Um we've had several instances recently where um family members have been detained by ICE. Um we have been door knocking and I feel sometimes like I'm screaming into the void, but trying to help some of our families here in this neighborhood. And I would I know that some of the schools have a policy on what to happens if ICE comes to your school, and I know it's happened in this area. Um so I'm just here to express my opinion about um hoping that our district can help prepare maybe the community and the teachers and people at the school um how to to deal with and prepare for potentially that kind of activity in our neighborhoods and how we can help support the children and the families that are being affected by that. That's it. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. >> [clears throat] >> Next up, we have Carrie Avery.
That's the club. Didn't we have like a craft club and we said we'd allocate $700 and something dollars for craft? >> A walk club? Like I thought we had a There was a craft club. I I I I don't remember off hand. I'm We're getting into John But you know what? I I don't want to comment on stuff >> Yeah, John John, why don't you say something? Let me just toss in a little history. Um several years ago, um we used to have student activities all in one And the finance director at the time said you can't do that. It's got to be by class. So, in Ferndale, we took that money, we parceled it out, and it was our way of saving for natural science. So, our kids pay a lot of money. In Boylston, they they took a bunch of clubs and paid people out of student activity funds.
Underneath that um it has u most students enrolled at uh um that they will continue to have take-home access to Chromebooks. So um I is there a reason why just at that campus that's um available when you know I know students are struggling at the second uh the well gave mash the high school but also um at the Indian oasis middle school where um it's sometimes the age that um they have to get stuff done um prior to them meeting that age or or before the age or you know that they need to get stuff done to graduate. So I was just wondering why that's there. >> Um yeah, do you mind if I had a comment real quick first? Um so what we're specifically speaking of there is of course the alternative school where we're providing services in a different methodology. So, so those students are mainly online.
Yeah. So, there were other things that were on there, but I believe it was closer to um to three million for the junior high. I can take a look um and I can actually pull it up right now if you'd like me to and we can we can look at that. I think I think yeah if if you if you don't mind I think that would be good information just for anybody that's listening to us tonight where that money that previous bond went. I know we did the junior high there was technology >> buses and there were some safety issues um >> can't remember >> what's that >> the track >> no the track was done >> no it was redone >> down we had that's right it was bubbled >> dug out >> bubbled it had to >> some of the asphalt had to be Yeah they had to replace some of the asphalt >> yeah because it bubbled up >> because moisture got underneath the asphalt and it crumbled.
Hello, my name is Carrie Avery and I'm a neighbor I'm a neighbor here in this school district and also want to express my interest in the school being prepared, all the schools being prepared if there's any extra ICE activity. You know, we already I know last weekend we had ICE at one of our local grocery stores. And how do we get our teacher make sure that all our teachers and our staff feel comfortable and also are able to recognize the signs of students are having difficulty or and also how to talk to students and make sure that all that's clear with our teachers. So just adding my two cents to what Brandy said about really wanting to help our our families and our students. Thank you so much. Appreciate you being here. Next we have Phoenix. [clears throat] Hi. Um I'm going to speak about the same things.
Yeah. So, it's not a stipend. It's not something that you're in control. It's not part of the budget. That student activity money is almost exclusively the money we get from photography. Photographers come in, they take everybody's picture, we get a cut of the sales. And that's where the student activity funds come from. When they get older, right, the kids fund raise and do all these things. They got a lot of kids. It has to stay with the class. That's how it has to stay. Yes, it's like what people pay for field trips, it all goes into that bucket and then you pay the one bill. Hopefully that's pretty close. I'm just doing it like a yearbook right now. So if we just So what Rich is presenting tonight is possibly stipends that we're looking for these positions. We're going to reopen negotiations with our union, with school committee start looking at those stipends and possibly this could be We're looking to say some stipends we might not need or use anymore, but these are ones that we know we need and we're hoping to make it cost neutral for next year.
They're doing their classes online and there's a lot of need for them to be able to catch up on nights and weekends and students are more self-paced. So, is my understanding. So, and that's something that's really going to be up to principal Maison if that's and she will have the option to again accommodate those students or not accommodate those students. One thing I did want to mention real quick, if you look at that response on page five, um, again, just being very direct about this situation and what we're requesting from our schools. Um, and we have four bullet points there I just want to focus on, and that is really just being um, firm about the direction we're going. And, and uh, Mr. Uh Wendia your your question too about the response I was wanted to ask too is the feedback you want do you want that to be before we move into this model or three month maybe three months after we're into that model for that feedback question >> I'm sorry Spence, I just wanted to address this.
