they don't call a mascot but they have osceola who was a historic osceola leader go out to the football field and start the games the costume he wears is made by tribal leaders and they have the blessing of the tribe now what i find interesting too is here in azusa as some of our other speakers have said more eloquently than i there is a strong ethnic connection to the aztecs going back hundreds of years and i think this pride is not just limited to students who have gone to azusa high school and gone on but it goes deeper for many of these many residents of azusa i would just suggest that maybe putting this to a vote to the students without having the aztec removed from the list maybe there's enough ground swell among azusa high students that don't want the aztec mascot for the reasons that were said last week maybe or maybe there's enough pride in the aztec from the students as students of azusa high school but even going deeper than that allow them to decide allow the stakeholders to decide that seems to be the most fair way to go forward with this discussion thank you for your time thank you mr alvarez uh linka there were a couple other uh folks who had their hand raised one was loose fields i don't remember the name of the other have they returned by any chance i do not see any of them in the meeting at this moment okay then we will move on to uh 8.1 comments and report reports and requests by the board of education uh board member audianus again i would just like to congratulate all the parents that were nominated and won and our parent of the year again um all the parents watching tonight you know five ten minutes when you come help out of school is goes a long way and for those parents that um always volunteer the hours the long hours and boosters and everything that you guys do again thank you again because our students could not have what they have because of you and that's all i have thank you oh wait and chinese new year happy chinese new year to everyone who celebrates it uh it's the eye of the tiger so happy new year thank you board member adianas uh board member cruz gonzalez thank you um just a couple things again thank i really appreciate that the parent of the year um celebration i look forward to when we can have that back in person and we can see people interact i think many of us want this pandemic to be over um i'm one of those people um i i will speak to and i'm just gonna be very careful because it's not on the agenda so as we as the board are not really supposed to be speaking um to items that aren't on the agenda but i do just want to talk a little bit about um what we did last week and i appreciate adrian you framing the conversation at the beginning of the meeting i think you accurately reflected the um what um the process and sort of what went into it and some of those pieces i i do want to say um and those of you that have been paying attention know that i've had mixed feelings about this from the very beginning um and i still do um and so i do think i appreciate what andrew alvarez just mentioned because that's sort of that's what i that's the direction i've been going and thinking about that there should be the consideration of being able to keep the the aztec as um as the name of the school um i think i'm glad that people pointed out san diego state the aztec is actually not their mascot any longer right it is the name of the of the they use that name but they're actually developing a new mascot um and so i think i think that there's value in finding ways to do that because i also i and most of us i think all of us can agree that we have seen respect in how our community shows the aztec right um i look when you look at san jose they had monty montezuma you know we don't we never had that right we have always had an asthma warrior so i do think that there's value in thinking about at least having the opportunity to keep the warrior um as as the symbol of azusa um i also just i think about my own college that i went to we were called the engineers but our mascot was the beaver right so we had a name of what we were we were the mit engineers but our mascot was a beaver that was out on the field so um i i just want to put that out there um because i do think um we as a community need to grow together and this is going to be a process and quite a long process in terms of changing and consolidating schools and we want to make sure that we're staying together as a community so um i will i'll just i'll leave that at that um and then i did want to request that we just changing the subject now i'm not not related to that at all um i did want to request that um we have a conversation around parent volunteers i i learned very recently that there are some school districts that are allowing parents to volunteer um obviously right now just we're coming out of this omicron surge so probably right now i'm not saying suggest now but i do want us to start having a conversation about what would be the process to be able to bring parents back in classrooms right because you know we know that kids need a lot of attention we know that that um parents um are very valuable in the classroom so i would like us to be prepared for when it becomes the point of us being able to have parents come into the schools and volunteer that we have really clear criteria that we can have across the district um and so then we can be um consistent about how we do that so that's that's my other request thank you board member cruz gonzalez board member bill no comments tonight or remember rodriguez pena yes uh good evening everyone um i just wanted to uh announce that um i wanted i want to congratulate the students or thank the students from the azusa rotaries interact from azusa high in glaston high they volunteered their time with azusa beautiful and we planted 290 tulip behind the city hall by the gazebo they should be blooming in the springtime i did go to murray school elementary for the pbis pride accelerator reading assembly over 100 students received an accelerated award uh from grades one to sixth grade so it's kind of great to see how many students are reading at this time and i also want to congratulate um daniel soriano he's a counselor at azusa high school i'm sorry i'm thinking azusa high school see i meant azusa adult school and he received an award for excellence in support service certificate uh certificate award it is well deserved daniel has been so much and so much passion for the students they're adults but he's always helping them you know get ahead by by taking their um their tests and and being sure they're placed in the right classrooms i really also like the new look of the new flyer that they send out here they have a calendar here and they have um this little link where you can just put your phone on it and know where the classes are at so this is a really good idea also for my calendar i did the virtual woods lawson middle school in ellington k28 and also the seventh and eighth graders uh they had the ceremony award the students of the semester teachers choice honor rolls principles honor rolls and i want to congratulate all the students in principal acosta walker and all the seventh and eighth grade teachers i went to the dentist the other day and it was kind of um and i went to the dentist and this young lady was there and she said do you work at a zoo unified food district at night i said yes she said oh i know i seen you somewhere well make a long story short she was a student they went to the medical pathway at glaston high school and she was a dental um assistant and i kind of kind of work as she had to work my mouth right but but you know it was proud to see a student from azusa taking the course she went to the uh um citrus college to go in the dental hygienist program and she ends up working here in this in this dentist's office so i i'm kind of glad to see that she did pass azusa um unified school district to get where she wants to be i want to announce also uh hilda solis they're giving away free covet 19 home test and it'll be wednesday february 2nd which is tomorrow at delhi dale park 5 pm until the supplies last and i want to also want to add something regarding um piggyback on chilean cruz gonzalez said you know i think you know i really don't appreciate emails you know profanity and calling me names are saying that i don't know what i'm doing and stuff for that i don't really appreciate that but just saying that um you know i think what we really should have did seriously is say okay we want to keep the aztec so what can we do to keep the aster and how can we how can we um um represent it properly you know what can we do to keep it but how can we fix it instead of all of a sudden saying oh you know you don't know what you're doing you know you know i mean no one is calling i haven't had a conversation but i just think that would have been the right way to go so we see we'll keep it but what can we do to keep it how can we make it right and i feel strongly about that i just wanted to say that and thank you everyone for speaking up thank you board member roger espana sorry um the the our portion for comments is has passed um i'll i'll say on behalf of board members we encourage you to reach out to us and um you know would love to converse with you about these things at the appropriate time and i myself have no additional comments uh to make this this evening uh that brings us to 9.0 and specifically 9.1 comments and reports by superintendent cabinet and student board members i do believe that we have hannah hamilton with us on uh online yes good evening board middle school visitations are taking place on february 15th and 17th we are looking forward to showing all of our middle schoolers what our high school has to offer our counselors will be visiting the middle schools on february 22nd through the 24th to discuss scheduling school programming and classes our basketball season ends this week our girls team will celebrate their senior night this wednesday at 5 pm and our boys team will celebrate this friday at 5 pm this soccer the soccer season also ended this week congratulations to our players and our seniors for a great season congratulations to our parent of the year casino casa she is an outstanding parent that supports our school and our students over the past week we met with all of our classes and discussed budget fundraising opportunities and for the seniors to grad night information we are super excited wrestling had a tournament today at gladstone high school a great job azusa scholars and cia qualifiers finally our kindness week is february 15 to the 18th we are excited to spread kindness around our campus thank you so much thank you board member hamilton uh next we have our cabinet can we double check with uh lika to see if there are any other student board members i believe we only have hannah uh lika is there anyone else no just hannah okay thank you uh just on behalf of cabinet we too want to send a huge congratulations to our parents we have uh the the pleasure of working uh with many of the of the folks that were named today uh and just the extraordinary leadership uh and voice and engagement and power and decision that's represented in that group is something to be extremely proud of the district parent of the year miss anna valencia was on the um on the interview on the first interview panel for the new principal of arlington and had really good feedback and comments