Um, so next on community non-aggenda items, I do believe that we have an individual here who wishes um to speak to an item that's not on the agenda. So to start that off, I'm going to read guidelines for public participation and then we'll have that individual um come up to speak. So the school board recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on corporation matters. This meeting is a meeting of the school board in public for the purpose of conducting the school corporation's business and is not to be considered a public community meeting. There will be time for public participation as indicated by the agenda. The board provides public comment at the beginning of the meeting for items not on the agenda. For items on the agenda, the board will take comment during the meeting as the board considers items.
So through the strategic planning process, looking at data and and analyzing that and getting the stakeholder feedback, we identified key areas where we focused on efforts and we realized that those can make a meaningful impact. So the first one is um our community demographics and they highlight the importance of family engagement. So we understand that overall student well-being directly impacts all areas of the educational experience. So you'll see some census data here and in the 2024 census 5.9% of our community were preschool age which is 0 to four and 17.1 of our population was school age students 5 to 17. And then when you look continue to look at our overall community only 28.3% of the community have children. Um so it is not even half of our community that has uh children that that are in that school age. So during the strategic plan initial discussion and through that data uh from parent surveys that we had, it was evident that there was a need for community education and more partner resources.
Good evening everyone. My name is Jose Escabedo. I proudly serve as a student ambassador at Catella High School. I am pleased to share that I will be going from a knight to a Lancer at California Baptist University where I will be pursuing my studies in mechanical engineering with the ultimate goal of expanding my family's HVAC business uh from HVAC contractor to HAC uh design uh firm. Uh none of this would have been made possible without the incredible experiences that I've had with my fellow board members and to all of the board members that have been able to guide us and to mentor us. I also wanted to thank the staff and students. I'm enormously grateful for all of you and for the encouragement and support. Thank you and have a wonderful evening.
I know at times we were provided clarity on rules by Kylie Caldwell. Kylie, what rules of order were you referencing? Yes. I'm not sure what you're referring to. Oh, whenever >> you. Yeah, whenever you um let us know uh what direction we should take or what we need to do first or second, that that's what I was referring to. That's just to be compliant with the Brown Act. With the Brown Act. Okay. Thank you. Um most school boards in the United States generally follow Robert's Rules of Order. Uh President Buchanan, it is your responsibility to facilitate these meetings. Without rules, that must be difficult. In the best interest of students, we must have rules. Motions made and seconded by any member of this body should be considered and voted upon. It's basic parliamentary procedure. In light of the repeated current corrects and in hope of avoiding any possible future litigation, I move that we, as a board, formally adopt Robert's Rules of Order as a shared structure to conduct the business of the district.
So, how would we do that? Well, our day-to-day district operations in general fund general fund is roughly $49,52,494. Special revenue fund which is restrict restricted uh federal and state grants for specific programs for example on preschool expansion already did increase there um which is a good thing. Debt service we're going to get to debt service but this is a good thing. That's a rep repayment of of previous previously issued bonds. And good news on debt service will come later. But these are our funding. This is how we're funded. 74% of our funding comes from local sources of property taxes. 16% comes from state aid. About 4% come from debt service. About 4% comes from preschool expansion. We get 1% from federal sources. And as a district, we are using less than half of 1% of our fund balance to do anything in this budget. So we are not going to damage our quote unquote rainy day savings funds in the maintenance reserve or in any other of our reserves account in this budget.
Inflation peaked at a massive 9.1% in 2022. Over the last 5 years, the average inflation rate is approximately 4.5%. While the rates in 24 and 25 dropped back down to much more normal levels, that 5-year average of roughly 4 and a.5% explains why the cost of living feels so noticeably higher to everyone than it did just 5 years ago. If a school district can only raise the tax levy 2%. And if it doesn't raise the tax levy 2% some of those years, then the math doesn't math. It just simply doesn't work. This budget crisis is not the result of fiscal mismanagement. Our district consistently does more with less. This board of education has consistently demonstrated a profound respect for taxpayer funds, maintaining a longstanding legacy of fiscal prudence and responsible financial management. This board has been a vigilant guardian of public resources, ensuring every taxpayer dollar is managed with the utmost integrity and foresight.
