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okay it's been moved and seconded uh dr bruhl do you have anything you'd like to uh comment on before we vote and discuss sure well first of all i'd like to thank the board for gathering um uh for this meeting thank you for your support and flexibility um just really bringing it back quickly for everyone is this board uh and the superintendent we acted so quickly on uh monday to really move on the getting our public health and medical advisors and their advice and put that presentation together for monday february 14th it literally was i think about an hour and a half after our senate voted and at that time it wasn't clear that we could actually start with the optional mask and the mandate would no longer necessarily be a mandate as of monday february 28th we thought you had to work it through monday the 28th all the way till midnight and then be effective for march 1st which is a tuesday uh we were one of the first districts in the state to get together and have such a vote and so moving that quickly it became clear uh the next day that we actually could make the uh that the mandate wasn't uh in place for monday the 28th that's the first piece um and so we can we can effectively uh do what we're doing tonight the other piece is that um in in talking with uh mr belden uh when i asked him if we could uh convene the board uh it was i had checked with the team and it just is simpler to understand and pretty much easier for everyone if we start on a monday fresh at the beginning of the week rather than uh masking on on monday mandatory and then making it optional next tuesday um so we wanted to just follow along with the way the executive order plays out and what makes most sense for the students the staff and the families thank you any uh questions for dr burrell or any discussion on the motion [Music] okay hearing none all in favor aye all right okay it's unanimous um so um thank you all very much and uh thank you dr burrell and i promise we would do this quickly it's five minutes and without objection the meeting is adjourned thanks for your support everybody i'll send a communication tomorrow thank you thanks

one of the things that we know that in azusa unified even though in the state it did graduation rates did dip as zeus unified continues to exceed the county and state rates as well we also have some data that show the percentage of our students at our comprehensive high schools who graduated meaning cal state university of california intrinsic requirements also known as a3g and that's another indicator of how we are progressing toward ensuring our students are college and career ready we have both the ib program and ap classes that have exams each year last may 26 of our ap test takers earned a three or higher which is a passing score 79 of our ib students earned an average of four of four or higher on all of their ib exams we also have early college metric is also displayed here as well um our early college program we have seniors uh 100 percent of the seniors in the program earned 30 plus uh 30 30 more units for their college education um looking at this graphic here we have our percentage of our high school students who are participating in college preparatory programs and that's ib ap early college program and dual enrollment as well our progress toward meeting our college and career goal this year has many actions and services such as training for avid ib and ap training for college board suite of assessments professional learning for our counselors we also have course offerings we offered a district-wide summer program last year that was very successful and we have been in major planning for the next one that we're very excited about for this summer we have medical and engineering pathway courses of course we have ib and ap we have our cte pathways and rop courses as well um we have purchased materials uh text fees uh materials and supplies for our programs and also naviance college and career planning tool we have agreements with universities for automatic acceptance of asd students who meet the entrance requirements with such universities as us university of la verne aussie specific and grand canyon for example this slide shows expenditures for goal three as indicated and we are within our budget at this time so now it's time for another lcap in action presentation at both slauson middle school and azusa high school we are helping to prepare students for careers in engineering and the stem field you saw how our youngest learners at paramount were programming and coding and learning the robotics and now i'd like to invite our slauson middle school feminist and we have donna hawkins and mary naggy who are here with us today and we have one of our students as well to share about their experiences and activities so i'll turn it over to you [Music] good evening and members of the board parents students and community i'm donna hawkins and i have with me today peggy and we're going to talk about middle school um this is our third year um seminars is a program that was started by cal poly pomona and now san diego university's involved a partnership with high schools and middle schools encourage young women to be interested in stem careers our first year we had i think 15 seminars and this year we have and we meet after school uh we meet on thursdays after school um we have really great materials provided by the district and by the rotary club we have these beautiful robotic kits um he's so cool because it's kind of like a disney disneyland um [Music] uh ride you can build something and it's beautiful and sparkly colorful and feathers and then you use robotic kit to make it animated to respond to sound so it really appeals to everybody actually girls girls and boys but just way more feeling than just a simple robotic which is which is a really great too but this is another element of engineering i think by a whole different people we also have um toolkits that were provided by the rotary club and um and that was a really generous gift from them thank you and we have um first first in the year we were working with our coding and now recently we've been using our toolkit to create toolboxes for the girls learn how to thrill the other now that's what they're coding but uh but they have fake news create is definitely seeing more the thing a fun side of the teachers and also having friends to do the project and creations we make i've learned about drills while making these boxes that there's more than one drill bit and it may be obvious that there's more than one but that's me that's why feminist is a great place to go so you can learn about but darlene mentioned is something that as teachers we also see we see a different side of the students we see in the classroom when you see them so kind of shy and um more introverted you see when they come to feminist we see some of these kids that are just outstanding they thrive in using these tools we see some of the quietest kids some of the quietest girls get these power tools and boy do they go to town and and it's so wonderful to see them um one example of just how beautiful this is i was helping one of my girls and she's not my student but i've been working with her after school and tutoring and so lacking self-confidence and she split a piece of the wood and when she did i said you know i'm just not satisfied with that we need to make it right so let's grab another piece of wood i'm so sorry what are you sorry about well i wasted a piece of wood i said it's a piece of wood it's okay we can we can get another one so as she did it then she drilled and and she kind of put the um uh i don't know she drilled a little bit too far and as she did it and she started to put the screw in it it went a little bit deeper and she said i think i did it wrong and i said you know what that's actually perfect and because what the professionals will do is they will use some wood filler and they'll fill it in and when they paint or stain you don't even see that there's been a hole there there's no screw so that's actually professional and she was so proud of herself and she i thought she was gonna cry but she we took pictures and everything it was so beautiful to see that she was so excited about what she did and she was you know it just completely turns kids around so i look forward to thursday afternoons more than i could imagine anything else it's it's a bright side of every day it's wonderful to see these girls um just really shine so thank you so much for supporting the program for providing the materials that are necessary and these kids are doing great thank you and i just want to add on to it very said um you even see it it's almost effortless i mean you put all the work together and it doesn't really feel like it's great thank you very much any questions for teachers or students before we move on yes i just wanted to say you know i think it's really great that we see that we have the elementary level middle school and high school and that's such a great um career pathway but also just mentioning about the the young ladies that you know they're shy and they're coming up but what it is is they're building their self-esteem behind that just saying you know what i can do this if it takes me two or three times just even listen to the elementary students but we're going to get it done so i think that's really great real it was confidence and i'm glad that we have this and i want to thank the teachers and the students that are all getting involved and continuing the stem program thank you everybody it's um i went to the participate participated the nsda fellowship um a few years back and one of the engineers said this is the best time to get girls interested in fam as possible and so i just like this is a really important program agree yes yes and thank you all i i just want to thank you guys um i can't you said you guys went from is it 15 to 30.