through that process so thank you for all of our parents your engagement is invaluable to what we set out to do every day day in and day out and if i can just put a plug tomorrow we do have a school reorganization town halls uh we do have one in english and one in spanish and so we hope to see you tomorrow via zoom for those town halls thank you dr mitchell that was on behalf of the cabinet no additional comments thank you then we'll move on to 10.0 general functions and 10.1 presentation of paramount elementary school uh mr flores uh good evening once again everyone uh before i begin again i'd like to congratulate all our parents that were uh recognized tonight and of course uh mrs valencia for being chosen as uh this is a unified school district's parent of the year uh board members and cabinet members and superintendent mr ortega thank you so much for giving us this time to share the fantastic things that are happening at paramount elementary uh joining me tonight uh in this presentation will be our fantastic uh resource teacher regina views our awesome sixth grade teacher mr david hartman jr and three of our terrific pumas uh yeshua gonzalez savannah kendrick and uh alfonso talamantes i'd like to begin by sharing that at paramount we follow rigorous california common core state standards line instruction to promote student critical thinking collaboration productive discourse and problem solving classrooms our classrooms are growing in their use of technology uh we're creating equitable access for all preparing students for life in the 21st century every student at paramount has access to a chromebook in the classroom and at home uh teachers are supplied with up-to-date technology high-definition classroom projectors bluetooth speakers bluetooth microphones to help project their voices uh through their masks and online programs such as brainpop ar mayan la and other online tools to further student engagement and to help with student academic growth our teachers and staff are committed to participating collaborative communities of practice that support data-driven uh data-driven student-centered instruction and exemplify the idea of a continuous cycle of improvement our teachers and staff work with a purpose and passion to ensure that each and every student will be a problem solver a critical thinker effective communicator and a positive contributor to uh to the community in azusa and uh beyond and now i am going to turn it over to mrs views who is going to uh to talk about one of our main programs that we have at perma which is our response to intervention uh program right thank you actually excuse me before before we go just double check do we have a presentation to share with this oh yes there should be a slideshow but we're on slide four yes slide four yes thank you okay we're gonna project it in just a minute here thank you for your patience and i apologize i should have caught that before we started it works are we ready to continue yes please proceed thank you sorry for that okay oh no problem our response intervention program or rti program is one of the key reasons paramount has raised student achievement levels and test state test scores our rgi program helps every child achieve mastery in english language arts during our daily school-wide response to intervention time we provide one hour of instruction specifically based on each individual student's needs students receive specific interventions to accelerate or enrich learning during rti teachers utilize best teaching practices which are tailored to their specific intervention groups needs additional personnel that include an intervention teacher resource teacher and well-trained instructional aides are used to support specific groups additional personnel are an essential component of our rti program the added adults to the classrooms reduce the student teacher ratio with our basic and struggling students rti is implemented on a daily basis during a protected one hour block where classes are not disturbed unless absolutely necessary teachers within each grade level use data in the form of common formative assessments to determine students groupings during plcs assessments utilized are running records star early literacy and iready student groupings are based on students needs and abilities and are changed after every assessment period each group receives differentiated instruction based on the group's needs during the grade level intervention block instructional components of these groups can focus on phonics guided reading grammar and writing our struggling students are served in small group settings supported by one to two instructional aides to lower the teacher-student ratio additionally students with special needs receive differentiated instruction from our rsp teacher and supplemental support from our rsp aid students in the basic level group in each grade level receive support by one aide proficient students are provided with extensive extension or enrichment activities paramount's rti program begins during the first month of school and continues throughout the school year teachers meet monthly to discuss on common daily schedules timelines for assessments monitor student progress review data and share the best practices to help our students achieve academic success yes through our rti program and grouping students throughout the grade levels teachers say our students not my students thank you mrs views and now i'm going to hand it over to mr hartman who is going to discuss or share about our stem club or stem academy amy gorge president greer board members superintendent ortega dr mitchell and the azusa community i'm here to share you about exciting program that we started last year during the virtual year and as the paramount stem academy we were faced with a little bit of struggles trying to get that in virtual form and we did a great job this year we were able to start the academy live and we have it after school three days a week and these students are fabulous we have 26 of them that come three days a week giving their time and uh i'm going to let them tell you how they feel about it and why they like the student program why we are so proud of it uh i is yeshua gonzalez on hello i'm yeshua gonzalez and i'm mrs hello can you hear me yes hello can you hear me we can hear you yes we can hear you yeah all right hello okay thank you hello i'm yeshua gonzalez and i'm in the stem academy in paramount elementary stem is a really fun place and our great teacher mr harmon jr makes it even better in sam academy i learned mean medium mode and range in the very first two weeks i learned of that in the flight unit in the very first two weeks the fight unit it consists of just groups of two people and you throw on airplanes it's really fun i actually have with me uh my graph that me and my teammate have made as you can see when he started the shots were very consistent and then right here this is when i started the my shot was very low but then as soon as i went higher and higher i went higher and then i get started back with the consistent thoughts that he started with that is how i feel about stem at me in paramount elementary thank you um and in sam we were learning how to code um robots from a u-kit like box i think and um we wouldn't make like robots from an app called like ukit ukit.edu and we would after we built them we would um code them to like move in certain directions from us like certain like button like or like a control we would use um we never really had any instructions how to do it so we tried to figure it out on ourselves by ourselves and uh wasn't that easy though but um thank you alfonso i think uh alfonso doesn't give himself enough credit we are learning a drag and pull coding to have the robots traverse a maze and alfonso is our resident coding expert and this is the basis of python language and when he said we don't really get help what he means is that they asked me mr hartman what do i do now and i respond what do you think you'll do so we're going with the ngss style of phenomenon learning and i'm just so proud of these guys so alfonso is a fantastic coder and he shares with the other other students and savannah kendrick good evening my name is savannah kendrick and i want to talk about a project we had recently it was a tower building it's where you're giving nothing but a paper and you have to build supports for it to hold up a whiteboard five inches off the ground while balancing math books on top of it i personally like this task because it gives it because they let us think outside the box get crafty you know just thinking about it and mr harmon didn't give us any instructions which i think is might i think is good because he let us figure it out on our own well aren't well our team wasn't doing so well so we have to so we kind of use some industrial espionage just copy from other teams anyways my my team's hypothesis was 16 books and we held 43 books which is like around like 75 pounds so we were surprised and also i just want to say that stem that stem is a good place to be because because it lets me like think outside the box get crafty you know like just learn and i like that about stem academy thank you savannah at paramount sim academy we're proud that we're training our students for jobs in the future that may not even exist yet we're teaching our students to be independent thinkers to think outside the box and to be crafty like savannah said and i honestly believe who my father told me an old saying that if you love your job you never have to go to a day of work and i love my job and these kids are fabulous you should come visit us and you can experience what i get experienced every day so thank you very much for your time thank you mr hartman and thank you uh thank you terrific pumas uh uh for sharing your experiences with our stem academy academy but now it's time to log off and go to bed school tomorrow and so we'll continue to move on uh so not only do we offer after-school stem academy we also uh been lucky enough to partner with think together think to the student support services academic intervention program this program is offered in over 20 schools throughout los angeles and riverside counties and the program is designed to provide additional targeted instruction to support students toward achieving grade level proficiency in math and language arts utilizing research based research-based curriculum some key features about the program are groups are arranged six to one student to staff ratio seven week sessions two daily one hour sessions which provide a total of 28 hours of additional support per session and we have seen tremendous growth growth in our students that participate in this enrichment opportunity and the data that we use to uh to support our students or to create our groups are our diagnostic assessments that we take that our students take through i-ready so we use our diagnostic diagnostic ela information and our diagnostic math information and of course moving on to the next slide our parents of course are very very important piece uh or part of our paramount community and so our parents do play a vital role in our student achievement and we have partnered with uh tony and liz orozco from disciplina positive to offer parent workshops with the goal to empower parents with effective and practical positive discipline tools to help their students stay focused and emotionally healthy even