I remember I remember that. That was ugly. >> Yeah. >> Um bleachers and F. Um isn't there an SF a request for the safety features in the high school football field bleachers? So do we have one right now? that was already completed. But we're also we're working on um SFD requests for the indoor bleachers on the indoor courts. But yeah, they completed that was one of the projects we completed this year on the football field where the bleachers they were they were not secured on one end. So if someone would sit on the one end, the other >> Yeah, that was a little bit of safety. >> I I think some of that money went to the remodeling of the bathrooms in the the old >> Yeah. And I think that's what locker rooms >> that's what Mr. Grenal was referring to. >> And the weight room turned the weight room was expanded from two rooms like bedrooms and the wrestling room was incorporated into the weight room and the wrestling room went to the went here.
I honestly prepared this for 3 minutes so I'm going to try and go fast but like please give me some grace. I'm and it's okay Miss Cuates we can give him the 3 minutes cuz I didn't do that in advance. That's fine. >> I really appreciate it. You're welcome. Good evening. My name is Phoenix. I'm a teacher in the Creighton Elementary School District and I'm very happy to say that I will be returning to my school for a third year. Much of this decision is due to the support I received from the Creighton community including my amazing admin team as well as this governing board's openness to listening to and acting upon its community members' concerns. I know that I speak for many other >> [clears throat] >> Creighton teachers and staff when I say that I'm very grateful for the guidance the governing board provided to our admin at my school regarding how to deal with ICE activity and what we could communicate to concerned students and families.
We will get back to you on that. All right. Thanks, Rich. Thank you. Um one member of the public joined since we had our last public public comment. Is there any public comment to be made? Um Yes. Um I just was taking some notes cuz my computer died. Um just when you guys were talking about the optics of of changing things after the fact. Um I personally agree that whether or not you have good or bad intentions, it just optically looks deceptive. Um I think you guys do a lot of complex and complicated things and I don't think it's easy to explain to the public. Um so that that is a little bit of conundrum. Um I think we also ask parents to come out and advocate for bringing these things back. And when a decision is made, they're sort of like, "Okay." And then, you know, something changes after the fact and I think that also can serve and still some mistrust as to what's going on with the money.
Um Aaron has been coming out. We have met multiple times to discuss the um laptop usage and so the reason why secondary campus will not be using it is because our students don't need to be taking it home. The kiddos who are needing the kiddos who are in student recovery classes actually have a class in which they can use the device and if they need to do it at home. A lot of our kids are doing it on their phone. Egenuity is something they can do on their phone. Um we'll see some kiddos when they've lost their laptop and it hasn't been replaced. They're in the classroom using their phone anyway. Um but that's the reason why at this point um secondary has opted to just have it um no one would be taking it home. Obviously as it comes to a situation where we have a kiddo who really needs it that would be a one-on-one conversation we could have with Mr.
Yeah. Went here. >> So I was just curious where that's kind of some of that money went. >> Yeah. So we had um sorry 2.7 2.7 million was to the junior high renovation. biggest renovation we've done. >> I can send it. >> Well, yeah. Can we put it up on the screen because I think there's some things that are kind of um so that's specifically to the construction of the junior high school, but there's also some things that were some universal construction that was some of it was the junior high and some of it was the other facilities. So, we can put it up on the screen because Courtney actually pulled all of the items. This was something that came up at the advisory committee on where everything um fit in. So, if Chris pulls it up, we can take a quick look quick look at the spending um piece and we can just take a brief look at that >> since there's a lot of people in the YouTube world watching.
My admin were able to give all campus staff a basic briefing last year when the current administration made clear they would be targeting immigrant families with deportation. Unfortunately ICE activity has increased drastically since then in ways that directly affected our campuses including my own. This March I witnessed seven unmarked vehicles pull over a car within view of my campus and detain the driver. It turned out the driver was a Creighton community member who had just dropped off their student to school. I informed my admin of what had happened and followed training that I had received from Puente Human Rights Watch a local immigrant rights advocacy group which has provided know your rights trainings for Creighton before. While I'm grateful that I have personally done trainings on my own time that allowed me to remain calm and take the appropriate steps, not everyone has those tools tools and experiences um to help them in an extremely stressful situation like that.