so we use those scores as predictors they will send us information that we can break down into a spreadsheet and see which kids fall into those categories that they could potentially earn a three or higher on those exams um so this was taken from the college board site they say there's moderate to strong correlations between psat scores and ap exam results again they're all college board exams so they know by their scores on these psat tests if they're going to be a good candidate for ap courses so this is what it looks like on our end when we take that data and we look at it so what i was able to do i took out the students names and their distinguishing characteristics i left their zip code their gender and their grade and then you can see all of the courses that we offer at the high school and the whys mean that they would qualify as one of those students that could potentially earn a three or higher on their ap exam so just a cursory look at this data you see one column that has mostly y's in it computer science principles to me i thought that was amazing i thought that was really interesting that we have that many students in our building in our school that have the ability to do that well on a computer science college board exam so to me that's very impressive the other column that has a lot of y's is the english language that one's taken primarily the junior year so you can see a lot of our students will qualify and that as well but the main thing you look at that screen you see a lot of whys so that's a lot of good data that's a lot of good information our counselors have access to that our ap teachers have access to this information so that they can reach out to these students they can recruit our freshman teachers that teach ap human geography they do a great job of going over to the middle schools talking about their classes and getting students interested in that so we've got a lot of great information our counselors our teachers are doing a great job of using that information as well and then my last slide is just our ap teachers at lake central high school mr frederick's missing from this picture i believe he's the only one that was missing um but again i a lot of the credit goes to them of course our students who work hard study hard and prepare for these but these are the backbone of our ap program and i just wanted to give them a shout out because they're they're great educators they do a lot of extra training to be an ap teacher a lot of conferences they go to workshops many of them also serve as a grader of exams as well and that's it if anyone has any questions aaron over the years we've had very strong foreign language programs is there any particular reason foreign language is not classified in the ap category so what we are looking at doing is adding word language as a dual credit option we're going to look and see what our what our students might want are they going to want more of a dual credit option is ap something that they might look more into we're going to be looking and talking with our teachers we do have two teachers right now who are working on earning credentials to teach dual credit and offer that at the high school the dual credit would be activated i've known a number of students go off to college university and just pass right through the classes get credit for it right that's for a dual credit situation when they enroll it's a partnership with some of our local universities okay all right very good yep so we are looking into more options in our world language department um again like i said earlier if they feel that they're very strong in those skills they can take the test without being in the course that's a small number but i would like to boost that number in world language as well any other questions no all right thank you thank you thank you thank you all right we'll move on to our director of business services mr james thank you the only item i have for tonight is to seek your approval for the donations that were included in your board packet move to approve we have a motion second we have a second can i just ask you uh do you know what the g3 foundation i've just learned of the g3 foundation this week when this donation came in it is all i really know about it is it was formed in 2019 um i'm not sure the behind where the funding comes from but it is a local foundation that gives money to first responders to educators and to community service organizations so yeah thank you thank you all right uh any discussion hearing none all in favor aye aye motion passes thank you thank you all right we'll move on to our public comments we have no public comments this evening so we'll move right into our board comments and consideration of future agenda items mr marshall i have nothing in particular this evening thank you thank you miss kelly uh just a couple things i wanted to mention uh first time in 18 years the lake central boys swimming had one sectional so uh winter band and guard also had great showings of their competitions recently congratulations it's good to hear dr medlin um i'd like to thank the administrators and teachers who have been working to fight against house bill 1134 and other like bills it seems like a lot of their work has made a difference in the minds of the legislators and i appreciate their hard work in that regard thank you thank you and i just have a couple things i you know just want to give a shout out to the three wrestlers that went to state johnny cortez took fourth in his weight class i believe there were three students that advanced to the national merit scholarship finals so congratulations to those three and you have to have the highest psat score right is that how you get into that okay great so good luck to them and last week dr malcolm made a comment about transcribing meeting minutes and i just wanted to say thank you to ms nowacki for transcribing those words word for word on each and every week's meeting minutes so i appreciate you taking the time doing that and thank you and with that we'll turn it over to dr verrocco for board calendar future activities yeah so we are back here in two weeks and that's all i have for now keep checking the calendar for school activities as things start opening up we may start having more than just what's currently scheduled keep your eyes peeled thank you thank you do we have a motion for adjournment motion to adjourn we have a motion by ms kelly second by mr marshall all in favor aye thank you

i can't wait to see you guys at the mega middle school i i'm so excited because and i have a question how do uh the students find out about this when's the enrollment can they come and drop off just walk in and enroll or is it the beginning of the year how does a student get involved the first year i actually recruited the kids i i thought would succeed because i didn't really know i was going to go so let me select last year that are accounts for by anybody who was interested and i thought oh no but it ended up being fabulous i mean it's just kids who i didn't decide whether they belonged or not like hey i want to do that and we have girls of all disabilities it's just wonderful i mean that's what i do i want to say hey if you're interested in sign up can they go during the year and just sign up or i've actually i'm sort of like i'll just take i've had kids joining all the time and thinking oh yeah because it's not a word of mouth thing and flash from the pandemic it was really tough so this is kind of it almost feels like yeah but yeah i had kids sign up a girl sent up last week we even have a young man in our our group it is geared towards women but we don't we don't yeah do you guys have your pictures up on on lawson's website and this is a great pr everybody needs to know about this we have in the past and i i know i've i've given photos to uh yvette great great we'd love to see more or congratulations thank you thank you so much everyone congratulations young lady on all of your uh your achievements and your work in the feminist program and thank you to our teachers as well another example of project-based learning all right let's move on to goal for azusa unified's fourth l cap goal seeks to increase student achievement from all students and the narrow gaps that may exist between student groups it also includes increased focus on language acquisition and academic progress for students who are learning english goal for progress is measured by results on annual smarter balance assessment so here is a bar graph that reflects the 2019 performance of students in grades 3 8 and 11.