in difficult times we've completed phase one that focused on dealing with a child's academic and social emotional development routines during during and post-pandemic period and then beginning in on february 24th we are going to begin phase two uh and the uh focus on that is uh parents will learn to identify their child's development stages to connect better and to understand how they think and behave under stress and also to equip parents equip parents to distinguish between uh mental health behaviors and physical behaviors and changes and of course again our parents are a vital vital part uh uh to to paramount and so uh and as a matter of fact this afternoon or this uh this morning we had a coffee with the principal and so we did start talking about uh the first beginning stages of of getting our parent volunteers uh back on campus and we're really really excited to hopefully get that started uh very very soon and um in our final piece at paramount we believe that every student has a potential and deserves the best education possible we are committed to the academic social and emotional and physical success of every student each member of our school community takes collective responsibility for student achievement by offering a rigorous program that reflects high expectations celebrates diversity and includes all of its members our positive attitude towards learning offers no excuses for failure rather we strive to inspire excellence in education our high expectations at paramount promise lifelong learners who have the power to change the world and um and before we we sign off again i would be remiss if we didn't thank everyone else who was involved uh with with the uh with helping us with us achieve our goals uh like it's like they said it does take a village so i would like to take this opportunity to thank our village and and that includes our mot department mis department our directors our fantastic tosas our superintendent and assistant superintendents and of course our school our school board thank you all for your continued support in helping us achieve our goals not only now but in the future and just like the academy awards if i forgot to thank anybody i'm sorry but thank everyone i want to thank you all for your continued support and again thank you for this time uh for sharing what uh what's the fantastic things that are happening and paramount and of course one more thing go pumas thank you mr flores and and uh thank you to the rest of the puma family for uh making this presentation and and bringing us in on uh some of what you guys got going on uh there at paramount we'll move right on then to 10.2 approval of resolution 21 22 15 declaring property as exempt surplus is there a motion on the floor make motion to approve 10.2 second moved by board member rodriguez pena and second by board member arianes any discussion hearing none we will move to a vote and the motion passes five to zero moving on to item 10.3 approval of resolution 21 22 16 national school counseling week um february 7 through 11 is there a motion on the floor make a motion to approve 10.3 second moved by board member rodriguez pena second by board member ariana any discussion um i just like to um [Music] say happy national school consular week i want to thank all the um counselors they not only serve our students at ausd they don't only just give schedules they're also give provide personal college career advice and they need to be good listeners compassionate and patient and those are the traits that all of our counselors have that's making great counselors here at ausd any additional comments or discussion and then we'll move to a vote and the motion passes five to zero this brings us to 11.0 consent calendar and specifically 11.1 approval of the consent calendar all matters listed under the consent calendar are considered by the board of education to be routine with all uh and will be enacted in one motion there will be no discussion of these items unless requested by a board member if a board member requests discussion that item will be removed from consent calendar and considered separately is there a motion uh to approve the consent calendar motion to approve 11.1 through 11.6 second any discussion hearing none we will go and vote and the motion passes five to zero that brings us to 13.0 business and finance and 13.1 ratification approval of contract agreement between a zeus unified school district and ryland school business consulting is there emotion on the floor make a motion to approve 13.1 second moved by board member rodriguez pena second by board member arianes any discussion um mr sega can you please um talk about some of the changes that were made absolutely and miss latasha please jump in if i miss them uh number one um the not to exceed uh was included in the contract the not to exceed amount was reduced drastically we also were able to negotiate a lower per hour rate and also eliminate some of the travel expenses that might have been part of the contract any additional questions comments okay then we'll move to a vote and the motion passes five to zero bringing us to 14.0 curriculum and instruction and second quarterly williams uniform complaint report and i'm happy to report that we no complaints were filed with any school in the district during the quarter thank you dr mitchell any questions then we'll move to 14.2 approval of the memorandum of understanding mou between azusa unified school district and pomona valley american job center of california including west covina affiliate is there a motion on the floor motion to move 14.2 that was a motion to approve approve second uh moved by board member ariana second by board member rodriguez pena any discussion yeah can can you please elaborate to let us uh let the community know what uh what this contract uh includes sure um so this is um working in uh collaboration with our california community schools partnership program at azusa high school and what this will do is they will work with our students and families to provide workforce training and jobs they'll help our students to find paid internships and jobs while they receive training and support any other questions or comments then we will move to a vote the motion passes five to zero bring us to 14.4 approval of 2021 school accountability report card for all for president uh we're on 14.3 excuse me thank you 14.3 approval of the consent agreement between azusa unified school district and jennifer edict bryant is there a motion on the floor make a motion to approve 14.3 seconds moved by board member rodriguez pena second by board member arianes any uh questions or discussion i i do go ahead i just want to know um what what are her hours and does she have an office back over here or where we should be thank you for the question um no she will not have an office um we participate in the community engagement initiative professional leading and learning network and so we have um it's the plln and we have uh been working with them for a couple of years and so they uh provide funding for us to participate in that and dr bryant has been leading that work and so the funding will be paying for that so she won't have an office here but what is she working from home or actually she would become either the zoo meetings if they're online or um we've been hosting the meetings actually here in the boardroom where we bring in the participant so uh we're in person here and then we zoom in with the other district i have a question so she's an employee of ours she is not she retired oh when did she retire so so we're hiring her back as a consultant correct yes to [Music] so she yeah she will be um so as a consultant she will be continuing leading um the work with our professional um learning network that we've been doing we that network provides us with funding to participate but also she leads other cohorts of other districts and so um so she will be continuing that work dr mitchell it's also important to note that that commitment uh that we refer to as a cei plln year one we were participants and then we became we became mentors to other districts that expires or that's set to end um june 30th of this year so she's just finishing up that work that we started uh that she started leading really um back then just to finish it off until our commitment though is is over this dude so i'll go ahead let's ask there any other question yeah so arthur um in terms of the lcap piece right so i appreciate you just for continuity keeping her in place to do that work so what what's the plan for next year so dr mitchell i mean correct me if i'm wrong part of uh this contract is also going to help uh her um or help us really so that the next person uh that joins the team uh that's going to over over that's going to be overseeing our award-winning lcap process she will be there as a source of mentoring training questions ensuring that we're not skipping a beat on on those things that we have been uh successful in have we have we is have we flown this position is this the hr yes the position is currently being flown on edge it was flown as of last week and it closes february 11th so the the person that will be hired for this position will go ahead and take over these duties next year actually they'll take over the duties as soon as they're hired so dr bryant will serve as a mentor and a consultant to help that person um as we transition but just for full clarity not the ce ipln because again that ends in june thank you for clarifying that i wasn't sure but thank you okay any other questions question then we'll go ahead and move to a vote and the motion passes five to zero which now brings us to 14.4 approval of 2021 school accountability report card for all tk12 schools is there a motion on the floor motion to move 14.4 and that movement is for approval for approval of 2120 2021 full accountability report card for all tk312 schools second moved by board member arianes second by board member rodriguez pena any questions or any discussion then we will move to a vote and the motion passes five to zero bring us to 15.0 human resources 15.1 azusa unified school district sunshine proposal for the 2021-2022 fiscal year negotiations with the california school employees association so this item is before the board and the subsequent pieces related to the sunshine process which is a public hearing in a vote by the board um we are reopening the article on evaluations because we need to align or fully align our our contract with dsda to new education codes that change the timeline for evaluation and this article was opened last year where the work was uh was done with the exception of one paragraph that uh was not uh removed from the contract so uh we need to go through this process because we will be changing uh language within the contract and so whenever a an article or rather whenever there's going to be a change in contract language on that article needs to be open in order for the change to take place um and so psda and the district uh both agree that we need to go through this process in order for us to uh make that correction um so it is before the board um in in the normal sunshining process any questions okay thank you mr monkey then we will move to item 15.2 which is public hearing the azusa unified school district's sunshine proposal for the 2021 2022 fiscal year negotiations with the california school employees association district sunshine proposal