So, you know, I think you do really have to consider you know, once you guys have sort of decided on a budget, if you go and do things after the fact that those those can have some real um trustee implications. Um And again, honestly, it's very hard to explain what you guys were just talking about to to lay people. Um Moving things around cuz we have it, it's obviously a you know, you're right to do that, but explaining that to people who don't get that is very hard. Um as far as using cash for certain things, um I would hope that everyone considers data that you've gathered, right? I know we did a band survey. I know we've done We've had feedback from parents about the trustee counselor. We just want to make sure that conversations that the group has are focused on specific data and feedback that you've gotten, um as opposed to what people sort of think should come back.
Bates and the tech team and they said they would support whatever we requested at that time. But we have been having conversations for the last few months. And and one more note I want to mention because we are going to be moving on to adopting the the new fee schedule. One thing that we have been in a position of that we really want to firm up on is the accommodations. Um one thing that we say specifically there is teachers or students who demonstrate ongoing difficulty caring for technology or using devices in a safe manner will lose the privileges essentially. So what we don't want to be doing is accommodating a student that has a chronic issue and that student's stacking up fee after fee after fee because we have allowed some parents to go on payment plans. We issue a new device and then the second one gets damaged.
It is available online. Um if you're on the school board website or the board and you click on it to the study session, you can pull up the sheet. My suggestion it was just something nice and comprehensive and very easy to get to like one click and you're there but it is available for anybody who wants to pull it up right now. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. >> So when you look at things like asbestous removal was 285 that that's you know some of that's related to the junior high and so it's not directly in the line item of the junior high but the high school athletic renovation. Um, so there was some with that architect fees. So that's inclusive of all of the components. So some there's some other components that were inclusive. >> Let's not have architect fees. >> What's that? >> So let's not have architect fees if we can help it.
It is for this reason that I think more transparent guidance from the school board regarding potential staff interactions with federal agents should be considered as soon as possible, including providing the option for different types of trainings to all district staff. There are many local organizations that provide training on topics like how to identify different federal agencies, how to interact with and most importantly how to identify student needs and provide age-appropriate resources. A great example of a district that's been providing its uh community with both transparency and resources is Phoenix Union High, which I looked at the agenda. It seems like you already are working with them on something else. I think that's really coincidental and really awesome. Um but they their district's site has a section titled immigrant resources that includes a letter from their superintendent as well as Arizona Attorney General Chris Mayes. Both letters provide answers to questions families and staff frequently have regarding how the district can and will respond to federal immigration activity on or near school campuses.
Um I My kids went through the band. Um some some liked it, some didn't. But I think, you know, it might be time to ask parents, "Hey, if we had money, what kind of extracurricular or what kind of like special would you want? Maybe we want a STEAM you know, extracurricular. Maybe kids are more interested in engineering and robotics. It's an art, it's science. Maybe kids want a musical theater option, right? Like I had drama. That was a big part of my high school experience. Um and even in, you know, middle school we had it. So, I think it's admirable to want to keep arts, but I also think it's important to be engaging with parents in the community to understand when we make these cuts, you know, taking a step back and re-looking like, "Well, maybe we should ask people what they want, right?" Instead of just going back and saying, "Well, we're going to keep banning.
So then that's not fair to that family because they end up with two fees. So that's something we really want to firm that up and and essentially stop reinforcing an issue that may reoccur. So um that's another thing I wanted to add to the to the table. Um, Principal Massan left, but um, she stepped out, but I was just, um, wanting to hear her thoughts on the Chromebooks not being able to be taken home being that it would affect her students who are at that Yeah. that age where they need to. >> Yeah. So, so Maison School will have the ability >> through in in any school and if we have ESS students that need an accommodation, that's going to be accommodated. Like that's not something we, you know, we'll work with ESS director and site principles. If we have students that have that need and that's what we're saying at district level.
>> Yeah. And I think once again >> architect fees and they were so bad on the jun I mean the elementary school and you know that was >> I think once again if we do more of a comprehensive bond with a overall project you know we can when we go out for bid I think if we do a design build where then companies can come in once again if they do the whole thing get more bang for our buck that's something we can look at is doing a comprehensive like a remodel like all all together. So instead of seeing the fees individualized out, it'll just be here's all the things we get and the companies can have a bidding war and >> maybe we get a better company if we're doing a very good not just doing here and there. >> Yeah, we're not going to go for this and not not do our due diligence.