Um I almost forgot to announce our last piece. Um our last piece uh is incantations. And this again goes along with our theme of fantasy and magic. Um fantasy and magic. Um in this case like a really dark and evil kind of magic is kind of happening, right? Um and so incantations it can think of like chance being spoken, maybe a little bit of voodoo kind of thing. Um and we hear that first theme or maybe it's like a spell being cast at the beginning. Um, you hear it kind of quietly and it comes back very loud and strong at the end. Um, it's a really fun and challenging It's challenging piece. Um, but they really stepped up to it. It's a lot of fun to play. I'm saying fun. No one wants to do it. Um, I think it's a lot of fun. Um, it all begins with a solo which will be performed by Morgan, Chelsea, Ava, and Kim up front here.
Mr. Hutchins, same as the previous two. You've got 3 minutes and there's a timer on the monitor here. Whenever you're ready. As a coach, I'm used to 30 seconds, so hopefully I can pull this We'll We'll take that, too. >> times. Let's try five. We'll see. So, my name is Brian Hutchins. I'm a school counselor at Mesquite High School. So, our students, we have 50% free and reduced lunch. So, many times when students come back from break, I ask them, "How was your break? What did you do?" Overwhelmingly, our students say worked. "Oh, why'd you work?" "Well, I needed to work to support my family." So, they're not working for more wants. They're working for the needs. So, taking away the 2 weeks for them would financially impact their family, which impacts potential siblings, which impacts just their livelihood. So, I just respectfully ask that you just consider those students who don't have a chance to advocate for yourself.
The board president will direct when public comment is appropriate. The presiding officer shall be guiding all of the following rules. Public participation shall be permitted um as indicated in order of business provided, however, that public participation may be prohibited at any meeting that must be conducted remotely or virtually due to disaster emergency declared by federal, state, or local officials unless the board has elected to allow oral public At such board meetings as listed above, attendees shall register their intention to participate. Um, participants shall be recognized by the presiding officer and shall be requested to preface their comments by announcing their name, address, group affiliation if and when appropriate.
So these events will be developed. We're going to promote them through multiple communication forms and um receive feedback in efforts to continuously improve and address community well-being needs. So then we moved on to kind of that second piece of community resources and partnerships um to strengthen that strong collaboration because we all know that we cannot do this alone. Um, so we're going to continue to identify community needs, expand and ac access to resources for students and their families, and develop and strengthen partnerships um that we already have and try to invite new partnerships to support our students in the community at large. >> All right. And then the next one, which is the data point you see up here, is supporting students in poverty. And I think we all in this room know that one of our biggest struggles is students in poverty. with nearly 64% of our students qualifying for free and reduced lunch.
Good evening everyone. My name is Kayton Lee and I serve as a student ambassador for Kennedy High School. I'm extremely grateful for the amount of support that Kennedy students, staff, and administration have given me throughout my years in high school. I plan on utilizing the skills that I've learned from the ambassador program beyond just high school. Um I'm proud to say that I'm committed to Pomona College where I'll be majoring in politics, philosophy, and economics. THANK YOU. HI EVERYBODY. My name is Pearl Ta and I'm currently serving as Laura High School's ambassador. And during my time in high school with AUHSD and Laura High School, I've just learned to utilize opportunities that were given to me like field trips, mentorship, and also the community to just get myself involved in events. And with that with that love that I received from my community, I've decided to be attending Chapman University on a full ride where I'll BE >> YEAH, thank you.
I'll second. Point of order. We had this discussion at the last board meeting and then we had board consensus that when we have CSBA come in and do our governance training, that is going to be one of the first priorities. Um concerned that we have a lot of decisions to make and we're not considering the idea that we need to have rules of order governing our meetings. Um I I made a motion. I believe it was just seconded. Can we call for a vote? I cannot because I already called for the vote on the motion that was seconded first. I'm sorry. Can you clarify? Yes, on a motion made by Maria Akpara and seconded by Amanda Buchanan, we move to adopt the agenda. And then I called for the vote and I called on you and you said you wanted to have discussion about the adoption of the agenda.
It's important to look at what we have received from state aid over the course of the last couple of years. So 22 23 which is not ago the district was receiving a little over 10 million close to 10.5 million in state. Fast forward to next year's projection, our projection is 8 million697478. So over that five years, while we did get more state aid this year, which is a good thing, we are still net negative 1.778 919 or roughly 16.98% from where we were in 2023. So yes, we received an increase year-over-year, but the fiveyear running state aid is a general loss of 17% from where we think it's important for everybody to know. So what does this mean to the tax levy to the taxpayer? We are going to do these things and we are going to make remain within 2% uh New Jersey levy cap.