is there a motion to open the public hearing take a moment to open um 15.2 seconds moved by board member rodriguez pena seconded by board member arianas so we will go ahead and open the public hearing at 9 32 p.m or president just for clarification to get a first and a second did we not vote thank you very much so we're not open yet um any any discussion no then we'll go ahead and move to a vote the motion to open public hearing carries and the public hearing is open at 9 32 pm do we have anyone there's no one here in person is there anyone on zoom attendance if you would like to make a comment you can raise your hand and zoom attendant we do not have any hands raised okay seeing that there is no one to make a comment during this public hearing we will close public hearing at 9 33 pm this takes us to 15.3 the board of education is required to officially approve the azusa unified school district sunshine proposal for the 2021-2022 fiscal year negotiations with the california school employees association is there a motion on the floor i make a motion to approve 15.3 second move by board member rodriguez pena second by board member arianes any discussion hearing none will move to a vote and the motion pass is five to zero bringing us to 16.0 policies and bylaws each of these uh 16.1 through 16.7 are info only and they are the first reading is there any board member who has any question about any of these seven uh policies in biloxi hearing none we will move then to 17.0 and specifically 17.1 adjournment is there a motion to adjourn our meeting motion to adjourn second move by board member arianis second by board member rodriguez pena any discussion hearing none we will move to a vote and the motion passes five to zero which brings our meeting to a close at 9 34 p.m thank you everybody for tuning in have a great night
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
do we have an average length of service for our teachers i mean i know that these are probably not one isn't tied to the other but do we have an idea of how many years would be an average for our teachers that they've taught um i don't have that data right now with me but i can definitely make sure that i get that for you that would be awesome because i think it's important to note that this is you know a more experienced teacher and been in the profession for several years that is all we have this evening do you have any questions i had one question i'll just start back on as we went past it sorry slide four at the bottom bullet it says unrestricted capital increase due to updated student counts and final afr but then miss betsy said that we didn't it doesn't reflect it's based on last year's the previous year students counts anyways do you want me to answer that go ahead okay so um the uh the student counts for last year uh were updated at the end of july for the final recalculation so this budget did include a slight increase in the average daily membership from last year yes thank you for asking that question though it does clarify it thank you thank you is there any other questions board members okay well thank you thank you miss betts and we will we will act on this we'll have an action item on this later tonight that's correct so thank you all right that takes us to 2.03 ela and mandarin adoption dr mccord thank you madam president governing board members tonight we bring up is it dr cox come on up jenna coral pop how are you guys ready to have some fun liven this thing up guys here we go that's exactly what we need to do here we go all right thank you guys all right good evening dr mccord president wood and members of the board we're excited to present to you tonight on um an update with the curriculum adoption and um so i'm going to go ahead and just jump right in so we've been busy this last semester and we're wanting to start with uh just kind of providing a brief update which will lead us into where we're at but before i do get started so that i don't forget i did want to just take a moment to thank all of the committee members that have been a part of this process up until this point because it has been hours and hours of work jenna has led our ela miss fry has led our mandarin and there have been plenty of parents um teachers from all of our secondary schools there's a lot of people that have been involved in giving feedback reviewing work um when i say hours it really has been a lot of time so i just wanted to personally thank everyone that's been a part of that process can you introduce the i'm sorry i don't know i need a name i'm jenna corelli buck i am the secondary ela coordinator all right thank you thank you jenna all right so we the last few years our english language arts standards have been updated through the state and there has been a shift in instructional strategies and so therefore we wanted to make sure that we're staying abreast of current topics and making sure that our curriculum aligns with what those instructional shifts are and so it led us to the point of wanting to pursue a curriculum adoption for our english language arts 7th through 12th grade and those instructional shifts include regular practice with complex texts the reading writing speaking grounded in evidence from text both with literacy and informational text and building knowledge through content rich non-fiction so you'll notice throughout the presentation with ela that these instructional shifts really are at the core of what we were trying to focus on throughout the entire committee work and there with it being english there were many times that we had to we get excited and there's a lot of material that gets teachers excited but we kept that at the center point so you'll see that throughout so with the timeline this process really originally had started briefly last year and then kind of got put on a halt just with everything going on and we realized that we wanted to tackle it with a fresh start and lens when we had everybody back in schools and whatnot so in august jenna was able to send out a call for resources so that process i had previously given you guys an update on that a call for resources goes out to as many vendors as we possibly can get out to and then a notification for committee participation so in that august september two month window we are getting as many responses from vendors and we are trying to get as many people together to make the strongest committee possible and then into the month of october we were receiving quotes and samples of the curriculum and the committee meetings began in november the work groups started and in the work groups i'm going to dive into that a little bit in a moment um but they there's a repeated review and extensive rubrics that are used and so um it's a little bit of a lengthy process in november the the end of uh november that ended with vendor presentations so i will go into that briefly as well um once we have our finalists we bring the vendors of the curriculum in and they do an actual presentation on all their materials and dive in so that we can make sure that we have the full picture and then once we had all of that completed into december the evaluation by the whole committee all of the data that we've collected all of the resources we had looked at all of that was compiled and brought to the entire committee for a final review which leads us here today which is the recommendation for pilot and public review by the end of this presentation based on what the committee would like to move forward with so when i talk about the curriculum work groups the full committee involves all the stakeholders that i mentioned prior and with the curriculum work groups really it ends up being a group of experts so you want people that are representing different groups so with those for this committee we had representation from our junior highs our high schools and then we really with ela being content that all students are required to take we wanted to make sure that we were representing all of our students so we brought in our ell curriculum coordinator our gifted and special programs coordinator and an instructional coach from our special education department as well so we really thought of all the different students that go through our ela classrooms and brought in somebody that has a content or knowledge expertise in those areas what those work groups do is they have the expertise of the curriculum the standards the details the specifics and so they were able to based on the full committee's review of the curriculum they then dive into to a secondary uh rubric which is really more of an in-depth process that takes having some expertise and knowing what you're looking for so with that uh we also wanted to make sure that we had a set criteria so from the very beginning i mentioned the instructional shifts which are the arizona academic standards so you see those listed there within the presentation in addition to that criteria we also included that we wanted assessments that measure mastery of standard to include formative and summative so we were looking for a curriculum that had both of those and then we wanted to make sure that there was a focus on differentiation for all learners which goes back to your enrichment intervention ell sped all different types of learners if they're advanced ap ib all the different types of learners from the top and then our students that maybe struggle with the language or have a learning disability and then the final criteria is digital resources that support the teachers planning and student learning and i will say going into this year in this committee work this was a a big one for our teachers and so we wanted to make sure that that was included in the criteria we have now been through the world of knowing that we have to be prepared to teach in all different modalities and where we want to make sure that we have a solid curriculum that supports our teachers with the work that they have to do and the different forms of activities that need to need to be created on the daily for all different levels of learners so after we received back from the call for resources we received back curriculum from many different vendors out of those these four were the four submissions that met the base criteria to even be considered for gilbert public schools curriculum so that was the first process and then we dove in deeper to reviewing the four submissions so over the next few slides what i've prepared for you is just some data from the work that jenna led with the committee and it's really going to just paint the picture and i'm just going to say it from this very first slide you're going to see a trend with those four submissions it was very clear to us that there were two finalists from the beginning when we started to collect every piece of data and so what we saw i mean the visual representation in itself was that mcgraw-hill and saves continued to be on the higher end and it wasn't even close to the other two that had met the original criteria in addition to that um we i pulled out a few data points so the first one is the text complexity and quality these are the ones that i wanted to highlight in tonight's presentation for you are the ones that were the priority and main focus but you see this trend in the data points on all of the rubric criteria but i just wanted to put some together for you so the range in quality you can see again mcgraw-hill and saabas at the top of