we do have a breakdown of results by school by student groups available that is detailed in our january update some of our basic services also service metrics for goal four and you can see the percent of students with standards-aligned instructional materials percent of fully credentialed teachers and percent of appropriately assigned teachers as well one of the many new metrics in our 2122l cap includes third grade reading proficiency levels and this chart shows third graders across the district and three of our student groups including our emerging multilingual students another new metric in azusa is used that we're using for goal four is the percentage of abc grades earned by our ninth graders and we've been doing a lot of work this year with our on track for college group with our california education partners team evan shows that students in ninth grade if they earn grades that are a through c they're more likely to graduate more likely to be prepared and the college and career measurement another metric is our reclassification rate for emerging multilingual students and we can see the rate here as of december students are reclassified continually throughout the year as they show readiness and we know that that number will uh will increase we have lots of actions and services some examples for professional learning we have workshops and training to support all students and focus on those who are multilingual learners we have vibrato early academic language professional learning that you heard about at our last board meeting we have job embedded coaching aimed at improving instruction for emerging multilingual students we have music at all levels elementary middle and high school we have a spanish dual immersion program and of course we purchase supplemental instructional materials and technology for our students as well programs uh also include uh after school programming uh for learning acceleration and you've seen a couple of programs as well for our students as well goal for expenditures uh here's a slide that shows progress on our our budget and we are within budget at this time all right so now for our next lcap in action very excited to uh have our we have our principal from powell school of the arts jennifer wiebe we have our teacher on special assignment for english language arts and english language development heidi johnson and we also have pal teacher jennifer steinold here to share the amazing work that they've been doing to ensure that students are proficient readers i'm heidi johnson the pk6 ela eld teacher on special assignment and i want to take a moment to share a highlight of my 22 years in the classroom what i miss most about this time of year on a monday morning during recess a little one would come to me miss johnson miss johnson i went to the restaurant this weekend i went to mcdonald's and i could read the menu and i would look at them with a big smile on my face and i would say of course you can you're a reader once a child realizes that they have joined the literate world everything changes literacy is the key to far away places the wonderment the doors of opportunity every ausd child deserves to hold their own set of keys to use as they see fit our promise to ensure all students achieve at grade level on california state standards and achievement gaps are reduced must be met with a plan every child must learn to read which lays the groundwork for reading to learn and there is a difference we do this by modeling we do this by meeting students where they are and providing them with what they need we also do this by supporting teachers through job embedded professional learning ensuring that high leverage research-based practices are being used in the classroom that instruction is targeted and focused driven by data and that the whole child is tied hal became the perfect partnership to be our pilot school for an intensive literacy professional learning campaign we've been working together to make sure that small group instruction is happening and that every child joins the literate world and can read and be part of that world i turn it over to jenny to share a little bit about what's going on at pal good evening everybody i am jenny weavey proud principal of pal school of the art however tonight i don't get to talk about the art but i'm going to talk about our focus on reading um what is win win stands for what i need and is a special program that we designed at powell to give every child daily differentiated instruction in order for them to become a capable and proficient reader it's not an intervention program just for struggling students it is a school-wide k-6 systematic effort to meet kids where they are and accelerate their learning during wind time children move to different classrooms different groupings based on data and student need and all of our support staff push in to ensure that every student is receiving daily intensive small group instruction at their level this can only happen by working together as a team and at powell we have an incredible group of teachers who are committed to kids they are willing to do the hard work we have a staff of learners multiple pal teachers participated in heidi's volunteer book club last year and over the summer others have worked closely with heidi welcoming her into their classrooms for coaching and planning they work with one another regularly in plcs sharing data and collaborating to improve instruction and student learning and then this fall nancy akkavan came to usa usd to model effective small group instruction single powell teacher participated that's the kind of staff they are there their commitment is strong so finally two weeks ago nancy and her team came to powell for one-on-one coaching with every teacher i'm helping us to learn how to take our efforts to the next level so we're here tonight just to let you know that even in these challenging covered times um things are moving and shaken over at powell school of the art one part of our school song that we sing every monday morning says i can go anywhere that i want to go i can be anything that i want to be i can climb the high mountains i can cross the wide sea i'm a great powell panther you see by giving our kids the tools they need to become proficient readers we believe we are helping them to fulfill this potential and to be able to succeed in life and go where they want to go and be who they want to be it's exciting and profound work now i'd like to turn it over to jenny seinold one of the most dedicated and talented teachers that i have had the privilege to work with so that she can share a little of what it looks like in the classroom on a day-to-day basis good evening i'm jenny seinold a third grade teacher at bowel i've been teaching for over 30 years but it's my fourth year in azusa because i just love it here at powell we teach the whole child we don't see deficit but rather what each child brings to the reading table what do they need and how can we accelerate their learning students get targeted daily instruction based on data we use the one-on-one running record the words their way spelling inventory and the i ready diagnostic to place student the consistency of daily grade level reading instruction small group reading instruction and reading books of their own choice gives students exactly what they need all group differentiated instruction includes guided reading and words their way guided reading students read books at just the right level so that by using their decoding strategies and with a little coaching from the teacher they can read the book successfully in words their way students start learning and practicing spelling spelling patterns that they are using but confusing i love my students i believe in them and i pass my love of learning and reading onto them when kids are motivated to learn and grow the the results are awe-inspiring this graph is just a snapshot of the growth i'm seeing with all of my students this happens to be two english language layers kendra is blue and scarlet and red i've had the privilege of teaching them over the past year and a half because i had them as second graders and asked to keep my entire class to teach in third grade as well scarlett and kendra started second grade four and five grade levels below uh grade level they made good progress during the g year jumping four and five levels but they were still below grade level at the end of second grade they both made big jumps over the summer from discovering a love of reading and chapter book and started third grade just below grade level both girls have increased two levels since the beginning of the year and i'm happy to say that as of december kendra and scarlett are reading at grade level by providing rigorous grade level instruction knowing my students personally and through data and giving intense differentiated instruction every day based on what they need i've been able to watch my students blossom and celebrate their successes i want to thank thank heidi and jenny for their continued guidance and support thank you so much we have any any questions i just want to thank you uh teachers and you know all the teachers that is unified you know for working with our students it's personal to me because my mom was illiterate um so we cannot go a lot of things were not able to just because she couldn't read and she spoke spanish also so it was like a double so as we grew up we needed we would read things to her to help her understand but i think it's great that um you know i went to an elementary school and the so many students were receiving the accelerated reading awards and it's good to see the elementary students you know their second first third graders receiving this award and they read like so many books and it's really good so i want to thank you for doing that because i think it's that's the number one you need to learn to read in order to get ahead you're totally correct and even to go wherever you want to go right just read a book and you may be somewhere else thank you all right i would like to take this time to um thank you guys for what you guys do miss heidi johnson bye i've known you for i would say about those 20 years and i i've been in your classroom and i've seen the success in your student you know one of them being mine and so i i truly feel that when a child feels value valued in love right all these interventions that you guys are doing are like icing on the top because they're ready to learn there's no child that doesn't want to learn even if there's a behavior problem i mean there's other issues of that you know that's going on but i truly truly just want to thank all the teachers for the dedication their patience and their love for our children like you said you love everything i know you do so thank you thank you again our fifth and final lcap goal involves focusing on our district diversity equity and inclusion implementation our district annual youth truth survey asks you to respond to a wide range of questions about their experiences in ausd and we are looking at perceptions of how our district and schools value diversity and how they encourage students parents and staff to speak out against racism these are the results from our parents and staff from the 2021 surveys and again we look forward to getting our results from uh this year's survey as well it also helps us to measure students i'm sorry can i ask a question yes please do do we have an lgbtq uh group or a support group for our students in any of our schools i believe at the high schools they have gay straight alliance okay thank you you're welcome the youth truth survey also helps us to measure students levels of being comfortable speaking about diversity and as a result of our efforts to increase and improve diversity equity inclusion practices we hope see these levels increase staff levels of comfort speaking of by diversity are also an important metric in goal 5.