And this commitment to sound fiscal governance is evident in our administrative and operational efficiency when compared to 96 peer districts. 96 districts of students with 3500 or more. Those are our peer group. In administrative spending, we rank 74th out of 96. In operations and maintenance costs, we rank 82nd out of 96. In per pupil costs, which is very simply your total budget divided by your number of students, we rank 63rd out of 96. All of those numbers are below average. some significantly below average. As an administration, as a board, we are committed to operating leanly, but we cannot absorb massive external financial drivers without asking the community for support. So, what does it mean in real numbers? What does it mean to the average taxpayer who lives in Clifton? for the average assessed home value. And Mr. Usi will explain this further, the 6% increase equates to $317.84 a year or $2649 a month.
Um, we hope you enjoy this portion of the concert. Um, following this will be our senior string quartet. Hallelujah. [music] Hey, are you Where are you? Hallelujah. >> [applause] [applause] >> Okay. Um, at this time we're going to bring out um our next ensemble, which was kind of part of the last group, but they're have their entrance. Um this ensemble uh the senior string quartet, it is totally student formed. This was all their idea. Uh student form, student rehearsed um by some of our amazing seniors. They're going to be playing boxenberg curto number two in a bridged version. Um so any music by Boach for strings is famously hard. It's kind of like a right of passage thing to play as a string player. Um so it's going to be a really great piece. Um quartets work without a conductor. They communicate instead using um cues with like their body language, gestures, kind of like musical things.
As a school counselor, I believe that's my job is to advocate for those those students who cannot advocate for themselves. And really consider that when you think about the 222 calendar. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hutchens. Whitney Pitt. If you'll make your way up to the podium. You've got 3 minutes. It'll be up here on the monitor and feel free to begin whenever you're ready. Good evening. Good evening, President Thompson, Dr. McChord, and board members. My name is Whitney Pitt. I am a parent of three kids in the district. Um I have three nephews here and a uh sister that also teaches within the district. I'm also running for Gilbert Public School Board this year. I want to echo what many parents and teachers have shared. The 222 calendar was the clear and overwhelming preference in the March survey. Including a brand new option at this late stage feels rushed.
Each statement made by the participant shall be limited to three minutes in duration and we will have a timer on the wall. No participant may more than once. No participant may pass their time to another participant. All statements shall be directed to the presiding officer. No person may address or question board members individually. The presiding officer may prohibit public comments which are harassing, interrupt, warn, or terminate a person's statement when the statement is too lengthy, personally directed, abusive, obscene, or irrelevant. Request an individual to leave the meeting when that person behaves in a manner that is disruptive to the orderly conduct of the meeting. Request the assistance of law enforcement in the removal of a person who is willfully disruptive or when that person's behavior interferes with the orderly conduct of the meeting. call for a recess or an adjournment to another time when the lack of public decorum so um interferes with the orderly conduct of the meeting to warrant such action.
Um we have the second highest poverty rate of the 92 counties of our state um and finding ways that we can support those kids and start educating them to break that cycle of poverty. We've seen a homelessness has improved slightly but still remains among the highest in the state. One thing that we talked a lot about is we've seen a decrease um in the participation and assistance programs like SNAP, which we had a lot of questions talking about. Is that because of awareness? Is that because of access ability to apply? And how can we help families with that? Um and right now we have a lot of those resources that we're helping kids with. We have the hope food program. We have the um Panther Pantry at the high school. We're we're developing um the popup shop for clothing. A lot of those items are there, but how can we continue to expand that?
And I'll be attending as a business admin entrepreneurship major where I will someday become a project manager. Hi, I'm Brooklyn Sharp. I'm Magnolia High School student ambassador and I am so grateful to have been involved with the AOHSD for the past six years and to represent Magnolia for my senior year. Ambassadorship has helped me grow incredulously in my leadership skills and my experiences here have greatly influenced my decision to um major in education at Fullerton College and later transfer to UCI. I hope Thank you. I hope to expand the knowledge and curiosity of our future generation and to hopefully inspire my future students. Thank you.
Yes. So, before we adopt the agenda, I think it's important that we acknowledge common rules of order as is basic parliamentary procedure. When you have a motion on the floor to to consider something, subsequent motions can be made. This is according to Robert's Rules of Order. This is according to Rosenberg's Rules of Order. It's according to basic parliamentary procedure. If we just call for a vote and aren't allowed to make any additional motions, this body is not heard. I hear you. Can I get your vote on the first motion to adopt the agenda, please? I'm concerned that um this motion is not being considered. When would be an appropriate time to make an emotion? When we have CSBA here, we're going to work through this as a board and adopt our governance handbook, and we're going to go through our policies and our procedures. You keep referencing that we have currencurrants.