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whereas school counselors are employed in public and private schools to help students reach their full potential and whereas school counselors are actively committed to helping students explore their ability strengths interests and talents as these traits relate to career awareness and development whereas school counselors help parents focus on ways to further the educational personal and social growth of their children and whereas school counselors work with teachers and other educators to help students explore the potential and set realistic goals for themselves and whereas school counselors seek to identify and utilize community resources that can enhance and complement comprehensive school counseling programs and help students become productive members of society and whereas comprehensive developmental school counseling programs are considered an integral part of the educational process that enables all students to achieve success in school therefore we myself superintendent shane mccord and gps governing board do hereby proclaim february 7th through 11th 2022 as national school counseling week thank you to all of our school counselors yes and on behalf of the board i would thank all of our school counselors as well and that take this opportunity to thank them for all that they do thank you dr mccord we will now move to 5.01 with the consent agenda items i'd like an approval of the consent agenda item board members is there a motion i move that we approve the consent agenda items as presented thank you miss eugetti is there a second second thank you mr parker it's been moved and seconded that we approve the consent agenda items i would like to call for a vote all those in favor that we approve the consent agenda items please vote aye aye if there's any opposed please say nay okay that has passed five zero thank you and now we'll move to six the action items and begin with 6.01 fy 2022 revised budget number two dr mccord thinking about the president governing board members all three items under the action items tonight have been presented to you and we are requesting your approval thank you board members may i have a motion on 6.01 fy 2022 revised budget number two so moved thank you dr santa cruz is there second second thank you mrs humphries we have it's been moved and seconded that we approve fy 2022 revised budget number two is there any discussion as we already discussed it in the work study just previous to this and seeing there's no further discussion i will ask for a vote all those in favor of approving fy 2022 revised budget number two please vote by saying aye aye any opposed please say nay that has passed five zero thank you and now six point two english language arts the ela textbook pilot adoption for grades 7 through 12 which they've indicated that we will um the soviets curriculum correct okay um board members is there a motion i moved thank you dr santa cruz and thank you miss humphries it's been moved and seconded that we approve savis as the english english language arts textbook pilot adoption for grades 7 through 12.

is there any discussion right similarly there's no further discussion as we've had an opportunity already tonight in our work study so i will ask for the vote all those in favor of approving as as indicated please vote by saying aye aye turned it off thank you any opposed please say nay excellent that will pass 5-0 thank you and then we'll move on to 6.03 the mandarin textbook pilot adoption for grades 7 through 12. i'm not going to be able to say that is it zen bong bong okay thank you that's what has been put forward is there a motion i move that we approve zen bong uh vice what was the company i don't remember anyways the mandarin textbook highlighted option for grades 7 through 12.

thank you miss humphries is there a second thank you mr parker it's been moved and seconded that we approve the zenbong as the mandarin textbook pilot adoption for grades seven through twelve is there any discussion okay no further discussion i will call for the vote all those in favor of this textbook adoption please signify by saying aye aye any opposed please say nay okay that has also passed five zero thank you we are now at 7 the adjournment of our brief board business meeting and i would ask for 7.01 an adjournment is there a motion so moved thank you miss humphries is there a second second thank you mr eugetti it's been moved and seconded that we adjourn is there i'll ask for a vote all those in favor please vote by saying aye aye any opposed by nay okay we are adjourned thank you very much for the presentations tonight and board members for for your votes tonight as well i believe do we need to get signatures okay so we'll get our signatures thank you

test one two test one two video where's the video okay test one two test one two something's going let's see now you've lost six in a row twice did oh oh come on [Music] test one two test one two oh come on test one two test one two gosh dang it i have sound but not video okay default oh how can i manage the broadcast without yeah i'm trying to get well i've got audio going to oh i've got video now what the hell did i do right well i'm trying to get this to where we could also do a youtube broadcast during some stage so people don't have to pay i have no idea what i just did right but now i've got it working right now oh god i have no idea what i just did right now okay testing one two going back and forth testing one two one two one two okay now we've got the scoreboard if i go kind of keep it like this if we go back and forth you got the scoreboard at both sides it's not super close i wonder just what what did i do to make this work uh it's got the microphone right it's got the analog capture usb was it configure video is that what i did ah that's what i did i set it to auto boy it's video input to audio that is the key oh this is wonderful audio input extended nope not that that but that s selection eight uh yeah it's got the microphone right it's got the capture usb configure video was the key and then choose the proper input and i'm talking to myself it's video input to audio that is the key yeah lucas i'm watching i'm was watching it on my phone so i was getting feedback from that that was making it sound and i could still i mean it sees i don't know if i can play with the audio settings it sees the microphone okay i don't know i'll have to fiddle here's advanced audio settings uh [Music] balance all that just pretty much normal well whatever normal is but i'm just so tickled that it's working that is the highlight of the day oh boy okay all righty i'm going to shut this off and try it again tomorrow and see if i can set up a scheduled time and then have everything ready to go and see if it just comes on automatically or if i still have to uh and see how it creates a link but this is this will work because if we go back and forth from one end zone to the other not end zone into the core to the other people will be able to see the scoreboard at either end so that solves the problem of needing a second camera uh and i'm using that blue mic so yay so now we can do this along with the nfhs substate fantastic okay i'm going to stop this and i didn't even have to open up youtube it's directly connected to youtube the auto configuration wizard was the key so it's a good thing i watched all those videos okay i'll see you tomorrow probably lucas signing off

select a committee chair i will open the floor for nominations for committee chair of the superintendent evaluation committee i'll nominate mrs cooper please nominated by kate anyone cared a second second second thank you teresa all those in favor signify by saying aye hi hi with that oh there's lauren okay i will turn it over to you gladys mrs cooper i'm not sure if you heard that uh rachel turned the meeting over to you oh i'm sorry i didn't hear uh my little thing just came up in the neck connection again i don't know what's that so i i guess you'll have to go back to uh thank you all for uh attend this meeting and all our committees are very important and at any time that you can't hear me uh just raise your finger and i'll know that um you can't hear me as i talk i want to thank captain for uh taking the minutes uh i don't anticipate a long meeting uh i i think this meeting should be our first thought as to how we'll go about um about the process of evaluating our superintendent and i thank the chairperson for the information that she sent out to make sure that everyone was prepared looked at the the information and red information for tonight so my thing is to get your film as to looking at the timeline that we have to to in um to evaluate the superintendent first as a group to i think that we should come up with uh our own goals look at those goals place those goals with the superintendent goals and then that will help us in our former evaluation uh which needs to be completed by the end of june so that's you know i'll open it up for any type of discussion and uh we all had information that our chairperson had uh forward to us we can ask questions concerning the whole cave form there was a short form and there was a very limited one and i think you know rachel has been with us quite a few years on the board and i think if we look at the really lengthy form we can better use the condensed form a little bit but that's us as the group deciding which way that we want to go so uh at this point uh i saw turn it over to our chairperson if she sort of want to add anything else to those ones that we i just finished talking about sure um i had envisioned the board um filling out you know our own self-evaluation at the end of the year um and coming back at the beginning of the year to talk through those results um but just want to make sure you know if we're setting any goals that they kind of align with with that process um and then also just to let especially for our new members know you know kind of what the superintendent process looks like there is a truncated timeline within that very long document um is page 11 perhaps there's a recommended evaluation uh timeline flow chart um that is only recommended and um and then following that is you know where you see the first um the page right after that page 12 is you know the growth in student achievement followed by educational leadership organizational management community relations and so forth is what we typically use at the end of the year to evaluate the superintendent and and make a written written evaluation to those bullet points um so i don't know if there are any questions or any thoughts concerning the process i think the questions uh i know that they've been given out this week and we've been having meetings all week and i know uh you know we didn't afford to digest and especially our new board members it's a lot of information to digest and you're trying to come to all the other meetings too and digest what's going on so if we look at the time frame where we are now i to me i as as if you selected me as a chairperson and and i would do my best to uphold and do what's right as a chairperson and be the leader that you put the confidence in me to do that at our next meeting i will ask that everyone that's on that committee will have gone through all the information and the committee will get together and say okay these are the four goals these are the six goals we would like to come up with as a board and then we will present those goals may be two four six to the entire board so the entire board would know what we're doing and then if the entire board approves it then come uh and over the years that i've been over the uh been on the board we've always uh managed to complete the superintendent evaluation process about the first course no later than the second week in june so if we look at the time frame and what we need to do how we need to work as a committee and then bring this back to the board get their approval and then at at another point then we will sit down or the chairperson can sit down with the superintendent and and do what we need to do to make this process work for the board and uh our leader so that's where i'm sort of coming from and when you say when to set goals you're talking about our own board goals right our own board goals okay so committee members should come back with a few board goals that they'd like to to be considered right right that's what i'm asking you know if everyone is in agreement with that because you know i might bring one goal so uh kate might bring two or three and then we as a board work together and look at those goals because i know everyone has the superintendent goals whether you have them with you right now uh have studied them we can look at them and see what will work both for us as a board and what's going to match with the superintendent goes and that should be uh our goal are there any questions so i do i have a question are we basing it off of the list that you've given us in this or off of the superintendent's goals of what he provided us with or we're doing both we're good we're doing our own goals not so much we can look at the his goals yes but you don't want to bring anything that's going to be con conversa that's not the right word you know uh to his goals so you know we can look at his goal and then we can set our goals as the group and then we bring it to the entire board because the entire board will have to uh vote on okay um if i'm understanding correctly and i'm just repeating this for my own benefit here so apologies if everybody's gotten this already but um if in order to like put our own goals together you know we have to look at sort of like what what we're supposed to be doing as a board but we also have to look at how that work is being conducted alongside what the superintendent is setting us as his goals for the district um because those two things dovetail is that correct yes okay thank you and then so um now i have a question i guess as far as like the process because obviously we just had some folks uh join the board in january um we're not going to be able to do a mid-year evaluation on that timeline so would we be doing our own board self-evaluation um alongside the evaluation for the superintendent at the end of the year or would we would we be looking at some kind because you know according to this we would be starting that board self-evaluation again in you know at the end of the summer okay i'm sorry i'm thinking about roles and responsibility that's uh i think our chairperson has set up for march so okay okay i'm sorry kate go ahead and finish your question no that that was it i just want to get a sense of like you know we're going to set these goals for the board um and i'm just wondering what your thoughts are as far as when we would conduct that board self-evaluation if we do if we would do that alongside the evaluation we're also doing for mr wallston when we do the superintendent evaluation at the end of the year um knowing that when we come back in you know september or even at the end of august we would be looking to restart that process of the board self-evaluation again and set new goals at least according to the the timeline that's in the information yeah okay yes yes i agree yes okay thank you yeah i mean it doesn't have to be right alongside well you know it's not on a strict timeline where where the superintendent's evaluation is more like we have to do it at that you know the beginning of june we could do it later in june we could we could have it at the you know the beginning of august yeah okay yeah okay yeah thank you but that that outcome of that self-evaluation can help drive our goals for the following year right um i guess my next question is because we're not going to be meeting my thing is to ask all the committee members what would be and i'm thankful probably the last week in february or a first week in uh in march that they committed to get together and come back and we have those goals that we are sort of suggesting as a group and look at because we don't want to get into april may and graduations and all the other things are going on and we don't have time to put the amount of time that we need to do because to me this is not a rush uh committee that you have to come in and rush and do things and sometimes it has been in the past we had to take an extra two or three meetings to really get things done so uh i'm just sort of looking at a date that we can come together as a group and bring together uh our own goals and then we can sort of see where we're at what would be the next step and we have to sort of look at stay with the time frame okay i know the time frame we don't have to abide by but you know there's a reason why we have a time frame so for me the first week in march would be a lot easier than the end of february because i'm going to be away the end of february so i don't know if that's agreeable to other folks as well okay whenever you set a time it's okay with me if i'm alive so is there what date in march march 2nd is ash wednesday okay so that's in the first week if that's what you're considering the first week because it is february 28th and march 1st same time march 1st work for you that's a tuesday are you asking me or gladys everybody we all need to be there hopefully if the date doesn't work you know the only way that we know it doesn't work for you you have to let us know like i said uh you know because i don't know what people uh schedules is they might have uh arranged to go on a vacation just let us know and we'll go down to another date that date works for me it works for me it works for me okay so we got that on the center there okay is that l oh maybe that's al okay yeah that's al okay okay so march 1st it is at 6 30 does that work or early or later yes 6 30 6 30 okay yes ma'am okay i you know i i know i'm the oldest person up there on the screen but you know uh you can call me glitter thank you gladys call me terry okay okay so we got a general item one time okay uh um i think we sort of accomplished what we had set out to do and unless someone has uh any questions uh and i know that uh to our new board members you can always call the chairperson or you know um anything that i can do to help assist or ask a question uh if i don't know the answer i'll get the answer for you okay so uh i know our superintendent's own i don't know does he have a few words to say hi miss cooper i'm just on just making myself available for the committee just in the event there are any questions or clarifications i can provide okay thank you mr walsh oh my pleasure thank you i don't have any other questions or any other uh thing to move this forward i would like to say to our committee members please read the information because the only way that you can be able to make a precise decision and help us come along come together with the recommendation as the goals for the board is to read the material and you need some extra material or something different you know our chair person she's in charge you know she can get the extra information that you need from cave or whoever okay and uh you know so we can get this done so if there's no other questions manage your question one question yes yes theresa is it possible to get what last year's stuff look like last year's goals i don't know that yeah that the goals that we had in last year yes you can request that from uh the superintendent secretary okay thank you any other questions okay thank you guys so very much and we'll look forward to our next meeting at 6 30 on march this second i think okay first march this first the march first thank you katherine okay uh i need a motion to adjourn this meeting i'll make a motion to adjourn motion made by catherine i will say your second second by kay and could i hear everyone say good night good night good night

[Music] test one two live stream test okay [Music] wow [Music] no no no [Music] hello [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] no [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] now [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] so [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Applause] [Music] so [Music] high school district voter trustees meeting of february well actually john are we good all right anaheim union high school district board of trustees meeting of february 3rd 2022 is called to order at 2 32 p.m the following members are present anna el piercy anne-marie randall trejo kathy smith is running late and uh brian o'neill is absent staff has requested the following amendments to the agenda i'm going to give a little bit of time for everybody to get prepared here so page two of the agenda pull closed session item 5.7 page two of the agenda close session item 5.8 full expulsion number 21-10 and then page 12 of the agenda full item 12.15 and 12.15 and page 15 of the agenda item 12.21 correct the budget implication to six thousand seven hundred and twenty dollars again that's page fifteen of the agenda item twelve twenty two one correct budget implication to six thousand seven hundred and twenty dollars and then exhibit a a replace page seven to include the contractor's license number and then exhibit qq replace the page one to include fernando romero what oh okay and there comes uh kathy smith at 2 34.