the data there and then moving on to questions and tasks to support learning same trend and then writing to sources and research which was a a big one as well in making sure that we're meeting those literacy and informational texts the informational text that our students see in all content areas is about 70 75 of what is on standardized testing it's what colleges are putting in front of them that informational text piece is a huge component and so to see the focus there yes our ela teachers are teaching english language arts but when you think of the informational text that they can use to support cross-curricular as well that was um something that really surfaced as a positive with the two finalists that were chosen and then moving into the language and vocabulary uh we saw again just uh it really it clearly was the two all the way down but these were some indicators that led us to um easily choosing who our two finalists were going to be so at that point sabes and mcgraw-hill were our two finalists and that then we came back together as a committee and we had a work group that then we wanted to dive into the act the in-depth pieces so up into that point you have um it's kind of at face value because we're looking at the curriculum and we're kind of looking at it like from an outline perspective and so the next phase is diving into actually looking at the activities looking at the online resources diving into the supports that they say are there for teachers and actually letting the teachers get their hands on it and practicing and we gave as much time we set it up we went through meetings with them and then we also set it up at location so they could go and we had we had coordinators and teachers that they went and spent hours diving through this stuff and um at the end of that they put there was another rubric that they completed and submitted and then we collected all of that the next step is we brought in the two vendors from these two curriculum uh vendors and they presented to the entire committee that presentation allowed for our committee to ask questions and to just really watch them go through it because even though the the prior step you're getting to go hands-on but until you have training and you're there there are those questions and and to have a vendor go through that is telling in itself as well so the vendor presentations for this committee were they were huge and they really that's where you really saw the excitement start to kick in um for the potential of where where we're going to be able to go so at the end of the vendor presentation there's another rubric that we have everybody go through and at the end of that the saves vendor came at a average criteria score 53 and mcgraw-hill was at a 50.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
and so that tells me that there's a recognition at that institution that there is not the benefit doesn't away the risk when you look at seven college students who have killed themselves in the last six months this is an institution then the decade beforehand had two suicides so the only difference is covert in the way we're managing it now i'll leave it at that as we continue to consider these issues thank you i'm gonna read what i wrote just so i too stay on track um so i'll be quick i first wanted to thank everyone who spoke tonight for your really thoughtful meaningful comments um i also wanted to thank everyone who wrote into the committee for their really relevant and tactful comments social connection is a fundamental is fundamental to humans this is something we all know to be true without having to dig for any data or research to confirm it social connectedness enhances mental well being when kobit was a deadly virus we all faithfully masked up and did our part to protect ourselves and our neighbors we didn't hesitate the covet of today is not the covet of a year ago we are no longer facing a deadly virus and as arnilla explained the landscape has changed and we too must change the vehicle we use to drive on that landscape by continuing to mask our children through a mandate our children are losing that social connectedness which in turn is having a grave impact on mental health i even hesitate to read this because it's so staggering in the first three quarters of 2021 in 38 children's hospitals in the nation the number of suicide and self-harm cases was 47 percent higher in five to eight year olds and 182 percent higher in nine to 12 year olds than from the previous period these are our babies they're my babies they're your babies all kids need to socially connect with their peers with their teachers with their administrators with their lunch aids with their coaches with their bus drivers with everyone they interact with on a school day they cannot do that with the masks on it is our time to lead and to lead correctly for our children we owe it to our children to give them the connection they need to help them reach their full achievement their full achievement potential as a student in the berlin boylston regional school district thank you guys very much i appreciate all of your comments i think everything that has been that needs to be said has been said um i just wanted to speak for just a few seconds to say that we all have opinions about masks and as school committee members we represent what is best for the children our mission that we took an oath to fulfill says to support and challenge all students to achieve personal and academic excellence in a student-centered environment we called into question whether or not academics were being hindered by masks this has nothing to do with how i feel about masks how anyone on this committee feels about masks it has to do with the children and their academics and lastly i'd like to to talk a little bit about the letter that we were going to write we wanted to write a letter we discussed it last week we were tired we'd gone through a governance meeting we're humans and i'm not proud of the way the meeting went and i don't think anybody here is the intention of the letter as we discussed on the floor was a slow roll of talking about masking or coming out of a surge right now we know how the school committee operates you can't just show up and make a motion and have it happen so we wanted to introduce the topic and invite the public and have people come in and talk to us about how they felt so i apologize for being in this position but i'm so grateful that you showed up and you read to us and you talked to us and you shared personal experiences and to all of those people who wrote emails i you know i tried to write back to everybody and if there's anyone that i missed i'll get back to you tonight but i thanked everyone those emails carry impact i'd like to encourage anybody that has an opinion about this to write to the school committee we want to hear what you have to say those are very important to us so i just wanted to bring that up and that's where i'll leave it right now does anybody have anything else to say on the board i apologize i'm learning on the fly so there's a motion on the table right now to discuss because we moved and seconded it we moved to discuss i think we do need to vote on that motion to discuss just to close out that and then consider any additional emotions at this point so my point of order would be that i think we need to have a vote on the motion which was to discuss we vote on that and then we can move on to other motions okay so okay he's great at this um so right now we're going to vote on whether to discuss or review um the district's math policy so all in favor any opposed okay the motion passes and we will review the district's mass policy so i look at the calendar and i look at what our original intent was which was to take the time between now and the expiration of the current extension on february 28th to review the mask policy and to to potentially send a letter and do things like that i sit here now on february 1st and i look at our calendar coming up and i wonder if we should be scheduling a meeting for march 1st which would be the appropriate time to review any change that desi makes we do have a meeting scheduled on march 8th but i'd rather personally do that sooner rather than later so the 28th is a monday students will come back from february vacation we'd know at that point what desi has decided in terms of requiring masks from that point forward and on march 1st we could discuss what we might want to do and hopefully jesse would give us enough time to consider with the administration the new recommendations they make and whether or not we should be changing anything on our own so my motion would be to hold a school committee meeting on march 1st as we would in the other school committee meeting and have this on the agenda so motion to hold school commitment meeting on march 1st 2022 with an agenda item to review any update from desi related to the mass requirement i'll second that thank you megan any discussion what i just said is anyone um i know you're not gonna know the answer this jeff but is that enough time for dusty to come out on the 28th and then for us to even have any understanding of or is that too quick i mean today this mandate extends to the 28th so we don't we don't know we expected at that time there'll be another decision from the department it could it could be before i mean every single extension seems to have come a week or two before the expiration i mean at least that's what it has been i mean for the past how many extensions have we had i know three four um right thank you megan but who knows does anyone have anything else to add you know i think one of the things coming into tonight's meeting that i was cautious of was putting any burden on the administration should we have decided to remove the mass mandate tomorrow and i think we know that there are considerable financial and legal considerations that would come into play if we were to act in defiance to jesse so as i sit here tonight on february 1st i'm supportive of giving us another month to hear additional feedback and to understand destiny might do and be able to be in a position to make some kind of decision on march 1st and to partner and work closely with the administration from now until then we do have meetings scheduled for february 8th and the 15th at which point this could be updated and prepare us for the march 1st meeting anyone else have anything to add so we're discussing right now to add this meeting on the first and there's a lot of passion and emotion in the room right now on both sides after hearing from that is there anything else that we might want to do related to mask policy i believe our official the district mass policy is simply to follow dc guidance so dc guidance as well later i think someone read it earlier um everything from when and who to wear a mask punishment for not wearing a mask uh is there anything we want to do based on what we heard tonight talk to dc ask dc for something else i don't know i'd be interested in discussing some sort of action i don't know if everybody agrees or what they feel that would be sorry am i doing action in terms of uh with death or the community either way is there anything else we want to do i mean we heard from a lot of folks here we don't know what dc is going to do they say they're going to review it and give another update right they've extended it every time for 30 days three or four times already our