our teachers as uh reflected in last year's results our teachers have mid to high levels of comfort thinking about diversity and again uh with our work this year we hope to see that level increase as well the district desires to continue to increase culturally relevant teaching and the survey also helps us to measure how we're doing and offering opportunities staff to learn teaching strategies that are culturally relevant and so here are some data that also show levels of elementary middle and high school that shows uh staff opportunities to learn about culturally relevant teaching and again this is from last year so we're looking for this year's result to improve as well on in the actions and services uh under professional learning we have workshops and training from the western justice center that are focused on restorative practices and culturally relevant pedagogy and implementation of diverse equitable and inclusion focused tech we also have been working very hard to develop our ethnic studies course um that we will be implementing in the fall we have latinx studies elective course at all three of our high schools we purchase classroom library resources decks from diverse authors and focused on ci issues and stories uh purchase materials and supplies as well we also have our our our consultants that we've been working with that have been providing and facilitating professional learning also have a focus on dei as well especially when we've been doing small group instruction with our with our elementary teachers as well here's a slide that shows our expenditures and for our last full five we'd like to hear about some amazing work that's being done at magnolia elementary and that is contributing to our efforts to improve diversity equity and inclusion in our classroom and i would like to invite mrs angela wright and i believe she has her students who will share about their learning this year good evening ausd board and cabinet i'm angie wright and i teach fifth and sixth grade at magnolia elementary as a teacher i feel is important to ensure that my students feel valued and represented i want my students to see themselves and their learning see themselves in history and in the books they read i want them to feel empowered by the challenges and victories of those that look like them as well as with those who do not it is important that they learn and understand that all cultures and ethnicities have value that we all bring something special and unique to our world the way i bring diversity equity and inclusion into my classroom is through literature poetry relevant topics and discussions i could tell you more about what we do but i thought you would rather hear it straight from a couple of my amazing students it was my great privilege to present to you to my sixth graders alvin greer and yeah hello i am calvin greer and for the past two school years me and my class have been learning about people from different ethnicities culture and abilities through the books we have read about um [Music] and learned people's challenges and how they overcame them the overall theme of these books were how people of different backgrounds and different lives had to show others that they could do the same things everyone else did every day we read short biographies about people who contributed to our global community there were men and women of all races and of all ages and abilities they whether they were singers dancers or studied science they all made history my favorite part about these biographies was that i would share them with my family and was able to teach my parents something new about these amazing world changers these people were very interesting to learn about because of their backgrounds and what they had to go through to get into the history books we read today brown girl dreaming was also an amazing book to experience because it gave it gave me a perspective of a person like jacqueline woodson and her life and how people start off as children just like me and end up to be amazing people who can make music and write books like jaclyn woodson brown girl dreaming has inspired me because every page is full of poems and each one was amazing but there were some special ones that i really enjoyed like the one called how to listen when i sit beneath the shade of my block's oak tree the world disappears these poems have made me want to write my own it was also amazing because of all of her life experiences her ups her downs her challenges her life overall it was an amazing book to read and discuss with all my classmates out of my mind was also an amazing book to read because you could feel the author's emotion what i loved about this book was that it really made you feel what the main character melody felt there were lots of parts that were exciting but my favorite parts were when melody was talking about how her differences made her who she was what i thought was very cool is that the main character had a disability that i was able to connect to because my brother leo does too this book has made me more interested and has helped me to learn more about disorders and disabilities it has helped me to appreciate my brother and really see how hard he worked these books about races and disabilities have helped me to see how hard life can be for people but how perseverance is the most important part that even if people believe or won't let you do something you should be allowed to do all you need to remember is to keep dr martin luther king's word steady loving confrontation in mind and you will be able to do anything i would also like to give thanks to dr mitchell for supplying us with these amazing books and um well thank you now you will hear from my amazing classmate yeah okay um hello and good evening my name is and i have been in mrs bride's class for two years i will be sharing with you what amazing things we have done in fifth and sixth grade last year my class did a detailed writing about the the traditions our families have during the holidays writing about my family tradition made me feel really proud because i got to share with my my class how amazing our traditions and culture the assignment was very interesting because we had the opportunity to listen to my classmates traditions and their customs when we presented them in class with our family i heard many traditions that were really amazing because each of the students had a unique tradition that was different yet similar to each other i felt like i got to know my classmates better even though we were online and distance learning something that stood out to me this year was the book esperanza rising esperanza rising was about a young girl forced to travel to the united states for a better life and was accompanied by her mother many things in this book stood out to me and it also was very well written and had lots of detail what mostly caught my attention was that some words and a few sentences were in spanish and it also included some detail since my first language was spanish i was really proud to see spanish in a book for school while reading this book had multi multiple connections with the characters and some events happening for example esperanza had a very strong bond with her parents i am very close with my parents and have a strong bond with both of them i appreciate them for being amazing parents me and my youngest i have had an amazing childhood and also thanks to them i will keep moving forward and work hard to achieve my goals it's important to read about people who have the same struggles as we do because we should all know that everyone struggles and we can overcome the challenges that we are facing together i would like to conclude by expressing my gratitude to miss wright thank you for dedicating so much of your time and patience into your career as a result of your dedication sacrifice and patience you are foundational to my personal development more so your advice teaching and wisdom had equipped me to adequately and confront and resolve adversity i may face on a daily daily basis thing thank you so much nick water i just wanted to thank miss wright and the students um calvin and yadi well said you know and thank you very much for sharing it was very touching very understood i i said you probably go way beyond what a teacher's role is to be able to make things happen in your classroom this is the prime example guys um i i just said uh spanish that you guys you t thank you guys for expressing yourself and being so eloquent in your words and just i felt it and i truly appreciate that how you were saying um i just loved what you both of you said but you said uh when you were reading and it reminded you that some people have disabilities and some people you know are bullied you know how old are you 12.

i commend you for saying that because you know what adults sometimes forget this that we're all different but the same and i truly appreciate what you just said and for the other students keep it up girl yeah keep it up for both of you guys thank you guys for coming today and mrs wright wow thank you thank you so much thank you before i um talk about the next steps i just want to say one more time thank you so much to all of our our teachers our educators our students our families that came out tonight to give us some examples of the lcap in action and just i mean it's hard for me to keep it together um this was just amazing um all of the different examples and we're just all so grateful for the work that you all are doing and um just such i'm so proud of everything and i'm just grateful for you all being here this evening and just sharing and thanks again parents for um for supporting us and for being here as well so one more round of applause for it thank you to the parents i also wanted to thank dr mitchell um i think this is a great presentation but i also i like to see this in the future that they come and they show us what they're doing right instead of reading about it and talking about it they're here actually showing us an action what they're learning and what they're doing in their classrooms that was great thank you thank you i just want to wrap up with uh with next uh steps for the lcap and so um we will share be sharing the update with site administrators and teacher leaders at meetings we'll be sharing the principles we'll be sharing the update with parents and staff and we'll also share the update with our pac-plus parents and staff and with delac and with our student advisory council we'll be posting on our district website and sharing on our social media platforms as well we do also have the supplement to the annual update to the lcap the supplement is something that is required by law and so we do have our report that contains information about how our district will spend the additional three million dollars in concentration grant money that we received this year uh the funds were approved by the state after the approval of the 2122 lcap so this report describes how we will be using the funds uh