call to order the uh Chico Unified Workshop uh featuring today the Career Technical Ed uh programs as one of our first uh items so with that uh I ask you to salute the flag pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right so um because there's appears to be some confusion about the distinction between the workshop board meetings and the regular board meetings I have uh a little educational piece to read um the board voted on January 19th to modify the meeting agenda format for the special board meeting workshops as noted on the meeting agenda tonight's meeting will begin with the February Workshop as I said Career Technical aded which is anticipated to be approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes the board will begin the discussion action calendar which includes the California Voting Rights Act at approximately 6:30 as a reminder announcements are to share community and school events open to Chico UniFi District families or School related functions or Awards public comments will be first taken from those who submit speaker card request in advance if time remains after hearing from those who have submitted a speaker card the board may hear from individuals in attendance that did not submit a speaker card individual speaker comments are limited to 3 minutes total public input on anyone subject or agenda item will be limited limited to 30 minutes this may be extended at the discretion of the board in the event of numerous requests to address the same item the board May select representatives to speak on each side of the item items from the floor which is a discussion related to a topic that is not listed on the posted board agenda is an agenda item on the regular Board of Education meetings not on the special board or Workshops the the next regular board meeting is on Wednesday December I'm sorry February 16th 2022 at any time members of the public May submit public comment to all board members by emailing public comment at Chico unified.org thank you for participating by being here so with that um under announcements one person did submit a speaker card and that is apparent Kimberly snip okay so not seeing her here then um we will move on to our consent calendar um and business services approval of the contracts drer we do have one announcement okay I thought we didn't so February 7th through 11th is uh National School counselor's week we will bring we be bringing a resolution to the board at our next board meeting but this year it happens to fall between this meeting and the next one so we just wanted to make um a recognition of our counselors It's the intent to focus public attention on the contribution of school counselors in the United States school systems especially in regards to the increased mental health needs due to the coid pandemic and like I said we'll be bringing forth a resolution next time but we just at least one to make an announcement that we're recognizing our counselors that have been working very hard hard in our district yes thank you and they've been uh playing an increasing role as well all right so then to the consent calendar Business Services um do I have uh questions or comments does any board member wish to make a motion I move passage to the consent calendar okay is there a second I'll second motion all right so Mr tennis and uh Robin Miss Robinson have moved uh and seconded um any questions or further discussion all right I'll call for a roll vote since this our first one so I'm sorry uh Robinson I Kaiser I Dolby I tennis I all right so four to nothing all right thank you all okay with that we move to the central uh Workshop topic which is uh Career Technical Ed and we have Tiffany heringer is that right so I'd like to first introduce Tina Kean who the board and Community are very familiar with she is our director of state and federal programs and she will uh introduce the topic and our presenters good evening good evening sorry about that uh thank you for being uh so warm and hospitable tonight to introduce uh the people that we have here with us I have Tiffany heringer with me sitting down there she'll be coming up in a moment Tiffany is our new CTE coordinator in Chico Unified this year we're very excited to have a position that can support all of our CTE programs to a very deep degree Tiffany's put together a very comprehensive presentation for you tonight on our Chico Unified Career Technical educ ation program or commonly referred to as CTE and I want to welcome Tiffany to come on up we also have teachers and students here that she will introduce along the way and in advance I want to thank those folks all for being here tonight as well as extending a welcome to their families who are sitting in the audience as well so we do have 75 minutes for our presentation tonight I'm going to assist Tiffany as the timekeeper so if you see me raise my hand or make some kind of wiggle please don't uh please just ignore that um and Tiffany is also to note has built- in question times during the presentation that um she can obviously welcome questions along the way so sit back relax Tiffany come on up take it away hello hello welcome um like you said my name is Tiffany heringer um I'm the CTE Ator um I'm going to start with a brief overview of CTE as a whole in our district and then invite um several of our programs up to talk to you guys um about your their program specifically all right so CTE in Chi unified um covers nine of our high demand industry sectors meaning that these are industry sectors that um have a high opportunity of having jobs openings in currently and in the projected future so we are teaching students careers that that they have the opportunity to actually go into so it's it's really we base that on labor statistic data our nine industry sectors um within that we have 21 Pathways um and a pathway is a minimum of two sequential courses that they can take but some of our Pathways have up to four in five courses that a kid can take in a single specific subject at Chico High we have agriculture mechanics architecture cyber security Digital Arts Engineering Floral Design patient care ornamental horiculture Robotics and software design and sustainable agriculture science and at Pleasant Valley we have architecture design Child Development commercial Arts education engineering food service and Hospitality graphic arts media arts patient care public service and Welding fabrication so you can see we have a wide variety of different um career Pathways that we have um available to for students to take it's really a fantastic opportunity and in my experience coming from outside the district it's really impressive that there's this much CTE um within the two compreh Comprehensive High Schools so it's really something that Chico UniFi should be proud of within our presentation tonight um I'm going to talk to you a little bit about our curricular achievements and then I'm going to hand it over to our programs to talk we have teachers and students that are here that's going to cover eight of our um 21 Pathways after that I'm going to talk about our funding sources and then give you some updates on our CTE facilities so curric curricular wise um we have a lot of opportunities for students as well so we have 14 sections of dual enrollment and we have 17 classes that receive articulation credit both of these two things are ways for students to get college credits while they're still in high school a little bit of the difference between the two so these are our dual enrollment classes for dual enrollments students receive an actual grade on a but College transcript as if they had taken the the class at but College for articulation students receive credits on a transcript so that's really the main difference between the two um between dual enrollment and articulation any questions so far I'm going fast yeah thank you um with bu College being um partially online right now are any of our CTE courses that that we uh share being impacted that you know of not that I know of because they are all classes taught at the high school level by our high school teachers even the dual enrollment courses okay then I misunderstood part of never mind yeah yeah the dual enrollment courses are taught by chica unified staff um that meet the qualifications to be Community College um professors yeah that's a great question um we also have expanded the crack the career code um which is a partnership with bu County Office of Education this is um an opportunity for eighth graders to um get exposed to careers that are out there last year we piloted it with one course at Marsh High SCH Marsh junior high school and this year all eighth graders at Marsh Junior High School are getting that experience and our plan is to hopefully expand that to all of the middle schools at some point so that's a really great um achievement that we've made this year as well and then we have two new um Pathways so we have one new pathway this year that's been offered in commercial arts and then a new pathway that is um planned for next year um in a new culinary um class um focused on um pastries and baking and Barista work so that's some of the overview of our curricular um achievements yeah um whoa my microphone's loud again um the crack the career code um for the eighth graders that's a required class for eighth graders to take at Marsh it's a um a series of lessons it's five lessons that bu County Office comes in and and does with the class um and it's embedded in their science class okay I was kind of curious about where that was fitting in um because I they're kind of limited even with their amount of electives that they even get to to take so cool thanks yeah it's really a week out of their um curriculum so right with that um I we're at the point where I'm going to invite our our teachers to come up so we are going to start with our architecture and engineering program with Scott farar after he comes up John Andrews will follow him and then Melanie and uh Tammy Taylor will come up to talk to the about their medical Pathways and Susan Solin will end with her education pathway this is Scott farore would you like this you want me to oh no hello uh thank you very much for having us here uh it is always wonderful to have students uh uh approach and let you know what is happening in the classroom uh we are going to be starting off with Ben here and he is working with a program called build it uh design build design build yeah so uh design build is a program it starts in uh January 1st and goes till May 5th um we will submit plans to um the competition uh February 1st we submitted those last last night and then coming May 4th and 5th we will take 15 students down to Sacramento and they will be building a structure over a period of two days um and this will help educate them about what what it means to build structures um we're going to fund this through uh vce by contractor exchange they have a pass through fund that is used to fund local projects that teach students um how to build things and so that'll fund our materials and then we've had multiple industry experts come in um uh green build or sorry GBC California or green build building contractors California has come into our class and taught us about um hers ratings and different uh building methods along with proframe construction has come in and taught us how to frame a tiny shed they have been learning they have already been learning so much it's it's a it's amazing we've already had several people come in we uh um have already got the frame structure built for a shed which is our little testing unit that we're doing uh before moving on to a tiny house uh which will eventually be donated to one of the fire victims as they are building their current house as well um so I think this is fabulous that the students get involved with this type of program okay so were there any questions about about this go yes please um with the with this the the future of the tiny house build um is there a model that we're basing the program off of are there other schools that we've kind of already seen this go through yeah so there's about 30 schools involved in the competition so far um this will be Chico year Chico High's first year competing we just competed in the uh design competition which was strictly a design um and this year we're doing the open competition with the shed so what we're doing is we're actually designing a full uh home in-house we're going to submit it to County go through plan checks go through the full process to get it actually built as a structure and then transport it and put it on a site oh that's awesome great thank you thank you so I just wanted to say that a couple of years ago Chico State construction students uh did something very similar for the victims of um the floods uh in Louisiana so this is phenomenal that you guys are I won't say following in their footsteps I will say making your own path thank you means a lot but the program that they're using is called Autodesk Revit which is a program that the actual professionals use and so they they've been you've been learning a lot oh yeah oh yeah okay okay so the next one that we're going to be calling up here is uh create which is another competition that we ended up uh being involved with uh that was the fall semester so we would have started that in September and we just finished it up uh about a week or two ago so I'm going to have some of my students come up here um we did win some of the awards there uh create was basically an architecture event where they actually design an Autodesk uh Revit they actually get to choose what type of CTE program building they want to build on the campus and then design that building uh use Architects we actually had she builds come in and a couple of other Architects come in uh to actually work with the students to let them know oh you need this you need that and um so it was a fabulous little event and we came back with some of the hardware we actually won Chico High School became on the map because we won five of the seven Awards which was uh pretty amazing question yes what were the awards that you won so the awards great great question so we have right here uh this is the champion so we won first place we went against schools that were in yeah San Diego La Sacramento San Francisco um all over this is a traveling trophy so it will permanently say Chico High School on the trophy and we have a sibling team right here that actually won the award okay any questions with for these two right here well I don't think you can just say siblings so they have to say something okay hi my name is McKenna Winson um this is my brother Mason and we were part of the group that um won the competition for create we decided to build a culinary arts building at our school because we um don't have that and a lot of the students have been interested in it so we decided to why not potentially give them something they can use in the future fantastic yes there were a couple other students that were part of the competition they were not able to make it today unfortunately uh we also had a model where they actually had to uh build to contractor level uh some type of model for the building and the winner this year was Ben okay so uh what we did for the competition is we uh assembled a decking system so we designed a two-story classroom for uh floral design and hor culture and so our Second Story was going to be assembled with a metal sheeting um platform that you pour concrete into and so we Bend to the metal sheeting assembled it and then poured concrete into it as a part of our competition excellent and then the the other two word or couple of the other words that we won uh we actually won best presentation that was a different uh one unfortunately the the person who won that was not able to attend today uh we also won student leader for the State of California uh so that was uh Grace uh Becker she's not able to be here today unfortunately um so she's a senior in the class and then um actually came away with a rookie teacher of the year so so there we go okay another program that we have in the class is called Society of women Engineers it is part of Chico State and here we go hi my name is ashin fortino and I am president of the Society of women Engineers next Club um this is a chapter of the Society of women Engineers Club which is at Chico State and I started it uh as a freshman to continue working with the imagineer day which they hold every year as an event for kids of all ages in Chico to learn more about engineering and um unfortunately there was the co disruption as soon as I started the club so we weren't able to participate until this year we're planning on having we're planning on making a lab and we're going to be able to be teaching some of the kids how to actually do that where they um use small robots and they follow a track in case of Co we do have plans to make an online option just in case it would be a different lab but we'd find something um we are also reaching out to the middle schools in Chico and we're going to try and connect with them to do events or field trips to promote more stem and Engineering over there thank you that sounds fantastic did do you want to say something [Laughter] too very impressive okay we got another I have a question um when did your interest interest in engineering start uh I've gone to all seven years they've had the event going on uh since they started it and I'm actually the only person that's gone to all of those years but that's been did yeah have you felt supported even at the middle school level here for your interest in in that or has it really took off since you were able to join the programs um at the high school level I didn't do any of the stem programs in middle school but but in high school I've done three years at the of the architecture program how about your colleagues here um this is my first year at Chico so it's really been my first year with the school that promotes engineering so this has definitely been a fun experience that I've grown to love and hope to continue with my future education at Chico awesome are you a senior this year I'm a sophomore sophomore got it thanks I'm a Junior M is a senior okay got it thank you so for somebody who didn't want to talk did gotcha Dr kais thank you um I think it was about 10 years ago when I first discovered that there was such a thing as women in construction and Engineering then the closest chapter was Sacramento so it got it got uh broadened to be available here and I'm just thrilled at the participation of our students especially our ladies thank you so much yeah very good also want to just add that I feel like we have some really good role models in our district at the district level um in in this field too so it's pretty pretty great that you know we got some strong women uh in in construction and Engineering um in our in our whole District any other questions for our engineering and architecture group before they head out I think it's going to be hard to beat them boy all right so our next program is our ICT program and John Andrews is going to come and speak on that behalf yes okay uh hello my name is Jonathan Andrew I teach information communication technology Chico High School uh consists of two different Pathways uh one's uh information software systems and one's in Software System development one's Hardware one's software um this fall we uh really participate heavily in the uh Vex competition uh which is just a small robot uh we have two of our teams over here that participated that are driving over um we were actually held one of the tournaments at Chico High School this year too so uh we had 27 teams that signed up 25 showed up and we held all the event um one of our teams uh won a trophy judges award trophy up at Chasta High School for the battle of the north uh for basically a perseverance because they kept at it uh even throughout the entire match most things didn't go right for them but they still had fun they came up there uh that same team got the sportsmanship award because they were helping out other teams at the Iron Cow classic the one that we held at uh Chico High School um most of those teams actually competed in skills USA as well uh which is our Career Technical education organization um so that's on the robotic side things uh that leads into this semester into more of the Drone and design drone design Theory type class uh those students who are taking the aonics and drones class are actually going to be getting their uh commercial drone p license uh if they passed the test oh um the pictures you see up are of a couple of uh of one opportunity we had to do a flight operation out by Hena arms when they're uh discing it for the pumpkin patch uh we filmed parts of prom last year we were at uh graduation uh we managed to be able to figure out how to get our drone camera to hook up to this uh video system that was being broadcast and so we are an extra camera for them as well as just taking footage um we are at homecoming this year we're looking for every opportunity we can to get more drones out there and more of our students certified so they can earn money piloting too um yes would you guys have any availability to put a drone at our board meetings like camera and shining it on us you laugh I thought about it and then I thought maybe not this one I think it'd be fun you get some you know zoom in on like our our faces when really important decisions are being made I think put cards in yeah we'd get a away I think we might get a much like bigger online following don't you think yeah I think so I think so so you probably recognize a few of the students that were from the engineering architecture so we have a lot of people doing a lot of things um in addition to S and skills USA we also have a Mesa Club on campus and a robotics team besides the class and so we we're doing a lot in the industrial technology department um between Scotty and myself um it feels like we're making progress we're clicking we're humming and we're doing great things and the kids are really achieving um you heard about sweet like kolina Faro come on up here and talk about Mesa for a little bit all right hello um my name is Carolina and I wanted to talk about mess a little bit so um this is actually just my second year at Chico and I'm a senior and all that but um I'm actually from the Bay Area are and over there you know everything is very competitive when it comes to stem engineering especially uh women in engineering uh minorities in engineering so I just wanted to create a space for um marginalized communities of that type especially moving here at Chico uh so that's why I founded Mesa um just this year and I kind of got it rolling uh it's basically just a type of club that um really branches out to all communities and and helps them pursue a career and stem there's a lot of uh scholarships also available uh for uh those who participate in Messa so since this is my fourth year doing Messa I did two years at my old school and two years at this school then I'm qualifying for like uh 2K 3K scholarships just because of that because of the opportunities that um my schools were given to me so I wanted to give people that go high those same opportunities so uh I founded Messa um the the competitions that I've been a part of are the math competitions also uh the prosthetic arm competitions at my old school where you had to create an arm for those that didn't have any um and then you had to use it either using um different electronic devices or it could also just be using like a garbage can handle um there was different aspects of it which I thought was really interesting um so I'm sorry what is I missed I think what Messa stands for um Messa um it's an acronym so it's for mathematics engineering uh science and achievement I'm so glad you figured out that we were better than the bay yeah well yes I um I was pleasantly surprised with Chico high and its range of Robotics Su um the engineering department right now I'm in my third year of engineering and um I I really like that a lot of high schoolers now have you know the opportunity to do these kinds of things to be prepared for the future fantastic anybody else all right excellent thank you um the last thing I just want to mention is that uh three of the four people standing up there are officers in our skills USA Club as well oh good um this year for skills USA Chico High School had over 50 people participate in the event that's as far as I know the most in a very very long time um so we are really excited about that and we wait tomorrow to find out who goes to State yes sorry how many participants over 50 wow um before before you step off um I have a question and this is kind of for all of our RCT teachers who are doing so much I'm honestly already going a little cross-side like keeping track of all the different clubs and teams and competitions and where you're going and when you're doing them and how many awards are being won and all the great things that so many students are doing and overlapping in that's a lot and so are our our our CTE teachers being supported even in that extra capacity as far as you know stien funding or extra hours or because I know I know I know personally that it takes a lot to do field trips and to you know take students you know outside of the community to other places and it just is a lot of coordination and a lot of time and a lot of extra extra yes I I feel like we are very well supported in that regards um Tiffany and the other individuals at the district office work very hard to make sure that the CTE programs are funded and it's all that as competitive um she'll be talking about the strong Workforce program Grant later on uh for me personally I was able to buy uh robot kits for the middle schools uh and push those down to Marsh and Chico Jr uh so that they could have robot kits then then funnel into the chico High program already having experienced some of those things so it's really how we feed each other and support each other in all of this thank thank you for doing all of that you can't guarantee us you're gonna kickass and go to skills USA oh we're going I know people are going I've been told that already so I just confir way to go thank you thank you right thank you John our next group we have oops oops if I go the right way yeah no you're going backward there you go there you go yeah so we have our Patient Care Group so we have Tammy and um Tammy Taylor from Chico high school and then melini Castillo from Pleasant Valley one thing I love about these two is that they work very closely together um so the what the kids experience at either High School is pretty similar so' like to come up all right welcome so we are the patient care Pathways and like she said we work very close together um it's a great little bonding experience one of the reasons why we work so closely together is because we generally put our students out in the community um and do a lot of internships however um it has been difficult in the last two years because we have been unable to do that based on um Public Health requirements and so this year we have been um usually they go in the second semester to two eight-week internships where they go four periods out of the five or four days out of the five days away and working and since they are unable to go and work we've been doing a lot more things in the classroom to try to supplement um things that they wouldn't normally get to do and so we're here to talk about that and um also to talk about the success that we've had um with students that um have graduated from our program so um with that in mind um we're going to have some Chico high students come up I'll let them introduce themselves because they really want to be on the mic and and tell you um what they were able to do um I'll start by saying that we are part of a HOSA is rcts so HOSA and um one of the different events that they can do is to make a career board and do a presentation on a career of their choice that's within the medical pathway and so uh Chico high students are going to tell you how they were able to use this event in a little different way hi so my name is Riley my name is Kennedy um and I'm ta so um one of the projects that we've done this year um was our career boards um we took them to Chico Jr after doing all of our research on a career of our choice and presented them to the middle schools um and not only did it give us an opportunity to like teach younger kids and interact with the younger kids but it also um was super beneficial for me at least um because I got to completely research um the career of a paramedic and and I've always known that I wanted to help people I've always known that Healthcare is where I'm meant to be but um I don't know where in that field I belong and so being able to research uh a career that I thought I had interest in um helped me to kind of make a decision on whether that is something that I want to do in the future or not good yeah so um with this career board we got to learn not only about careers that we were interested in but we also got to go to a junior and teach kids about it and the funny part was they kind of thought that we were already in the career so they'd ask us questions how is your day going how's the hospital and we'd be like no hopefully one day we'll get there but yeah so this class really teaches us a lot about how um daily life works also right off the bat we all got CPR certified so um I would have never done that maybe earlier on my career maybe later in my career when I got to the medical field I would get CPR certified so this class allowed me right off the bat to be CPR certified and help um hopefully one day like random strangers on the street or something like that yeah um with the chico junor project I've always known that I wanted to be a nurse one day and um with this project allowed me to research um what types of careers I want to do and this is the career that I'm mostly interested in being a ncku nurse and and I would not have gotten that opportunity without this class you want to explain what kind of a nurse that is um a niku nurse is a neonatal nurse and they work with um infants that were born like prematurely or have health issues when they were born MH so and um one thing I would like to add as well is not only did we get to learn about the careers that we researched but then we presented them in class too and I actually ended up finding out about a career I knew nothing about and that's what I want to do now so all right um what was that uh it's called a perfusionist and basically they're the people in the operating room who uh operate the mechanical hearts that keep you alive while you're going through a transplant awesome we're glad somebody of your character is going to do that for us fantastic guys they didn't seem nervous at all did they they did good way better than we are all right um so we're gonna there's some pictures flying through all right this right here is a simulation that we have done before um it is uh a surgery that it's going through after actually Dr Kaiser was able to see this one um so just a couple of examples of how we're trying to simulate uh this one right here is we just recently did this um I got a bunch of mouths and put a lot of plaque on them and then the kids um got to go through and clean them which they found out was a lot harder than they thought yeah so nice question how do you put plaque on a on a pretend mouth um actually there's the this product that you purchased that we got through our grants thank you very much um that is from dental schools that they use to put on to them that simulate what what plaque would be like um actually when we were going through and and putting them on it seems a lot like um black nail polish so I'm going to test it out and see because that's a heck of a lot cheaper um but yeah they they're pretty cool yeah definitely um hi I'm Melanie Castillo um and I teach at PV um of course Tammy and I try to have the same experiences um I've been lucky enough that um I was in the around for uh the building Grant so I do have a bigger facility um than Tammy has currently um but we still try to do kind of the same simulations um we're also looking to hopefully have her students come over and use my labs to do some other labs as well um once we can have some more professionals come in to do those demonstrations for us and to do those lesson plans um let me think I I did want to plug um because some wonderful person um thought of me when they were at computers for classroom and they just donated probably $45,000 worth of equipment that's coming tomorrow that was given to them by um Feather River Hospital woo that's wonderful I know so we're going to even have more equipment so there's crash carts and all kinds of stuff so it's a it's amazing um and it's it's brand new it's almost brand new equipment it's not like used dumpy stuff that I'm getting um it's like very nice so I wanted to say that secondly Tammy brought wonderful students and she and I do have totally the best students in Chico un I just want you to know um but we also have great students that have already graduated and I know one of the things that was sent in the first emails to us about tonight was that you were looking at how do our programs reflect or work into um the current job market or the market here um and so I was trying to think in my head like okay what do I do to show that because it's hard for us um many of our students have to go to postsecondary education to have careers but there are other things they can do as well they they can do entrylevel jobs and they also can get certificates um do shorter programs that in the interim can get them into the field so I ask one of my students um I have Mr ilas Castillo here and he is a 2020 grad of PB high school and our medical pathway and I would just love for him to just give you the shortened version of his beautiful story so all right here you go yeah hello my name is elas Castillo I graduated in 2020 and I'm basically want to talk about how this course helped me figure out what I want to do what I'm doing now and then what I'm going to be doing soon so coming growing up I always knew I want to work in the medical field I knew I wanted to be a nurse I that's it I didn't know anything else other than that my senior year of high school I took the Medical Careers class of Miss Castillo and she uh I still had the opportunity to go to the hospital and job shadow certain locations she put me in the laboratory I didn't even know what that was at the time and then once I found out I'm like this is going to be the most boring thing in the world I'm watching in people stick needles into people all day little did I know I'd fall in love with that the second I then I got put in it again for the second term of it right after I graduated high school Miss Castillo taught me on how I can get my certificate you have to be 18 with the with your diploma so the second I graduated I got into the bu County photomy program my first try you uh there was like0 applicants only 10 of us got in as by far the youngest one to be in it so I got through it and then at 19 out my license and now I'm working as a phlebotomist at the bloodbank vitalent oh and just to let you guys know huge blood shortage right now if no one's donating we need blood okay so I also have my EMT license I got that while I was getting my fleb license but through bu College I got my photomy license through the county and now next semester I'm eligible to get into the nursing program which has always been my long-term goal obviously there's a weight period in between so I decided to do photomy in between that but I found out how to cut out the middleman I'm going into the air force after this they're going to put me through their expedited nursing program so I'm going to go work as a nurse for them and that's my plan for now and I would have never knew I want to do this without this course that's phenomenal thank you I've been through that photomy program also you don't carry needles around with you do you like not to worry I'm very accurate with them all right was there any questions that the board had I think it's always the same just make sure that you keep letting us know or keep us in the loop and how we can continue to support your programs come come see our classes I mean really anytime come you know hopefully we can do some fun Lou while you're there but yeah we love it when anybody can come and and see the kids and they love it too and I have been that's it's really e did you want to um yes I just was going to ask the same question that others have asked you just to make sure we're not missing something is there anything else in the way of support with grand applications and things that our district supports through some of our administrative Personnel to help with that or or are we are we cooking cooking with gas really well um I think that the big thing is is for someone that started a couple years ago going like oh my gosh this is so much stuff um we were able to learn through uh people that had been there before and then we continued to get more support and from the time when I first started when it was like oh my gosh we have so much to do and how are we going to get this done to now it's completely different in the fact that you feel supported there's people that are there and it doesn't feel like I'm just like a fish out of water trying to figure out what I have to do and if you could wave or do something that could get rid of the pandemic Tammy and I would be really happy so yeah that's about it for us yeah I I want the Air Force to see CHS or PV on his side of his uniform you know yeah I'll bring you pictures have that yes I have a comment are they kind of winding down there your Pres presentation yeah um is there more CT okay in that case they'll all withhold that comment but thank you very much for the information awesome [Applause] job there go our last uh teacher that we have is Susan Solin she's gonna come and talk to you guys about her child development and education Pathways you're on this hello I'm Susan Sullins and I'm at Pleasant Valley and I have the education and the Child Development pathway they're different but they intertwine and I have some students with me who are going to tell you about their experiences um we have a introductory course at PV for all of our depart for our family and consumer science department which is called life management where we give students a smattering of all of the options that we offer Child Development culinary education um I also in child in life management we we give them a taste of interior design and you know a few other areas that we don't have Pathways in but um we're here to talk about the Child Development pathway um our student organization is called FCCLA that's family career and Community leaders of America so we focus a bit on leadership as you can see in the slides we took some students to Washington DC recently and they advocated with our state representatives um our national representatives for our state for funding for f um for CTE programs in general and we did this a couple of years ago also we were the only um delegation from California to attend the last time we were able to attend so we visited every representative and every Senator's office which was a kind of a Marathon this year it wasn't quite so bad because it was Co and they wouldn't let us in the building so we had to meet out in the uh outdoor area um okay so I have two programs the um Child Development pathway starts with life management then we have a class called human development and uh then they go to careers with kids as their Capstone class careers with kids puts them in the classroom in the elementary schools and and um we're very fortunate that we have our own elementary schools that we can work with so we place students at marold and also at mcmanis during their class time four days a week and then on the days that they're with me they do um teaching activities did you do yours today Brenda no you you just got yours ready today yeah okay so we we have in our beautiful child development lab um oh there's some more pictures of our great kids um okay well where's those pictures I don't see them maybe they're coming up later in the presentation um we do have a beautiful child development lab which we just moved into in January so I've been trying to make great use of it by having the students practice teaching lessons with the other students acting as um the younger kids so that's our um Child Development pathway it leads kids to working with preschool and um pre kindergarten uh that would be the goal of that program and then the education pathway is designed a little bit more for students who want to work with elementary through older grades and and we're also placing those students in marold and mcmanis um so that's kind of a synopsis of my program I could answer any questions about the program or we can have the kids tell you about their experiences any questions to start yes ma'am do you um do any um looking out okay back up I mean the shortage of teachers going into special education and developmental uh students with de developmental um does there anything in what you do uh help uh people to maybe choose that career um uh away from you know High School to going into to try and um get more special education teachers we do a career research project um in careers with kids and that's certainly a topic that students can research and like in the other program they may become aware of something that they weren't previously aware of when other people are presenting their projects if they haven't found that to be their particular interest but I I do find some kids come with that like they just come with a heart for kids with special needs it's less than you know the average person but it's out there good question thank you all right so we have Brenda oros Medina and she is currently in careers with kids and she's in our other program called teaching in the after school program where students are employed by card and they um are placed at an elementary school around the city and so I've asked Brenda to just tell you a little bit about how those two classes have been working out for her so come on hi my name is Brenda oros Medina and I'm in both careers with kids and teaching and after school and during the day in my school time I get to go over to marold and actually work with one of my old kindergarten teachers which is really nice and I get to see how she runs the class and I get to take that back to to um teaching in after school and it helps me overall and honestly the environment I'm in at my elementary school is really nice because I get to work with my old elementary teachers and I see them every day and I just saw one of my old principles right here but yeah I honestly love working with kids and I hope to like find a career that really suits me because working with kids has been something that has always been in my heart and I know that I want to do something with kids one day good thank [Applause] you one of the components of FCCLA is um public speaking and I just threw these two in I mean I said could you come to the board meeting and talk okay and next Sydney Sears Sydney took careers with kids last year when we weren't able to Place students in Elementary classroom so she got a lot of textbook knowledge and she's also working in the teaching in the after school program and let's hear what Sydney has to share with us um so basically um when I did take careers with kids I couldn't go anywhere but we did a lot of yeah textbook stuff so that helps me with now because I am in um teaching in the after school program so the cruise with kids last year helped me a lot this year planning like different activities and getting to know what different kids like at different ages and stuff but at my teaching at the after school program this year I love my kids and my co-workers and it's super fun time and it's awesome having like connections with my own kids and it's really fun what school are you at I'm at Shasta Elementary School yeah and they're the best they're the best kids ever I can I could go on for hours about how awesome they are they're the best so yeah and I really want to continue to do something something in educ like in child development when I continue out of high school so yeah all right that's all [Applause] great um thank you ladies you're cool uh do you have any questions about the teaching in the after school program have you heard of it I should have talked more about it because it's Kelly's brainchild and um I think it's working pretty well what was your goal for that program well I wanted us to be able to um provide child care for all of our community and card was then have students that were coming up to be able to go and work in that area both in high school and beyond all right and card was having trouble finding plenty of employees so yeah these kids are captive for the whole semester and for the whole year and it's been a small class this year I believe I have maybe 11 um hopefully a bigger group Next Year yes um and with the new schedule that we have it it'll be a challenge to figure out how to make that work but we will figure it out all right how how how long has the program been going the teaching in the after school program this is our first year um so I believe we use some of the coid funds to fund my position for this one year because they don't usually let you have a class with just 11 that's that's pretty expensive I think um we're going to grow that program we are and um so the students who are in that program you're 11 students this year they all have a like a paid position with card they have a paid position with card and they most of their jobs begin at 2 o' so they have two periods so both of their hours after lunch they check in with me for attendance and then they take themselves to their job site where they work from about 2 to six is that about right right some longer some start earlier there's a few all the schools have slightly different schedules but yes it's a paid position with card and you guys even get like vacation days don't you a few paid vacation days yeah yes more of that please I mean not paid vacation days but more just you know students have the opportunity to to to work and make money but also provide a service you know to our district and the community at large I think it's amazing and I I can't see this being anything but a growth area that's what we hope we have a giant facility to um grow into too mhm I've got a toddler so you know okay them all over all right well you know you asked a question about if we're fairly compensated or if we're fairly supported and I think most of the CTE teachers will agree yes that's the case but we also really love what we do um I was an elementary school teacher I taught kindergarten first grade and sixth and seventh and also junior high before coming to the high school so this is a really good fit for me and um you know most teachers do have a passion and I think that we're really able to use it in um CTE all right thank [Applause] you thank you one other thing I wanted to highlight about the their program is that not only the students get that um receive the the work experience they also so she has three classes that earn articulation credits um and that's it's a total of nine units that they can apply to that early childhood education um for that is required for the um transitional kindergarten teachers all right so it's a good start for them if they were are interested in being that so that's definitely a need that we're going to have um in the community right so um some of the other programs that uh they sent sent me stuff to include that weren't able to be here so we have a new floral teacher at Chico high with the addition of the block schedule they were able to hire another agriculture teacher um so this I just wanted to show some pictures of that she's starting a subscription service for flowers as well so the students will be able to have actual customers that they're making um arrangements for too so our media arts um Mike peek he always does an outstanding job one of the things that I think stands out about his program the most is the amount of work experience the kids get um outside of the classroom um because of his connections um students get um real paid jobs doing filming and photography and then our culinary program our food service program um they always do an outstanding job in competition as well they just competed at the FCCLA competition ition uh January 22nd and brought home some um awards for that as well and then our mechanics our welding program at PV wanted me to share some of the projects that they're they're making so some of the upcoming events for our ctsos that I know the board is interested in what's coming up competition wise so our ctsos those are the student clubs or student organizations every single one of our Pathways affiliates with one of the four that we have in this presentation We Have Skills USA FCCLA FFA and the HOSA so skills USA competitions like John was saying they happened in January they should be getting results of those competition soon and then if they move on to state level that happens in April fcca they competed in January and their state competition is in April as well FF fade they compete um they have a long season from February to May where they're competing in what we call Career Development events um there's about 36 different options that they can choose from um our school um Chico High has probably four teams that they're going to have competing um again February to May their last competition is May 2nd or 3rd and then the hosta competitions are in February and their state competition is in May so those are some of the the um upcoming Big competitions for our ctsos and these are so ctsos are nationally and state um Affiliated so they're not um just a clubs that are created they are an actual affiliation with a pretty high level some of our oh that got a little bit off sorry the the uh hopefully you can still read it um but our all of the of what you've seen tonight has been possible because of our ongoing grants so there are three main grants that we apply for the strong Workforce Grant which is the the K12 s swp we have applied for for the past four years and we have been funded for the past four years um you can see the amount that is listed there in the blue those are expired funds the C TIG as well okay so CT incentive Grant each year we have been funded for that as well and then annually for Perkins we get about $100,000 um so there's literally millions of dollars coming into the district just to support CTE um it it's really been fantastic opportunity and really the the way that we have been able to build our CTE programs into the 21st century and then you can't see it because it got cut off on the bottom um about 9 .5 million has also come in um to support our facilities so we had seven different facility grants um for CTE that were um funded as well know if you had any any questions on funding before I move on just keep it up I have a question but I don't know if it's necessarily A funding question or just a general program question so it's it is about like and maybe I can just ask it and then we can address it more at the end after you're done um if there are any areas in the realm of CTE that we might be a little uh like less robust in I don't want to use the word weaker but you know we don't have as many programs in that field that you know we could look into pushing into that that field a little bit more yeah so we we are always looking at Labor Statistics that's really one of the things that drives us um because mainly we don't want to prepare students for a career that doesn't exist um so we look at Labor Statistics ICS and basee what we teach off of that um I think districtwide the the only thing that we could probably feel better is a business pathway um although a lot of our programs do business skills within their programs as well but more of like a business leadership management type of a gotcha yeah yeah I I can relate to that thank you yeah some updates on facilities so I will go quick through this because you guys have seen the facilities um a lot so just some a review we did get new facilities um at PV for our coolinary program that opened up in November our sports medicine and our medical pathway lab opened up in November as well and these were um from that facility's grants the $9.5 million our agriculture program got a new greenhouse and modernized classroom and shade structure is still being um constructed the Child Development lab um which is what Susan was talking about um she just moved in I unfortunately do not have updated pictures she has some beautiful pictures that she took that that I will forward to you guys so you can see what that looks like um but the plan you can see the plan um what they have there so they have a classroom and then they have an observation room that they can bring kids from marold they can bring preschool kids in and um have them play in the that area and then observe um the children without um interrupting them and this is currently the sea building um on PB our graphic arts and Commercial arts building is also being renovated the currently the D Building at PV they're going to have um a studio art classroom and um a couple other other labs that also um they should have moved in to by by now I don't have updated pictures on that one either okay that's what I was going to ask you when when you said win or break you meant January okay yeah and then the last one that we we have um on coming up and Julie might be able to answer more questions about this one um currently the ebuilding is getting um some Renovations that will be happening our welding shop is going to get completely renovated adding some storage area in the blue there in the green is going to be an Architecture Lab and a cad lab um for the architecture and engineering program atpv um I don't know if you have update questions on that or any questions on facilities go ahead Julie update us yeah so this is the e building at Pleasant Valley high school and you approved the bid for construction at the last regular meeting and it will be starting around spring break so when we'll get started on that okay all right with that that is the conclusion of my presentation um I open to any comments suggestions questions okay Matt um the students who tend to do CTE I know I'm painting with a very broad brush here but are these academic rock stars usually or are they you know not necessarily you know it's a very broad spectrum um so some of our programs like our engineering and our medical Pathways you know they're going to be going into careers that that most of them require a college degree um some of the other programs it you know they can get into um a career without a college degree but I was a former um CTE teacher so I was an agriculture teacher for 10 years and I can tell you my experience that there really was a spectrum so you have all kinds of kids a lot of times get kids get put into a class and they don't even know what that is and then they fall in love with it um so it is a a a broad spectrum of all all kids I want to um and I would have liked I would have liked to say it in front of the other teachers too but um this is going to amaze you guys but I wasn't always a totally awesome student there were times when I was really you know especially in junior high but in high school a little bit too when I was really you know kind of struggling with to keeping up with all the academics and stuff like that I was not an academic Rockstar um and CTE you know formerly kind of known as vocational education um if there's any way we can I'm not saying we're doing a bad job maybe we're doing as good a job as we can but you know I know that out there there's in our system there's probably some kids who are just really struggling day-to-day with the academic load that they have and they might just not be bookish types but they might be just diverting a lot of Mental Health Energy you know time to trying to beat the system that's bearing down on them and CTE could offer them you know a way a breath of fresh air in that so if we can be on the lookout for that sort of thing and people like that um maybe you're going to tell me what we're already doing in that regard to it's really exciting on January 25th both high schools voted to implement a block schedule next year and the challenge has been with some kids as you're describing when they get behind they have to take remedial courses intervention courses they're in a credit recovery mode so it excludes them from the very electives they're coming to school for and the block schedule implementation at both high schools blows that out of the water now they have 80 credits worth of opportunities for to do exactly as you've said they might still Str strle a little bit in math but they'll want to come go to math because they're going to two periods of welding or they're going to two periods of culinary and we didn't have that opportunity before it's a huge piece of that implementation and it's student centered and not adult centered and John was just very instrumental in getting that past so thank you John that's going to be a game changer for our kids I also want to add that um CTE you know we can't say that it's not academic because we do have many uh CTE courses that are a through G so they are still college prep classes and it does you know address that wide range because in the career World there are jobs that require minimal skills and you get them on the job um and you know I just think of construction you may go in and you may be hanging Dr drywall but hopefully you're going to progress and get skills but you might also be as we saw tonight the kids that are the ones that are drawing the plans and being the engineers so um it is a as you well said it's a wide spectrum but we do have some very high achieving students and some very uh academic courses within the CTE world I was thinking one of the great things about college is that you focus on something that you've chosen and that you're really into you know anytime you take a person and you put them in an environment where I mean they may be horrible at all this other stuff but Man Welding they've found this thing that they just are So Into You know um I mean whether it was a something that was going to require a college degree or not just sometimes breaking somebody out of their um you know a difficult situation or a rut that they're that they're in academically can be really valuable so as far as our counseling staff you know looking for opportunities like that to pitch CTE if if a kids not not exploring that you know maybe as much as they should at this stage given the resources that we have I just wanted to throw that out there but thank you for that explanation Mr Shepard and for your presentation and they are pitching it right now just to follow up on the counseling side we're registering enrolling kids for next year and that's why we voted so early so the counselors could go to those kids those eighth graders who are thinking what am I going to do my I don't know how many CTE pathways are available to me and now they have eight periods a day and they can they can get into two periods of welding so the counselors are having those conversations right now as we getting ready for for next year uh e um yes thank you uh one of the things that was so exciting for me was to hear what the kids are doing at the high school level to pass it down because that's always been you know one of my major concerns for anything whether it's on to college or CTE is that we're not um uh getting these information this information to the kids third grade fourth grade fifth grade so they begin to have a vision of uh life beyond School uh just as Mr tennis was saying for some kids school is such a frustration that they don't see Life Beyond school or they don't see school as being what's going to support them to do what they really want to do and can do well that's why I I too I just supporting the CTE programs in all the areas that we are able to get them in because it it does give the kids uh you know opportunity into life skills that are going to get your job and you know that's even if you change jobs four or five times after you've begun that process just as the the young man was talking about you know not knowing exactly what he wanted to do it it just it's the one thing that we haven't had a broad enough um scope of uh what to put in front of our kids at a young age to make all of these explorations possible it's so exciting I am just thrilled I have a grandson in Texas who's going to go to the Air Force to get that push into he knows what he wants to do in medicine and the Air Force is going to be his ticket in just as our CTE programs are because he doesn't have the CTE advantage in Texas sorry one great example of that is our act department is we had them a few board meetings ago we were able to add a whole another teacher in act we have over I know it's like I believe it's 375 I know it's over 300 students were above what we had the previous year with before the block schedule and I have a family member like myself needed extra support with academics so he has an academic support class but he was able still to take his welding class which he would not have been able to do that before and he loves his welding class now he's going into FFA and having an animal and all those types of things and all those things probably would have not been there for him if he did not have um these the these block schedule the CTE Pathways so that's just example I think the other aspect that really shows up dramatically is the leadership opportunities that these students are getting they aren't just doing something they're learning to how to present it and how to lead in it among themselves and all the awards they're getting is evidence of how outstanding that is working I mean when you're the top student leader in the state that's just incredible um and I think the phrase that was repeated the most often by the students was that they didn't know they were going to love what they ended up doing as much uh and that's that's incredible that's a real real opportunity so uh very appreciative of the presentation does anybody else have any okay Caitlyn um I was going to say mad superintendent and and Mr Gant um are board members allowed to take the welding class say no there are liability issues Caitlyn um thanks I have quite a a little list here of just like quick questions um so uh the first part of the presentation was about um construction and um design basically um and then the discussion of the tiny house um my old high school when I was actually teacher there um built a a house um and it was really amazing because all the students had exposure to plumbing and electrical and all of those skills that we don't really um get to spend a whole lot of time focusing on so that's amazing and I really hope that there's a broad range of students who get exposure to that in that program and if not I'd love to see that expand out a bit more um I think this is like the first year to attempt it but maybe there's more to it than just just that um and that leads me to the other question the next question which is apprenti ships so is there any kind of apprenticeship Outreach or program that RCT program does with the community at large or is that something that's been talked about or is there potential for that so by Apprentice sh you just like mentoring that type of yeah like Partnerships between what they're doing in the classroom and learning it but then also being partnered with you know a real life organization where they're actually going out and doing the work and then you know it's it's in it and it kind of goes together there's a couple examples so we we have been working with rotary this year and partnering with them to um to make that connection we're going to be we're in the very infancy stage of working um having one-on-one mentors with some of the um programs that we don't offer um I just met with um one of the rotary members this this week and um we're we're going to Pilot it my with my husband's class he's a a math teacher an academic success teacher um so we're going to Pilot trying to Mentor um students when I want and some of the programs that we don't offer as well um so our first of all our teachers do an outstanding job um getting and doing Outreach um with the community they have advisory um committees that they um that come and advise them um and have that kind of I guess apprenti ship for all the students in the programs that we don't offer that's what we're starting to to to do with the rotary members yeah and almost like a stepping stone to a having a job even as soon as H summer hits or you know or they're graduated um that that's yeah kind of what and most of the CTE programs do uh they have um I'm thinking of our a program places kids out in the community they do their own Farm they've done projects where they make money we co has made things a little more difficult without a doubt but there were placements at the hospitals that then would turn into uh positions we have had in our architecture and engineering programs some of those kids have been fully employed making really good money over the summer working with local engineering firms so there are many examples of them being placed and um our architectural program actually was so popular and valued that the firms were reaching out to us wanting our kids um so a little bit of that obviously has you know with people working more remotely the hospital be being very careful you know the last especially since Tiffany's been here she hasn't got to see that part of it as much the fact that our kids are going over to marle that's really an internship that is happening the fact that they're uh you know teaching in the card program and being paid so I think almost every CTE pathway could share uh their community outreach and job placement programs that then if the kids are interested they can can really take off and and make summer money uh even while they're going to college yeah I just definitely want to see more of that and then what you're explaining with the rotary Outreach and partnership um keep us in the know and how we can support more of that um and and really um bolster that program because I think that that sounds really great um I was a College Bound person but I also was required to take an RO it was Roop back then an Roop class um won an award um for barbecue all the gentlemen that I was up against but it really built my skills as a I I learned um how to serve and I became a really um strong you know restaurant server than bartender and that you know that got me through college too so you know I I just feel really strongly about our C programs and making sure that all of our students going through um have that Workforce ready mentality in addition to those who want to be college students are academic ready too um so that also leads to my next question which I should know this and so I'm apologizing in advance for not knowing this but do we have or what is our graduation requirement when it comes to CTE I'm gonna give that to somebody else oh good it's not just me oh so generally our students have to have 235 credits out of 240 and that's where the struggle comes in because there's only a five credit buffer and so in each of the core areas there um specific number of requirements um they they vary when we go beyond just the State graduation requirements to Chico Unified graduation requirements we have kids on different paths so for example some um 1806 legislation credit recover credit requirements change um generally we keep in mind so 235 credits for a general high school student um then from there it varies it varies by student but just from a general perspective uh up until next year there they had an opportunity to take 240 credits and um we had a 235 credit requirement so they only had a five credit buffer now moving forward they're going to have a significant buffer so they can take more electives gotcha so there's not like a i the question comes because this is going way back now but I was requ ired my my cohort was required to take one Roop class in order to graduate from plumis Unified School District so I didn't know if we had something like that here or if it was even a state kind of thing or or how that worked but I mean obviously you have restrictions and limitations when you can't offer enough classes for kids to get all the requirements they need in the first place yes and yes and um students because we have 21 Pathways there are multiple opportunities for kids we also have to keep in mind which of those pathway courses are a through G um articulated or aligned which is really important if an elective can become a through G aligned then obviously more students want to want to join um when we saw the list of of Pathways um the CHS side looked shorter I didn't like side by side comparison but is it relatively Equitable um what CTE is being offered at each um High School site or is there a way to that it it is you know um where a student if a student has an interest but they're at one school and it's not offered they necessarily is is there a equivalent type of situation or what's what's happening there yeah I'm chuckling because in everything we do between Chico And py there's a rivalry right including how many CTE Pathways you have and so they're always talking about what does one school have and the other doesn't and trying to find that Niche that's not being not being filled that need that's not being met um so for example at PB and Susan described this earlier there are a couple of Pathways within one industry sector so it's really most important to us that we represent the the the data driving the industry sector that's the most important piece to us that we have industry sectors represented maybe multip in multiple ways gotcha so so each so that each industry sector is represented at each both School sites it's just the pathway might be slightly different or there might be more than one pathway whereas at the other site there's one pathway and some sometimes we only offer one more sections thank you more sections or offering one course because we're trying to build a pathway so that that CU you know obviously you got to start somewhere awesome um looking at the time I'm trying to go fast I'm sorry um I like E's point about pushing to grade schools and making sure there's enough exposure for kids coming up who might be struggling academically um and that also is uh accessibility at middle schools so at middle schools at least last time I checked they're only you know doing six periods a day so um there's that kind of a limitation there too in the number of electives that they can take going into the high school level and so just wanting to make sure that we keep up any momentum where kids are getting excited about a certain pathway even at a young age that it doesn't fizzle out and that yeah so I'm just going to address that that just in that one way and then um the last thing is uh something I did notice missing is um again this is just going back to my own experience is firefighting so is there any kind of um you know uh exposure to that field specifically or um at least looking into that field or exposure um going on for kids who might be interested in in that I could go but I'll I'll tell you a Community member just texted me because he was interested in a different pathway with kind of the same question like hey we have a we have a a group in this community that would love to support recording Arts pathway right so along the same lines I think it's going to come from community and Industry sector uh data okay if we have that available obviously we're going to we're going to pursue that because this sounds really crass but there's money out there right to support these pathways we can go after that money to build these facilities to Tire these teachers to teach these kids in that pathway that's what we want to do yeah um people I went to high school with were firefighters and they would get called out in the middle class and go go do their thing um and that being said uh I just saw a flyer for a cowf fire academy it's women's fire Prep Academy it's a free firefighter summer camp for girls that are high school age happening in reading this summer so um maybe we'll huh yeah okay yeah I'll send it I'll send it to you because that sounds really cool um and it just goes back into forestry and kind of a really relevant thing that's happening right now where we keep experiencing fires so um that's all I had promise thanks okay that's good because we have one minute yes yes one minute to address part of yours um we do have a public safety pathway so he does hit on fire science in that yeah part of it too is is finding people to teach the classes so CTE credential teachers are hard to find so that's and ultimately we need students to f fill the classes we have a set number of students so we can't make that too thin I want to say that uh Tiffany for your first presentation to the board I think you knocked it out of the [Applause] park thank you it was a pleasure to be here U my contact information is on the the slides if you have any other questions all right thank you thank you thank you okay it is 6:30 and that is the uh Lish time to start our discussion action calendar um so the first item is um Julie that was great that was really exciting seeing all those programs I loved it former Vintage High School student Napa California regional occupational program student I loved it thank you okay so the first one we've got here is resolution declaring futility of public bidding change order work for Cho High a project um you just approved on the consent calendar this change order but you must also approve this resolution um the resolution basically in a nutshell says that it makes all kinds of sense in the world for the contractor for the chico High a project to perform the work because they understand it they're on site they're mobilized already and it saves a district uh money and then you don't have two contractors trying to work in the same location doing uh different scopes of work you've seen resolution like this in the past um it is unusual um that we bring this forward and it's only because of the dollar amount that we must do so any questions all right I move approval of this resolution okay all right so Matt tennis moves and Eileen Robinson seconds any other questions or discussions all right so with that um I think we can just take an I vote correct all right I think we need to ask for comments from the public okay any comments on the floor all right thank you um so all those in favor signify by saying I I I okay it passes for to nothing I do just want to make a quick point of order to remind the board that we do have order to follow so we need to wait to make a motion until the president calls for it after we take public comment okay I'm really I'm losing your Clarity of what you just said I said okay let's follow the rules of order and wait for you to call for a motion before somebody just makes a motion okay so the next one is also Julie yes thank you so this next one is um a bit unusual I have not brought a resolution like this to the board in the past um again to summarize it it is um asking the board to authorize a product to be tested by the district so specified for a contract in particular a product to be specified for a contract um in order to field test or experiment the project uh or the um sorry the product so in this this case it's enviroplex um manufactured um classroom building and it will be the test site will be for inspire School of Arts and Sciences and um we will get a good idea about the product from this project in order to utilize uh for future needs of Chico Unified any questions this is basically just sort of using Inspire School of the artarts as kind of a preliminary test site for something that we might be implementing in other locations yes and and the key part is that we will be specifying this when that project goes out for bid we'll be specifying this product as approved by our board for that project and for the uh the purpose of testing and experimenting with it and they have a need for this inspire yes they do yeah um I move no I I I was needed a question oh all right go ahead yes um Julia I I think I understood that um what we're looking for is to make sure that these things are going to be tested can be continually serviced and maybe upgraded or whatever by our current District um personnel and services so that they're so that we don't have one set of Maintenance people for this kind of building and another set of Maintenance people for another kind of building that these are being tested to make sure that they conform with the other things that we have to service in the district yes that is a part of it yes okay can I ask how long the uh testing period is likely to be I imagine it will last as long as we need it to before we're making a decision to use a modular building uh somewhere else in the district we can we can continue to observe and test that product once installed until we're making a decision on another modular building in our district so we would we would evaluate that the process the engineering the design the um the maintainability the durability of the buildings when we make our next decision if we're going to uh perhaps um put a modular building at one of our elementary sites we can learn from the Inspire project in order to make a informed decision Kaitlyn oh yes a followup on on that um uh I I don't see in the resolution uh not to exceed so I'm looking for where is the monetary amount of this project so you have had presentations in in the past on the Inspire project and the the design is not completed and approved by the division of the state architect as of yet but the pricing on the entire project will be coming back to the board for review and approve that's that's what I needed to know when when do we get to the bottom line issue all right does this um lock us into only certain contractors or um building companies that can put out for bid for this project for the modular portion of the project it does there are all all kinds of other Scopes included in the Inspire project it's it's quite large but for the modular portion it does and so there's just been it's been noticed that there's some kind of this alternative is is for some reason seen as potentially better and that's why we're testing it out I just don't understand necessarily the need as opposed to what is typical well that's a really good question there's kind of a a kind of a misalignment when you have to design a project and it has to go to the state architect for approval and then it goes out for bid but when you're utilizing modular construction you have to utilize that modular company to assist with that design and then it goes out for bid and another modular company isn't going to bid on it because the design isn't their design so it's kind of a misalignment when you're using modulars we have not had a lot of projects with modular that in our district we we've done traditional construction on all of our new construction projects we have moved around Portables within the district as part of a project but actually identifying new construction that's going to be modular and they're doing it Inspire doing it because they must because their budget requires it so I think am I explaining it uh in a way that is understandable that we're kind of you had to put the cart in front of the horse uh not to identify that modular firm in advance thanks Julie you I move approval of this item point of order Madam president okay I'm uh any motion then oh public comment yeah any public comment all right does anyone want to make a motion I move approval of this item I'll second did you say oh okay oh well again it's I'm for some reason I'm having trouble here okay so we have a a motion in a second uh any other questions to ask or comments All right so I'll call for the vote and this is on resolution d22 all those in favor signify by saying I I I okay that's 4 nothing and and um all right so thank you Julie so the next item on the agenda um is the public hearing discussion action on the California Voting Rights Act maps and sequence of by District elections um and so I just want to clarify for people who are here the board could approve another map at this meeting but if they were to do that that would mean that there wouldn't be a vote until the February 16th regular board meeting um they could move uh to consider a vote on the four maps that have been presented um and then that would be uh the decision and it's in the board's hand so um so we do have with us tonight uh via Zoom yes our Consulting King Consulting was not able to be here in person this evening I do see Rob on zoom and I don't know if Jamie was able to join you or not we do have in person a legal council Paul Gant so I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Rob Murray to take us through um the presentation and then it will be turned over to the board thank you very much and uh visible but Jamie is also here with us on the zoom so I am here now again and just thank you for your flexibility with allowing us to make this presentation via Zoom since again we just unfortunately as much as we would prefer to be there uh just are not able to be there tonight um and so this is the public hearing for the draft trustee area maps for February 2nd now we can go ahead and we can move to to the next slide and uh this is substantially uh the same presentation with a couple of small points uh that I went through the last time we were all meeting on this uh so some of this I will probably move over fairly quickly again the slides are all in there if it becomes a point of discussion a little bit later on you know we can certainly bring everything up and go over it uh but we're just going to look at the criteria uh summaries of some of that feedback and then of course the the draft trustee area maps and the criteria data so we can go ahead and go to the next slide please and again so uh as already I think summarized very well uh we are here at the February 2nd meeting uh this there is an opportunity that the board could select and approve one of the maps that has been previously presented uh and then if not we'll be back on the 16th so next slide please okay and so again uh to some of those original criteria that we have discussed quite a bit uh really some of the key things is just that population range that one person one vote mentality of just maintaining uh proportional representation of the board to the people living in each trusty area next slide please and then of course the fact that we are drawing these truste areas based on the census data that is released in the package of these census blocks uh you know which are not uniform in shape or size or how many people are in them but we at least uh we know the pieces that we're working with at this point and we have to keep our lines uh moving those whole blocks uh into or out of a trustee area if we want to look into any adjustments or new options or anything like that next slide please okay and so we can I think uh move on to the next slide I think is where I want to uh there was a question that came up when we were last here of uh the popular population in the district which we have shown that number of 12,19 quite a few times uh of that based on the 2020 census 10,475 which is 84.5% uh also live in the city of Chico and the whole city of Chico is within the Chico Unified School District so there is no part of the city outside of that but of your District uh you know a little under 85% of the people also live within the city and then if we looked at it based on our student list uh you know pretty close number 86% of the students enrolled in Chico USD live in the city of Chico okay and the next slide please so those draft trustee area maps uh just making the note uh based on the vote at the last meeting uh all of the blue Maps uh have been removed from consideration uh but we still have the green the purple the orange a and the orange B and we'll just do a very uh quick look at those Maps just so everyone is nice and refreshed uh next slide please oh yeah uh the election sequencing I think I will leave these in so that we can go back and refer to them if there are any questions uh but again that uh came up with a question uh that was OS to our community relations on which trustee areas would be the ones that would move forward and as as Mr Gant can elaborate a requirement of uh any new trustee map is to also specify a sequence of Elections so as we went into that uh we wanted to spell out all of the uh possible scenarios that would be inherent in any of the uh map options and so you have uh your three members who will be up for uh whose terms expire in 2022 corresponding with three trustee areas that will need to hold an election in that first year that they exist next slide please I have a qu a question actually Mr Murray yes um this is Matt tennis yes you said you had some kind of communication from this oh sorry let me yeah a communication that led to a discussion about sequencing can you repeat what you just made reference to at before at the beginning of this slide you yes no and that I believe that was a something that we went over at the previous meeting uh but there was a phone call that was received from The District's uh community relations head uh with the uh question of uh which of the areas for someone and I and uh I believe if I remembering correctly this was from kind of the angle of someone if you were interested in running for the board which areas would be open in 2022 and that was I think a lot of what uh while it was something that we would have been planning to look at anyway uh was what really spurred that look into the election sequencing uh in between again that meeting in November and coming back in January and with the development of an option that produced a more simplified election sequence in so there was a phone call I I guess to somebody on our staff that triggered basically the creation of the orange Maps that's the origin story of the orange maps and it's based on a phone call that we have no public record of that's been given to us the content or substance of that phone call is totally unavailable um and and I just want it to be noted for the record that that we have had the creation of two very promising for passage Maps based on a some phone call and that is against the reality that we've had numerous written Communications from constituant who liked the blue map those were ignored and now we are being deluged with emails of people who like the purple Maps um but the orange maps are here before you today ladies and gentlemen because of a phone call that we have no record of any text from it thank you rob no and uh any I Dr Kaiser yes uh Rob I I have a question um had there been any presentations to the board about the need to do sequencing in this process before um last meeting was that yet part of the discussion it had not been yet part of the discussion thank you I think that it's remarkable that you would spend tens of thousands of dollars by that by that time we had spent solidly $70,000 on this effort and and now all of a sudden there's a revelation that we're going to have to deal with sequencing this is nonsensical I mean the idea that that people in this room and up here at this at this Das did not think about the fact that we were going to have some realities about whether people were going to go to vote in 2022 or 20124 is is really to me quite unbelievable Dr Kaiser yes if I might respond um I just want to caution discussion versus asking our pres a presenter questions at this time we don't want to engage in discussion until after we've heard public comments I'm just word of caution that the issue of why two additional Maps were um put together is important if we are to fully discuss those Maps having been on the board from the beginning of this process I know that we were um we were ahead of when we would need to discuss things like sequencing which you know we not an expert on how this happens when the timeline was cut off by the governor and we ceased all discussion of this process we didn't talk about it again until I believe November um it may have been with but until the the process got lifted we weren't even thinking at least me I'm this board member and since I'm not the expert on how you do do this we that's why we have Mr Gant uh here is to keep us properly moving through a sequence and so the fact that now is the first time we had sequencing brought before us it's because that's when it was supposed to be brought before us I do believe that we should uh have uh our demographer continue Rob yes thank you so uh just continuing on uh we H uh as presented at the previous meeting uh we do have uh just the various permutations that spin off from multiple trustees residing in an area either on the same cycle or in different uh election sequences uh with that particular complication of current board members in different election Cycles uh residing in the same trustee area uh uh which leads to one of two uh things either a candidate uh whose term expires waiting for an election to occur before they can run again or in an earlier election uh a candidate who at the later term who doesn't want to risk having that same two-year Gap happen to them down the road uh running but if they win the seat uh creating a board vacancy so those were kind of the big considerations with those uh and then on to the next slide please uh and so then that green map uh this one was created uh really using uh the High School boundary as a uh point of guidance trying to ensure that each of the five trustee area spand both the chico high and Pleasant Valley High attendance areas with at least a portion in each and next slide please on each of these you can see again a selected sequ a suggested sequence and and uh at least just the names of the current board members who reside in each area then the purple map uh was drawn again while meeting other criteria uh to have trustee area boundaries follow Elementary School attendance boundaries uh wherever it uh was practical to do so can I I want to ask a question what percentage of students in any of these separations attend the school in which they live yep I mean that varies a lot but I mean uh we have some slides in our data that will come up that show that you have uh I mean in any uh truste area of the district you have students attending literally every school in the district okay and then across the district uh I think Jamie you I think were the one who had the number last week but it was something somewhere in the ballark of 40% % of students I believe who are transferring out of their assigned school to another school just kind of very broadly yeah that's correct it it varies depending on the school but pardon me I believe you have you know on average somewhere between 35 and 40% of students in your District attend a school that isn't their neighborhood school and isn't in their boundary um some schools that's significantly higher and some schools it's it's less but you do have Comm comparatively to um other districts in the state you do have a a high rate of of intradistrict transfers and um parents you know taking advantage of the opportunity that you give them of of choice all right thank you Jamie then uh going to the next slide so the orange a map uh developed again U making sure that it aligns with other requirements and criteria but with a specific effort to uh simplify a election sequence and have current board members each residing in a trustee area so that there's no possibility uh particularly of those uh 2022 versus 2024 uh cycle candidates uh leading either to the lack of opportunity to run or to the potential of a vacant seat and appointment or special election uh requirement to fill out the board to five members again so this map was the original one developed and then there was a variation on the next slide of orange B uh which uh adjusts an area that contains uh and the boundary between areas four and five where PB high maragold and L M Vista are located in some of the areas surrounding that particularly up to the north between merold and uh and cotus and I apologies if I am not pronouncing that one uh correctly but up to eaten uh that kind of rectangle uh going out of four and into five uh because there was uh expressed on feedback to the orange a map uh that even though the students uh attend uh schools throughout the district having the actual physical School site location of only one of them being in truste area 5 if there was a way to put more school sites in and this isem uh A variation that accomplishes that uh and then on to the next slide Mr Murray I've got a question for you can can you reiterate um why the orange Maps were created yes the orange Maps were created in response uh to concerns about the uh once the sequence of Elections uh was put out for the previous Maps of having a map available that would have a more straightforward uh sequence of Elections as all of the original Three Maps uh did pose some potential complications for the district what do you mean by potential complications for the district that would be trustees who are have terms ending in 2022 and 2024 residing in the same area so again if the election holds off until 2024 that means the candidate whose term expires in 2022 just can't run for 2 years if the election's held in 2022 then the candidate who or the sorry the board member whose term is at large until 2024 uh can just wait uh you know if they don't run uh once their at large term ends in 2024 then they are the ones having to wait two years if they want to run again and if they do run in 2022 and they win then they have won the trustee area seat they can't also hold the atlarge seat which is vacated and that leaves a vacancy on the board but since that isn't resolved until after the election that means there's a need to either appoint a member to a two-year term or to hold a special election in another trustee area for a again just a special two twoyear term so uh all of the original maps and the two original maps that are still in consideration uh had an area that had current board members on those different election Cycles living in the same trustee area and would present that potential once the elections were to be held can I clarify something you just said Rob or I I think I need to reand it if I'm not understanding it correctly if there was an atlarge seat that became available because and let's just like name the people right it would be either myself for or Mr tennis that would run this year to take a a districted spot um and give up our at large term which goes till 2024 so if one of us were to win the election this year that would create a a vacancy in the at large seat for the next two years until our current term is up and so that's if that was going to be appointed then that would be appointed by the whoever is in the new board after this year's election or or it would be a special election it would have to be decided by the board to spend the money to do a special election but that would still be at large that wouldn't be in the district and I believe and uh Mr Gant please correct me if I'm mistaken but I believe once because you have changed your method of election from at large to by trustee area and so uh if actually can we back up to let's just say go on to the uh either the green or the purple map uh if we can back up up in the slides okay so in this case uh truste area 5 if it held the election in 20122 uh and either uh Miss Delby or Mr tennis uh were to win the the seat for trustee area five uh and then uh areas one and four based on this suggested election sequence also held elections so that's three board members uh whichever of M Mr tennis or Miss Doby did not win the trustee area 5 seat would still be at large and that's a fourth board member uh but uh whichever one did win would have given up their at large seat and that means there's only still four board members and in this case either trustee area 2 or trustee Area 3 uh would go ahead and hold a special election for a two-year term they otherwise wouldn't have held an election ction until 2024 but in this case with a board member vacancy to fill uh areas 1 14 and five already have setting trustees and so one of the two areas and this would just be something that came up during that transitional period from at large to trustee areas but one of those two trustee areas that had not yet had the opportunity to elect a trustee would then uh need to be selected to hold that special election are we aware of Chico Unified ever holding a special election to fill a vacancy not to my knowledge that seems like something that would be very expensive and I do know that Cho unified has appointed people to fill vacancies I'm sorry my answer still hasn't been or has answer who can provide a legal opinion so so two things first uh Rob's description is correct uh and um as far as the the legal basis for that what he explained in terms of the um appointment or the special election that would be required for the two-year period it would be associated with a trust the open trustee area the unrepresented trust area and um the voters of the trustee area would vote for that if if there was no appointment and the appointment would have to be of an individual who resides in that trustee area so that is not in align with what happened with city council this year so habo city council this year we lost two Council people in Chico and within a very short amount of time apart and um the they were replaced by appointment one of those people was just elected in the newly created districts one of those people had been elected at large a few two election or an election ago so they were in their um last year and a half in their at large term but when the city council did their appointments they flew that as one districted seat and one still at large seat so the person who filled that other position was allowed to live wherever they they were um they didn't have to be in the the district to fill that spot so that's why I'm confused about the legality because what you're saying is that that's not the way it's supposed to be and so I guess that's where I'm kind of unsure about what I can't I can't speak because I don't I don't do City elections and I don't do city election redistricting there are differences because uh the uh the redistricting uh issues related to this to the school districts are different than those that relate to municipalities um there's quite a lot of differences actually both yeah you know statutory and and case Law related to that but uh you know I'm I'm happy to look again but my uh my research has indicated that the the holdover if you will the issue of the hold over board members is one of the actual board members who have been elected have the right to finish their term uh that's why the uh circumstances that Mr Murray had described exist once that is eliminated by the resignation and we are talking about filling a seat uh within uh a system of established District trustee area elections we have to follow the law with regard to filling those particular seats and that means um if there's a appointment needs to be appoint an appointment of an individual residing in the empty trustee area and if there's an election it's um it's an election that is decided by the voters of that trustee area okay thank thank you and then I don't know I think there was a second question from Mr tennis I don't know if we want to hold that or did did were we looking for sir um it just seems obvious to me that we would appoint somebody to fill a vacancy and that there would not be serious discussion of spending a lot of money for a special election if there was a board seat and I was inquiring as to the history of that it sounds like there's been one appointment since 1906 and that was in uh 20201 um and that was Gil Alister and he served less than a year was what was the background of um I want to say that Elizabeth Griffin was appointed at some point in time no elected every time yep okay and special elections you're not aware of any or you know that there were none I have been here 20 years and there have not been any during that time um 200000 was right before I came here and there was one at that point okay I mean everything and I know this border is on discussion so I'll make it very brief that that that our Consultants have explained in terms of how sequency would go sequencing would go is all very Dem Democratic and legal it's not like it's some big crisis that you know you have to appoint somebody for a couple of years to fill a vacant seat it would not be a big deal what would be a big deal is if we drew Maps specifically for incumbents which nobody likes and everybody finds unsavory it's going to carry on and get into uh just again that quick summary of the criteria data uh that we've put together uh again this is not this is new to this meeting but for each map we have uh just in the white area across the top uh the that is the districtwide numbers with the total population and the voting age population and then how those split out based on the census ethnicities and then for each map option you see those same splits for each of the five truste areas and uh under uh one of the main points of Voting Rights Act is looking uh for concentrations of historically underrepresented groups uh who uh will be able to exercise a higher degree of voting power uh within certain truste areas so going so this shows the green and the purple uh it's just a little bit too much to put all four on one slide and then on the next slide uh we have the same information for orange a and orange B uh keeping in mind that really with these two areas 1 2 and three are identical and we're really just looking at a relatively small change between areas uh four and five and then next slide uh the socioeconomic and tenure data and again these now we're getting uh out of things that are from the 2020 census and looking at the most recent American Community survey data uh and again which is also compiled by slightly larger units uh but to the best uh you know kind of the closest match of these block groups uh with the truste areas uh we can still give you a kind of averaged out median household income uh much more precisely from your student list we have the student residing in each area who participate or qualify for the free and reduced price meals program and then again back to the Census Data with the percent owners and percent renters and here you can see just all four of those map options all together next slide please uh Mr Mar I've got a question um you have spoken you've done a lot of this demography stuff you're our consultant you you this is you live and breathe this every day um the fact that the orange maps have I think if I'm looking at this chart correctly the biggest disparity by by quite a bit of economic of income between the districts you've got a a one District district five that's where people are pulling down $98,000 a year versus people in District 2 where I would be where they're pulling down $46,000 a year would this be considered a strength for the orange Maps or a weakness that you have you know one very wealthy district and then one that's that's not and I think that's a matter of perspective uh some I've worked I've been doing this kind of work uh in various districts and I've kind of I've had some expression that it would be preferable to have uh each area more balanced I've also heard that it could be preferable uh with a socioeconomically disadvantaged area uh actually having a uh kind of a trustee who really just represents that area and the concerns that they have uh might be a strength but again I I don't think it inherently is one or the other uh but it is just information that as it informs uh each board member's opinion uh is there to help you make that decision thank you and then uh we have uh the neighborhoods that we have identified uh kind of through the process and uh how each map does in terms of keeping those neighborhoods within a trustee area or splitting them between multiple trusty areas and again for some of the larger neighborhoods that uh sometimes uh we were just discussing with the socioeconomics it could be uh preferable to be allinone it could be preferable to have the opportunity to have a couple of trusties who are interested in or or who have some connection to that neighborhood and then uh on to the next slide uh and then that enrollment analysis uh without again looking into those numbers but what you're looking at in each column is the percent uh so of all the students of elementary junior high or high school who live in the trustee area area just by percentages what schools that they're actually enrolled at and so you can see there's definitely some alignment with uh you know uh like em Wilson for instance uh you can see it's pretty much uh on the green map in areas one and two where you have a lot higher percentage uh but what you will notice is that every single box of this grid has something in it uh every trustee area has students who are attending every uh school and that again uh just something that Jamie and I can speak to uh working on your demographics going back to what I I believe 2004 Jamie but uh that Chico USD just has uh really does uh a remarkable job uh with that uh honoring the choice of uh the families who live there and that just is really what just what reflects in these numbers yep uh and then but that's so that's uh just for anyone uh just as a reminder of what exactly we're looking at and then we can just go through we have the same information for each of the other map options uh as we move through to the next slides uh we don't we won't go through and read uh all of those but again to the extent that it informs anything about which maaps might be more or less preferable uh that information is published for your disposal and again it was just something that was discussed at one point earlier when looking at that free and reduced price launch data uh to also just see how it looks uh based on the School boundaries uh where people live or with the schools that they attend and then you have that districtwide percentage again and uh here we're just looking at the elementary schools again that's why it's a different District wide percentage than when we're looking at everyone K12 and then next slide please uh and then uh what I what turned out to be a really interesting uh analysis uh from a question that was posed at one point but looking uh kind of comparing that voting age population from the 2020 census with the registered voters uh in 2020 uh to get that percentage of the uh eligible voters who were registered to vote at least by comparing those two data points and just how that looks AC Ross all of the map options for all of the trusty areas and then I believe that might be the last slide of numbers yes yeah there's a lot to uh get through I think it's important just to rehash what we're looking at make sure that everyone's uh nice and refreshed on what all that means and so again if there is no uh you know no decision made tonight about adopting any of those uh maps that have been previously ly presented uh again pending uh any other uh input tonight uh we can be back next week uh or not next week but next week 16 uh to uh continue the proc so thank you okay uh Caitlyn um just a quick question um so my understanding from just kind of looking back at the history of this process is that the early 2020 discussion of the the board that was sitting at that time um was that previous or the board member addresses were a lowest priority also meaning sequencing was a lowest priority um is is that is my understanding there correct I don't recall that I'm sorry uh board member Dolby if you're I don't know if you're addressing your question any wants we're not here but I don't recall that we were given any clear directive that we were and Rob refresh my memory if I'm wrong it has been quite some time but I think we were really more focused on what to focus on and I don't remember that we were given any clear directive as to you are absolutely not to consider this yeah yeah I mean there was a conversation that uh that uh we weren't going to really put too much emphasis on the board member addresses and uh as something that was confirmed at our last meeting I did not even have board member addresses until after the initial three Maps had been created but then uh and then I kind of to the second part of your question Miss Noby but then the election sequencing is kind of a different thing in that that was always going to be something that came into the process because when you adopt a map you have to adopt an election sequence to go with it so my follow-up question is with um with your contracts when you do this for other um uh other districts or whoever it is um do is taking sequencing into account using current B Uh current member current trustee member uh addresses typical we have had other districts and um public agencies ask us to make that one of the criteria um ultimately it depends on the district rob you can speak you know expand on that a little more if you like but every every agency that we work for is different every Community is different and uh and what they like to to consider as criteria in addition to the legal requirements yeah and uh just on that point yes it's something that uh kind of when districts or because there's almost there is sometimes a hesitancy of like can we do that and yes it's uh it is perfectly valid it can't be your primary criteria you have to make sure that U kind of as I explained with the orange map that if you are using that as part of your guidance that you are maintaining the kind of seal clad uh you know kind of voting rights requirements and equal population requirements uh but uh kind of the phrase that comes up is honoring the will of the voters who put those people on the board and might wish for the opportunity to see all of them reelected so again this was something that uh we were told didn't necessarily need to be a point of emphasis when we first created Maps uh but we now there is a map that uh you know presents an option that aligns the current board with the trustee areas can I make a comment uh please if you don't mind because uh what I don't want there to be misunderstanding what what Rob just said uh my understanding was it may have been a comment uh it it was not a vote and it was not a direction by the board to uh prioritize or not prioritize that particular issue yeah um and I think that's an important point and maybe I can just briefly make the the comment and then take questions but I think it's an important distinction when you say um receive input even though not a voted direction that this are criteria we'd like to see reflected in these Maps whether it be a member of the public in a at a meeting by a phone call to staff or any other channel or a board member who may say gee I have an interest in this particular consideration could we I hope that shows up as in one of the options and for a comment that might say I don't think that's a criteria we necessarily need to focus on because when the those proposed or possible maps are developed again and I know I'm being a little repetitive here but in case there are members of the public are hearing this for the first time it is the I would say it's fair to say staff's feeling of responsibility Consultants feeling of responsibility and my responsibility make sure that if there are criteria that are out there that that may u be pertinent to the board that we have at least Pres presented those and brought them to the attention of the board it's up to the board to say that's either direct us specifically do not include that or don't give us a map that includes that and then of course we're going to follow the bo Direction I have another question I um yes uh thank you Paul um I was there at the meeting where the comment and it was a comment was made about um not prioriti izing where individual board members lived um it was in the process of discussing all of the other things Dr Kaiser was very concerned about socioeconomic balance um we were concerned about the um the voting strength of our Hispanic Latino uh population um we we had a number of things that we were discussing and this this is in the preliminary part of what we were looking at we knew we had to have numbers balanced and we were talking about the things that we wanted to you know be thinking about and the comment was made about um you know well we don't want we don't want where everybody lives to be you know the the criteria and because I was very concerned with all of the other things that we were talking about which seemed very important I nodded my head I was one of the board members when that comment was made that said oh yeah that you know when um we stopped discussions and then brought discussions back when the governor's timeline started ticking again I had never heard the a presentation by anyone in this process you included that sat us down and said okay if you do this and the voting sequence is applied it will cause this it wasn't until that information was applied to where we were in the process and I went oh my God that's going to disenfranchise a number of these districts because they won't be able to vote on if one of the three incumbents that are up in 22 decide to run again they won't they won't be able to the the public will not be able to vote for them and that was my concern is the disenfranchisement of the people in that District to not be able to exercise their right if they chose to and if the incumbent was running to vote for them that was huge for me I wanted to make sure that everybody in every District had an opportunity to vote for the person in that District whether it was an incumbent or someone else and so that was why when that was presented at the last board meeting I took considerable note of what would happen with the sequencing that disenfranchised a whole block of Voters uh Mr tennis um the public needs to know and any members of the media who are present need to know that we have not heard a word from these you're you're you're calling them disenfranchised voters we have not had a single there's one pro orange map email that has come in in the past 3 weeks since this map was created um and you speak of disenfranchise point of order we have had point of order please I don't appreciate being interrupted she just this we we are not in discussion right now we are asking questions of our presenters so it's a it's a point of order we can discuss this when it's time to discuss well this is very upsetting um because um I I I want to bring some clarity to this this foggy memory that we have of the conversation that occurred and I want to read what board member Lando said and it was quote I have no interest and unfortunately he's not able to be here this evening but I have no interest in seeing the kind of Shenanigans in which districts are drawn specifically for any incumbents and I hope that we're all on that page with that one Madam Robinson thank you for acknowledging that you nodded when he said that the reason you nodded and the reason he said that is because it's unsavory to do that um I don't think we should be ascribing uh motivation when somebody's here to speak for themselves the other aspect of this is it was not a motion uh it never got a vote um so um without uh does anybody have a specific question they want to ask of our demographers or of our law lawyer and then we can move to public questions okay uh Doby so a n a number of the public comment that's come in in the last two days has really said the same thing um and one of the bottom lines is is this um claim that and I'm looking for clarity here or for you know the like the evidence of it um that the orange Maps give an unfair or unbalanced Advantage for current incumbents so I I would like that better explained to me because the the public the the public who's responding right now T seems to think that and I and I would like to understand that a little bit better why they why they might think that and if if that's you know something that we really that is true so how does the orange Maps give unfair or unbalanced Advantage for current incumbents um I mean from our perspective you know ultimately everyone will serve out their term and then you know have and and everyone at the end of their term will be required to uh compete again for their seat in another election so I think from our perspective as your demographers we don't we don't necessarily see it as giving anybody an unfair Advantage everybody will continue to surve out their term it just provides an opportunity for there not to be a special election or a special appointee uh and allows everyone to uh to run for reelection at the end of their term so the orange m apps are basically would would allow the process to continue the status quo where a current incumbent can choose to run for re-election and the public can choose to vote for them or not if they agreed with how they did in the first place correct okay so status status quo Mr Gant do you have something else to add to that please just add it isn't an issue of Advantage it's an issue of opportunity if you compare one map to another map um Maps other than the orange map there will be situations in which there are current board members who because of because of the particular way the map is situated would not have the opportunity to run again at the expiration of their so-called atlarge term they simply have no opportunity uh it's not an issue of Advantage if if you uh adopt map that looks like the orange map in the that uh board members currently on the board in depth situated in trustee areas they have an opportunity to run but they have no advantage of over any other candidate who might otherwise run other than the fact obviously that they are existing board members with whatever may be it goes along with being an incumbent so I want to thank you for saying that I think that the fact that you just said that right there demonstrates that you are unhonorable hble man because we all know every single one of us in here that an incumbent who's in a political race and this is a political office has an advantage over somebody who's a newcomer but that's also true of those and I'm not it's not I'm not debating I just think it's important to point out that um those board members who happen to fall in different trustee areas where um in those other Maps where they they do reside in in the trust area in which they are drawn um do have the opportunity to run so they there's nothing inherently unlawful about being an incumbent or having an advantage Visa other candidates that may be in your trustee area there's no there's no U provision of law there's no case that says there's a problem with that and I will say because it was brought up uh with Mr Murray's firm as to whether they've been involved in situations where this was a consideration I have been involved in a number of these redistricting situations uh I agree there are those in which um the process uh has reference to uh existing board member situation and those that don't um I've been in some that one I can think of that was intensely litigated by one of the most aggressive attorneys in the state and um it started off with the assumption that there would in fact be some honor if you will given to the trustees that were currently on the board and it and it wasn't challenged at all there was no suggestion that that was in some way uh unlawful so I think it's an issue it's it's it's an issue of policy for the board to decide it's within your Authority uh to consider as you look at these maps how much importance you wish to to place on that issue and other issues before you but from a legal standpoint so long as the map that you adopt uh is honors the fundamentals of the California Voting Rights Act so be acting racial gerrymandering we know is illegal right I mean if you purposefully try to try to split up I mean then if it's not then um I'm mistaken I thought I saw purposes I I don't handle voting rights in all of its many aspects I advise school districts uh in a couple of areas one under the California Voting Rights Act and and and then one under the census redistricting those are really the areas that I focus on because they focus on school law and the the California Voting Rights Act does require that we consider the impact of the districting on the on the um on the voting rights of minority groups and particular raal groups so yes if if um if the voting rights of of racial minority groups are diluted through this process that would be likely unlawful and partisan Jerry mandering would be I'm I'm thinking also illegal if you came out and said hey we're going to choose this map because this you know these three people are all you know we're all you know Republicans and these guys are all Democrats and we want there to be fewer of them and more of us and we want us to be safe and and then to not be that would be I'm guessing that would be probably in conflict with the law is that not true it really hasn't come up in school dist School District or School Board elections that I'm aware of I'm not aware of a single case where the issue has arisen uh School Board elections are nonpartisan I don't believe that there's any reference on the ballot on on the ballot to anyone's party um that it's an interesting question uh I believe although it's not my area of expertise just in terms of my general observance of the law uh I believe that in Municipal elections uh in partisan elections that California does have restrictions on uh partisan Jerry manderin so but that does not they aren't specific to elections for schools when you say that um you know in a court of law it's okay for a majority of incumbents on a board like this to tailor districts around their residences around where they live you say it's legal to do so you know and I would just make an observation that in a court of law that might be true in a court of public opinion it's not true people know when they are being manipulated into specific districts uh if we don't have any more uh actual questions I think we should move to public comment um and I'll remind the public if you wish to make a comment you have three minutes to do so um do we have any names yes then the timer will go off do we have any names for public comment yes we do our first one is parent Gina back I just like to remind you the first Bell means you have 30 seconds left the second Bell means time is up yes it's not my first time here thank you okay how are you my name is Gina back I am the co-chair for Chico parents for personal learning and I'm also Hispanic um I just want to say something after listening to everybody that how redistricting will affect board members incumbents these people I haven't heard anything about how our kids will be best represented or how R districting will affect our kids going back to my speech the original day to choose map was December 15 the date got pushed to January 19 for more public input and on January 19 the community get hit got hit by the addition of two new maps nobody knew about it I'm pretty sure the experts know more but the fact that these Maps were added at the last minute and secretly and in private that's my issue this is America how can this be legal you know okay so on January 19 the community and the minority of the bo of the board members demand answers for this addition where were these Maps coming from who request them and why the answer was that the maps were organically created per staff request up to this point nobody knows who the staff is so I don't really care these two Maps follow all the rules needed to qualify for voting because I'm not an expert and I really I'm just here to make my point across but my point is that these two maps were again secretly added and I don't think this is fair there were no public input no requests nothing n everybody was fine with the original Three Maps so what happened and why things changed at the last minute why the board ignor Community input about the blue the blue map the community do not want maps created in the dark we wanted the blue map back but obviously it got rejected maybe I don't know I'm not going to give reasons why I'm not an expert um so the community do not want for the board to vote on maps that were created in the dark since most likely the blue map is not going to be back I would like for you to guys to really take into consideration the purple map it has the highest percentage of homeownership 40% it has as a Hispanic it has has the highest percentage of Hispanic at 24.8 percentage orange maps have the lowest percentage of Hispanic at 22.7% the purple map is the only one that emphasize on Elementary School boundaries so parents will have more opportunity to be involved with their schools and to get to get to know the board members I do want to thank Matt in London but since he's not here I get you can I guess you can send a message for listening into the community by voting on eliminating the orange Maps thank you that's your three minutes send the message to London that I will I I thank him for that he's not here so all right is there uh another yes our next speaker is a parent Jordan Colby okay uh good evening board uh I would just uh like to say I'm Jordan kby I am a parent I have a second and fifth graders at Parkview Elementary and a seventh grader at Marsh who just won his basketball game out in Willows so go Gators um I want to offer my support for really uh any of the initial draft Maps um I think that the purple map makes the most sense um it emphasizes Elementary School boundaries and I feel like a really great time for parents to be involved with their schools is in their neighborhood schools and that Fosters a lot of sense of community um I think about just getting to know other parents when we walk our kids to school wouldn't it be great if in the future board members are their you know if their parents their kids attend the same schools and you get to know your board member because you see them at pick up and drop off um the only thing that I would say is you know really the the blue the green the purple they all make sense because they're somehow tied to a School boundary and they do something to Foster that sense of community and and involvement um as far as I can tell there's really only one reason for the orange Maps it's the problem of election sequencing uh I'm one of the disenfranchised voters in the city I don't have a current city council member and didn't get to vote for one at the last time but if I want to talk to correspond with anybody on the city counil I just do it um it hasn't caused a problem it's a hiccup in 2022 all I'll vote for another city council member and then I'll have one so temporary um I really just liked what uh Carl Ashner said in his comments at the last meeting um we're looking at with the orange Maps it's really uh not thinking about the future it's creating a permanent solution to a temporary problem that's all thank you all right thank you uh do we have other yes our uh final speaker is Community member Julie 3 just reminded of when my mom came home when I was a junior in high school and uh she was having a fit she' just come home from a Schoolboard meeting like okay she said that because of a decline in enrollment they were going to have to close one of the high schools so that was a big deal that was huge so I'm like okay this is big but that was huge I was thinking about what to um what to bring to this and I thought I'd just give a little perspective um last September I was over at the Elks Lodge um listening to the contractor there for the county go through in detail exactly what redistricting was um I knew it was a huge big deal right census every 10 years and when I left that meeting it was bigger deal because of the campfire and the loss of enrollment so I really dug in and I really knew that I wanted to invest my time in the um in the in the districting process for the county at the city and then I thought oh my gosh the school board this is fantastic it was a it was a wonderful opportunity to do all three but three Consultants three Maps three tools it's it's been a process so at the county we kind of ended the same place and on November 17th um this was my input back to those two maps that were kind of thrown out um one out of left field at this point you can pick whatever map you want flip a coin neither one represents the will of the people this process is broken down the Board of Supervisors disrespected the members of the community it's just unbelievable The only positive I got from being party to this entire process is I've been party to this entire process quite an education so now here we are again and on November 17 when I got home Gina was here in the in the room I was watching from TV on Zoom or on YouTube and everything was pachy K it was like wonderful it was like and I know we were having glowing Raves for um for the consultant so I thought this is going to be easy and fun all of a sudden it's January 19th and I'm like what just happened everything kind of blew up so for me the um yeah I left that night thinking I want to know I want to know who who when and how how did this happen I'm I'm a member of the community I'm a taxpayer and I I've been at every one of these meetings so the phone call and and the Phantom thing was okay it was the organic um design and I think that's the advantage the advantage for every one of you you drew these Maps or somebody drew these Maps knowing where you live and who your people are I think I don't know how you came up with I know where you put your addresses but how did these streets get drawn who picked you know 99 or 32 I don't know that process so I think that's where the advantage might possibly be um with that orange map um yeah election sequencing we never heard that word once so I would have thought that would have been at the Forefront um I definitely and it's the cost I mean I think at the beginning of the uh of the meeting here today you you had a an amendment a addendum for the contract $77,000 for this um for the consultant so that's a concern getting rid of the blue map was a concern the two reasons were the Hispanic numbers were slightly different and now the orange M uh Hispanic numbers are exactly the same as the blue map and the forest R Cohasset um issue um for your 14% of the population appointment makes sense if we're all about continuity that's why we want to pick the orange map appointment would just make the most sense to thank you all right thank you is there anyone else we have uh no others that have signed up this would be the time uh to allow speakers from the floor for our remaining uh time um we well we've only had four right okay so I see one person RAC in their hand um okay so thank you again 3 minutes thank you Bo um can I remove this I speak yeah my name is Jessica gianola for the record um I I came here tonight because I have concerns um over the the purple map as as far as the Forest Ranch cassa communities go it's my understanding the purple map would be splitting them apart rather than keeping them together and after following the supervisors disting that sort of um scenario that came up was a big concern and why many Maps were tossed out and more were added in for consideration because they would look at the ones they had and said wait a minute this one is splitting apart this community we should make every effort available to keep them together and so with the orange map it seems as if that is keeping them together um and with the ab um 849 the fair maps that is a priority we want to look at for the students um so that's why want to do support for the orange Maps either one um and it seems like from understanding with the reelection process if if uh a different map is chosen that the school board may be facing some sort of um Financial cost in whatever reelection process you're taking so the orange map seems to be avoiding that so you would be saving the school's money instead of unnecessarily wasting it in that option we're going to have a re-election soon you know it's going to come anyway so why waste money to do it ahead of time if we can avoid it taking those steps ahead of time so just thinking of this the communities keeping them together and saving our school's money thank you I have a question for staff of clarification does the purple map um separate Cohasset and Forest Ranch or are the those communities together as the mountain communities Consultants Rob Murray you might want to answer that yep I can uh yes the purple map and if we go uh you have to look at the inset uh up there but uh kasset and the Forest Ranch are in different Elementary School boundaries and so the purple map does reflect that and uh you do have one uh Cohasset area to and Forest Ranch in uh area five there okay all right so that was the answer to the question and we've now had five speakers and that's all that we have uh oh are you asking to be a speaker I'm asking to be a speaker that's okay all right let's see three minutes and this will be the last speaker thank you very much uh members of the board good evening uh my name is Keat nley I'm the manager for County elections I just want to provide some insight on some information that I've heard tonight and maybe correct or clarify some things that that may have been said um as was mentioned uh the election code 5091 and 5094 both do allow for appointments so a special election while it is an option is not necessary according to the Education Code uh the other thing that I wanted to point out was should a vacancy uh become available uh or happen due to a resignation on the board the appointment or that special election would be for the unexpired term of that seat just want to make that clarification and let you guys know that I was available if there's any other questions regarding the administration of Elections thank you for being here thank you Katon I really appreciate you being here all right so there's one more out here W waving waving her hand there's a member of the public who seems interested well we've already had five and we're already passed the time schedule that was identified which was requested by the board so I'm sorry um okay so now um we are in the discussion action phase so um does anybody um have a specific question or want to make a motion I move uh in response to the numerous public comments we've had against the orange map and now in favor of the purple map that we adopt the purple map for our new trustee areas in Chico Unified School District get a second it fails for lack of a second all right uh may I have another motion oh um I move to remove the purple mat from consideration moving forward that's my motion so do I get it okay the motion was to remove the purple map and do I get a second on that I'll second that all right so we have a motion and a second to remove the purple map uh any further discussion I have a comment on that um clearly this board is totally impervious to public comment and disdainful of their public you have had exactly one letter in favor of the orange Maps you have had you have had just today you've had over 20 emails in favor of the purple map and previously you had a similar number of emails in favor of the blue map anytime a map gets popular you hate it so much because it poses a threat to the orange map that you make these motions to eliminate the map that people like okay um there is this stinks politically um today in the newspaper there was a story about how Chico uh the city council is is going into their next phase of redistricting and the one person who wrote two weeks ago in favor of the orange map very interestingly is in the paper this morning talking about the redistrict process that the city is embarking on that person the one person who's written in support of the orange map had this to say they weighed in saying they hoped the redistricting process at the city could go smoothly and without political Focus quote I hope that we are going to do a much better job than the city council districting a few years ago this person said quote I hope we're going to not focus on incumbency and will instead base this process on making sure that everybody in our community has a fair voice and a fair vote it is shocking to me that when the people coming come to you they want you to do they want you to vote for objective maps that were that we paid more than $70,000 and and climbing to our Consultants to develop you have such disdain for them and if I may be so bold the parents and their coalition you can't stand these people so much that anytime they say they like a map you have to you know drown it in the bathtub it's unbelievable uh Mr tennis I think that we need to have discussion focused on the value of the maps and there is a motion and a second so um the context of this is um any comments relating to this motion I have lots to say so I'm sorry I have lots to say okay um the motion has been seconded I believe I seconded seconded then it is under discussion I'd like to hear from Caitlyn yes so first I just want to say that what we're not doing right now is approving the orange Maps that's not what's on the table right now that's not what the discussion is that's not where we're at this is about the purple map specifically and there there's multiple reasons why I've put it on the table to remove based on a very large set of criteria first of all all the public comment has come in in the last two days in favor of the purple map hasn't given any reason why except for um I think two emails that actually said specifically based on criteria what and I really appreciate the people who give public comment and made those points and I wrote them down and I'd like to address them um and I and I will um and so the other concern conc ER I had about those public comments was I mean it was it's it's very strongly clear that the orange maps are not favorable by the people who who wrote in but what became clear to me because I responded to every single email today and the people that I did get a chance to hear back from many of whom are frequent flyers and email us quite often um usually because they're frustrated with you know the majority of the board's decisions expressed that they didn't even realize that the green map was up for consideration and that was really interesting to me and I was very concerned that there was some kind of I don't know organization uh pushing for one particular map on the on the table rather than talking about what information we're looking at which are the different criteria to choose a map so again this is not about choosing the orange map that's not what this discussion is this is about what what it is about the purple map that I think merits us removing it from consideration number one being the separation of Cohasset and Forest Ranch 100% period I am a rural mountain girl from a small town and I live in Forest Ranch and that has nothing to do with me wanting to keep my seat it has to do with represent representation of the people who live in that community in those mountain and Foothill communities there are much different circumstances that those people us that we experience than people who are you know actually I would say more privileged living in a city center so there's that issue number one the reason why I want to remove the purple map the the issue that was brought up most frequently by the people who did give a reason which again was like less than 5% of people that I got public that we got public comment from supporting the purple map actually gave a reason they said just purple not Orange but why I want to know why I give a reason for everything using data using information like let's actually get to the heart of it so the the reasons that were given from what I heard primarily was that the because the purple Maps were drawn based on the elementary boundaries totally understandable I get that but when you actually compare the percentages and like the highest percentage of representation per school and District bound Aries it's actually kind of split so in in some cases the purple map has like for example little Chico Creek the highest percentage um truste area is 39% in the purple map meaning that uh 39% of the trusty area is covered by one District meaning that that specific district has the most representation in that school um in contrast the orange map has Emma Wilson as the high highest Elementary uh focused District trustee area so and it's actually like that all the way down I mean you can pull the data I could pull the data out and like read it all off to you my point being that that that concern that that you know we need to have our our hubs of of concentrated um uh folks that live in a a a specific trustee area be represented at that school in that with that concern whether you agree with that as criteria or not it's actually split and I didn't I didn't have time like this whole time I've been writing down numbers I didn't have time to write down the green and I could totally do that and my guess is it's probably somewhere very similar um the green map does uh make sure that every trustee has a pretty equal spread or has some representation for both High School Districts so I like that about the green map but we're talking about the purple map right now so it was um also addressed that the purple map does have the highest concentration of our targeted group okay and that was the reason we removed the blue map in the first place because it had the lowest percentage and that's a big deal and and if I were to rank these I would say the purple map hits the highest for that and about 1.2% lower is the green map and then the orange map does worse but not as bad as the blue map was it's not the same it was still a 1% difference I know because I wrote it down and that's why I made the motion that I did last time so that all being said and there's probably more that I could blurred out but I would like to give other folks a chance to to explain you know their thinking or discuss um the biggest reason of wanting to um eliminate the pro map and still consider the green map and the orange map and really dig into those numbers and really think about how the the demographics are divided out and represented and give the opportunity for more public comment since I didn't get any public comment on the green map I would like to hear more but it again it sounded like people didn't even realize a green map was an option it sounded like people thought it was purple or orange so that's that's the the purple map being Cohasset and Forest Ranch split is is really my main reason for for wanting to eliminate it all right further comment yes no thank you Caitlyn um I uh I appreciate the in-depth analysis that you've done of purple and why I mean there were a number of things I didn't like about purple and I too responded to people that were emailing me about you know it's got to be purple it's got to be purple it's got to be you know why and there were a number of no number there were three responses everyone else chose not to give a reason for why why they wanted the purple map which to me is kind of curious it seems like if you were that committed to something you'd have a reason um I'm also I'm I'm going you know I Mr tennis I read your Facebook post urging your supporters to email us and support the purple map and I recogn Iz many of the names as Miss Doby said they're the same names that were involved with the recall and several other hot issues um within the the purview of the school board over the last year or so and I appreciate that they're still interested that's you know that's they're right however when I got to looking at parents if you consider one and a half per kid we have 12,000 students in this district and if you have one and a half parents on average and yet the only responses I got on the purple map were from the people that were on your list I don't like it I am not going to go beyond what my reasonable analysis of what we're faced with supports in favor of 80 emails for the purple map to me that's not responsible to me you know we know where the orange Maps came from we've been told about the phone calls to The District phone call at least one from someone someone who is interested in running for the school board who wanted to know when will we know about the districts and how do I prepare to run that's when the issue of sequencing came to light and within a week through through consultation with our experts the people we pay to give us advice we were told that there's this process of sequencing that you and so they said oh my God I didn't say but the people we trust to give us advice said we have to give this information to the board the only way to give that information to the board was turn it over to our consultants and our attorney to give us good Legal Information so when we make our decision tonight or in two weeks weeks we know the consequences of what we are doing so I I support the problems that you've outlined with the purple map and support putting it aside so we have a motion we've had uh comments and uh it has a second so unless there's a further factual point uh I'm going to call for the motion and I'll call for a roll call a roll call vote so Robinson I to remove the purple map okay Kaiser I Dolby I okay for shame tennis n all right so that's three to one so it is removed and now we have uh a choice the choice say we can continue to assess these Maps the green map and the two orange maps with the kind of uh more detailed analysis that's been used um and vote or we can wait until the 16th uh to give people time to look in depth at the at these three maps that are left because I agree I got very very little rational presentations um on them um so what's the I what's the will of the board we want to vote now or do we want to come back on February 16th and vote Yes Madam president I I uh I support continuing some discussion and questioning I appreciate the work Miss Doby did I'd like to see more discussion on the difference between the Green map and the the two orange Maps I think that would help the public too to decide whether or not uh to comment on any of those three Maps I think our discussion brings forward um information to the public that that that I think they need I need it so I'd like to continue discussion I I don't have a I'm not ready yet to vote okay any other comments I have a comment um as far as public input is concerned with the exception of Miss gianola who spoke I guess in favor well against the purple map because of the division of Forest Ranch and Cohasset this idea originates with one email that somebody wrote in on uh shoot I don't I I took a screenshot and I don't have what the date that it came in but this person said without making direct reference to the green map this is pre- orange I like this map because it is the only one that keeps the mountain communities of interest together if we learned anything from the Board of Supervisors it is that the two mountain communities want to stay together in a single District keep us together we have similar needs for transportation and unique challenges that make us different than Chico neighborhoods fair enough that is one comment you know and you've got a backdrop of so many comments you say there weren't substantive reasons why I think I heard you say a minute ago that you you thought that the reasons given by Mr Colby Miss ba were not substantive and it just makes me so sad that you would just discount them in that fashion um but it's apparent to me that these these orange maps are are golden children and and anything that the public you know especially parents come in favor of um you will eliminate and you will you will go against um it's a sad observation that I make but um there's one more thing I'd like to say and that is is that uh somebody wrote a letter to the editor about me a couple of days ago CU I had written a letter a few days previously complaining about the orange maps and how I see it as Jerry mandering and a majority interest trying to uh basically resist change and maintain that majority uh and this person said regarding recent redistricting issues Dear Sir this is an edited slimmed down version of the guy's email dear sir he's addressing me what's good for the goose is good for the gander as an example of payback is a and I'm going to leave out the exploitive um but it starts with a b and refers to a female dog as an example of payback is a exploitive in exchange for all the gerrymandering done in all of the red legislature flyover states that have resulted in the majority's desired agenda being obstructed by the minority I proposed the California legislature Jerry Mander to the extent that there there's not a single Republican left in office in this state of 40 million people including all local boards I do believe that with the current Democratic voter majority Statewide creative Jerry mandering might allow the elimination of all California's Republican congressional districts sweet if all the blue States followed suit I believe Dems could own the House of Representatives permanently it's just kind of obvious to everyone and it was obvious to you all two years ago with your exception of you miss who was not here that this was unsavory that you don't draw trusty areas or legislative districts at a first shot around where we live and the court of public opinion and the parents who live there do not appreciate this thank you I think if you felt strongly enough about the orange Maps he would have made a motion to eliminate them tonight rather than push for one map hold on I'm not done but but I but I'm not comfortable making that final decision because we have given the public so little time to give input on these maps and Mr Lando is not here today to make a final map decision that's why I don't want to continue this discussion until our next meeting either so I actually moved to end debate so I'm going to uh follow the first question which was Rob can you or Jamie give us any further details about the two orange Maps as requested so I had a I had written down a note of uh there being a desire for a kind of real side by side of the differences between the green and the orange Maps yes yeah uh yeah and then uh yeah and so I think I can certainly do something that's a bit more explic because right now the presentation is focused on just here for each map our various data points we can really just put everything side by side and uh do something kind of concise where everyone can really see those core differences so if that saies that I'm happy to put that together all right I think that was the focus of the question is that agreeable then to the other board members all right thank you Rob and Jamie I really appreciate that and I incredibly appreciate your service since you both were sick um to come and stay with us have a question Madam president um Rob when will that comparison reasonably be available to us I uh you know I think the public as well as board members would like to see that as soon as possible it would be published I uh Jamie pull me back if I'm uh getting ahead of our uh how we balance things out but I think uh by early next week we can have that available that seem reasonable for all parties involved Kelly what was your comment so typically it would be P published when we publish the February 16th agenda with direction from the board we can put it all on our website it when uh Mr Murray has it available yeah that's what I'd like everybody has to receive it at the same time yes at at the earliest avail would be great Paul um although not legally compelled because there's been some discussion about whether there's been adequate consideration of the green map or focus on it I do note that uh from a legal standpoint before the board adopts a map we know that the map has to be posted for seven days seven days yeah and even though as this map has been available I would recommend if at all possible that the additional material be posted at least s days before the next board meeting because I think legislature and passing the ACT felt that that was a time period that they want people to focus on the maps and consider them detail so pressure on Rob one last thing we we've received a couple of draft maps in the last week um they they came from the public they didn't come from experts and they have not been introduced What would uh be the process if we wanted to give those a shot or chance of at life you can I'm going ask Mr dant to address that because it does fall into that making sure that we meet the uh 7-Day posting period can I just really quick interrupt and ask for clarification so I I'm aware of one map that was submitted that was like kind of handdrawn is that the is that the only one or was there Sterling I want to say um a gentleman I I think and then another one came in today from Miss thre um and then there was earlier there was there was one a few days ago from Mr bird I believe Mr who okay and then I don't know if Mr Gant has seen that one yet but it was actually taking um uh partisanship in voting into consideration when he drew that map and submitted that so I'm aware uh that some addition some some maps uh originating with the public uh have have been come forth I don't know uh and in fact they would probably have to be be at least evaluated first by the demographers to give even an initial read on whether they would satisfy the very basic most uh uh critical criteria that we've discussed uh so that can be looked at the uh there's no legal bar to producing additional maps and uh again the the criteria that that we have to be focused on is that any map that the board does ultimately adopt has to be published at least seven days before the board adopts it other than that there is uh the opportunity if the U board wishes uh to to have other Maps brought forward uh it's just a timeline issue I know that the uh count the attorney who I'm in touch with with the county committee on School District reorganization has expressed an interest that the uh that the matter be brought to their March meeting and uh my understanding is in order to safely make that deadline we would need to provide them with our materials by the 22nd of February um I do get concerned about pushing past uh we we become at the mercy of other agencies and then I know that the elections office has its hands full as well and I I can't necessarily speak for for them but I do know that they want to have certainly there's the statutory deadline it has to come to them at least 100 more than 120 days before the election uh but I believe and I'm only speaking from from my sense of it at this point that they would like to get it sooner than the very last day before the de I think since he's here I just have to take this opportunity to invite Keat and dley up to comment on what our drop dead date would be on getting any any new maps in into shape and for our Consultants Jamie King and Rob Murray you can be thinking about while he's coming up and saying his piece if you could assign an approximate price tag to what it might take to get some of these draft Maps or one or both of these Maps into shape um I would appreciate that Insight go ahead Mr Denley yeah so um it may come as no surprise uh to to the board members that you aren't the only board going through this process what yes I know and I have the joy of communicating with all of them um so uh the original deadline um kind of pre-co anything like that would have been March 1st that that would have been your guys' deadline for having them Ms drawn um there was a Senate bill passed this last year 442 that does extend that deadline giving you up until 125 days before the election that is uh July 6th okay if you wait until July 6th candidate filing starts July 18th you're not giving us a whole lot of time time to set up and prepare for that election if we get the maps 12 days before you know the election has to start happening so and that's not our approval that's like the state approval it would it would need to be approved finalized in our office by that date and that is the last deadline um and we would certainly appreciate much more time than that uh just from a Manpower perspective of being able to put on this election um for our voters with the Integrity that they've come to expect so you don't care about the Board of Education as is that what the other deadline was associated with I I did not make that statement I very much care about them and everything that goes on uhhuh but but but that that that deadline or you know they wanted to report it or something like that I mean maybe somebody can clarify this for me it's a legal approval process it has to be approved by the um bu County Office of Education board so uh references were made to the changes in law and there were some changes uh prior to uh prior to this past year prior to the current cycle um with regard to uh trustey area redistricting for school districts there there was either the obligation to have the electric vote on the maps or boards could seek uh a waiver from the State Board of Education so we had that whole steps that was had to be put into the process to seek that waiver and and there were many many months uh that were added to the process in order to do that for what was really just a check I'll be honest with you a check off the Box by the state board they didn't have any real clear interest in rejecting these um I wasn't privy to the reasoning behind the change in the law but the legislature saw you know and Governor saw uh saw it as being beneficial to eliminate the necessity for the State Board of Education appr waiver process and so they now allow the what we call the county committee on School District reorganization which in this particular county is is the board uh the County Board of Education and in most counties they have a dual purpose this is one of their purposes so uh now there is an allowance it is a May it's not a must but the County Board of Education sitting as this uh County committee on School District reorganization May approve approve the maps without their NE the necessity of either going to the State Board of Education or to the voters for approval um if we recognize that your District was under threat of litigation to go forward with this process so anything that would delay delay the uh creation of the trustee areas and push it to a later election remember the process was frozen by the emergency order but now we're expected to move forward uh would push you at risk that the uh that the organization that originally brought this forward would say that's unreasonable and you are unduly delaying the process and and they could sue you and be outside what we call the Safe Harbor so so I could go on but the the point being that if you wish to make that timeline to make make sure that your trustee areas are drawn and effective by this coming election you are relying on uh the county committee on School District reorganization to hear the matter and determine to approve your Maps now they're a separate agency I cannot tell you that they're necessarily going to agree with what you do I I don't uh necessarily expect that they would not uh follow your lead with regard to those Maps but in my position I tend to uh want to be uh if I may use the word conservative because if there was a delay that we did not expect that would push the county committee's decision let's say they said there's something we don't like we want you to look at this take it back and look at it I don't know what that might be that would then that could happen at their March meeting that could push the process at least another month or more depending on what their request was so now you're getting very close to your absolute deadline so that that's all I want to point out as you add layers to your process you get closer and closer to deadlines of that sort now as it stands right now clearly uh you're you're in pretty good shape as long as you act before February 22nd because that allows you to get on the county committee's agenda for the March meeting and that has been at least a sense of the conversations that I have with their council is that would be desirable they may have meetings after that and before Mr denley's deadlines but but it'd be desirable from the standpoint of the County Council the Council of the board of Education to have it done in that time frame that we've been operating under my training has kind of taught me over the years to expect the unexpected and that's that's it's usually been a pretty good rule of thumb not necessarily here but it's it's it's that it's unexpected so that being the case if we want if we wanted to honor that deadline does it work mathematically to to bring forward any any constituent submitted maps that have recently come in well there's time as far as that goes if the board says um yes we would like to add some additional maps to the mix for consideration um we might have to talk to staff about the necessity for a special meeting there hasn't been a formal motion to do this are you making a formal motion well I want to know if it's feasible I mean if it's going to cost a fortune and and and you know and put us in legal Jeopardy then then maybe I wouldn't make a motion right but trying to get answers to right now I turn to Jamie and Rob thank you um there is certainly time for you know poor Rob over there to or myself to take the maps that were provided and um you know they were very roughly drawn and try and determine if it legally they fit within the criteria it really depends on if we're just taking a a quick glance at it like that maybe eight to 10 hours to draw the boundaries collect the sensus data run all the analysis for each map so I think there were two um so a couple days work and then you know if there was if they didn't work if the board gave us direction that you know if they if they don't work perfectly the way that they were submitted take the time to Nuance them until you can bring forth um options you know those those options that are inspired by these Maps um that do work and that would take consider considerably uh more time so you know I think probably we could have something rob you and I can talk about it but uh maybe to your point uh a couple days of our time and then just to just to quickly look at them and share that information out and then if the if there's a decision to move forward to make viable options inspired by those those Maps uh and the criteria that were provided um probably at least a couple more days Rob do you have anything else you'd like to add it's quite quite a bit of data mining and Analysis for for each option as you've seen yeah no I think the I mean what I was really kind of coming on to was the I think the question that was asked was really uh just having those Maps as they were drawn and just I think the primary things would be the balance of total population and the ethnic con and racial concentrations uh and just see you know basically as kind of a yes no uh just is this map valid as submitted by the community and if it is I can confirm that uh as you said with you know with a couple of days of our time uh to bring those into my system and kind of tie all the data into it so that I can come up with those totals uh but yes and then if they uh you know if they are deemed valid then we can present that back out and if they are not uh as you just alluded to then that really makes it I think more of a open-ended question of does that question that was posed extend to uh making them viable Maps or is it just the intention of confirming that they're not and that ends the question on that particular map Rob and Jamie we do have to present any Maps under serious consideration 7 days before we vote and we would be voting on the 16th right so and we talked about posting the three Maps we have currently on our website with the kind of more detailed analysis that was suggested so um they'd all have to be ready and posted by February 9th by February 9th huh and you guys have been struggling physically so you have to just give us an honest assessment I I find this very high risk well Madam president yes I if I might interject on this subject of um do we have a deficit of knowledge in the three maps that we have in front of us to consider [Music] have do we have you know checked off a b c and d and the things we talked about the neighborhoods the you know all of those other criteria that we use to formulate the maps did we miss something I'm not feeling that I I um I want more information on what has been developed already that will meet the timelines um I appreciate the community coming up with you know time to to do other Maps I you know I I don't want to stifle somebody's you know interest and curiosity but what we're dealing with we've had a lot of input into and I'm comfortable with what we have in front of us with the additional information that we've asked so that we can make a you know uh more significant analysis of green and orange a& B so is that a motion I move that we not add an additional map to the three under consideration I'd like to offer a friendly amendment that we add both new maps to consideration um I I said I'd like to offer a friendly amendment that we add both new maps for consideration I don't consider that a friendly Amendment the point of my motion is to exclude that the point of your motion is to include so I don't see those as compatible do I have a second on uh Miss Robinson's motion what I'll second it so we can talk about it how's that okay so the motion moved and seconded is to stay uh with the three Maps the purple and the two orange already presented to have a little bit more of the detail I'm sorry green I was looking at what I green and uh to have the our demographers to do a little bit more refinement on some of the data points that were being used I think earlier correct I think the the purpose is to make the side by side comparison more clear for us and for the public right um by way of discussion for having that um yeah I think that you should all be ashamed of yourselves for leaving the orange maps for for for for allowing this problem to I'm going to interrupt you cuz the orange Maps were developed by our Consultants with plenty of time and so if that's the argument that we shouldn't consider the orange Maps because there hasn't been enough time why are we discussing adding even more maps to consider that's what I'm really confused about here because people don't like the orange Maps the only people who like the orange maps are are some of the people sitting up here on the stage um and then two two other people who provided input one two weeks ago by email and another one live and in person today there are certainly things about the orange map that I like more than the purple map which is why I did what I did tonight but that doesn't mean that there isn't more to discuss and that's why I think that you know you're out of line in accusing anybody of having made up their mind about anything so I think the context of this motion originally it presented and seconded was the seeking of a more uh clear comparison between the green and the two orange Maps um to allow a greater distinction so uh and I believe Jamie and Rob you've indicated you can do that and give us the seven days that we need absolutely okay and that was going to be February 7th Kelly febrary February 9th okay so we have to have it able to put on the website by February 9th all right is there any other further discussion of the motion Madam president I thought that there was a motion to that we not consider any additional maps that was that was my motion the motion was to not add Maps correct yeah well I just said green and the two Orange right and and I made a I made a motion you're right about what we've asked at the demographers absolutely my motion was to not add more maps to the considerations that we stay with the three we already have I thought that was my motion I thought that's what we were referencing and it's a second or that's clear with you too okay so um just for additional Clarity in that no new maps are added all right so if there's no further uh discussion of this motion then we'll vote all those we can do by by Voice vote or no excuse me by roll call so all those in favor of having the green and the two orange Maps examined in Greater detail as a comparison and not add any additional Maps Robinson I Kaiser I Dolby I tennis nay okay so it passes 3 to one all right I do have to say Julie three you're your presentation was very thorough I just the timeline and the controversy with adding new maps that this late in the game anyway is just a concern for me okay okay all right so at this point in time and we are unfortunately uh violating by 45 minutes our uh estimated time is there board member a request to agendize an item uh actually I have one um the presentation of the Career Technical um programs and their success um also really raises for me the question of the science that we are pursuing and the way we're pursuing it in our our secondary schools um in my position uh former position as the trustee for the CSU working with the UC I actually was part of the original discussion about how to integrate sciences and that was like nine years ago so um I would like to hear a a report about how our Science Program at the high schools and at the junior highs is leading to an integrated understanding uh which is the vast majority of high schools in California are using so that's what I request to have agendas uh I'll second your motion okay so any other discussion of that of adding that to the agenda I appreciate motion Madam president I you know our our emphasis on raising our integration with anything including science is crucial I support it however i' I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't mind that you and the superintendent look at when we would have the most information oh yeah to to bring that back to us yeah um I wasn't said I think uh yeah with the U with both schools going to the block schedule thing I think it's going to give us a lot of insight into what we're going to be able to add to that issue as PV goes online with with that so I I love it I want to see it but give it some time yeah I'll add um that the Next Generation science standards have been California adopted for nearly a decade and we still haven't really got a clear update especially at the high school level on how we are doing and implementing those standards and I can tell you from personal experience at the middle school level besides going through the curriculum adoption because it came up it was almost a cart before the horse conversation adopting curriculum at the middle school level because we hadn't really had the full discussion about integrating or not integrating and implementing the ngss even at the middle school level so I think that this is a timely and critical conversation that I would definitely love to get an update from the district on um at at the secondary level and we can do that can you repeat are we going to vote on this um I guess do we need a vote on this okay can you repeat the motion please yes uh I would like to hear an update on the Next Generation science standards which call for Integrated Science at the secondary level where are we at and what could we do I can't really object to that okay all right so um all right all those in favor signify by saying I oh okay roll call all right Robinson I Kaiser I Dolby I tennis I all right okay that's unanimous so great thank you guys um and then we will uh now move to oh well has anybody else got another thing that they want to agendize okay um we will then move to close session so I want to thank the audience you have been extremely patient and I especially thank our election representative uh for coming and giving us some critical information so thank you all thanks for being here Katon maybe we should have started inviting you a while ago oh yes um yeah we always that was why I opened the meeting early each time was to give public a chance to comment on Clos session before we went into Clos session I may be totally wrong but I don't how how could they there wasn't any speaker cards turned in for close session I'm sorry there wasn't any speaker cards turned in for close session okay yeah well to go to close session yeah okay