letter last week was asking for additional data do we want to do something like that ask them for something something we're recording this meeting show them what parents want parents want more answers parents want to know why you know kids are hurting mental issues health is there anything you want to do you want to gather up what everybody said here send it off to him be like listen if you're going to extend it again give us some more concrete answers if you're not going to attend it again okay fine make it optional and that benefits everyone i'm just uh we're here to discuss changing not changing making amendments to the policy is there anything we want to do for that mike i would i would support something of that effect um once this motion is voted on or whether we're gonna have a meeting on march 1st to do so so if a question whether there's any more discussion on that thank you thank you thank you adam that one actually um so everybody's had their chance to speak on this particular topic i guess we will take a vote all in favor say aye aye opposed the motion passes we will have a a meeting on march 1st in response to what deci tells us the 28th on the 28th with their guidance and hopefully they come out with it sooner does anyone else have another motion that they would like to put forward i would like to move that we discuss language to ask dc to watch this meeting and respond to these parents or or include some additional information that these parents might be asking in their next announcement regardless of which way they go so for christie could you i would like to move that we discuss sending dc a letter regarding this meeting parents opinions who spoke who emailed and now we can discuss that here's the point of order for efficiency state this evening like we moved to actually send a letter and then we will odd matches with the specimen secondly yes anyone have anything to add regarding that idea which is very creative mike i like it i mean i think my idea is clear i don't know that it's gonna do anything or if anything will come of it but sitting here tonight and doing nothing after hearing these people give up their night to speak to us like this doesn't seem like it would be the right thing to do i think the original letter we were intending to send to desi was seeking information on the data that supported their mass mandate i think that we learned in the interim that other districts have done that and received varying levels of response and so i think that became somewhat of a point at the end of our last meeting i think that moving to draft and send a letter to desi potentially as early as the 8th the meeting next week but we can review that and then send it off and make a lot of sense um because we're probably going to need his group to vote to approve the letter as written too should we um test the chair with red miller wow that sounds so great um you know mike you you raised a really interesting idea which was with the letter to have more impact to send along you know letters from the community as well which i would guess we would need permission to do before we were no but those are public records yeah i was thinking that either the emails we received uh a lot of folks had written notes if that was different from their email if they they wanted to share them or we could simply the meetings being recorded so we could always do that anyone have anything to add just one thing for the people that sent emails and people here i would say we definitely need to get people's permission because some people might say no i don't want my name on something that's being sent to desi that would be the only thing but i think most people probably would but i just think to cover ourselves probably the right thing to do is before we include people's names just make sure they are okay with it oh okay so so christy for because you don't have she doesn't have a microphone um she's clarified that because once you send an email which i was not aware um until earlier uh it does become part of public record so legally we have the right to do so but i would suggest if anybody doesn't want that sent they should reach out to us prior to you know are sending the letter i would almost say that we should proactively reach out to those individuals who emailed us making sure that they're comfortable with us including it in our letter it's still a public record and someone could request to see that public record but it doesn't necessarily mean we have to send something someone doesn't want us to put out there yeah i'm just thinking of one person specifically that said they didn't want their email read so understandable it's a good point maybe to solve this we could uh i'd volunteer to write the letter lori if you're a little busy uh just simply send the recording send a couple of uh excerpts from the recording quotes what not we can discuss that once it's written next week at the meeting you can also get the recording transcribed pretty easily and put the recording through a transcription thing that you're able to have everything written up to if you wanted to imagine that technology adam has access to something like that we can work on it yeah perfect so we'll so we'll plan to mike's gonna draft the letter we'll plan to discuss it next week and hopefully finalize it so we can get it out the door next week any further discussion well i guess we're going to move on to a vote all in favor i suppose the motion passes we will mike is going to write a letter and we will be reaching out to people to ask if they would like their letters included that's something i will take on so we will be doing that and does anyone else want to make a motion okay at this time i would like to tell you that our next meeting is obviously going to be february 8th um where we will discuss the letter february 15th we have a budget meeting and um oh and i almost forgot february i'm sorry the first day um and march 8th was supposed to be our regular meeting but we moved to have another meeting on march 8th i'm sorry march 1st so many things yes pretty much every tuesday except for february so could i have a motion to adjourn second second the meeting has ended and thank you the motion passes thank you for coming to our meeting it is officially ended
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
we combined the vendor presentation um with the rubric scores and i want to go through some of the rubric scores uh just like i did with the initial cut to kind of just show now that we're focusing on the two so for the text and complexity text complexity and quality you'll see that saves was several points ahead of mcgraw hill and again there's some places where they were and neck but savas was still leading in the different data points and then there's others that here's another one evidence-based task in question where you'll see there's a 15-point difference and then moving on to speaking and listening the gaps on some of these indicators start to really lengthen and you start to see a bigger gap and then one that i really wanted to just point out is going back to the resources and helping teachers to design their instruction their lesson planning the resources that they have to meet the needs of all different learners you'll see this was actually the data point that stood out as being the largest gap and this is when i think teachers they didn't say it at this point but you just kind of saw their eyes lighting up and where they they started to sway one way because up until this final review i i think everybody really saw i mean they were two very competitive vendors um from the very beginning and then that led us to the average score this is the full committee now and savas was at 60.08 where mcgraw-hill was at the 57.62 and then out of total points just to show you another visual representation of that rather than percentage points which leads us to the next step where we brought all of the data that we just shared with you in addition to all of the other indicators and we presented everything from the beginning through to our entire full committee this now has our parents in the room everyone and we just shared the process what had happened because we break up into the work groups we brought all that work back together and presented that and at the end of that final meeting we landed with 95 percent of the entire committee would like to move forward and are recommending that sabas be the curriculum that we pilot and open up for public review and i know that this is a percentage pie chart but i just want to put emphasis at this point because we did lose some committee members along the way just because of uh different reasons but which tends to happen but at this point the sabes that's 20 individual committee members voting all the stakeholder groups are represented in there and the blue that four percent is only representing one person and that one person actually missed the final meeting and so when we had the rich conversation of the excitement and the data and dove into it um i really do believe if that one person was sitting in the room they probably i mean it was a collective decision so i don't know that i've been through committee work where we've ever gotten this close to kind of a 100 agreement so we went from it was very competitive the whole way but this last meeting was neat to see everybody on the same page so then that leads us to our next steps so we would like and tonight we're hoping to get the board approval to move forward on a pilot in a 60-day public review so what that would mean is following this meeting we would begin our 60-day public review we have different locations which i'll touch on in just a moment where the curriculum will be set up parents community members any stakeholder can show up they can pick it up they can look through it they can fill out a survey giving their feedback and comments all of that will be collected and brought back to the board at a later point and we will begin training our teachers that are going to pilot at this point we are excited to have representation from almost all of our secondary schools we were originally going to just try to pilot with a couple teachers to not disrupt and everyone has gotten excited so pretty much everyone wants to pilot it but we don't have the resources to allow everybody to pilot and so we are trying to share the wealth to get it piloted in as many of our secondary schools as possible and part of that would be getting the materials delivered as soon as possible as well and then moving into march we would throughout this entire next window of time we'll be collecting qualitative and quantitative data and feedback if that's through surveys checking in with our pilots jenna is going to personally be checking in as the english coordinator and then we're going to be sending out surveys and collecting data from the parents of the students that are being piloted to the students specifically and also to the teachers that are doing the pilot so we will get feedback from each of those stakeholder groups that are piloting and learning with this curriculum firsthand to bring back to the board at our next meeting and then that will continue through um april as well and then in april um we will conclude the public review compile all of the data and bring that all back to you guy to the governing board in may and at that point hope to make a recommendation to the board for an official