since it's not included in the lcap the state requires the funds to be used to increase staff to work directly with students during the 21 22 school year and we have added two additional teachers who have been serving as a substitute for each site in the district who are supporting instruction and that also enables us to lower student teacher ratios those classroom teachers can provide small group or one-on-one instructional support uh to meet the needs of learning and accelerate the learning uh in addition uh uh to the description of how we're spending the concentration add-on the report provides description of the community engagement the process that we use um to be able to develop this we use the same process that we use for lcap the same system for engaging our educational partners in the process also included in that is an update on the espa-3 plan and we will also be including the report added to the lcap documents that you approve in june and with that i want to thank you all so much and if you have any other questions and i also have my team uh that is on zoom uh that's that that can answer questions as well uh yeah i have questions the first question um um just a couple just over um just first thank you i appreciate um seeing like all these wonderful examples happening and really not only the students and them leading the way but seeing the deep capacity that our educators have to really expand opportunities that our kids have so thank you to all especially our educators who have really made this happen um just just some questions in terms of um because of the the programs you chose to show tonight just in terms of implementation um in terms of the stem and the stem program training um what are the plans to scale to make sure that we have some kind of consistency across the district i will say um the caveat is i appreciate having building capacity of educators as opposed to like bringing in like a project like a package program that we say okay everyone do this i'm just wondering if we have volunteer teachers doing this how do we plan to make sure that you know whichever school kids go to they're gonna get an opportunity that's a great question so um so right now uh the professional learning has been around uh the ub tech robotic kits with this first round so we're going to offer another summer training for other teachers who want to be part of it as well there's there's two ideas here one is that we begin to learn how we can use the robotics and also the 3d printing that's the next phase that we have so all schools will have the 3d printers as well so how do we begin to incorporate that into integrated units of study this is something we've also been working on as well right i mean steel is a great example of that but we're doing it in other situations so you can take um the robotics right and you can incorporate that with with language arts with science right and so how do we take that and also put it in the classroom we have enough kids to be able to do that as well um once we finish with this segment of professional learning in the summer then we'll keep doing that right so we can get more and more teachers involved the next piece is around um 3d uh 3d printing uh there is a program that we'll be using called tinkercad which is part of the autocad suite um and so the students will be learning how to use that which is just another precursor to you know when they get to high school they can learn the autocad program as well um and then the last thing is is that we want to be able to see it during the day we also want to be able to continue to have after school programming for students so this program um that paramount for example is leading the way we want to see that and have that opportunity at every single site that's the goal so with the in classroom integrated piece right is that going to be just really dependent on the teacher that's gone through the training that decides they're going to put it into the classroom or how is that going to be embedded into or integrated into the core academic yeah we want to make sure that every student has an opportunity to be able to participate so that is the goal that every classroom will have a unit of instruction on the robot and so yeah no no i'm just going to say we um so we have um we purchased the um beginning kids the advanced kits so for our um our primary and our upper grades we also purchased something called ibo and that's for our smallest learners as well so everybody will have an opportunity and we also purchased uh some beginning very beginning coding for our our preschool students so they'll have an opportunity as well well thank you i appreciate i'm finding out about how we're planning on making sure that we're giving the teachers support so that as we ask them to do it there you know they have the tools um and the time within the classroom to do it um my other question is really around maybe not for answering now but like for example um new new pieces that we put into the l cap like project to inspire at what point are we going to come back and sort of evaluate and think about like how effective was it do we continue that investment do we look at other family engagement approaches when will that happen i can ask um norma camacho who is our director of multilingual services and categorical programs norma do you want to respond to that question oh i'm having a little bit of trouble with my camera i don't know if you guys can see me and hear me can you hear me yes we can okay um yes so we are um still in the midst of our project to inspire um we have cohorts um for secondary and elementary and we will regroup um probably in june to do a little examination of the outcomes the goals and objectives that we had established for project to inspire to determine next steps um as we continue to move forward with looking at how we are developing some leadership amongst our parents with project to inspire and what might be some next steps and um obviously there have been some challenges with us being virtual this year as opposed to in person um so maybe part of that examination is is looking at um you know the the participation rates of different populations of families um virtual um and we know that i think she froze i think we get the gist of it how those were met i have some other questions but i can't wait in case other people have questions one of the things that i just heard you say uh dr mitchell is that um you want what we're gonna get uh coding to start coming uh to begin in preschool so can you speak to that on how we are going to go ahead and start coding at the elementary and how when is that program going to take off i believe we have jenny lee who are is our director of early childhood education um mrs lee can you talk about the um the uh i remember it's called the kits that we have for our preschoolers that are the beginnings of the coding yes um good evening we have we bought the train set they're coding playsets that our preschool and our tk teachers receive for each of their classrooms so what they do is they use the kit to program the train set so based on what the students select they can program the train to to run on the courses that they they choose so it's a very uh early early coding skills i'm excited to share that um that our tk teachers are also using um the kibo kiba in their um in their classrooms um there we um i believe lika had gone into one of the um to join one of the teachers uh today to do a little recording of that of that work thank you very much it was really important we wanted to be able to have this opportunity for um preschool all the way through our high school and college and career pathways so we can have we can have programming and coding and robotics for everybody are we looking to to have this at every single school um as we are reconfiguring yes every single school and we have been um building out our innovation lab so every single school will have the innovation lab so we just as a matter of fact the um the rooms just got measured the other day um and we're ordering the furniture for that so um it's gonna be a really fun innovative space so um teachers will be able to do the robotics in their classrooms or they could go into the innovation lab and they can do all kinds of things in there but they could do the robotics in there they could do 3d printing they could do carolina biological there's a variety of things flexible seating really neat space yeah so um just a couple other questions so i um less a question but just um i just want to say i really appreciate mrs hawkins comment about how opening it up this year and just letting any kids sign up i think i think that's really been something that we've tried to do in this district thinking about like ap ap access other courses really around like let's not choose for kids let's give them opportunities so just really appreciate that comment um um and then i had a question about the ethnic studies course so um what what kind of course is it going to be it sounds like you have more definitive ideas so what kind of course is it going to be and what grade are kids going to get after that course all right so um the teachers that we have a group of teachers that have been taking this beginning course starting in august these are teachers that did not know about ethnic studies have not taught the course that don't have any background and so they have been doing i want to say they're up to 12 days of professional learning to learn deeply about about the course well now they're at the point where they are going to begin to put together the course outlines so they are going to they're writing a course that is for um english language arts and history social science so for example the english language arts course would is a would be an ethnic studies multi-cultural multi-literature cultural literature course that would replace one of the english language art courses so for example if it were grade nine students would not just take english you know one they would be taking this board um same thing with the history social science we're writing that course as well so um then we're going to look at the master schedule and see how we're how we're going to do that but it is scheduled to be implemented in the fall so so at one point is the conversation going to happen about what grade is it going to be what if it's for the the ela the english language art course what grade is it going to be um if it's a social studies course what what at what grade will students access that course when will that conversation happen we actually have a meeting already scheduled with uh with teachers and administrators to begin to talk about exactly where what grade level that course would be uh the ninth and tenth grade language arts standards are the same and so it could be a course where it could be um all ninth grade or it could be a course where ninth and tenth graders could take that um there's lots of examples of language arts and courses you know throughout