cathy do you want me to repeat the items for you and that's uh we're going to do some uh uh amendments to the agenda oh thank you okay and uh i'll repeat it again that's uh you should be good kathy okay it's page two of the agenda pull the closed session item 5.7 and then page two again on the agenda closed session item 5.8 pull the expulsion number 20 21-10 and then we go to page 12 of the agenda page 12. we're pulling items 12.14 and 12.15 now page 12. page 12 pull item 12.14 and 12.15 and then page 15 of the agenda item 12.21 correct the budget implications to six thousand seven hundred and twenty dollars okay there's a new sheet right there for it thank you and then the rest are exhibits exhibit aa replace page seven to include the contractor's license number and then exhibit qq replace page one to include fernando romero all right do i have a motion to adopt the amendment so i moved second i have a motion on the floor in a second all in favor aye aye you pose motion passes and now we will proceed to the study session and i'm going to uh go ahead and ask dr fred to take the floor thank you we're president jabar welcome board members it gives me great pleasure to be here with you this afternoon just a couple quick things i want to share with you before i bring up amanda being our director of career preparedness systems framework who's going to lead us this afternoon i'm really really proud of the great work the mind work that our ed division has done in prepping for this presentation i'm also really excited about the inclusivity that our team brought to this process speaking with counselors working closely with i know mr lara is here from um ed our coordinator of all dad working with his team this has really been a process that we've gone through with with quite significant intention and strategic approaches because we're trying to meet the needs of our students as you know despite our best efforts we have seen tremendous growth over the last several years with our a through g rates our graduation rates benefit historic rates right now in terms of where we've been at the district but despite those best efforts we still have some student groups that continue to struggle and with that our core values in mind equity and justice making sure we're looking to meet the needs of our students where they're at and providing the structure and a system right through the lines of justice to make sure it's not just by chance we're really working um with intention to put these things in place so tonight's presentation is going to talk a little bit about that more specifically related to gilbert high school and some things that we're going to want to recommend the other thing i want to share is as you know the pandemic already brought to light a lot of the challenges that so many of our students have faced with with mental health perhaps conditions of that they live in et cetera we really believe that this approach that we're looking at is going to help to address some of those things and really take again those core values and put them at the forefront to meet the needs of our students so with that it gives me great great pleasure to bring up amanda bean who's going to walk you through kind of our proposal what we think might be a tremendous option for us to consider in better meeting the needs of our students specifically a smaller group of students who have traditionally struggled in our schools so thank you amanda good afternoon uh board president jabbar board of trustees uh superintendent matsuda cabinet and the guests that are with us today today we're here to share with you a proposal to amend the graduation requirements at gilbert high school as dr fred mentioned it's really important to know that this was done in collaboration with various groups and it's been the results of months of research and planning so i would personally i would like to thank the teams that provided input to this presentation so our ed division counselors administrators the gilbert site leadership team and gilbert staff all provided input to to what we're going to recommend today so if we believe that the ultimate barometer of social justice in society is access to meaningful and purposeful jobs to quote superintendent matsuda we know that and we know that a high school diploma is a standard requirement for most jobs and we know that adults without a high school diploma have decreased economic stability impacts to their self-esteem and psychological well-being and an increased chance of incarceration then we have to address our student population that is unable to attain a diploma with the current structures and supports in place so knowing that our students come to school with any number of adverse childhood experiences or what we call aces for most students they're able to overcome that and they can thrive in school but there's a population or a group that can't and despite our best efforts and the supports and the intentionality of our teams we need to think differently about how we can support these students to be able to leave auhsd at the best chance of success to a meaningful and gainful employment so as dr fred mentioned and i do want to acknowledge that we have steadily increased our graduation rate over the past several years here in anaheim and even with the pandemic we have maintained graduation rates higher than the state average so we've gone from in 1718 from 85.9 percent to in 2021 90.9 percent and there's been some fluctuation in between those years and a lot has been done to to see this so with the support of the board we have been able to make several shifts which directly impact these results so to really acknowledge the efforts of our site level teams our ed division teams and even some of the decisions that the board has made those are nothing short of heroic the work that has gone into supporting our students and meeting them where they're at is is evident and those are some some of those things are switching from grade level counseling which has helped to make sure that our students have more targeted monitoring and support we are offering more credit and grade recovery options we've been doing a hard look at our grading practices and encouraging compassionate grading and grading for equity we are actively strategically implementing the lcap recommendations for our most vulnerable student groups and we have the shift to the career preparedness systems framework where we focus on developing youth voice and purpose technical skills and 21st century skills and our students are achieving and finding success however even with this growth there's still a need we know that our students will have long-term effects for years to come the ones coming up from elementary school and the junior highs long-term effects on learning and development due to covet 19.