final approval of the curriculum to move forward and i've said that we would like to start training immediately the day after we get board approval hoping that things go that way um so that we can take advantage of may to get as much teacher training done as possible and then into june we will continue with professional development training deliver all district-wide materials and then we also jenna is working on a plan for our study conference to present there as well so we're trying to think through different training modalities because we know we're in a position where we've got to be creative and have different options that way as well and then that training will continue into the next school year as well there will be a professional development plan for our new teacher induction for teachers that for whatever reason need additional training it's going to be a little bit of a journey and we're going to set goals around that as well so this timeline takes you through june but a lot of the things that i'm mentioning really will be a continuous effort on our our curriculum team's behalf and then with the public review i just wanted to share that currently for ela these are the four locations that we will be setting up for the public review pending the board's approval tonight we will have communication ready to go out tomorrow to our community to let them know that these locations are where they're set up our schools are going to help support this communication through their site councils their newsletters because we want to really receive feedback from our whole community and not just where we're piloting it and so there's going to be a lot of communication that supports getting our community members to these locations to provide some public comment so i have a couple questions um so next year we would pilot and then we would if we um decide that this is a worthy endeavor we would roll it out the year after in 2022 so going back to the timeline really quickly um and i know it's kind of hard to see um i hope that it's better on the paper or would we be sending this out to everyone in the 20 in the next school year this is a very weird yeah we are going to begin the pilot um this next quarter so the pilot would happen this school year the training would begin in may and then we would be rolling out this curriculum next school year i think this is a bit faster than um prior adoptions because i feel like timeline has changed completely yeah because usually it would start in the spring and go through the pilot in the fall and then you do that and that was our initial plan and then we have covet but we also heard from our community that we really need to move forward with an ela curriculum adoption well a fourth quarter pilot isn't unheard of but it is unusual okay so my next question is i would like you to review the history because my understanding is the last time we had a curriculum adoption for ela for seventh and eighth grade in ninth grade and ninth grade was let's see 11 years ago i believe because my daughter was involved in that pilot um and for high school 10 11 12 it's probably been 20 or 30 years and we have taken the time to look at that in review um and our truly at this point um we understand that the semester that we're starting in was based on feedback from our community and wanting to get that that ball rolling um sooner than later so i i do believe that at this point um even though it is taking place since we started in the fall and we're piloting in the spring which is different than the the last year or the last adoption however we really do have a very solid outlined plan to support our teachers in getting this going and if i can go back to even in the committee we had many english teachers and just even if i can point out the evidence of we were at first being more cautious with where we were going to pilot um and our teachers are reaching out like they are ready for this and they are wanting this and so um i i had to put a cap yeah we did we did so i'm sorry i just don't remember having a new ela curriculum in high school in the entire time that i've been in gilbert so that's been 20 years so i mean no wonder teachers are like please give us these materials help us to i mean because our whole process of the way we teach has changed dramatically in that time the standards have taught the fact that we're going to do presentations and speaking and writing and reading that's all very different than it was 20 or 25 years correct very true so and that actually led me um that was the perfect time for questions because that concludes what we have prepared for the ela portion are there any questions that we can address for the board tonight miss you jenny yeah um i have to actually so based on what mrs humphrey said tonight what we're voting on excuse me is allowing you to pilot it until the end of the year and then in may it'll come back to us correct my second question is having been in education as many years as i have mcgraw-hill's been around a whole long time i've never heard of is the same publisher as ready jen okay okay and one of the conversations that we had is for the first time ever we're going to have curriculum alignment from k-12 k-12 they're gonna have ready-gen and then you move into my perspectives which is their secondary program and so there's a clear especially in those middle grades four five six going into seven eight that is going to be a crucial bridge that we're going to finally be able to bring together so just off the did they change their name k-12 savis bought out pearson so they're just now saw this okay pearson i think now deals in some other education but not in uh k-12 curriculum anymore that's correct dr santa cruz thank you you answered my question before i asked it i was a magic guy i've been told that so the alignment is there materials are actually coming from the same vendor aligned with to be able to have consistent teacher support and training especially the k3 arena is really its own beast as you know learning learning to read is very different than reading to learn but those upper elementary grades leading into the success that's needed once they get to junior high is crucial and and christine who is our elementary english coordinator we talk about that all the time being able to bridge that gap because for a lot of districts draw sort of line in the sand and it's like kids move to seventh grade it's like oh you're on your own but now we can make it a smooth transition and the expectations are going to be there and so maybe our kids won't struggle as much when they jump into those secondary environments so that is a really exciting prospect for sure my compliments to you because in all the years that mr eugetti and i have been in the district i'm not sure we've ever really approximated that kind of alignment so kudos to you mr parker thank you for all your work my understanding is this is an existing curriculum that other school districts are currently using yes and as we all know it seems like everyone has a controversy over curriculum so had have we had any complaints or anything from other districts or parent groups or anything no no our our parents that were on the committee were great and um when i discussed that from the beginning until now uh these mcgraw-hill has and um sabes are two that are probably the longest standing so in the beginning there was um opinions about the two and as you see the progression of the data um all of our parents that were on the committee were very excited for this to be the recommendation that we bring forth you're welcome all right i just had one yes i i just have to add um the ready-gen i i went i was reading in the second grade classroom last year for the um read aloud weekend so i asked a question of the kids and you know when one little second grader popped up well in the text i saw this evidence in another list i was like oh my gosh these kids are really really learning in a a depth in a way that just wasn't available to us adults and it was just incredible so i'm excited to hear that this is a continuation of that and and i'm looking forward to reviewing the materials and i would encourage our community i mean there's been a lot of talk about what is the process for how we decide what's taught in the classroom and this is the process we have a committee with teachers and parents and administrators who go through and look at everything and make recommendations to the board we adopt it there's an opportunity to review the materials and look at them and give your feedback and then we will go through it again and pilot and and work to adopt and make sure that this works for every kid and i i really appreciate the way that you looked at um supporting all learners uh that was this i think there was a let's just say the pilot that my daughter went through was not fun she was not supported in her learning it was very very difficult we do have uh a variety of um special educators who are going to be part of this process whether they're in a co-teaching environment or whether they're in a resource classroom or you know for there's about four or five different special ed levels that are going to have access and be trained and use this as well so we can talk about the difference between modifying and adapting so our special ed teachers are also supported in this process um the extensions for those who absolutely did it so i i really appreciate that because it you know a pilot can be a little rocky and but i look forward to you know some really great materials because again things have really changed in the way that we teach and what we teach to our kids and you know they just um it's just amazing to watch them they are gaining skills and and gaining research skills and things at such a young age that i'm i'm just truly impressed so thank you thank you and are there any other questions anybody i guess i just wanted to ask and make sure you mentioned that we will do all we can to support the teachers as they transition into this and probably gain some ideas as we watch the pilot of how we can help the training and different things i just know again it's always it feels like yeah a big change and a lot of work and requirement but hopefully this will make it right better the the response that i got was i i because of everything that everybody's been through this year i really didn't expect this big of a response i knew just because of the quality of teachers that we have here at gilbert that there was going to be a lot of people who wanted to do it yes but i was sort of surprised considering how hard everybody's been working that oh yeah bring it on and to the point where like i was talking to dr cox about this is you know depending on this meeting like tomorrow like they're pounding on my door can we look can we can i'm like can you wait until i please we have this important meeting but tomorrow i'm going to be sending out the first asynchronous information so they could start doing it i already have 16 dates set up for virtual training that's staggered so they can do it within their own time frames so we already have a plan that plan will exist ongoing to meet the needs of all of our teachers and recognizing that it has to be phased in and that we'll have to um i mean some of us get ahead of ourselves and would love to have it perfected and ready to go tomorrow but we recognize that like with anything there has to be a plan