high schools in california that that take an innovative approach to um to courses uh not always english one two three four sometimes it's a it's a uh language arts course that aligns the standards to 11 and 12 for example but it's creative writing right so there's all kinds of different things so this is beginning that conversation on how might we take a look at you know what kinds of coursework um our students might be interested in taking and one of the ways to find that out is to ask them and i want to ask so um see we have latino studies and ethnic studies and can you tell me a little bit what what is different from latino studies and ethnic sure so the ethnic studies covers a wide range of ethnicities and the latinx studies um covers the you know the latinx culture so that is a that force is an elective force that meets a through g um the ethnic studies course is um a broad range of different ethnicities and so they'll they'll read um history and different fiction nonfiction books around different thank you and then my last question is around the um the my more diverse book options so really appreciate the examples live examples from mrs wright's class of kids reading um and i know i didn't say anything earlier but just really impressed with sort of the authentic writing right you can tell that it's not scripted like kids aren't learning but really the kids are really doing really great editing and writing so just i'm really impressed with that um in sixth grade though i don't think i wrote like that in sixth grade i'm pretty sure i didn't so um but just in terms of um you know she referenced the some of the kids referenced some of these books right that that we that i think may have come especially out of um from some of the students that came for diverse fire narrative so how are these books um being adopted by schools is it is it a classroom by classroom thing is it a school by school thing how are is it district-wide how are these books being put into classroom that's a great question so for the the high school books um uh the high school students that are on the um the diverse fire narrative committee along with our uh language arts teachers administrators they they got together and um and co-selected the books that they wanted to have in each one of those courses which um is an amazing thing um and then uh as we have worked on um the the books in uh mrs wright's class this actually started last year is when we started um really looking at how might we be able to um take a different approach so it started because the course or the class he was teaching was a combination class and so what are some of the ways that we might be able to approach um the standards and take a little different uh a different approach um with the the the curriculum and the instruction so as we have been um implementing this now for the last couple of years um it's definitely spreading and so um this has been i would say a prototype for things to come right so now that we have these book that's um all schools will have the opportunity to have all of the novels how many novels are we up to now so um so we have done this is this has been an amazing pilot but all yeah and many schools do have the book um so we're going to continue to do some professional learning um and mrs wright has agreed to uh to help us with that as well i just wanted to repeat that so we're now in february right so how many books have you guys read this already yeah i mean i think um when i think of how many books generally are read in us in a classroom over a year like i think that's a good example for us to uplift um but so but back to my original question so then is this so i appreciate this like you know started it maybe started mrs wright's class and is growing or other class so so is it really just teacher by teacher right now or how like how is it how are people pulling these books into their classrooms right now it's teacher by teacher we make the books available um but it's also around the professional learning on how to integrate this instruction so for example this is not only language arts but it's history social science as well right so being able to um develop lessons that are integrated so this is something that we're going to continue to to provide professional learning around um as we implement this so if you have to estimate how many classes are using these you said you don't you can give it on friday it's fine you can give it to us on friday but i just want a sense of like you know where how many classrooms are starting to have use these kind of books in their classrooms so this friday is fine dr mitchell can you also speak to where we are in elementary versus secondary and the decisions that have been made on the books for those uh particular courses in terms of uh quote-unquote mandates are you talking about for elementary or for secondary first yeah the difference where we are like where we are in secondary with the diversifier narrative the teachers that have been working on that and that co-selecting and that co-design versus uh where we are at the elementary yeah so um with the with the secondary we developed again it was a committee they met several times we had our teacher on special assignment kimberly dom um lead the work in terms of what books are we selecting and how to use a protocol to make sure that all voices were heard but they selected these books and um it is in the curriculum so in terms of the elementary this isn't development we're not we haven't said this is what we're doing um what we want to do is to be able to say how do these novel sets fit in with the curriculum that we have and in what ways we support so mrs wright's class has been an excellent example along with other other classes in the district too um which books shall we select because as you could hear you've got to be want to be very intentional about what are the right books to be able to choose but the ones that also not only support you know the standards um but also our books that we feel are representative of the students um you know in our schools so so we will get there but this is the very beginning thank you for bringing that up this we're at the beginning of this but we also want to make sure that we're selecting um novels again that would work for an integrated instructional design just one one quick logistical question when you you spoke about the ethnic studies course and how it is not uh it separated apart from the latinx course as we look ahead to what will be an ethnic studies requirement does the latinx studies course satisfy that requirement or is that separate apart from the ethnic studies requirement i believe it would yeah it would it would yeah it would fall under that as part of the graduation requirement my understanding thank you and then the only other thing i i would add is just a just a a thank you to [Music] uh what what what we were able to see and witness and just the the tremendous pride uh and just i mean it's incredible mr hartman i was a student of yours and then so so i got to experience that firsthand and then and then worked as a teacher's aide in your class and so just just was able to to see what you do and it becomes you know tremendously evident here and and what we're seeing miss hawkins and miss nagy what you don't know is that as i've worked with uh students out in the community i've worked with them on on homework and assignments and things that they had been doing in y'all's class and and have been able just to see again what they how highly they speak of you and and the work uh and the ways that you push them and so grateful for that um i know miss miss wright she's out there in the hallway and and the only thing i'll say is um her work is tremendously evident as as we look and see um these students and and and what they're doing so thank you so much miss miss wright thank you uh and and just for for the students for the the parents the involvement just the the the entire kind of village that is that is together and and making this community great um we just we just thank you thank you for everything and dr mitchell incredible incredible stuff so thank you i would also like to thank um again one of the things you know being here since i was five years old graduating from here working here for 20 years i i can honestly say that we've we're evolving we're revolving we're we're finally catching up we're finally doing things and and that's cabinet that's all you and teachers cabinet for making it happen um being able to provide the resources for the teachers that can do this and the liberty to hey you know what you want to take this on because it's not easy work and being committed every thursday after school you know the stipend i know is not much but thank you for all of you guys that you know that do the love that you that you do what you do for the love of your students again much much thank you well with that we will move from item 4.1 to item 4.2 presentation of the governor's budget proposed proposal update ms jamal thank you good evening board fellow academy members and community members um tonight we are going to have the 22 23 budget study session i'm sorry would not be as exciting as being beautiful children and making you cry like it made me cry but i'm going to do the best i can to make this at least interesting for us all so here we're going to talk about the integral parts of the state budget as far as the governor i want to start by saying that this dollar projection so governor newson also gives us always gives us his budget update in january and that is just a projection it's his perspective at this current time based on information he knows today so the um the current state budget projects strong general fund revenue growth is the largest budget of surf bus that we've had in many years um governor newson highlights um has stick i mean five essential threats the california um budget which is over 19 climate crisis homelessness cost of living and crying k-12 education was not the focus of the governor newsome press conference nor of his budget development the budget news is good but it does not meet the k-12 expectation that was set by the legislative analyst office for the fiscal outlook governor newsom also put emphasis on the new state on policies versus on boosting the lcf based funding so here we're talking about proposition 98.

some key factors related to proposition 98 is that the 2223 guarantee is now going to be 102 million billion dollars this is an increase of about 8.2 billion compared to the guarantee and the 2021 budget act um 2223 will be a test 2 percentage it will be a rebrand a re-bench from the 38.01 to 38.35 to accommodate enrollment increase for the expanded pk initiative that's currently on the table so here the public school system stable stabilization account um this is estimate to have a deposit of 3.1 billion into the pcsa or 2223 this estimate is due to the strong capital gains and the test one projected um funding year of proposition 98.