we know that our students are struggling more with mental health for many students their identity and self-esteem are tied closely to school and when they're not doing well they act out they disengage and they give up and the pandemic made even more visible the systemic inequities that make school most challenging for students that need the most help and so these conditions are also often worsened um or often worse in mental health or the things that tied to mental health issues in the first place so even though our graduate graduation rate has increased we still want to look at the like this last year for the class of 2021 the 9.1 of students that did not earn a diploma right and if we look at the kids at gilbert high school that was 39.4 of their population that did not earn a diploma we know that once students do not graduate with their cohort very few actually return for a fifth year and we do offer them that opportunity very few actually do return or if they do they don't stick it out because they need to move on get a job support their family whatever those things are and very few if any enroll in an adult learning program and if they are they're not completing like our data with noce has shown that students are not completing their diplomas there either so that means that our students are leaving us with no credit for what they did accomplish why they were with us and we're sending them out into the world with little chance of getting a decent job which is further perpetually perpetuating the cycle of poverty in our community so we have talked about well what are some things we can do about that before we talk about our proposal i do want to acknowledge that we have a precedent for graduation waivers and alternate requirements in place so we've already seen it happening so for example prior to the pandemic the state has a graduation waiver in place which is 130 credits for the most at risk groups such as homeless and foster youth newcomers and students in juvenile hall so that's already a pre-established requirement first for students additionally there is a handful of neighboring school districts that prior to the pandemic already had diploma requirements that were modified for their continuation schools so our most closest district would be placentia or belinda has a modified requirement during the pandemic the board saw a need to address the needs of additional students by implementing the kovid 19 waiver understanding that there was high need we implemented the waiver of 160 credits for students um in the graduating class of 2020 and 21.