implemented there so i appreciate that we're building a plan great and i look forward to seeing how this will affect our learning and growing through junior high and high school and the opportunities you know and the things that come back from our students so that's if that's it wonderful just thank you again we sure appreciate all that you've done and we're really excited and excited to hear the excitement that you have and the committee had for it it's great so thank you very much thank you thank you thanks jenna and then i will um i'm just going to jump right in and transition and bring up miss souffrey our world language coordinator hi sue and sue led the mandarin adoption and this part of the presentation i'm going to go through a little bit more quickly just because a lot of the timelines and pieces that i explained of the processes that we went through were very much the same the nice part being new in my role is that i was able to have them kind of go side by side so feel free to ask any questions along the way but the procedure the process and the timeline has been consistent with what we just discussed in ela and um with the work group for mandarin just one of the biggest differences that i would like to point out is for the 712 ela that's every campus all of our students take those classes whereas with mandarin we're just very excited um this year that we were able to add and offer this opportunity to our students and so at this point now that we are providing this opportunity to our students we feel that it is important to formally adopt a curriculum which is what has led us to this point in moving forward and it is not it's since it is an elective language course um the committee did have less people um but we did have representation from the different levels and we did have a different stakeholder like there were parents there were junior high and high school so very similar to what we went through the size was just a little bit on a smaller scale and so um with that uh and we had administrate administrator representation as well the criteria for the mandarin does differ so i just want to take a moment to go through that we kept with the same outline the alignment to the arizona world language academic standards and just to share those with this group those include three modes of communication interpersonal interpretive and presentational we included the arizona college and career readiness literacy standards and the cultural competence components in addition to those standards we wanted to look at proficiency based assessments because moder or world languages have gone from more reading and writing to more of that presentational standards and so we felt that that was really important to include the differentiation of instruction for all students the scaffolding of learning between different levels and level one and two and moving on to our higher levels and then making sure equally that the instructor supports were there for digital resources uh appropriate practice and opportunities for our students and the different supports that all of our students could benefit from so the the bottom half of that criteria very similar to the the last committee so uh where mandarin i'm there's a little bit of a difference in the process because when sue when miss fry sent out for the call for resources and we received several and when we first at our first committee and we were doing a review of all of them um out of all of the ones that we reviewed i believe there were seven there were only two that actually met the criteria that gilbert public schools believed was an adequate criteria so that saved us having to get it down to the finalists these just became the two finalists because they were the two that had the highest rating so the two that we are looking at are and the um easy steps to chinese the second edition so our committee the work group went through the exact same process that i just discussed and they also went through the vendor presentations as well with these two vendors and i pulled some data just on some of the uh points to show the difference between the two curriculums similar to what i just went through but these hit on the different criteria so this one is looking at the alignment to the arizona college and career readiness standards and you can see that there is a 10 point difference that separated the two and then moving on to the proficiency based assessments there is a three-point difference moving on to differentiation of instruction you'll see a three-point difference as well and then again similar to ela but i just think it's really important to put emphasis on when it came to the digital resources which support the teachers and allow them to differentiate their instruction provide enrichment for the high-end students provide intervention and supports for our students that are maybe struggling that's all packaged within these digital resources and we were thrilled to see that the one vendor zhang mong was at 56 whereas the easy steps to chinese was at 35 so there's a pretty significant difference between those two data points and then when we looked at all of our data and again these were just some that we wanted to highlight to show where the committee was at we brought our full committee back together we looked at the vendor presentations and the all of the data points and it led down to a 30-point difference between the two vendors so with the two vendors that we looked at here the one that we would like to make a recommendation to move forward with a pilot and public review would be the zheng bang zhang bong um for the committee now the timeline for next steps is equally the same we obviously the piloting would be at less locations we do have a teacher that is currently teaching mandarin so there is the opportunity to add that in there and we've already started the conversations and letting her know that what the process is and similar we are ready to move forward tomorrow with delivering what is needed having conversations and moving forth with the public review and the pilot and for the public review for the modern language because we have less schools that will be utilizing this curriculum we have it set up at three locations um and also with having two at the same time we wanted to make sure that we had decent representation at the different locations both ela and mandarin will have a spot at the district office as the central location and we'll have it separated out so that there's not confusion between the two so that they um if somebody is wanting to review both that would be the location that they would be able to come and have the opportunity to look at both so i know i went through again i that one was a little bit quicker just because a lot of the procedures and processes are exactly the same but i want to turn it over to see if you guys if the board has any questions for me in regard to the mandarin recommendation dr santa cruz just a mundane question i apologize for my ignorance here but do we have representation from among all of our student body individuals who might be interested in mandarin because we are only at one physical location is that right or two okay but we're using the distance learning classrooms for two more high schools four campuses have the opportunity to participate in the community and do you have any uh idea of how many students are involved at this point are currently enrolled in union she has four full classes so i'm going to guess around 120 100 probably but more like 115. okay very good i know exactly but i could check oh i'm sorry first time up here at the table i'm sorry i was using my teacher voice it's all good i believe there's about 115 but i could certainly check on that no that's not necessary i'm just curious this is the first year yes and we really do believe that um adopting a curriculum and being able to promote that more and getting that out will i mean we really are going to expect to see exponential growth with this program um and it allows us to just be that much more competitive within gilbert public schools and i think for it to be the first year to have that many students shows the interest that our students are wanting to take advantage of this opportunity so so are we going to start thinking about a dual language mandarin program for elementary kids there are conversations and we are currently researching is that a question or a statement both right i would like to add that it is tied very strongly to the ib program at gilbert high school as well so they're they're promoting it they're integrating it into their ib standards and requirements just a follow-up to that so there is junior high opportunities at this point is it the same class at junior high that it is at the high school or is it a different like is it a is it mandarin one at the junior high or you could take mandarin one at the high school later right we are going to take a currently yes okay i like that i like the opportunities so i i think opportunities are good and i think to have them again in the high school is good and again with the distance learning at this point to offer to our other campuses when we can't when we don't have that many mandarin teachers i know that's a challenge as a matter correct yeah did you all right now i got to ask did you pick up any of the language through this process only the bad words although dr cox has done a great job pronouncing the title of the book which i struggled with for the whole first month i was impressed nice job i was mortified to say it wrong so i practiced all right any other follow-up questions anything else board members did we have input from i mean since we only have one teacher at this point did we give her input an opportunity to she was a member of the community okay she was the member of the committee she was the first member of the game did we have any native speakers that looked at it as well and um we did have parent representation um and what the parent actually is also an educator in um another setting and so and also a native speaker and a native speaker okay so we felt very confident um which was when we very first were getting going that was we wanted to make sure that somebody that was looking and um reviewing the materials did have that so we we feel like we had that representation amongst the committee well i really appreciate all the hard work on both the ela and the mandarin i mean these are really important curriculum adoptions and and putting us you know definitely in to the 21st century and i really appreciate that so thank you so much thank you all right thank you appreciate it good job thank you have a great night thank you all right board members this brings us to an adjournment of the work study 3.01 and we will now move to 4.01 to begin our brief board business meeting and i will ask miss wilson for uh oops that was called to order and then 4.02 i'll ask miss wilson for a roll call dr charles santa cruz here mr bill parker here miss laurie wood here michele eugetti here miss jill humphreys here madam president all board members are present you have a quorum thank you miss wilson we'll now move to 4.03 dr mccord proclamation for school counselors week yes thank you madam president governing board members uh i want to read a proclamation for you for national school counseling week that is february 7th through the 11th for 2022.
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