the balance by the end of the 22-23 um fiscal year is projected to be 9.7 billion dollars this is getting close to that 10 percent level which um additional deposits will no longer be required from the governor's budget if the um csa balance um i'm sorry pssa balance exceeds the 10 million dollars this is going to put us in the trigger language which means that any district that has um reserves that's beyond 10 percent will actually have to spend down those funds in order all funds that are assigned and the three percent assign any fund balance would be at risk the only way to avoid having to be forced to spin down these funds is to commit the funds through board action oh go for it so um yeah and i know i've asked you this before but in terms of um committing i'm in terms of committing our reserves where how how we've been doing with that so we have never committed we assign a sign and so we can assign all the time but to commit takes board action what that means is that the board would literally say okay we are going to commit a million dollars for x expenditure for the out years that will take board action and if we commit funds once it's committed it only could be used for those funds that has been committed for and it will take us out of the risk if our any fund balance is greater than ten percent so at one point we expect to have a conversation about committing funds would that come with the budget adoption in june or when will that happen we most definitely could have that conversation well i'm just i'm curious in your mind like when would that happen i would love to have that conversation prior to budget adoption okay um but if not it would both definitely budget adoption and what i would what my goal would be is while we're developing the budget and we're seeing what our any fund balance would be after second interim come with a recommendation to the board i will put it in a weekly board packet first to see um what the board would like to do and from there have that discussion for that discussion to put on the agenda all right so more on k-12 spending um here we're allocated this is outlining where the governor has allocated funds so 3.4 billion dollars was allocated for the expanded learning opportunity opportunities program 3.3 billion has been set aside for the 5.33 projected cola 650 million was for universal access for school meals 640 million is for prop 98 500 million is to increase special education based funding additionally we have 1.5 billion for one on time money for electric buses and 1.3 million for general fund to support school facilities here is the district um current entitlement um based on the 5.33 cola we are seeing an increase in our base lcf entitlement a3 um tinder through third grade um base ada funding is going to increase by 431 as you can see up one to ninth through 12th grade that will also increase up to now again these are all projection if the material lies this is the increase that we will see in our lcfs-based funding any questions here all right and so this is our lcf entitlement continued so in addition to the cola for the base funding we also have an increase in our grade spent adjustment a gay span adjustment is for grades tinder through third and that's an additional 10.4 funding and for grades 9 through 12 we receive additional 2.6 percent of funding in addition the cola also is being applied to the supplemental grant which is additional 20 percent of our base funding and our concentration grant which is now additional 65 of the base funding that was previously only 50 but because of the great um concentration add-on that 15 was at and then can you remind us that additional 15 are there restrictions on the on those dollars yes and what are they yes that was talked about in dr mitchell's presentation that is to increase staffing to um i'm going to say lower class size but it's for increased staffing and it has to be directly the benefit has to go directly to the student so how are we going to um um how are we tracking that we're spending that 15 on increased staffing you want me to take that dr mitchell so currently right now we are utilizing that for our resident steps and so each school are what residence subs so each school has two residence stuff that they're utilizing where the teacher can actually the resident sub would actually instruct the class and the teacher can have small group pull out times in their class so are they subs are there like that's what they are yep we have assigned to what we're calling resident subs so they are at that school every day at their schools every day and so they can um what they do is they will take the class and the teacher can provide a small group one-on-one um unless we need them you know um if we have a sub shortage then they'll fill in but that's the primary that's the primary uh function okay any other question okay so here is decline enrollment so right now the administration has recognized that there's a fiscal instability facing many districts due to the decline enrollment and high absenteeism um this is currently there's a proposition or there's legislation on the governor's desk that gives three different funding options for next year it has not been settled but right now we have the option to the proposal is to either allow districts to continue to use the 1920 um free academic ada or to use the whole harmless which is the current ada for this year for next year's funding or we will have a three-year rolling average which will include 1920 2021 and then the actual ada right now each lea is going to have to seek assistance from the county office of education to see what the recommendation is food services is currently i'm recommending that districts use the three year rolling average um the premise is that this is coming actually from the educational office and typically when they make a recommendation that's what the governor adopt um that will help us tremendously because we know for the last two years we have been using the whole harmless ada from 1920 so that means we will basically have two more years where that will count plus this current year 88 that would help us in case we have a decline in ada are you saying when you talk about options you're saying that options that we as a district have for the purpose of projections which are options that the governor has or these these are or there's a point where in which we have we have options to choose back to be actualized later so it's twofrong so one right now until is signed until the governor makes the decision leas have the option to reach out to the county county office to see what they will allow as far as adopting a budget but once the governor makes a decision this is going to become the new ada calculation going forward so just to understand it correctly so it's going to be always projected kind of like lcap every three years like so every year um our funding is based our next year funding is always based on the current year enrollment but because of kova for the last two years it was a hold harmless and so since we weren't really taking attendance um we were always funded on the 1920 actual ada this year even though we're taking attendance most districts are having a huge uh chronic absenteeism and so the ada is projected to be lower which will impact the district's funding for next year because this year's ada will be used to fund next year's um education on budget what they're proposing is one either continue the current ada rule which is your current year ada will fund the prior year for all declining enrollment districts or they will choose to use the 1920 for one more year or they will have a three year average where they will take 1920 2021 and 21 22 that average will become your funding 88 for the 22 23 year if that is adopted then every year they will be taking three years to come up with your average ada for the next year country excited thank you for explaining that no problem let's one other question in regards to that i i know you and well enough and mr mall that i know that you're watching this but i have to i have to say it out loud nonetheless um it's it's as being a district that has to deal with declining enrollment as many other districts and and having the hold harmless and the ways that that that we're able to you know continue to provide just you know tremendous amounts of services i i see that we're we're keeping our eye on that cliff that is that is coming at some point when we when we realized yeah that yeah all right i'm going over to independent study so the governor proposes that independent study will continue to be the sole alternative for in-person instruction for the 22-23 school year what this means is um districts will have to offer independent study continue to offer independent study during the 20-23 school year it also allows for synchronous instruction account for instructional time in its traditional independent study in addition the student work product be encountered this also provides flexibility on the timeline that a district can collect the independent study agreement any questions my question is how many students do we have on independent studies still um due to covet 19 you know where parents are not wanting to send their children back to school yet do we have know how many students are still on the new kind of study i would have to say i will give that to you but dr mitchell may have that number ready available if you give me a couple minutes i can look it up okay and then my second question to that is um you know if we have a lot of students i'm not sure but what are we doing to to help them come back to school because i think it's healthy that they're in school you know in an independent study um you're home and you're doing a packet it's not even like when we had the virtual learning you know where it was a teacher on the other end it's more like you have a packet and here you are but go ahead sorry i'm still working on it but i was gonna say it's not um we we actually have teachers who are planning on instruction so we moved away from the packet well you did okay so i wasn't aware that but also like you know what grade levels are we talking i like you know grade levels and um you know high school elementary kids i just i don't think we've had that count in a while and i'd like to know that please you can put in the packet on friday's fine too okay i can do that most definitely thank you would you able to also add by comparison prior to ovid so we can just compare what potential impact possibly yes i can do that i'll put a request also free at the beginning and now because i think we have lots of parents like the parent that spoke today uh that probably started with like the unknowns uh what's going to happen at the school and so you see uh her students started in independent study uh and have transferred back into in person and so now we're going to identify some categorical programs um these are considered standalone programs that the government the governor currently funds but they will not receive the cola there is a longer list but what i'm doing is i'm identifying the programs that we have in this unified school district so the after-school education and safety program will not receive the cola the career technical education um ctic will not receive the cola our k-strong workforce nor our state assessments program we'll still get our funding but it will not increase by the 5.33 now here is our standalone program that will receive the cola so special education child nutrition services adult education block grant mandated block grant and our foster youth programs will receive any funding that will receive for those programs will receive the projected 5.33 cola any questions here so now we have our traditional kindergarten so it continues to expand on tk i'm to serve all four year olds i'm by the eight i'm by um 25 26.