and then this year the state saw a need to support students who are affected by the pandemic and implemented the ab-104 waiver which is identical to the state waiver for that at-risk group so just 130 credits so we have we have precedent in context in which we can have this discussion so with all of that and what our team has come up with is that we would like to propose to the board that starting with the class of on the district would like to serve the students that have demonstrated a need to have an alternative graduation requirement through our program at gilbert high school and so what that would look like is a reduction of credit requirements we're proposing a reduction of english credits from 40 to 30 math credits from 30 to 20 electives from 55 to 30 and the overall credits from 220 to 175.

the reason why we chose this um is we looked at the data of our students over the last several years and where they were falling short and and what we could do with um the state minimum requirements like what would be allowable and seeing where students were falling short these were the areas that made the most sense for us to make the recommendation we also felt that this was more rigorous than the state minimum and higher than our previous waivers so there was still that element of expectation there also it maintains the electives and the world language vapa and career ed requirement and through our conversations with with the board we understand we know that access to electives is important and we also know that electives are often where students find their passions and discover their interests through exploration so we really felt that it was important not to just reduce the requirement in electives only because we wanted to make sure kids still had that opportunity to to engage in things that were very interesting to them we felt that it was in in important to place the value on the student voice and purpose through that interest exploration so just to make sure like we're very clear that this mod modification to the graduation requirements would apply to students at gilbert high school only not for students at the comprehensive sites and not for alternative education as a whole it would be gilbert high school only and when we think about the system i draw your attention to the slides about equality equity and justice and we've you know we see this all often we talk about what does that mean and if in this picture in our system equality would be equality would be the equal graduation requirement of 220 credits for all students equity would be having the opportunity to attend gilbert high school that is a place that we have designed where students can go to get caught up but if you think about it we're actually asking students to go meet the same requirements and do it at an accelerated rate because they do a whole semester in one quarter so we're giving them another place to go but we're not actually changing what we're expecting them to do and we're asking them to do it faster so justice would be to fix the system and adjusting the requirement would demonstrate um justice because we're meeting students where they're at and we're giving them a fairer and better chance to access their diploma at the same pace as their peers and so that is um you know very important that we put the element of justice in there i wanted to share a little bit with you some data that just gives a small snapshot of the example of the need and this is just one one class of students but i think if we looked year after year we would see something similar so if we look at the current class of 2023 those are our current juniors at the start of the junior year they would need need to have had around 120 credits to be considered on track for graduation in november there were 436 juniors which is about 10 of our of our junior class that had zero to 80 credits typically at that time of the school year based on the structures in place and what students could complete on complete and enough time gilbert would have accepted students with about 60 credits or more so that leaves us with 161 kids who who just have no opportunity to get back on track they were too far behind to even go to gilbert because they can't make up enough classes in time and so so they just have nowhere to go so implementing a set of graduation requirements that would allow us to meet the needs of that most at-risk group would allow us to serve those 161 students and that's equity giving kids what they need and a chance to access their diploma and that gives them hope of earning a diploma on time and with their graduating class i think that's the key here when we want to talk about hope we want to talk about on time and with with their peers so i'd like you to meet kayla so kayla is a student a current student at gilbert so we know that gilbert is designed to serve a particular group of students and kayla is one of them in kayla's own testimony she talks about attending magnolia high school and in ninth and tenth grade she had many personal challenges and that were preventing her from being able to access all the wonderful things at magnolia she just could not engage because of everything going on kayla was referred to gilbert she decided to take that offer and according to her it changed her life and i'm telling you about kayla because i want us to think about well why gilbert what does gilbert do for our kids right um kayla was able to in that environment turn herself around during her first semester she under 4.0 gpa she now has so much confidence as a student she's joined asb and she's applying to be the student ambassador for next year and she never would have done any of this at magnolia because she was so far detached from this school and what they had to offer she was too worried about getting caught up and just couldn't couldn't do it so sometimes all the kids need is a fresh start like kayla right so imagine if we could provide this type of hope for those 161 kids that we wouldn't be able to serve otherwise with the alternate diploma requirement and think about that 39.4 of seniors from the class of 2021 that that did not earn their diploma from gilbert that was just out of reach like those are the kids that we would be providing hope for that they get to go have that wonderful environment and have some relief in what we're expecting of them but still keeping a high a high standard so the projected impact so we looked back and we took the waivers out of play and we just looked at what kids were deficient in and tried to calculate what the impact would have been for the last three graduating classes um and we have determined that if these waivers would have been in place or this requirement would have been in place um in 1819 62 additional students potentially could have earned their diploma in 1920 36 additional students and 20 21 85 additional students and this assumes that students would have attended gilbert and passed all their classes we know that sometimes you know they may go and they still may struggle and that they still may not graduate on time or they may not choose to go to gilbert i think that's the other thing we want to keep in mind that gilbert is a program of choice we never force students to go so we will still see students that may not graduate because they've chosen not to take advantage of that opportunity but if we were to implement this policy there's a couple of things that we you know feel like are very important one would be we would be keeping auhsd students in auhsd we know that our students have other options in the community that are far less rigorous than what we have to offer like access or a charter school and so this gives us them an incentive to stay with us and and still stay in our high quality programs access to ct pathways access to work experience access to the aim program access to evapa so on and so on um we believe that our product in our product and we believe that our programs matter to students and so again keeping them with us means that they still have the opportunity to keep developing their voice and purpose their technical skills and their 21st century skills and additionally we have our community schools that offer supports to families and we have a high quality family engagement program that we likely won't find in the other options in the community so it's super important that we find ways to keep them with us the most important thing is that we're giving students hope and a better chance to graduate on time and hope means that students will re-engage which would likely lessen truancies and discipline issues because we know that when students lose hope they stop coming to school or they have increased negative behaviors which often then will put them further and further behind and then we also know that giving students to access to a diploma in a system that's meeting their needs like we can meet their needs here it just needs to look a little bit different so with the shift we also will include more strategic planning around the student entry and exit from gilbert high school uh i guess we want to reiterate that it's not just that we want to modify the requirement we also want to change the structure in which we're referring students and and and exiting them back out to their comprehensive sites if that's appropriate we want to get to the point where we have the cycle that when students are recruited to go they will know up front if they're a candidate to return to their home site and when they would need to be caught up and do that do that by or if they're going as a candidate to graduate from gilbert because that depends on how far behind they are and so we want kids to know on the front end what the expectation is so they know what their what they're working for and lastly back to our core values this shift would be demonstrating that we know that education must work for students and not the other way around and that we will be moving the needle towards equity and justice and that we're working in systems not silos and we're really creating a system around supporting this group of students so i want to thank you for your consideration of our proposal our intention is to submit a revision to the current board policy related to graduation requirements to include the graduation requirements for gilbert high school i'm at the march board meeting with a second read at the april board meeting so for today our team is here to answer any questions that you might have and to provide any information that you might need to help you with this decision so thank you all right thank you amanda i appreciate the presentation uh i will open this for questions from our fellow board members okay i have a question okay the diploma that will come from gilbert is it going to be any different than our normal diplomas nothing will look different it will just be a separate set of requirements but nothing on it says that it was modified or that the requirements were different it'll it'll still say gilbert high school they just it's just like a student who gets the state waiver for being a foster youth there's absolutely no difference other than there's fewer classes on their transcript that have they passed okay so um not that i'm against this but then um if students at the regular comprehensive high schools learn that they can go to gilbert and do less how are we going to uh prevent that so i think that um if we think back to the system of how kids are exiting and entering gilbert um we would be able to drop down to more kids that are much more deficient and so we are we are going to be able to refer the kids that have zero to 80 credits they would have to be in a really drastic place to even get the referral to gilbert um they wouldn't be able just one day to decide oh like i want to go do less and go like we we're going to dictate who actually gets to get asked um based on that data okay because i on the first one with the uh figures here um when you talked about you know the students uh missing oh they didn't even have the 80 credits and yet if we're saying they he's a junior and he doesn't have even 80 credits that's in in the spring how is he going to make up to 175 credits i mean that is what 25 40 45 less than our normal graduation requirement of 220 right yes can he do it i mean i know i i didn't hear part of what you were saying but gilbert is on the same semester base as we are right or quarters right are they graded by quarters instead of semesters so you can do a semester's work in a quarter yes okay so and the way we so in anticipation of this and anybody please feel free to come answer um but in anticipation of of this being approved we looked at the list of students we we recruited this time around and we determined that we could go all the way down to the junior zero credits for this semester because if they entered gilbert right now they could earn 50 credits this semester 50 credits in the fall 50 credits in the spring plus go to summer school for their 175.

so um so that's where the strategic entry points are like trying to get that group of kids that can go early enough to get back to their home site and graduate with it with their class or take those kids that have as low as zero and still be able to graduate them on time if they enter by second semester of their junior year okay so we're still going to attempt to get them back to their comprehensive sites if it's just a matter of catching up so it depends on the entry point right and so if the student is like an 80 credit student they like they have the opportunity potentially by the second semester of their senior year to return and so that's where we want to calculate it so that when kids are being referred they know exactly what situation they're in and they know like before they go i will have to stay at gilbert to the end to be able to make it or they know i have to get to this point by second semester of senior year so so i can go back and so we want to be much more clear about that on the front end for students rather than the ambiguous cycle if you work really hard you might be able to make it back like we want to be very clear for them and be very strategic about when we're referring them to go okay now my next question now because i'm not familiar what how gilbert has changed over the years now are all of the students in for a full day or can they go maybe like half a day because they work uh i mean i'm assuming as you know i don't know i mean i i know that we changed things we made them have to you know have the same requirements and and go full time and in seat or what so what is the the system now uh uh thank you board members for uh um allowing me to be here let me ask um jose lara coordinator of alternative education currently now at gilbert um we depending on the needs of the students so we have a lot of students who work and provide for their families and support with child care etc this pandemic has not made things easier for our kids and one of the rules that we have here and one of the philosophies is we do no harm and we want to make sure that we're compassionate and we meet students where they're at and so to answer your question is we make sure that students have a plan to be able to graduate on time and give flexibility to those students to be able to modify their schedule if needed to be able to work and meet those requirements as well so the answer to your question is yes we do modify students schedule to meet some of their other needs as long as they stay in school and we have a plan for every single one of our students to be able to graduate this i want to be very honest with you a lot of our students right now end up dropping out because of hope you know when you're at a point where you're just hopeless and don't see a way out it becomes very difficult um we talked about this at link with our staff at gilbert and we came down to if this provides hope for our students if this provides a way for them to keep going to school instead of just dropping out completely they're better off on our campus receiving the five c's receiving the education that they can receive opportunities for rop etc then say you know what i'm not gonna be able to graduate anyways why am i even going thank you thank you thank you all right uh and mary do you have any questions yes i i think that as most of my questions were answered because they are being held to uh to rigor um as you pointed out in the slide with the equity and my question was what was going to be the breakdown and then you um you have it right here 40 to 30 and 30 to 20 55 to 30 and then the ultimately 220 to 175 but you know my question was just going to be you know how many students have we had to say uh you haven't made it and and and they lose hope um but if they're even close they could even just take that summer school and that i i really want to congratulate the entire team for coming up with this plan um because we don't want any of our students falling through the cracks and this just gets them a little bit you know closer to that and and even provides a safety net from what you're telling me um i have heard several uh testimony testimonials from students that say at first they wanted to go back to their site but once they stayed at gilbert and they they they were met with the teachers and administrators they wanted to stay and graduate so uh congratulations to to the team for actually providing them some some extra incentive to work even harder i really love this plan i think this was just laid out so perfectly to to really just present the need and um thank you for for coming up with this thank you for really thinking outside the box and really you know providing that that hope for our students um this was tremendous and i'm i'm totally in support thank you thank you all right kathy do you have any questions well ordinarily i would say i am never in favor of lowering standards kathy would you mind speaking into the mic because i think people won't ordinarily i would never recommend lowering standards but i would say today we're living an american tragedy which really is a worldwide tragedy it's not just this school district it's not just california this country it's worldwide and you are trying to necessitate success for young people who are living the unthinkable unimaginable and based on what you mrs piercy's questions and your responses i'm very comfortable with this my hope for the future would be that we could raise the standards when we're past this tragedy it makes me cry because teaching is never easy you're dealing with a host of children that come from a large array of population and this has made it almost tragically difficult for you can you all hear me and yes you can hear me thank you and i just want to tell you if i could hug you you can't hug anybody anymore but i would hug all of you because you're doing what you needed to do and my hope is that for our country in the world we're going to get back to some normalcy and i just say bless you for what you've done thank you thank you mr smith thank you thank you kathy and final comment for me is that uh i think we skipped over that presentation pretty fast here but i wanted to highlight the importance of doing this because you know not getting a high school diploma it does decrease the economic stability of a family member and impacts of self-esteem and i think uh jose lara mentioned it in terms of hope right some of our students give up because they feel like they can't attain it and this is giving an opportunity to actually attain that and obviously without a diploma you're also putting them in a situation of increased position to be incarcerated right so i'm glad that that's happening my question our graduation requirement is 220 credits correct what have we looked at other districts around us and seen what the graduation requirements are for other districts around we have so that was part of our research we looked at all of our neighboring districts and what their requirements were how they were different from mars and then if they had a modified or an alternate diploma requirement for their alternative ed students and so i can share that with you yeah not only alternate but i want to see the comprehensive right we have all of that if you can't give that information because i think that's important for us too because with the pandemic i think you're seeing that not only at gilbert but even at other school sites right you have that challenge so um let's i want to take a look at that as well and see that and discuss that as a policy because i think it goes back to giving that opportunity for our students if if you're not compromising on standard and if you can still be above that and still provide it to our students i think we should take a look at that aspect as well i think my other questions were answered by ms piercy's comments and the questions that she asked i have one more okay so this is the one that i highlighted that so when students are recruited they will know if they are candidates to return to their home site and i know you mentioned that but i want to see what the process is i know that students probably not going to pay attention to that right how are we going to make sure that that's clearly identified not only to them but also the parents included in that conversation so one thing that we're working on as part of the system is creating more of a centralized like a recruitment or a brief permission slip type thing so right now what happens is the gilbert window opens and sites talk with families and get permission and put the students on a list and that's how they go to gilbert we want to flip that and give them a targeted list of students to recruit with the welcome letter that clearly indicates like you are a candidate to graduate at gilbert you are a candidate to graduate with your home site if and and pre-load that information and then have like a family actually sign off and have that documentation in writing um that's a piece of our system that we haven't had in place um it's been up to each site and we want to centralize that as a district process okay perfect i think that's uh yes please yeah so additionally something that we brought on this year specifically because our students come from so many diverse places is our amazing counseling team and our and our site got together and quarterly because our kids get um grades quarterly we do grad checks with every single one of our students so every student knows where exactly where they're at where they're on track to graduate if they have an opportunity to go back what kind of post-secondary plans they want based on the classes that they're taking because that changes when they're exposed to the rop pathway that we have right that changes when they're in the culinary class and now they may want to go further into that that changes based on some of the projects that they're doing in their civic engagement projects that they're working on say hey maybe i do want to go into public service i never thought of it before right so those types of things are experiences that they have when we go and take them to the community colleges et cetera so we do grad checks with our students at a quarterly basis they get to learn how they're how to do it on their own as well it's part of lifting up their advocacy and one day a quarter we modify our schedule so we do grad checks with the counselors and we do a lot of social emotional activities with the students on a quarterly basis because that's the kind of culture that we create over at gilbert and that's why indeed students say hey coming to gilbert transformed my life whether they go back to graduate with their peers at the final quarter or they stay with us and become part of the gladiator family at graduation all right and they always know there are these options absolutely work toward absolutely that's that's the hope that's the hope i'd like to go back to amanda and ask to see the comparison of the district surrounding us as to what their requirements are because i find it interesting you know that the governor has now put forth ab104 and he's saying 160 credits i guess 130 30 the state minimum yeah so it's like what are some of the other school districts doing in other words i'm just out of curiosity to see because we are not going down that far but you know we do have a a schools you know set up for it so just out of curiosity i would like to see some of the statistics of the surrounding areas sure so let me answer a piece of that really quick so what is in place with the state waiver this year we are following for all like for all high schools so we were um tasked with identifying what our at-risk number was and and our cut off and those are the students that qualify for the state waiver this would be for moving forward beyond this year when that's no longer in play that's in play for just this year with the state so then next year unless the state does something every district just goes back to their standard set of graduation requirements uh so what i can share with you is what those are for all the districts surrounding us so you can just see how we're comparing in the requirements they're all pretty standard pretty similar slight variations around career requirements and that type of thing but um but i can absolutely share that with you but just know like what's happening with the state waiver is this year only and everybody's doing it so i wanted to so ab104 is just targeted for just this here yes yeah this is for this graduating class it's a graduating class of 2022.

correct so that's why in anticipation of all of that ending we are proposing this for starting with the class of 2023 um and you know just to give you a little more background um so typically mostly seniors got referred to gilbert um and so again again you know not being able to take those kids younger affects their ability to get caught up faster and the hope that um jose was mentioning um but because the ab-104 waiver was in place fewer seniors actually went to gilbert this year which created a lot of space so we again in anticipation of making this proposal went ahead and invited those juniors that had all the way down to zero credits into gilbert because there was space because we want to make that transition and start getting kids as juniors more so into gilbert rather than waiting till their senior year doing it as juniors allows them to get caught up and get back or it allows them to have that sense of hope much sooner and they don't you know check out quite as badly right and so so we saw just everything happening around us this was the perfect time to just flip our system and and just go go for these changes informally in anticipation of a board approval of this policy so um so we were trying to be very strategic around those transitions if that makes yeah if i need to clarify let me know but um but yeah we just saw that we could make a change a very drastic change to what we were doing and this was our moment so we have started working towards it all right thank you thank you for that great presentation anybody else have any questions all right seeing none we will proceed to uh thank you thank you very much thank you so we'll go ahead and proceed to public comments for a closed session now uh we're going to move into a closed session is there anyone that wishes to address the board of trustees regarding closed session item only at this time okay seeing none the board of trustees will now hold a closed session to discuss item 5.1 through 5.8 on the agenda and it is now 3 17 and we will move to closed session thank you

hello chris cooper here superintendent of clearwater schools with a brief snow day update i thought with being out three days some people might be wondering if we need to make up days or how that works i'll give you um a little explanation of how we count hours and where we're at currently for this school year the short answer is that we're okay so far we have enough time built in our calendar that at this point we're okay so how much school is required um for kindergarten through 11th grade it's 116 hours each year seniors have to have 1086 hours and pre-k is kind of its own thing so then the next question is what do we count so student contact hours if we have students in class that's for one hour we count one hour we can count the whole school day minus lunch so our school days are 405 minutes we literally count every minute we can also count parent teacher conferences so when we're having scheduled parent teacher conferences those count as if we're having school time teacher professional development days we can count one hour as a half an hour of count time so that's how we accumulate hours teacher work days don't count for any time so those are the ways that we count hours to get that to that 116 required hours in the state of kansas so yesterday and today i've reviewed all of our daily logs from each of the buildings and then also looked at the schedule and predicted out where we will be if we don't miss any more days and that's where i came up with the determination that we're still okay 11 through k through 11 has still about 17 15 hours of extra time seniors are getting a little tighter with 10 hours of extra time so um then the question is what happens if we miss more and we go beyond that so each year i have to designate uh makeup days for snow days and uh this year the the three days that i had that i designated were um april 18th which is the monday after easter that's not normally a day off for us but on this year's calendar it is a day off so if we were to miss several more days because of inclement weather monday april 18th would be a day we would have school and then the other two designated snow days are the two days after our scheduled end of school which would be may 18th and may 19th so again right now we're okay we're not there yet this is that scenario would be only if we missed more but i just wanted to catch people up with how that works we could also look at adding minutes to the day if we had several days left but i want to meet those requirements obviously by the state as always we want to go above and beyond the requirements and that's one of the reasons we do have some extra days built in i also want to say thanks to our crews that were out working this week we ended up not being able to have school today on friday but uh things will be in great shape come monday because of their work so our operations director gary welch i know was out uh mark pells michael hall and also uh jason martin's crew of matt klosmeier and tate martin were out and working a lot to get our facilities ready to go for school so appreciate all the work they did so as i said just a brief update want to let people know where we're at on that that's all i have for today this is mr cooper signing off work hard have fun and be your best self

the a motion to move the superintendent's proposed budget of 81 million one hundred fourteen thousand twenty dollars uh to the full board for consideration and uh a discussion ensued and we passed the motion that concludes my report thank you mr grip on that case uh is there a motion from finance yes there is um wait all right now i'm confused uh the the second motion is that we're gonna start there okay not not the one that we just did it's okay all right i will make a motion um moved that the board of education submit to the town manager a budget uh for the 2022-2023 fiscal year totaling 81 million one hundred fourteen thousand four hundred twenty dollars which represents an increase of five point three four percent uh or four million one hundred thirteen thousand three hundred sixty eight dollars over the 2021 2022 budget thank you is there a second mr martelly seconds discussion that's tim thanks tommy um yeah i'm going to support uh this motion tonight i'm going to take this thing off um so just some thoughts i'm not uh some thoughts for the superintendent with regard to the budget i'm gonna break this down into two pieces facilities and programming with regard to facilities these these are all things that i've said in the past but i'm just gonna reiterate them with regard to facilities i do hope particularly in light of modernization we are looking at sustainable construction and i was just given some word today that that actually might be baked into this by virtue of law by way of law at this point that's that's correct that's okay so i think i think that's a big win um also with regard to facilities um our fleet i don't think much is going to happen the next year but just keeping in the back your mind electrification of our of our vehicle fleet with regard to programming something i mentioned to you jeff two years ago when i got on the board and just reiterating it tonight um education i'm a true believer that education is critically important throughout our lives but that does not necessarily mean a formal education is better than an informal education i'm speaking about you know one option other than say college would be the trades becoming an electrician or a plumber i think it's really important for you know parents and kids to have that in mind college could be great for a lot of people but not necessarily for everyone there are other options one of our former board chairs went straight to the military jerry brittingham when he graduated i think was hampton high um yeah so uh that's it oh and so just more specifically with regard to the programming just to try to keep it in mind i don't want to say anything about how to do anything but i'm confident that where it's possible you can weave these things into the fabric of the school system um just making that sort of stuff happen over time so that is it and like i said i'm going to support this motion so thank you and the other that yes miss him do what tim did take the thing um okay so i know i just um uh approved this to advance it to us but i i i'm gonna confess i i am really conflicted about this um and i i'm not really sure how i'm gonna vote now that we're at the at the board level uh it's not in any way an indictment on jeff and ben and marlene and the whole team um they don't do just a commendable job they do beyond commendable in the two years i've watched clearly they run an incredibly lean administrative office you look around some of these districts and they're falling over themselves in in the administrative office um with layer upon layer and these guys just do it all um and you know they i think they've looked under every cushion of every couch for a grant here and a grant there to keep this they're invaluable and to keep our program growing in an age where it's where you can look at some of the line items we're not growing and so they find ways to make things work i spoke to the versatility of our teaching staff really i'm just very very proud of being on this board and being part of this district if i do vote no it's a protest vote because there's something going on and i've said it throughout every meeting and it's chewing up our budget um it's these fixed costs they're and they're all over i mean it it's it's medical benefits it's you know contracts it's this it's that um it's it's mandates but i'm glad we're going to take on have more regular finance committee committee meetings than once a year i think that's vital to try to begin to get a hold on this because ultimately my fear is and i said that to sam last week a community needs all demographics to be vital and be vibrant and that includes the elderly and the young and those in their 20s if we i you're just looking at the number in my two years our budget has increased 7.6 million dollars from our first budget to the budget we're now considering um assuming this one goes through that's just such an incredible amount of money and yet our discretionary instructional expenses increased fifty four thousand dollars from four four point five million to four point four point five one million to 4.56 million something's not right and i i don't know what it is i wish i was smart enough to just say you know click snap my fingers and it's fixed but um if i say no it's because i we i i just can't i it's a message to um let's figure out how we're going to fix this so our growth is an instruction um and in getting uh for example the curriculum coordinator it's worked so well for k8 i gotta believe it will benefit 9 12.

okay seeing none we'll move on to the next item um so the finance committee is considering uh the superintendent's proposed budget um i guess i'll begin by making a motion um and then we can discuss the motion we'll go into discussion after that um a move that the uh that the finance committee uh submits to the full board of education the superintendent's proposed budget for fiscal year 2022 2023 in the amount of 81 million four 114 twenty dollars an increase of four million one hundred thirteen thousand three hundred sixty eight dollars over the current budget do i have a second a second this is him okay now we'll have discussion uh would anyone like to begin comment no comment at all well go ahead mr rosenberg thank you chair um i i definitely support this budget my only reservation is i wish well let me just start by asking dr solon um in the area of the what if do we have an alternate plan because the water seems to be the plan to advance the district so can we consider something else like i wish that you would have placed that 912 curriculum supervised in there and it's and and the professional development in there because going back to our consideration of the mental health i just would love like to seen the professional development which i was thinking it included the program that we discussed or that was discussed in the correct film committee the teen mental health first aid yes so first of all thank you for the question and you know i i appreciate you know the the desire to continue to extend what we're providing to our students and a big part of that is obviously through professional development the um there is professional development already that's uh you know in embedded for next year through that bounce forward plan paid for by federal money and really frankly we only have so much time in the course of the year to be able to provide uh even more so we feel like we're in a really good place with respect to the acceleration component but you brought up the teen mental health first aid which was a piece of our curriculum committee meeting and a desire for those who aren't really necessarily familiar we've in the community both in the cheshire public schools the the town of cheshire has trained a lot of staff in youth mental health first aid basically what that is is you know destigmatizing mental health being able to recognize when somebody is in crisis and being able to provide that person in direction of support team mental health first aid is for individuals who were trained in youth mental health first aid and it's provided now a class for sophomores at the high school level to do the same thing to understand uh mental health destigmatizing the the issue and being able to if you're a student recognize and provide not counseling but connecting that individual with resources who can provide support so that we we consider to be a really high priority and we have been working with the town through cheshire uh youth and social services as a matter of fact dr gad miss solano miss kerry and um miss piccarello the youth and social services director met was either this week or late last week and have a plan it was this week thanks that uh to move that forward uh hopefully accessing town uh federal funding so we are you know really in a good place i think with that as well with respect to the k-12 or the excuse me the 912 curriculum coordinating position that's something where i think there's really good value there it would be another really positive step forward for us that you know certainly you guys have the authority to add but with everything else that we are moving forward i just you know i tried to to balance it thank you no i think this and then i i want to thank both you and and then because i feel this this is a very responsible prudent budget request um i just was hoping that we go beyond just maintaining and advancing i feel like we have an opportunity here to advance further and some of those what-ifs do directly and will directly impact students and will get us to the level we would like to see ourselves in so i'm just hoping that any of those waters that again allow for classroom support and quite funky support of all the um the mandates coming down as far as curriculum i just hope we would consider that later on in a year somehow or there's enough of a contingency fund somewhere that would be able to support you so but we've been you know really sensitive in how we manage the federal money as well um we want our goal is to stretch that as long as we possibly can and as i said you know uh it was last year that our goal is to use that as a resource to bounce forward to take that federal money and then when it runs out we want to be better than we were when we got that money uh and you do that through improving the capacity of the entire organization which is where we're really focused on spending that money of course you know omicron threw a little bit of a monkey wrench and we spent 180 000 on tents this fall it's a huge chunk of change but it allowed us to keep kids safely in school every day so it was you know that was the priority so i think we're doing a prudent job and you know with vin and marlene and our administrators guidance on what what will best support you know obviously first and foremost health and safety during the pandemic but then uh organizational growth with that money after the fact thank you yeah go ahead thank you very much um thanks sam for bringing those up because those are exactly the concerns that i would have pointed to as well so um i would just like to thank mr solon dr solon for um explaining what i know to be um continued very creative responses to our to our budget over the past and your explanation of where we do find money outside of our budget to cover these some of these priorities is um i know that we have done a lot in the past that way and so i have a lot of confidence that we'll be able to cover um some of these items with alternative funding in the future so thank you for explaining that [Music] faith i saw you first just a a couple of points um in the last meeting i had indicated i was going to have questions for van um regarding the back section of the book and i did speak to him and um it had to do with the supplementary salary information um and i'm not it's you know i don't normally take a deep dive into this but i did and it had you know kind of confusing and that so thank you for the time you spent with me into heather um but i know that there are probably people out there who are watching or dumming into the budget as well and wondering what those numbers mean because there are a lot of parentheses there and i was just trying to figure out where who's losing their job especially at 160 000 a year or whatever excuse me and um and you know in the explanation of how actually what we're seeing there are monies that are being credited or debited to an account based on where the teachers are teaching um you know it made sense you know in a business every business segment has to be apportioned it's it's it's cost but but what it struck what really hit home for me is just um the demands put on our teachers as you guys explained it to me and at one point one teacher was doing point two two percent of her time at norton point two percent of her time at chapman point two percent of her time they're all over the place and so you look at those numbers and you realize um this is a very fluid staff who is called on to do um a lot of work uh not just in one little classroom but in every school in this district so um i just raised that for people who um you know look at those and say what's going on and just how hard does this dev work i can once you understand those numbers you realize it is uh quite an accomplishment um so the only other thing i wanted to ask and we talked about this but i so we do hope that the town council will approve whatever budget we send to them um likely this one but we also know the history of the process and the demands on other demands in town on town's resources so there's a very real chance that this is going to come back to us with a [Music] smaller increase than what we're asking for it's just a real possibility so i've asked this before and forgive me if i'm doing it again but uh if this is the case where do we go to accommodate and are we getting to the stage especially with these fixed costs which are consuming so much of the budget that it's going to really begin to chew into some of our most cherished programs and by that i mean music and sports and drama and because that's my fear uh we're already seeing with a zero increase in instructional expenses what goes next and um i'm just wondering if you could address that sure i mean that's certainly a fair question i think it you know obviously reflects that you've been paying attention to the the town council budgeting process for the last several years and um it's always challenging and i open my remarks usually each year by talking about the fluid process that is our budget and the fact that it's not just you know one point in time by the time april comes around and we're discussing this at the the town council level we should have more information around medical benefits um we should have you know firmer uh other other contracts that aren't necessarily settled you know things like oil we might have a better sense of to allow us to determine what sort of flexibility if any is there when we have to start getting into account areas you're absolutely right i mean we when you're looking at instructional plot supply lines that are flat we may have to you know go into that area that there's another alternative is you know you mentioned that we have really tried to avoid in the past and um may have to look at revenue at that point uh things like activity fees for play or for parking but those things generally represent very small incremental increases and don't generate a ton of revenue usually you have to look at other places we are a people you know business and that's where the most we believe the most bang for our kids buck is is to have those people that that are there with them but unfortunately where we are in terms of our supply lines and everything like that now we would have to look potentially at staff which is you know uh unthinkable at a time when we're increasing enrollment so you know there'll be a lot to consider come april okay andrew okay so i'll be supporting this budget um you know at the on the surface when you see a 5.3 um increase um you know it's it's kind of shocking at first but when you actually look at where those numbers are being allocated and how what percentage that actually equals you know when most of that's going into the medical benefits and you know we provide an amazing education um to the students here in cheshire and especially the value to the taxpayer and especially for the derg b you know we're the highest performing school district and we're one of the lowest expenditures per pupil um i went through the budget book there's nowhere that i can see responsibly to cut i think we value our class sizes we value the education that is given especially in the in you know across the board and i think it would be irresponsible for us to cut the budget um because there's not a lot of places to cut especially at this juncture and since being elected in 2019 being up here i just pray that in the next year moving forward we can get out of this pandemic and we can start focusing on moving the district forward i know we've done a good job a great job um arguably one of the best in the in the state throughout the pandemic but i just hope that our conversations could start focusing on moving the district forward and just normal board of education service which i don't even know what that means at this point um but i'll definitely be supporting this i think it's responsible and i appreciate all the hard work that you guys have put into this so i know excuse me this is the finance committee portion of the first meeting but i'll just get some comments out now i'll save the rest for the next meeting just to talk about so dr song going back to samantha's comment earlier about the what ifs um if i read between lines correctly it's not a so much a matter of um not being able to do those things for a lack of money but if the board was even able to add the curriculum coordinator security manager and the list of folks is it safe to say that given everything else going on with covet and other priorities you know adding that extra layer to you know it it's it's probably something you're very responsible not to do at this point because you can't quite get there but maybe that's what you do in the future is that is that fair to say i mean is it i think you know if those resources were provided to us we would ultimately find time over the next year to to access them but you know right now certainly we have other really pressing priorities uh during the pandemic and managing our enrollment and school modernization do you and i know the answer is yes i'm not trying to put in the spot by saying this but i know when you put this budget together we you know and i have been watching the finance community last week so you know i couldn't be there but going back to your first budget presentation um you know you you definitely clarify the fact that um what you're proposing is not simply to worry about a budget number i know that's in the forefront being the concerned increase and that while you know this may not necessarily be implementing new programs this is your your best attempt to be strong enough to come out a pandemic with a strong support budget so that we can get to that point in the near future where we can't start adding um some things but kovalev so you know as long as you're in in other words your mind hasn't changed on the numbers since we started this process you're pretty confident that the if you had if you have this it's a fairly safe budget for you you've got more it's better but any reservations about what you presented since day one so i again i really appreciate the attention the everybody uh that attention and the fact that you're just watching but the the depth with which you reviewed everything uh and considered what i had put forward back on january 13th and obviously we've done a lot of evaluation since then um and we've done a lot of reflecting being our administrative team and looking at this continuing to look at it from different angles and perspectives including things like trying to pursue uh federal money through the town for teen mental health first aid at the end of the day you know we consider all the factors particularly enrollment and the fact that we're still in the pandemic we feel really confident that this budget uh will continue to move our for our district forward that we will continue to now with the additional resources be able to sustain the high quality of service that you know we all expect and so yes and i appreciate you asking and i think we all feel confident that this puts us in a good place and then maybe post pandemic we can look at some other options down the road but for today i feel real confident about where this budget would put us thank you that's all i had adam um [Music] before i comment mr white did you have any comments or we're just discussing the motion on the on the floor right now to move the superintendent's budget forward to the full board of education i'll comment in a few minutes okay great um so uh for me um i support this motion to uh move the uh the proposed budget uh forward to the full board um uh as uh mrs rosenberg said it's a it's a prudent budget um it's it's a a large number to move forward uh but as mr martelly said it the the you know a lot of it is as is our our medical benefits are our you know our fixed obligation costs right now is is very high uh hopefully we'll be able to find a solution to to that going forward working uh with the council to to see you know if there's a better way to do this or just to prepare for it in the future um i guess with that said um the the other thing uh and i'll i'll discuss this with the chairman to kind of flesh this out but um i think uh going forward um i would like to use the the finance committee as almost like a a research arm uh to to identify and prioritize you know prudent investments uh in in our in our school system that way you know because right now it's like you know we find about find out about it you know at the beginning of january we only have a few weeks really think about it where if we took the you know the year prior to really you know think about the cost and the and the importance of any programs that you and your administration might think of that we can really kind of get used to the thought and to and to know that what might be coming for you know not for us but what what uh programs you may want uh in the next year and we can really flesh that out so that's something that you know because i talked about you know uh at our last meeting about how our budgets are very at least i feel are reactionary and i think now is the time to be able to to to plan for the future and invest in the future um i mean where you know as you see all these people who move into town it's like you know when when you see when you talk to a lot of them especially if they're my age or younger it's like the number one reason they're coming here is because of the schools and so we have an obligation to to you know once we get out of this this survival mode to be able to uh to start investing again uh in in the future because you know we're like i think even ann has said this in the past we're kind of we go off our uh our reputation from 10 15 even 20 years ago and so it's it's time to kind of build a new reputation so uh hopefully uh after this um we can uh kind of start doing that uh that being said i'd like to uh call for a vote uh would would you like me to read the motion again are we all comfortable with that or good okay oh yes and just as is this a vote for the finance committee this is uh for finance committee yes thank you um so uh there's emotion on the floor um all in favor it is unanimous uh thank you um i have nothing else on the agenda for the finance committee motion for german second okay all in favor great thank you finance committee is adjourned

we have everyone right yeah yeah um if everyone wouldn't mind standing for the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america thank you all okay we have four applicants this evening uh due to the resignation of joseph britton um so if you could kate let um our first one in please sure thing that would be bridget gordon hi bridget how are you good how are you good thank you for coming today thank you for having me yep thank you for your interest in applying for the vacancy on the board of education we have um quite a few interviews to go through we have a half hour for each and we have about seven questions for for each candidate that we'd like to ask you um to save time i'm just going to ask all of them and if we were in person we would share and and everyone would ask questions but i think just to to be more efficient i'll just you know run through them so we can stay on our schedule okay so our first question as a candidate seeking to serve on the board of education please describe how you view at this time the roles and responsibilities of the position so on the board of ed uh the board event as a sitting board has the role of helping to set policy for uh the city school system which is a critical role but it is not done by itself the board works in conjunction with the administration of the city school system which is critical so a good board and a good cooperative relationship with the city's chosen administrators of the school system are critical and uh so that's number one uh the secondary role uh or an equal role of the board of ed is to make sure that uh we have a good administrator in place and uh that is a role that the board has fulfilled for decades and it's something that i know all of you take very seriously and making sure that we have the right people in the right places uh doing the best that we can for the students of our community it's also the board of ed it's responsibility to reflect uh our community voices and so the board of ed is a reflection of danbury in totality bringing together those ideas and backgrounds and context uh that make our city come alive and what i mean by that is that we all come with all these different backgrounds and we all know all these different things about our city school system about our city and so we bring that wealth of experience in a way that hopefully helps to create a better decision making as decisions are put in front of the board thank you please share with the board the initial steps you have taken to prepare for this position such as awareness of educational issues involvement with educational groups etc have you attended any previous board of education meetings or had an opportunity to read any of the board minute so i'll say yes in an overarching way in my work position i am incredibly familiar with the the weave and the weft of how danbury's public school system was created and how we came to be what we are today i am intimately familiar with the construction with the uh with the uh women the hundred women's committee with the women the thousand women and how we got the buildings that we have today and the history of all of that in more relevant ways i have been um a on and off uh attendee at pembroke school pto meetings uh for almost a decade um although we've graduated uh out of that and my my students are in different schools at this moment um so that has been you know both a pleasure i volunteered for pembroke school uh extensively during my time there and it was a wonderful experience uh for me and uh really opened my eyes to some of the intricacies of how the schools are run things that i didn't know which were you know as tremendously useful as i helped navigate my students my children uh through the district i have spent some time on zoom recently and before i don't always watch the board of ed meetings when they take place i am so excited that one of the positive things about the pandemic is that we are seeing so much more that there is so much more available to us i love the fact that we can do deep dives into all kinds of things uh and that we have um these modern ways of reading and understanding what's happening in the board uh in real time and maybe a couple hours later so i have spent a little bit of time on uh understanding what is before the board i wouldn't say that i am cognizant of every issue i don't necessarily know your social mores yet how the board interacts in person um what uh you know i think those are those are part of a learning curve of sitting on a board and quite frankly i think it would take me several months to get up to speed to the knowledge base that you have now some of you have sat on the board for years and so that kind of contextual knowledge isn't uh always learned um by watching or by reading sometimes it's really learned by listening uh at a meeting or being in conversation before or after meetings so i would anticipate that if it you know if it was me i'd be listening a little bit more than i would be talking because i think you all have a lot to say are you aware of the time commitment required for effective board functioning please provide information indicating personal time available for board training special meetings committee meetings community events as well as our regular scheduled board meetings okay so i did take a look at the calendar uh the calendar for the last several years and the more recent calendar and what it might look like moving forward um i understand that at some point and i hope this is true for all of us we will move off soon and and into in person so that changes a little bit of the commitment value i did talk about it with my husband his schedule uh recently changed which made it a possibility uh for me to even have this discussion about time commitment so i have the family support to make the time commitment i am available in the evenings the only exception is i have a standing commitment on the first sorry the second thursday of each month for several hours and so that is the only time i would not be available in the evening but i am i am enjoying a point in my life where i have flexibility after my work hours for training uh for discussion and i have some flexibility within the workday uh if this is something that uh is is necessary i'm happy to make time during uh this course of a normal work day as well uh to you know to catch up to have conversation and to learn what it is you need to teach me okay would you as a board member recognize your duty to represent impartially all the people of the district rather than any special interest group be it political social religious or economic and can you elaborate yes i do think i can be impartial i have three boys and i am an impartial judge of a lot of different things on a regular basis but aside from that i have spent the majority of my career in danbury walking a line of impartiality i am a registered democrat that does not necessarily mean that i vote along party lines it means that i'm active and that i care and that i registered and i vote and i am part of our danbury community uh am i a roman catholic yes very proudly i belong to st joseph church and i'm happy for that uh doesn't mean that i would judge based uh by the color of the lenses on my catholic glasses no i do feel that i can be impartial in in various ways but i do think that having a background context of connection to different groups in town is a positive and i think it helps me see in totality some of the issues i think it actually helps me be more impartial in your view what are the most critical issues facing public education in general and the danbury school system in particular at this time how would you look to resolve these issues so in general uh nationally i think some of the biggest issues is a critical look at what it means to have cooperative cooperative curriculum so curriculum that is matched state by state that we work on together that is that is a difficult decision as to what we teach when we teach it and in the state of connecticut we do a very good job establishing curriculum guidelines we've done an outstanding job uh in danbury adopting those curriculum guidelines and i think it's an imperative part of the board of ed that we help the district adhere to those guidelines and get the funding so that they can do so so one of the other biggest issues uh one of the most critical issues is the funding issue whether you're talking nationally whether you're talking locally so how do we acquire the funding that we truly need within the district to create a stellar educational opportunity for our children well that's a that's a multi-faceted answer and uh it's a multi-faceted question so you're talking about um changing funding streams or adopting funding streams in a way that is challenging in a community like danbury where uh money is always tight so do we advocate for more money from the state of connecticut i know that's been a discussion point for the last several years in the city of danbury and yes i would say that we don't get our fair share and that advocacy on the statewide level is critical and should be one of the prime one of the prime motions of the board uh to focus on that advocacy so that we can get our fair share of the educational dollars here in danbury one of the other big issues that is facing our community i think is the lack of space and this is not this is not just a danver issue it is a national issue it's a city it's a statewide issue but it's it's more critical here i think many of you might have heard me talk before and and and i think i sound like a broken record when i say danbury since 1684 has not gotten smaller we have only ever grown and our exponential growth is one of the greatest things about our community but understanding that exponential growth and planning for it uh that is something that we are maybe not doing as well as we could and so the current plans in place uh or the current plans that are in discussion to expand the educational buildings that our students use are critical and i would say that that is a big part of what i foresee as board advocacy in the next several years is helping the administration of the debris public schools expand the physical campuses or expand into new physical campuses so that we can meet the growing needs of our community what contributions can you bring to this board and why did you decide to apply okay so um contributions uh i'm a good listener i'm a very good reader and i am fairly decent with numbers but i think what i do best is really find consensus i am committed to seeing danbury continue to grow and i am committed to make sure making sure that danbury's growth is positive in nature that we across many different aspects of the community are supporting that growth and doing it in a way that's healthy and one of the things i think i can bring to the board of ed is a differing look a context of the city that is expansive goes back several days several decades and looks several decades into the future so i'm sort of a big picture looker uh which i know is something that the board is focused on because you're not just focused on the minutia of what happens this particular year you're focused on what's going to happen this decade next decade and the decade after that and i think that i can bring some contextual awareness of what we've done in the past and how it's worked what hasn't worked to those discussions why did i choose to send my letter in well i thought about it for a while and i wasn't sure i was in the right position uh to do it but we had some changes in our lives at home and i realized that for the first time in a long time i had the time i apologize for bringing phone in the background i can't do anything about uh but i realized that i can make that time commitment and that i have an understanding i think i have an understanding of the community that would really help the board make different decisions and different choices and and to just be part of that discussion and it's um it's not an easy choice uh to decide to spend a significant amount of time on any board in danbury but you all have done it uh you're doing it effectively and i think that i am more than ready to join your ranks and devote that same amount of time to the community to our students and to our administrators and lastly we have to ask are you employed by the board of education in any capacity no correct good job [Laughter] that's those are all of our seven questions thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us and for your interest in the board um and uh i think you can watch on the live stream okay um thank you for the opportunity uh and um interesting part of the process uh as well so i appreciate the opportunity to talk to you all tonight and i wish you lots of luck and i know that there are four good candidates so there's no wrong choices so good luck to you i'm sure i'll see you all individually at another point we'll be in touch thank you bridget bye okey-dokey we still have everyone yes okay just make sure we didn't i just want to let you know uh dr selig was in the waiting room but i asked uh cara to convey to him that it would probably be more appropriate for this particular meeting to watch via the the live stream yes thank you very much for that yeah it helps it helps us to know you know who we're interviewing and stay focused that way um so do we have carl in the waiting room no so okay so he'll be back and we'll just hang tight for a second uh i believe the interview was scheduled for 6 30 so i'd expect he probably would okay all right all right is my connection okay can yes okay thank you and thank you for handling the waiting room kate no problem at all so we're in a holding pattern for the next 12 minutes rachel we are yes yeah if he pops in let us know and we can take him i will certainly let you know if i see him pop up so sorry oh my dog is so jumpy these days i don't know what what it is he's still a puppy right yeah he's one and a half he's he's much better than when we first got him but um yeah maybe he's hitting his terrible twos yes rachel does he get enough outside exercise i mean it's tough weather to be doing this past few days no yeah but um he does go to uh doggy day camp on wednesdays wags wags on wednesdays maybe wag certified so you have a very sociable dog really we first phoebe had to go in for an interview and then it was then it was a half day session to see how well she got along in the long term and it was so nice they had the app on my phone so while we were on vacation we could watch her romping in an uncaged atmosphere [Music] rachel you'll appreciate this mike's cousin is amy who owns wax oh really yeah and i um took i took apple there my dog and um he wasn't allowed back can you believe that because he was so excited i know he was so excited that he kept going after the dogs little ones you know as in like a boyfriend and they kept putting him in the in the jail and she's like he took it like a champ he'd come right back out and so he never got he wasn't allowed to go back oh yeah when he sees other ones he can play with he gets so excited so yeah and that's family so funny so funny yeah it's like nerve-wracking going in for that interview that first visit daycare now estranged family [Laughter] should have added a few more questions maybe um do we want to let folks ask um us questions if they have any at the end i i considered that i considered that but i didn't with the limited time it's hard to know from your beauty interviews if it sailed down because we didn't give candidate number one that opportunity yeah right yeah yes okay i think you folks would enjoy hearing in my travels from work to home i went west street to uh under the lake avenue bridge it was a tie-up one of the large u-haul trucks was attempting to go under he made it but it took a couple minutes longer than i had hoped oh my god yeah he he must have scraped the top of the truck he had to it was unbelievable this is all the times oh boy i've seen that a few times on the hutch i'm glad you got through though can you imagine what the backup would be like if you got stuck it was i was wondering what it was and i'm looking out the window and i go oh my god hmm the moving boxes make me nuts i'm just keep counting like one two three are we ready for the ice tomorrow no are we ever no my yard was a complete glacier yesterday now it's just us like swampy mess mud puddles yeah and now and tomorrow it's gonna be back to the glacier i'm sure it's been a rough few weeks the box [Music] is nothing but the very best thank you for talking with us we really appreciate it when it's time for you to purchase your new appliances make sure who's listening to sj labor thank you no meetings tomorrow we have the day off tomorrow just looking at my calendar next week is a different story so carl just popped up in the waiting room oh great if you're okay i will go ahead and let him in yes please mr hustler did i say that correct yes hello hello how are you very well thank you thank you for your interest in the board vacancy and thank you for being here this evening well thank you for inviting me i'm the i'm the chair of the board rachel chaleski and i should let my fellow board members introduce themselves i did not do that last time i apologize so um would you all like to introduce yourselves sure i'm terry bizade i'm lauren daly i'm katharine hodgson joe de silva michelle scooper and louisa britton and i'm kate canetta and i'm el russo welcome very nice to meet you all virtually wow so we have about a half hour with you and we have seven questions um so i'm normally when we're in person we'd share questions but just for the sake of time and efficiency i'm going to ask all seven so to begin and i apologize my phone i have the answering machine in the background can you hear me okay okay good as a candidate seeking to serve on the board of education please describe how you view at this time the roles and responsibilities of the position um i feel the roles and responsibilities of a member of the board of education is to really support what's happening on the ground and look into the future at the same time these have been some very challenging couple of years with all the changes happening i think uh some uh you know some of the things will return to normal but everybody talks about the new normal so um being part of that and bringing my experience to the table about i'm actually a director of educational technology so i've dedicated my life to education i work for a public school and have been there for over 20 years so uh bringing that experience to the table imagining how you know the future can look like for education supporting what the teachers are doing at the same time making sure that the student experience is um it's the highest quality that it can possibly be so being all part of that i find very exciting and uh would like to be a part of and that's why i applied for uh the open position please share with the board the initial steps you have taken to prepare for the position such as awareness of educational issues involvement with educational groups etc have you attended any previous board of education meetings or had an opportunity to read any of our minutes okay i don't have children and i know none of my children are i don't have children so i don't have that vested interest in following what's uh happening at the danbury board of education however however i invested in the danbury community i've been living here since and i graduated from westcon so i have some roots in this community of course i followed the news the local news the patch the news times all of those reports but uh because i'm in education and i'm very keen on you know learning what's going on it's actually part of my responsibility to just keep abreast of you know the latest trends the latest uh development research and so forth i've been you know i think following uh news about education very closely and in particular since uh when i noticed this position opening i've paid more attention to specific reports about the danbury board of education have i read any minutes no and i apologize about that it never actually occurred to me however i was working for the wilton board of education more than 20 years ago um so i feel like i'm uh fairly familiar with how meetings are run and how they're organized um that's the quorum that rules and all of that i'm very familiar with because i was the guy videotaping them back then i was the media specialist at work in high school so i was part of many of those meetings thank you are you aware of the time commitment required for effective board functioning please provide information indicating personal time available for board training special meetings committee meetings community events as well as our regular scheduled board meetings okay again i'm not fully aware of the expectations or the time commitment however um i don't like i said i don't have children and um the so i'm free on the weekends i work you know 40 hour job in greenwich connecticut so that's uh commute time and everything else uh starts early so i'm usually back in danbury around 5 5 30 like everyone else i have like i said weekends i'm available i enjoy participating community events i'm actually very much looking forward to that after you know sort of being cloistered for the last couple of years and just the engagement with the community and like-minded uh volunteers who you know have a vested interest in education i would like to be part of that exchange and you know those events and raising awareness about some very important issues surrounding education and public education in particular would you as a board as a member of the board recognize your duty to represent in partially all the people of the district rather than any special interest group be it political social religious or economic and can you elaborate uh absolutely in my role as a technology integrator and technology director i work with a lot of different constituencies students parents uh other administrators teachers of course and so i'm very comfortable uh promoting the the greater picture so to speak and not any type of you know narrow agenda um i think it's very important to build consensus uh around you know important issues and to get buy-in uh and have you know hear as many voices diverse voices as possible and then once we have you know a vision uh we all support that whether that's exactly how we whatever consensus we arrive to whether it's exactly how we feel um you know our personal views don't really matter i think it's very important that we're all pulling in the same direction as an effective committee in your view what are the most critical issues facing public education in general and the danbury school system in particular at this time how would you look to resolve these issues so to the second part i think uh the size of the danbury public school and the facilities i think is a challenge right um i read something about you know looking in the possibility of sending some of the students uh you have over 12 000 now so sending some of the students to the neighboring schools so obviously expansion getting that through getting that approved funding for you know facilities seems to be one of the top priorities um and again building momentum around the idea that education matters and that it's very important and it affects all of us um and you know a good local strong public school is uh to everyone's benefit uh the in general i mean it's obviously staying abreast of all the challenges that you know due to covet uh due to the new normal due to returning to some kind of semblance of uh you know normalcy uh perhaps analyzing what the what lessons we learned uh over the last couple of years and uh incorporating that you know into the vision of our new of our future i think those things are very important uh funding finances and awareness about our mission and our goals is paramount thank you what contributions can you bring to this board and why did you decide to apply wow um again my experience uh in education itself uh my root in the community uh and really the idea that you know after um so many challenging months uh we need a reason to rally together and come together and uh you know rally around causes and and that's personally my issue i want to be involved in a cause that i i believe in i want to be feel connected and dedicate my volunteer my time to something that i feel is important and that matters um i have many links to the community as i said i've been living here for um you know many decades i'm uh an immigrant i came from i was actually brought through the german uh school system so i have uh the european perspective i have the private school perspective and i have uh you know i've obviously also been involved in the public schools i'm a strong believer in public education and so that seemed to be good reasons for me to apply for this position to become involved great and lastly we have to ask are you employed by the board of education in any capacity no you have to believe many years ago but not anymore okay great well that is all from us thank you so much for applying for being here this evening and spending uh the time with us to get to know you um we will be in touch okay thank you so much thank you you um so schools are closed tomorrow really yeah i just got the notice they're predicting freezing temperatures starting around 10 so yeah the kids are going to be thrilled yeah unless they do uh you know online stuff i steal those days yeah i can't wait for them to authorize us to do remote snow days because this way this way you don't lose the day in june yes yep this is kids i don't think kids will ever understand that right they still want the snow day i want a snow day a snow day should be a snow day unfortunately my boss is of the opinion that if we're not coming into work he has we have the technology i can work from home i think it's supposed to get cold tomorrow because i think they pushed it off a little later didn't they the last time i had checked it was supposed to be getting cold in the evening like right after the commute but now they're saying temperatures are going to drop around 10 a.m oh joy awesome fantastic [Music] michelle i just put you on mute briefly so we didn't hear any of your conversations sorry about that and this is by the way this is coming through loud and clear and i'm in the very loud sports stone while my son is playing baseball yeah it's coming through great good i will of course mute and turn the camera off when we get an actual interview and so i'm not disrupting everybody so here you [Music] wow mike al i like that background that's really cool [Laughter] i can't get the virtual backgrounds to work this is some sort of a filter i figured last we were in a quiet time i would experiment with merry christmas al christmas for me is every day of the year oh now let me shut it off oh my god very good this okay rachel i'm going to do the interviews tuesday and wednesday oh good i am too it's you and me great yes thank you for doing that i do enjoy that process it's just a long process and in the middle of the day yeah yeah it's it's just tough for me because i have to use my vacation time yeah yeah i know my understanding is we had quite a few applicants too good yeah so that's good it was um that st joseph center is wonderful yes yes i get to spend some time speaking with the founder it was nice yeah excellent yeah that's going to be a great resource for families so you now we don't have anything monday but tuesday correct and wednesday and thursday right those who are on we have citywide pto on monday but that's not for everyone we have our budget workshop on tuesday community relations and board of ed wednesday hey it uh okay so [Music] you so okay rachel the next uh interviewee is great thank you hi juanita hi rachel how are you good how are you i'm good thank you for being here and for your interest in the board vacancy thank you for having me thank you hi everybody hi so i don't know if you know everyone um but so we'll just introduce ourselves really quickly i'm the chair rachel celesti terry bizade i'm lauren daly cooper kate canetta and al russo's on mute very good so again thank you for being here and for your interest we have your half hour to go over we have about seven questions okay okay so to start as a candidate seeking to serve on the board of education please describe how you view at this time the roles and responsibilities of the physician so did i freeze or did she freeze i mean she did i think she froze student miss harris i'm sorry you were you're frozen there could you start over i'm okay can you hear me we can hear you now yes okay so i think that the role of the public school board member is to make sure that our focus is on our students and oh you froze again miss harris am i still connected with you no you froze there again we heard the focus on students and that was about it and so then i just expanded it to the school community students in the school community okay i'm sorry it seems like my screen is freezing okay go ahead so i can it's just i think rachel i have your screen that is freezing but kate yours is fine and catherine everybody else's is fine can you guys still hear me though i just can't hear rachel she's frozen so i'm gonna go try to go ahead if that's okay yeah so um again i think that our focus has to be on our public school students um and the school community so when we talk about community we talk about students teachers faculty um families and then out into and including the danbury community so with our focus on that we try to set up systems of support and we are certainly um to me the anchors and the supports to the danbury public school system in our role of meeting with the administrative level folk who we put in place to run the school system okay everybody okay everyone can hear okay i just want to make sure we're still connected okay please share with the board the initial steps you have taken to prepare for this position such as awareness of educational issues involvement with educational groups etc have you attended any previous board of education meetings or had an opportunity to read any of our board minutes so i have had a long history of being involved um with board issues and watching board meetings um also um watching com common council meetings and being on top of minutes um one of the and i'm just going to give you a couple of areas if you've read my letter um i have been involved in the danbury public schools for many years and so i feel like i would be coming to the board with a lot of knowledge and um being able to speak to the issue of the overcrowding the issue of the upcoming please career academy uh speak to the issue of funding and um coming with the experience of having already worked with administrators already have worked in key positions of working with principals and superintendents working with our support staff such as our school psychologists social workers working with our special ed staff um i would be also um coming to you with experience of having been appointed a few years back on the task force the governor's task force um and so and that was i'm sorry and that was on common core um i've also worked in the district on the committee for the team supporting our new teachers i've worked with curriculum um and so also as a licensed school counselor i've worked with families and parents students um and not just on academic issues but on certainly mental health issues emotional issues and also knowing that our students and families needed to be in touch with community resources so i've also been key in knowing what our community resources where they are how they can be tapped how our schools and families could use them so i feel like i come with um a lot of skills and collaboration a lot of skills in communicating a lot of skills of sitting down at the table um but mostly skills in listening listening to the details being able to sort out what is most effective also looking at coming down the line are what are we listening to are we listening to um the those who have their feet on the ground those who are in the trenches are we meeting their needs and if not why not so you're frozen again oh we lost her steve what the mission is for the board what the vision is for the danbury public school and what the goals are um that our superintendent has set forth and how we might support those goals okay we lost you just uh uh very briefly in the middle of that i'm so sorry um but we i think we heard most of it correct i think so okay thank you rachel i apologize i just wanted that's okay go ahead catherine dropped off the call as well oh okay oh lovely technology do you want me to continue uh hold on one second i'm just i'm going to reach out to katherine and see if she can get back on i apologize uh kate can you let her back in is she there okay okay yep that's her there she is okay sorry about that juanita that's okay okay where were we okay our next question are you aware of the time commitment required for effective board functioning please provide information indicating personal time available for board training special meetings committee meetings community events as well as our regular scheduled board meetings frozen oh yeah i can't hear anything no and i just need to know that you're hearing me no now we are yeah we are so i i am familiar with time that goes into boards um time that goes into positions and roles um i did chair a committee for the um on the state level and so i knew i have been involved with um the hours and the time that needs to be put in one of the reasons that i did extend the letter for this position is because i'm newly retired and my son is 36 and does not live here so um i believe that i do have the time i have the commitment i believe that i have um the knowledge that i can put in with the board and share and um i don't foresee that being an issue um i currently sit on the board for a condo association um and so i'm pretty aware of time that goes into committees and long-term commitments great thank you would you as a member of the board recognize your duty to represent impartially all the people of the district rather than any special interest group be it political social religious or economic and can you elaborate um you know what i thank you for the courage to ask that question um and um i i don't have any witnesses here but i i can certainly tell you that i am very impartial i come to any table looking at what is in front of me and staying focused on who do we represent and how will it benefit those that we represent regardless of um political affiliation religious affiliation lobbying it is important to me that i present myself as one of integrity accountability and it will be to the danbury public schools um so i think that i can give you an example of that as um chair when i chaired the advisory committee to the superintendent it's not always a pleasant position to sit in the middle um city of danbury danbury public schools and our professional staff members and present issues and come up with solutions and look at facts and stay focused when you have people who want things to answer to their likeness to so that it only benefits them so it was important for me that we came to the table and our and we had to bring to the table all of the players the city of danbury danbury public school administration professional staff members here's the issue how can we address it to benefit all did everybody always walk away satisfied no um but i know that i could go home and lay my head down on the pillow and say that i stuck to what i believed to be the best answer to the issue having looked at the facts and having stayed true to myself so that's how i would answer that question thank you very much in your view what are the most critical issues facing public age public education in general and the danbury school system in particular at this time how would you look to resolve these issues wow resolve okay i don't know what powers i have i i do have some key issues um and i and i and i'm gonna say that it's probably across the board in the state and you know what um and danbury in particular is the funding and each year it appears as if danbury is underfunded now i may have to dig deep and do um a lot more research but it appears to me that the issue is not that there isn't money but it's how the money is allocated and so i just think that we have to really take a good look at that it may mean that we have to advocate and rally and write and um get out there and make a community effort um to increase that that funding um certainly danbury is not funded at the rate that other districts around us are um and so i would funding is a big issue for me the other issue that i would have is um i just heard somebody on a podcast say that public education is the great equalizer and yet we have areas in our nation that are still struggling struggling um and of course with the pandemic we can say struggling to stay open danbury has done a to me from outside looking in a great job with keeping our schools open remember you know the reduction in staff um not being able to get subs danbury has worked very very hard to be where we are right now and i applaud them for that i do think that we have to look at the the equity issue within our schools i think that that is being addressed as i've sat in some of the community meetings with the um that the superintendent held and i think his name is john john was in on and so i understand that the superintendent's budget should be going in soon submitted soon um listen i think that the board has to take a good review of that budget and um one of the things that was said is that the community has to speak to the building principles so that they can put prior let them know what they feel the priorities are i'm not sure um i i love the community meetings with the superintendent i'm thinking perhaps some of the buildings or the principals might have had some of those types of them community meetings um that may have had some input from parents when i think about uh public education the other focus that i just think that we have to look at is the technology we have to be in the game we have to make sure that our technology is up-to-date it's in there um the access is there and um you know it is the direction that nationwide we are going to but we have to have the access the homes have to have the access and um i i happen you know i go through our website or public school website quite often and i'm i'm always impressed with the information that is on there for families um i think that we have to encourage them more to get on there and access that information i know families are going to say to us you know i work two jobs i'm not and so i know that they too are bogged down but danbury public schools i'm just going to tell you guys have go oh darn froze froze at like the pivotal moment students and parents i'm sorry everything from making sure that they are fed miss harris um to the district of course distributing the books and so forth so i i guess i could go on and on but um good job thank you you broke up a a tiny bit um you were talking about the danbury public school website um and the resources yeah and the resources on there that are available for parents and students it is it's exceptional and we just have to some way get word out that they have to access that you you have to there's just so much information that they could have at their fingertips okay thank you our next question is what contributions can you bring to this board and why did you decide to apply you implied a little bit already can you elaborate um i really think that i can bring to this board the knowledge about the core programs and the core running of the danbury public schools now i can't say individually and each one but i have been in most of our elementary schools in the roles that i have had i have been involved and taught in our special ed department for 22 years and went on to teach in the school counseling program for the remainder of my tenure in the school system um in those roles i have made sure that i haven't been involved with advisories to the principal making sure that i have been um representative for uh teachers making sure that i am familiar with curriculums and programming and scheduling making sure that i am familiar with all of the portals that are being used within the school system um being an advocate not only for um support programs like read 180 and the tutoring but making sure that we have programming like ap classes that are available for our students making sure that we have online classes that are available for students who need it for the credits for graduation making sure that i am involved in the support programs for students and parents making sure that i'm involved in the community so that i can bring those community resources into the school system and uh back and forth being involved in uh the structural needs in our school system having um been involved with um the city of danbury because i don't know if you're of course you're probably familiar that there are some um items that are the responsibility of the city of danbury and some that are the responsibility of our school system and so um being involved at that level um encouraging student participation in our summer learning programs being involved with um so many of our programs over the years that i could only come in and be a support and a team member that would be able to either research information bring forth information or collaborate with new projects new resources thank you and lastly i know you were employed by the board of education are you currently employed by the board of education in any capacity i am not i didn't answer the call for retired teachers to come back sorry [Laughter] that's funny well thank you very much that's that's all of our questions all of our time i appreciate your your time and your answers and your your interest okay thank you all have a good night you too okay oh foreign uh just you know rachel eric is in the waiting room now okay everyone ready for eric okeydoke hello everybody hello how are you doing great thank you all for being here at 7 30 on a uh a windy kind of dim night so i really appreciate all your time yes thank you for your time as well and your interest in the board vacancy absolutely i'm rachel chaleski i'm the chair of the board and i'll let my fellow board members introduce themselves hi i'm terry bezzade patriarchy lauren daley hi lauren joe de silva hello gladys cooper catherine hodgston hey kevin hi pete canetta hey kate louisa britton always uh let me get everyone to michelle okay hey nice to see everybody okay so we have um a set of seven questions and a time frame of about a half hour so to begin as a candidate seeking to serve on the board of education please describe how you view at this time the roles and responsibilities of the position sure um you know i i've done um a pretty hefty amount of looking through all of the minutes all of the agendas um watching a whole bunch of the board meetings one thing emerges and even in a lot of the kind of details of the board goal plan and everything is student achievement and you know as fitting under student achievement for me is obviously academic achievement social emotional well-being safety supporting our students that need additional interventions etc um so that all is made possible by um a budget that's gonna support uh all of the uh supports that we need for our students for our teachers for our administration that includes sites and facilities uh that are going to be amenable to our students learning that includes a superintendent and leadership that is going to be effective uh and be passionate about their approach and creative in their approach uh to working with our teachers students and for our stakeholders in the community um you know the board also is a collaborative body and i think it's really important to establish a culture on the board and from everything i've seen uh in all the board meetings that i viewed uh there's a really good rapport on this board and a lot of respect for other board members and for the process and for achieving consensus and for moving forward so that to me is super important and then um you know community relations so you know i look through um kind of the subcommittees that exist for the board and kind of walking through um you know especially things that happen this year hiring a new superintendent uh i love the solar panel project which is amazing uh you know the superintendent evaluations uh the school reopening plan of course keeping our students safe and our faculty safe uh and so you know there's a lot that falls under that um but it all really falls under the umbrella of student achievement and that is um really thinking about our students uh achieving academically and then beyond that you know i was able to take a look at the portrait of the graduate and there's a a more broad holistic view of our students entering the world as ready to attend college if that's their route we're ready to uh be prepared for careers uh ready to enter the society as productive citizens and i think that the board sets all the conditions for that um you know all the policies that that are created and voted on uh all of the budgets that are approved uh really does all fall under or falls under the idea of our students achieving in a variety of different ways so the board is really responsible for setting up uh all the conditions for our faculty and staff and administration to thrive for our teachers to thrive and for our students to thrive uh and so that's broadly um you know my understanding of the board's responsibilities uh you know everything from sites and facilities to policy making to community relations but again it all equals our students achieving in a variety of ways thank you so you've you've kind of taken away from our question number two but um to be fair i'm going to ask it again and then you can maybe elaborate sure so question number two is please share with the board the initial steps you have taken to prepare for this position such as awareness of educational issues involvement with educational groups have you attended any previous board uh meetings or had an opportunity to read any of the board minutes sure i'm happy to address this even more thoroughly i'm a planner i just plan for everything i can't walk into something not knowing um as much as i could possibly humanly know um so i've spent the last few weeks uh basically reviewing every board meeting uh i have reviewed all the minutes and the agendas i was uh just recently watching the the budget workshop um and as i'm watching these things um i just am dying to be part of it uh you know i i think the the beauty of the board is that um we get to create the conditions for success in our town and i think that danbury is such a wonderful place i love living here uh and our schools are are fantastic but the potential in our in our town is incredible so um everything that i've done so far um you know looking at the board's goals i think is fascinating you know what what are the priorities for the board um another thing i'll kind of get into because i i like i like this approach i tend to say what we expect from our students and staff we should expect from ourselves as well uh and so you know looking at the portrait of the graduate thinking about advocating that's what we do but that's what the board does uh collaborating that's what the board does you know getting together to debate to to present evidence information to come to creative and productive and efficient solutions communicating with each other with the district with the superintendent teachers support staff all the faculty i love this next one innovating you know the whole idea here is that we come up with creative solutions to problems um you know budget issues funding issues uh issues with support staff intervention for our esl and ell students fed students uh all of that falls under you know let's come up with creative solutions uh to these issues and then the last one is learning uh which i do as a as a life plan i'm currently getting my my doctorate from westcon uh i will have that march first uh so i'm really excited about that and everything in my classes that i've done in theory um i'm just so excited to have the opportunity to potentially put them into actual practice you know i've taken classes on budgeting i've taken classes on curriculum design across the board you know these are things that i'm deeply passionate about and i have studied and practiced in theory and i'm very excited for the opportunity to potentially put these things into action with the board thank you hey rachel can i add to that just a little bit sure go ahead yeah i also know a bunch of teachers in the district and i know some former teachers uh so i've done some talking with teachers and as an educator myself i'll give you a little bit of my background at some point during this uh conversation um you know my heart lies with students and teachers um that is where i spend every single day in a school building in wilton working with students and teachers i'm an instructional coach and a technology il i was in the classroom for about seven years i taught college before that so my every day is being surrounded by students and teachers and i see what is happening on the ground in education especially now during a pandemic during time when technology plays a critical role uh during a time where budget becomes a major issue with funding um so i really do get to see the struggles that occur on the ground and and i i want to be able to bring that to the board and represent our teachers and our students and our staff uh administration and especially our our parents and and other stakeholders in the community uh so i've talked to a bunch of people that i know to get a feel for what it was like to be a teacher previously in in danbury or to be a current teacher in danbury um and that's going to be one of my primary mo's is to say what is our daily life like for our teachers and students um and to bring that into the meetings and to really really be able to kind of give an empathetic uh and uh connected view of what is happening in our schools currently in connecticut are you aware of the time commitment required for effective board functioning please provide information indicating personal time available for board training special meetings committee committee meetings community events as well as our regularly scheduled meetings sure uh well one thing you learn rather quickly when you're looking at your calendar when you're looking at your minutes your agendas is that um you guys have a busy schedule and you commit a lot of your time and energy to this process i definitely would not have put my my name in the batch if i were not ready to do that um you know to be honest the way i see it i've spent the last five years as a doctoral student and i've i've dedicated a lot of time to that and to my work in wilton now that my doctorate's coming to an end um i i'm just a a busy bee i like to um be involved with others i like to collaborate i like to be involved in committees i like to um you know debate look at evidence analyze data and come up with creative solutions to problems um and that is uh what i enjoy doing so i don't think i you know as much i have a family i've got a son i've got a wife uh uh i live here on payton aaron road uh and um i've talked to them as a family about what the time commitment would be uh they all know my passion for education uh so my family supports me uh and i'm um pretty well aware of what the time requirement would be and i think considering the fact that i enjoyed this uh these are things i'd be excited to take part in um you know i'll uh i've i've i basically take every opportunity to join every committee at the high school i work at in wilton um you know whether it's the long-term planning committee we went to uh a new learning management system recently and my job as a technology instructional leader was to basically implement that uh that switch in technology it's a bear and we need to support our teachers when we do it so uh teaching and learning committees uh knee asks tristate capstone uh equity and inclusion i just love being part of everything and for me uh education really is my life at the moment that i it kind of dawned on me that i want to go to school for teaching get my master's go to get my doctorate become a teacher i set out to learn everything i possibly can about education uh and so you know i love where the kind of macro meets the micro and i feel like i have a really good eye on on where those meet um you know macro being big budgetary issues policy issues how are we going to evaluate our teachers our superintendent you know those bigger bigger more broad issues and then all the way down to the individual classrooms you know how are our teachers experiencing the day-to-day uh and and my expertise i think lies where those come together and so in my position in uh in wilton i basically take district initiatives uh strategic plans and i make them as palatable for teachers but hopefully get teachers really excited about these initiatives get behind them and then make them work for our teachers so you know i i love that place where the rubber meets the road and that we get to see big policy issues um really uh impact classroom performance for our teachers and impact learning for our students would you as a member of the board recognize your duty to represent impartially all the people of the district whether um of the district rather than any special interest group be it political social religious or economic and can you elaborate sure um i really have no affiliations um i i i tend to like to find myself in the middle um and really hear out every position um i like to really just uh base decisions on evidence and data not on um who's trying to convince anyone of anything or uh who's lobbying for for anything but what does the data say what does the evidence say let's make our decisions based on those those pragmatic uh pieces um i uh i i really enjoy kind of being in the middle of uh political conversations that time and trying to find that middle ground you know whether it is politics or any other any other issue and say where do we meet um you know where do we have common ground uh and that that i tend to pride myself on that and and you know i've been in plenty i've led a lot of these committees and of course we have disagreements you know i was on the block schedule committee to move to block schedule there were some serious disagreements about how to proceed there and very uh adamant voices on both sides and in that process in that committee it was well let's hear everybody out uh let's come to a consensus and let's move forward also with a united belief and i think the board does that really well you know not everyone votes for every policy unanimously but i believe it's really important to get behind every decision the board makes and support it um so so you know i have i have no alliances uh and and i and i tend to enjoy being that mediator and being part of that process to get people to come together uh really to make decisions that benefit others you know all of the decisions the board makes aren't for board members necessarily it's for the families in this town it's for our kids uh it's for our staff so you know thinking about the stakeholders who we're making decisions for uh and and making the best decision on behalf of those those stakeholders thank you in your view what are the most critical issues facing publication public education in general and the danbury public school system in particular at this time how would you look to resolve these issues i will pretend to resolve them right here um so i think the most pressing issues that really rise to the surface and again all of this falls under under achievement for our students um funding and overcrowding seem to be issues that are really prevalent currently um i love the idea of of the career academy for our students to have other options i think that's really vital and i love i love the fact that there's there is creative problem solving going on to think about these issues um but funding is is really important i think the board you know needs to advocate for creative budgeting um you know where we can save money uh where we can move money uh in order to really provide for our students you know i know uh their staffing issues currently really across the board in every school uh but especially in danbury and you know i think a lot about our esl students our ell students our sped students that really need support and we seem to be um at times underfunded for those interventions which i even see in my school in wilton and i know how important it is uh to get skilled staff in order to work with those students and help them to succeed um i'll say right now too uh you know where i'm gonna cross my fingers hopefully coming out of this pandemic but you know the safety and well-being of our students always is a priority uh you know i i think in the future we're going to have to be kind of ready on a whim uh to adjust to uh safety issues that arrive arise for our students uh so for the board to be flexible to say you know we're ready to move in this direction or this direction based on the evidence that's before us so you know critical issue being safety and well-being of our students i often think about social emotional learning uh there really seems to be a almost an epidemic of anxiety of depression uh and you know we really need to think of our students and their their well-being uh you know among their academic achievement that that's got to come with you can't learn uh if you're not well uh and so you know also really focusing on supporting our students uh in their social emotional learning uh those are some of the more critical issues that that i think are pressing right now um but you know overall i i'm i'm hoping i'm hoping to look forward to a time where the uh covet issues kind of subside and the focus of the board of education at large can get more back to student achievement uh to curriculum design to uh you know moving forward with capstone projects and with um a portrait of the graduate and really really focusing on the day-to-day education of our students and helping them succeed so they're set up for success in life what contributions can you bring to this board and why did you decide to apply all right um i've had a i've had a google alert going for about i think it's about three years now uh for danbury board of education vacancy um because i've i've always been interested i i love my job in wilton i love those kids i love our staff um but this is my home uh and i want to contribute to the success of schools here in danbury uh and i love big picture thinking so you know i'll give you a little bit of um some details into what i do because i think that gives some insight into what i can contribute to the board so not only do i have the day-to-day of being with students and teachers i uh i run srbi at my school so i work really closely with the counseling staff with the sped and support staff um i have uh see um you know i think that the the key is being positioned between district initiatives and and uh you know teachers day-to-day lives and really really being in that place where um the decisions that the board of education makes seeing how they impact our teachers on the daily basis how they impact our students and being being able to also kind of translate between district initiatives uh and how that appears in the classroom and getting our teachers on board with um with initiatives that take place whether it is the portrait of the graduate or capstone projects and really getting the support of our staff that we feel like the board and our staff are aligned that they're listened to so those are things i do every day uh you know working with our school principal assistant principal i'm in the superintendent and assistant superintendent's office often um i'm often asked to do uh uh a lot of the curriculum design work uh i've helped redesign the district's evaluation plan for our teachers this year you know the state kind of gave us a protocol for what it could look like i helped design a uh evaluation plan that really fit for our teachers and kind of created like a plug-and-play version for our teachers so it just wasn't that painful and it felt like teachers were getting something out of it and it was beneficial um so i i always have an eye towards um the success the well-being the efficacy of our of our teachers and how decisions that get made uh on the board level superintendent level even on the city and state and federal level uh how that really impacts our teachers on the day to day um i'll add to that besides my general love for education this is what i want to do with my life i want to be involved in any way possible and learn this field inside and out um you know i i approach everything uh with care i'm doing my dissertation actually on care through feedback um i approach everything with the positivity i like to bring a good uh a good vibe to everything uh i tend to uh be a uniter i tend to bring levity to things um i love being productive uh you know one thing i do often in my school is run uh iet meetings i'll run um committee meetings and there's nothing more that teachers don't like than an unproductive meeting where nothing gets done and they feel like they're spinning their wheels i feel like what i could lend to the board is part of this team to say to be part of this decision making process to say less you know i'm here to help look at the evidence to make educated decisions uh i tend to uh i'm quite organized i'm a good communicator and and i really believe in communicating with the public and being out front uh being transparent and really listening to our stakeholders you know listening to our parents uh you know looking through the board meeting notes i i find some of the most fascinating parts the parent comments you know i think it's really important to listen to what our stakeholders are saying what our teachers are looking for and keeping that line of communication open so that the board feels like it's part of this team um and we're all part of a uh an entity that's moving forward together so a lot of my experience in my job in wilton would come in pretty useful here i would i would hope great thank you lastly we have to ask are you employed by the danbury board of education in any capacity i'm not great not an easy question well thank you very much that was it for our questions great i just i just want to take a moment to thank everybody um you know no matter what the results are from from the interview process i i have a feeling the other candidates are profoundly um uh uh capable and really experienced so i just want to thank everybody for what you do in danbury you know uh leading into this i know what i know what it's going to take um i think it's wonderful just watching the meetings and seeing everybody collaborate respect each other work towards um our our the success of our our district really envisioning a future for danbury um you know i know our god our enrollment enrollment numbers are coming in and it's it's it's it's intense uh and you know do we have enough do we have the budget to meet that um so there's a lot of issues that you all handle um and i just thank you for doing it on behalf of our community that's very nice thank you very much george it was a pleasure everybody thank you yes thank you have a good evening okay dope and that concludes our our interview portion of the meeting um so we have another uh link to go into executive session to deliberate um and after oh hold on one second and after i just want to make sure everyone knows that we have a link for executive session and then we go back into public session so we'll come back to this original link after executive session everyone's good with that okay five minute break yes let's let's make a motion uh to convene an executive session for the purpose of discussing board candidate and act on an appointment in public session and then we'll take a five-minute break and go into uh executive sessions so can i have a motion so moved second by joe da silva seconded by al russo all those in favor signify by saying i i okay so we'll now go into executive session and we'll meet back can we say eight o'clock it's 7 54 and we'll be on at 8 o'clock okay thank you great thank you all oh um bye that's a strange view right um we have the screen somebody sharing the board will return screen oh there we are okay yeah that's good okay that's ken in the background he's nicki minaj okay thank you ken yes hey one two three all right that looks good uh everybody's here okay great and luisa is here she's in the room her her video's not on maybe that's why you're there she is okay okay so i will entertain a motion that the board of education returned to public session for the purpose of voting on the candidate to be appointed to the danbury board of education so moved moved by joe okay seconded by all those in favor say bye bye saying hi i will entertain a motion that the board of education appoint bridget guertin to fill the vacancy until the next election of board members in november 2023 is there a motion i'll make a motion motion moved by kate is there a second second seconded by terry i will do a uh roll call teresa yes rachel i michelle you're a mute nope yes lauren i joseph aye catherine i l i lisa i it's unanimous motion carries i will now entertain a motion to adjourn move by gladys seconded by joe all those in favor say goodbye by saying aye

whoever has her volume up please lower it down i think that's what's causing the feedback please check your devices now here in the board room is your volume down it's off mine is off as well well remember travis is your volume down it's off okay so i'm not sure where you got this coming from all right um we will go ahead and proceed with the uh land acknowledgement board of trustees alum rock union elementary school district does hereby acknowledge that the district schools and facilities sit on the traditional lands of the alone people and the board of trustees further acknowledges with respect and reverence the maloney people tribe of the san francisco bay area for their stewardship of these lands all right moving on to item 2.1 we have discussion approval of the process for interviewing and selecting financial advisor firm um dr brower believed uh jess was going to help us facilitate this process yes and i wanted to have mr chang to give a little bit of a background and context so that way we can proceed with the process mr chang sporting that 49ers thank you uh dr bara and good evening um board of trustees um just to give a uh background um as you may recall we issued an rp for financial advisor um fortunately we received uh six proposals which we're very happy about um and which leads us to this board meeting um and uh we have asked um one representative from each firms to witness um the board's decision on how to establish the process and also to witness the orders in which the firms will be interviewed and with that i'd like to thank jess who's going to be facilitating this process thank you good evening board president quintero members of board superintendent bower and members of staff uh my name is jess cerna i am previously was previously the interim assistant superintendent of human resources and have been asked to facilitate tonight's process again i want to thank you for coming this evening and for participating in the process this evening also we want to thank you for your patience given the set of circumstances we're all having to deal with giving our our environment here so let me go through the process that's been established and recommended to select firm first of all the name of all six firms have been placed in a container in an envelope here and they and the names will be drawn from that envelope to determine the order of presentation uh the first firm that has been drawn will remain in the boardroom the other five firms will will have a waiting area for you uh down the hall and in the two conference room both in academic services um the first form uh again the first one drawn will remain here each firm will have a total of 15 minutes for their presentation those 15 minutes will consist of a five-minute presentation and then 10-minute question and answer period each board member has submitted their questions to ensure that there's no duplication of questions each board member will ask one question after each firm is interviewed each board member will submit their respective scores and they're being submitted onto an automated system and spreadsheet and that friction will timestamp those scores the scoring will be scale will be a scale from one to ten one being the least desirable 10 being the most desirable in the event of a tie the board will rescore the firms that have tied the firm receiving the highest score will be selected as the finalists the finals will be subject to a thorough background investigation should that background investigation fail the runner-up of the scoring system will be the next firm background checked that is the process that will be utilized this evening or any questions from the board some staff see none i guess the next business is to select the order is that correct yes okay i think we said patty out of here was going to draw the names um number two capital public finance public planet california financial services is um okay so if the first firm that was selected can have a seat at the table here addie will show you where the waiting areas are and for the first firm if you wish to have your colleagues joining you at this time this would be the time to have them join you before they start i'll go ahead and ask for a motion from the uh board to adopt the process i'll prove it i have a motion to adopt the process motion to drop the possible motion by charlotte second second second uh yes is there any discussion no discussion from the board any members of the public wishing to speak on item 2.1 all right so you know public comment then we'll go for a vote all the all those in favor i'll i'll go ahead and call call row um uh as i see literally uh hi travis hi from uh with um the eyes of my vote in the affirmative the motion passed unanimously to interview potential firms and selection of the desired firms public comment do you have any public comment on item 2.02 all right see no public comment we'll go ahead and move on to the actual interview process just to remind you from the clock you'll see it on the screen there's a five minute for your presentation and then each board member will go through the q a period which will you have ten minutes total to answer five questions great well thank you for uh this process and having me here this evening and my name is adam bauer at least we know you won't be forgetting my last name this evening um and so no relationship no relationship that's why i say that really clear so i'm the one person you're going to talk to that has wanted to be in this industry in this job since i was in junior high school my parents were both in the business my step-dad started off as an underwriter and then became county treasurer task collector my mom headed up a redevelopment agency i later became an intern at the treasurer tax collector's office one of the things that you probably know is that a lot of school district transactions get priced through the county treasurer's office one of the things that bothered me at a very early age was that the school deals would price at higher interest rates and have higher fees and i knew that then that this was an area that i wanted to be in we are one of the firms to help change that but in junior high school my parents would bring home bond documents i would review them for edits and then they would teach me deal structure and so i like i've told you been on a long path towards wanting to be here before you this evening and uh as we get into the presentation here tell you a little bit about the firm we're a california based firm we have an office in irvine and san francisco and then we have representative offices meaning home offices in hawaii and washington our firm was established in 1966 of all the firms i've seen here tonight we uh there's not many that were established before the 80s we've been doing this and only this since 1966 we do not do demographic studies we do not do the political work we don't want to show up in the newspaper doing something that's contrary to one of our clients interests so we solely focus on this we do this 60 to 70 hours a week exactly what you're asking us to do here today phil and olap is a founding member of nema national association of missile advisors we look to set industry standards and also help some of the smaller firms that don't have the resources understand how to operate their business in this regulatory environment just before covet i was in chicago meeting with the national association there talking about how to comply with standards and also spoke with the securities exchange commission to bless you the securities and exchange commission about things to look for with financial advisors as well we offer both school district and overall industry um overall municipal industry i think that's important because i learn things from our water practice that i can then apply towards school districts and we have found it to be very helpful every friday i have a call with my business partners and we talk about what each of our clients has experienced i will share this meeting with them on this friday but that's tomorrow so what makes feeling all that different other than a guy that's wanted to do this since junior high school and that is uh experience integrity service i've already told you we were established in we do only one thing but the integrity i will tell you when not to do something whether it's go for a geo by measure whether it is now is the right time to be in the market or what kind of structure should be looking at we pride ourselves when our clients tell stories about when we told them not to do something and that's hard to do for a lot of consultants they are you're on a path you want to get something done so we really make a real source of pride out of that service most consulting firms are designed to be just in time consulting we have designed ourselves so that we do 80 of what's predictable ahead of time that way when your situation gets complicated or you have a uniqueness we already have that foundation i'm not making an associate stay there all night trying to figure out what what the solution is we set that baseline up and then we can have an intelligent calm conversation about what we're trying to resolve what that also does is if i can get you things before your deadline then you have time to look at it and process it versus just having to react and get it on a board agenda so we take a lot of pride in being early the other thing with the 80 20 the service component here that i'm talking about it allows me to be in front of you a lot more by having that base of information i'm able to be out with our clients several days a week i also want to make sure you know cell phone is on the cover of this um that is available 24 7.

[Music] test one two three four live stream test [Music] no no no no [Music] hello [Music] no [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Applause] [Music] do [Music] all right well thank you very much we're reconvening back from our closed session and we will go ahead and start with our pledge of allegiance and movement of silence uh with our student representative board of trustee abdullah fatah all right please stand put your right hand over your heart ready begin i pledge allegiance to the flag and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you all right um as i'm sure most as i'm sure most of you know uh this tuesday marked the first day of the lunar new year uh and whether you celebrate it or not i think it serves as a great reminder for all the blessings that we have i'm so grateful when thinking about the family friends and communities that i share this holiday with and although in the past i never really celebrated it i can look forward to indulging in some of the culture with my closest friends being a part of such an expansive and diverse community it welcomes new and diverse ideas i now want to take some time to briefly appreciate all that we have all that we have and be grateful for the places we've been able to make it to during this month of february i couldn't do a moment of science without speaking about our country's history during black history month i urge everyone just to listen just listen to the communities that have been pushed aside in our country for so long as a community we have come a long way in terms of equity to the citizens of this country however there is still more to be done and we can't forget please join me in a moment of science together as we listen thank you abdullah for that very very good moment of silence uh comment that you made i appreciate it thank you um let's go next to 6.3 with this closed session report and our i know we don't have our clerk the board so i'll ask our assistant and uh abdullah i would like to second what president javar said you did a lovely job thank you 5.1 no reportable action taken regarding public employee performance evaluation superintendent 5.2 the board of trustees unanimously approved the settlement agreement in oah case number 2021-1100 resolving all issues in students due process complaint by providing compensatory services and reimbursement 5.3 the board of director of trustees unanimously approved the settlement agreement in oah case number resolving all issues in students due process complaint by providing compensatory services and other reimbursement 5.4 no reportable action taken regarding negotiations 5.5 no reportable action taken regarding personnel 5.6 the board of trustees unanimously voted to suspend without pay for 10 days employee hr-2021-222 5.7 this item was pulled prior to the adoption of the agenda in 5.8 the board of trustees took formal action with a 5.0 vote to approve the expulsions of students 21-11 21-12 21-13 all right thank you very much and we're going into recognition but uh i don't see except for natalie saldivar with the apga co-presidents here and i don't see i think i saw grant schuster out there they're all probably out there and then i think uh amanda bean was here too right okay perfect besides that we're doing a recognition today for the following business which is advanced healthcare pharmacy are they here in the audience nope no on um do we have anybody on the other room oh they were not okay all right well i just want to take this opportunity to thank advanced healthcare pharmacy i know that they've made a donation of five thousand dollars to the vietnamese program and uh we wanted to recognize them but uh definitely give them our thanks and uh i want to recognize them in person as well all right perfect but we're going to our next item which is resolutions we have a whole lot of resolutions at this meeting today and i'm going to start out with 8.1 which is a resolution number 2021 dash 2022-bot01 confirming compliance of trustee area boundaries in accordance with the 2020 federal census um i know it's a move for approval we'll move for an approval and i have a second and this is going to be discussion time and questions uh i will start from my left and marie well um looking over the maps i um you know my original question i remember that was a couple a couple months ago my very first question was that do we have to do anything are are we in compliance and i remember asking that very well um and uh we were and we are in compliance with the maps um and when we try to move some of the folks and try to um you know i don't know what we want to call it equalize the numbers um it it would have to me it looks like we would have taken a school out of an area and put it into another area and i just i i don't want to do that and so to me my opinion is you know at this point in time i think uh to leave it to leave the map as it as it is and we can look at into the future maybe of looking into it if it if it if the growth gets really really what's the word i'm looking for if there's you know growth that's really too much i think that we tried to create a word is blinking out of my head we tried to create another area and we couldn't do that so i'm just saying that i just felt like from the very very beginning if it wasn't if we didn't really need to change anything we shouldn't i like the original map and i'd like to keep it that way okay i hear what trustee randall trejo is saying but i disagree first of all we are all responsible for every school in this district yes we are elected by districts but this is the problem with districts then we feel like we have to have certain schools that are ours well they fall into our area but that doesn't mean you cannot still be you know attendant to each school especially like okay the issue here is south is no longer in that one area and it's going to be in the other area but it's right on the on the the line i i have a district that where it's divided right in front of dale junior high but that doesn't mean i don't think it's my my school i don't think it makes a difference what we should be considering more importantly i believe is the evening out of the populations and if we stay with our trusty areas that we have now we have one area which is a negative four as far as percentage of population and all and only one other one that is a negative point three and the others are above and so and between the two that we are have been looking at between area one and two you have a negative four and a positive four no it's okay it's within the re the realm because they say it's within 10 percent but it doesn't even out the voting population okay um as well as one of the scenario two evens it out more so that you have two areas that are more evenly divided as far as numbers when it comes to voting for who's going to represent that area and that's what this whole thing of districts is about and i mean i didn't like the idea of districts i still don't like the idea of districts because i think it creates this division that you're hearing right now and i will be you know i and i tell people all the time well they you know well you're in our area you have to represent us i represent the whole school district i can i am concerned about the whole school district every single school yes this school is in my area so yes you know you expect you know i to be a little bit more involved but i you know i'm involved with you know schools that are not in my area at all because they are not far away so i personally think scenario two that evens out the uh citizen voting numbers more to 54 and a half percent to 50 point percent evens out the voting area so that when it comes to election times they have a better opportunity to get a minority elected so that's that's where i stand and it was all said for me i agree with everything that mrs piercy said so uh here's where uh and i i'm somebody who actually looked at trying to see how to balance out that number that's number one i looked at both scenarios that our demographers put in place for me i wanted to create another cvap district with district 2.

so um anyway that's that's where i am i i do commend all you guys in the job that you do um so that's what i have to say thanks thank you faith any other yes yeah um i will be supporting this budget i think it's important to point out that the uh increase of 5.3 per 4 percent increase over last year's budget is really an artificial number and due to the 1.5 million that was infused into into the budget for the medical benefits reserve that was given to us by the town council last year so if we took that out the budget increase really is three point something percent increase which is really not not a huge increase um so i just want to point that out and the second thing i would like faith i totally agree with some of what you um just mentioned and i'm wondering if you had an amendment to put forth for the budget because i might be interested in that well that's a tempting offer but no i don't have one and i would just mess up the whole organization of this meeting so we're not gonna go there so you're not giving me an option another option i'm sorry okay let's talk earlier so i will be supporting this budget thank you might i just make a question please i just want to clarify the increase on the budget in terms of percentage this year over last year's budget which includes the medical benefits is 5.34 if the benefits increase is backed out it's 2.44 thank you dr song any other board members wish to comment mr um i'm going to attempt to recreate what i said at the finance committee meeting but since i since it was a in my opinion a pretty good riff i don't know if i'll be able to do that um but um i will say i will be supporting the motion as proposed this evening um i think it's a a prudent and uh restrained uh budget request um uh as as i said earlier um this uh is you know this gets us through the uh the pandemic it helps us grow a little bit um uh but i i think that um once we uh hopefully put the pandemic behind us that we need to begin to look at prudent investments in our future and hopefully that we'll be able to begin those investigations instead of once a year but hopefully maybe over every quarter we'll have the finance committee kind of meet with the administration and kind of talk about the numbers about the the cost of of what investment looks like so that we're not um surprised by anything uh come next january will it will be something that we have been considering for months and months and months um and that the public will be will know what we're also considering which i think is also important and not just to have you know unfortunately um our budget meetings were not well attended uh this year uh uh i think well on foot you know because of you know covet obviously uh the last time our budget meetings were well attended were obviously in 2019 uh but then i don't think there was any public comment at all this year even via email i don't think right mr sullin one oh yes one yes one for mr buster yes yes um so you know hopefully you know uh that will we begin to open up again and hopefully permanently that uh we'll be able to show the public that we're um you know wisely moving forward because we know that investing in our school system is an investment in our town and an investment in growth in this town so i'll be supporting this thank you thank you mr grippel yes sam um i mean i'm going to repeat what i said in finance but i think this budget like i said it positions us to stay in the game right but does it eventually prepare us to be ahead of the herd no pun intended when we transition out of this you know pandemic and to mr white's point i do agree with you um i think we should consider in the future offering different pathways especially in careers of need like nursing and teaching right now so in some way embedding that into our programs at the high school somehow the students have an opportunity to have the exposure and kind of job shadow in a sense early on prior to going into those different pathways um and um faith i think we we put the mechanism in into having more frequent meetings so that not that we need more oversight on with vin or dr solon but it's just for us to keep abreast more so on these programs and see whether they're effective um going forward so hopefully that mechanism will help to identify some of these areas that are fixed and eventually find a solution for you to get out of it because you know coming from my background i prioritize academia and instruction so hopefully we can again advance our students and accelerate our kiddos going forward thank you really not good thank you tony yeah i just want to um one more comment on this uh one of the reasons that i was talking about different pathways it just gets to the debt we have in america a quarter million dollars for a college education and then i imagine there are some students who spend that money and then think that might not have been what i really wanted to do um so i want to try to avoid that uh one of the biggest pieces of our budget the increase here is the health care costs we do in my opinion we do have the ability to control it it's a reduction in head count i don't really want to discuss that right now so but another way of reducing the healthcare costs in the long run we discussed with our healthcare consultants at tom kowalczyk and one of the things that i recall him saying is that we do have he he considered us to have some potential for the preventive care spending a little bit more money there to save more money in the long run so just another thing to keep in mind as we move forward thank you all right i'll go last so first of all i want to thank dr stolin mr massiana marlene salano the entire staff almost everyone's here tonight in the back room that's just a testament to dedication to this process and to the students thank you for all the work that went into the budget process as board members say just based on that binder there's a lot of detailing work that goes into getting to this point so that does not it doesn't go lost on us for sure um and i also want to thank the board i i thought this year's finance committee discussion was very thorough a lot of great questions asked i'm very happy to see some follow-up actions because it seems like every year we well some of us and i'm part of this too we wait until this night to introduce something new and you roll a new position it's too late so um i say that because our enrollment is growing um you know and in past years you know i would get a lot of criticism you know why is the budget you know rising and from what's going down well you know and why isn't head count reduced well head count was reduced in in those years and dr sullin team has demonstrated that last few years but there's different things that pop up i guess to fate's point is you know our special services needs uh you know are in high demand for great reasons it's a great program here in town um mental health is you know the topic last year this year and let's continue to stick with us so you know we're faced with different challenges uh that's not just based on head count so um i don't think that's ever gonna change i hope it it gets better in terms of redirecting more funding to instruction i don't think we're lacking that by any means but to some of the comments tonight you know we're not able to if i have my wish list you know i have a culinary program that's expanded with probably its own facility uh in our school district the paper kids for a culinary world or really build out a separate building for um you know for manufacturing machining but um i i feel pretty positive about the budget in terms that it maintains our in my opinion class sizes at a reasonable level because our enrollment is increasing sooner than has been predicted we saw this past year and quite frankly with all the challenges that covet has presented publix cheshire public schools over the last two years in and around the classroom i quite frankly i'm sorry but i think our our educators deserve to keep um the class sizes at a optimal level so that you know they can have a little bit of breathing room i i would be very worried if we were discussing reducing head count especially in this particular time enrollment doesn't make any sense to me so i want to see us come out of covid this fall stronger and i don't see how reducing any aspect is budget is going to help with that so i will definitely support this you know the other thing i want to mention is as much as this is a large budget increase just refresh folks mine back in 2020 after we worked through our budget proposal and sent it across to the town manager town council and covett hit we uh we all regrouped again and we reduced another 2 million dollars from that year uh so you know we're still behind you know our investment quite frankly i was expecting a larger budget increase than the four million dollars um and you know again we haven't recovered from that uh and if folks remember from uh that year when we sat down with everyone and walked through those areas of reduction but we also made it very clear that there is nowhere else to go um beyond that besides people which uh does not make any sense in this particular budget and i hate to bring another sore topic but four years ago uh you know we we asked you know what would reducing sports i could activities save the district if i remember the math correctly and it's a it's it's just a an insane thought but if you limited everything as far as sports and extracurricular maybe it's a million dollars in the saving and that's kind of a drop in the bucket so the point there is i haven't been this bored as long as i have and um the cost saving measures that the district takes often gets overlooked and as much as our budget is going to go up potentially four million dollars since i've been on the board it's been almost 20 million dollars that i've personally voted for this budget so it could have been a lot worse if the school district was not being prudent and cost savings and a lot of that and i know some of it was covered in finance but there's a lot of activities that keeps these costs down uh in addition what's happening now so i i think it's a very pruning budget i i commend the administration and everyone to put together great discussion by the board of ed i'm very happy to see that in this process so i will support this as is i think reducing it from what it is is not going to help us get out of covid and come out stronger this fall and quite frankly um i think our community is watching very intently to see if we're gonna do the right things heading in the next year and i think they would expect some kind of increase especially to offset what we gave up two years ago so um i think we can easily explain this uh by no means is it a given you know we're going to work with our town council folks to to what comes next but uh i i support this and i'll leave with that so unless there are any other comments from the board the motion is move the cheshire board of education submit to the town manager a budget for 2022 2023 fiscal year totaling 81 million 114 420 which represents an increase of 5.34 or four million one hundred and thirteen thousand three hundred sixty eight dollars over the 2021 2022 budget all those in favor please raise your hand it is six in favor and he opposed one available [Music] it was thank you man uh it was a motion by tim seconded by samantha all those in favor it is unanimous this meeting is adjourned thank you everyone for sticking around good evening