um as we know we're proud that azusa has already started this tradition we started taking tk prior to this becoming a state initiative so districts are now required um the follow suit of zoos as i'm going to say i'm required to offer tk to all children that are turning five between september 2nd through february 4th during the 22 22 22 23 school year it also um increases prop 98 prop 98 funding um so that um uh districts can receive additional funding to account for this new change additionally there is a ratio that is currently on in play um that has not been settled but the current a student to adult ratio is 1401 um because that is not a typical class size that is one of the reasons why the governor is allocating 383 million dollars of prop 98 funding to help fund this initiative so that all schools can be in compliance any questions here yeah i have a question about timeline for that so with the decrease ratio um what is what what is the timeline at the state level for that uh this ratio would be in place for next school year oh for this upcoming school year yes ma'am it wouldn't be phased in right so but then so districts but they're not required not everyone's required to serve universal tk until 25 26 or but you have to start in group so each year the uh the date of when you turn five is going to go further out but will we get some funded if we enroll some since we're already doing we have we essentially have universal tk so will we get full funding for all the students now or are we going to be like hamstring by those dates by those dates we will only get it for the students and we will still continue so it will be one of those partnerships where we fund this through our supplemental concentration in our lcap this will all it will be um supplemented by it so for those that qualify based off the state um state age spring that will we will receive um state aid for that based off ada and the others will still continue to be offered to take part but we will have to fund that and then in terms of the the child to an adult ratio right i think that's a child to adulterate 1401 um wha what our current thinking or plans in terms of being able to reduce that ratio i think that's a stuff or is that whoever it is i'm not looking at anybody i'm asking questions yeah i could take this question uh we um we are very aware of this uh ratio that is will be in effect next year uh we have backboard of map um a plan to um live positioned or fight these openings um beginning in may uh so that we um are going through the hiring and onboarding process so that we could start the year with these um uh instructional aids that could help meet this ratio for the beginning of next year so we'll have so what what's that going to look like so there will there be like a full-time instructional aide now in every ck class correct and so and they um we use the word full time i want to make sure that we we qualify that we it may not be an eight-hour uh position it may be a five-hour position um i meant within the class during the school hours we're going to have adults in the classroom with students for the entire time correct that is that is that is the plan and then because i mean our tk classes are not at 28 right they're at up to 24 is that 26 26 so i mean so then theoretically our ratio is going to be 13 to one because we're not going to change those ratios right we're not planning on being trying to up those ratios because we know we're they're going to have another adult in the class correct and so now our state peaceful program the total investment of 309 million dollars in california state um preschool program is to increase the adjustment factor for students with disabilities and dual language learners um this 197 197 million dollars is coming from prop 98 and 110 million dollars is coming from general fund um these funds that are allocated is to intended to serve at least 10 students with disabilities and to provide additional support for dual language learners so what kind of impact on does that have on us for example our preschool program that we have um that's for the um i i don't remember the name of it but the one that we we intentionally designed for the students with disabilities no we don't you know don't we have a preschool program that's focused on we do have i believe it's three sections if i'm not mistaken of uh preschool special education's preschool and is it cspp funded or not so then that wouldn't be eligible for these additional funds because they're not in these programs they're not a csv correct okay and then for the dual language learners um is the stake going to give us guidance and how we identify them is that going to be something we do internally because right now you know there's no requirement but it's not it's not in place yet so do we know anything about that yet i don't but maybe norma does we can ask norma did you hear that yeah maybe jenny lee i would say jenny or norma maybe we'll start with jenny i don't need an answer today just yeah if you just follow up on on friday oh fine all right so moving on so what does this all mean for us this is the unified storage that's not a happy face there i thought that was a it was a question like we're puzzled and i'm going to make this like i'm going to make some happy sp a millennial or a jazzy but i don't know the younger ones here can maybe tell us what is that you got to turn the smile up there's a motion on the floor that the face is sad i'm so sorry i don't second it but i will make sure i change it i would say i thought this was a puzzle look like what does this mean and i'm going to help but the smile looks sad i'm so sorry i will i will double check my emojis going forward to make sure they are culturally and financially appropriate all right so here we go so with the polo what does this look like so governor newsome released the latest cost of living cola percentages that he proposes applying to the lcf funding and other programs which are reflected in the table for you for budget development purposes we can choose um to identify a cola that is outlined we can do the polo that's uh recommended by the governor as well as supported by school services or a district does have the choice to have a more conservative cola um it is my recommendation as we have done in the past that we always follow school services i mean we adopt our budget using the projected cola of 5.33 unless we receive information during a re may revise the state's other one here this is to give us an outline a typical how the cola changes um this slide is coming directly from school services so i will not take credit for it um but what it tells you it shows you what the original budget would be um then it tells you what the budget proposal was and then it tells you what to adopt the budget so it shows you that the budget could be one thing um at the january budget then it changes at the may revise and sometimes it stays the same um last year the budget the polo that was recommended at may revised actually was the photo that was adopted but we also know in the prior years we had the negative deficit cola and then we were all grateful when that came back to just say uh zero cola i'm going forward you said that you tend to that you tend to to use the school services uh for projected cola as as opposed to an alternative is that where does that kind of where does it range on the spectrum of conservative or or not uh services bullet fuel services is typically more conservative than anyone else um normally usc disparity when we had this um presentation last year i gave four different colas one was school services one was the department of finance one was leo this is the first year in many years that everyone is on the same page um so it's not um and beyond that it will be what we call that silly guest where you just want to say i want to be super conservative because we never know what's going to happen that may revise this year i'm confident as i always use school services i'm more assured to use courses this year because everyone is actually on the same okay and so here this is still using the information that we presented at first interim nothing has changed so what i'm showing you is the same enrollment and ada information and this is only for us to go through the next few slides so i can help um educate the board on what our funding is projected to look like with this new cola this is just giving us a graphic of the same enrollment projection so now i'm talking about our fun um our funding so we have our prop 98 funds um we understand that k-12 schools is determined by proposition 98 formula and it's a constitutional initiative approved by california voters in 1988 um this has just given us a depiction of where we were in 11 12 school year and to where we are now um projected to be in the 2023 school year so that this is showing that the state is continuing to increase their funding towards education um but it's going through the prop 98 um funding prop 98 funds ocsf so here we are with ebola so we're showing that at first interim we projected um our funding for our tk 436 seventh grade the ninth twelfth as it shows in the current um grant here for ada and with the um 5.33 cola you'll see that all of our base funding is going to increase we'll we'll have um pk through three we'll go to eight thousand five hundred and twenty four dollars whereas nine through twelve will be ten thousand three hundred and twenty four dollars again this is the projection this includes that goal of 5.33 and this basically here this is to give us a dollar so based on the increased cola and based on our projected ada um we are projected to receive um 62 million dollars again this is using our current funding for ada which is our current projected apa for this year will be the funding for next year if the governor signs the legislation and says it's gonna be three-year-old on average this number would increase if the governor says you know what you're going to use the whole harmless this would drastically increase um so we still have the potential to receive additional revenue but this is worst case scenario if the current ada model um is adopted and continues this is what i projected based on the any questions here so this is looking at our gradespan you know we get our gray span adjustment only for phrase tk through three as well as gray's omni based on the cola three grey span will increase by forty five dollars and grades nine three four four increase 13. this is the allocation for a great spend adjustment based on our projected funding ada for the 22-23 school year our great spin adjustment will equate the 2.4 million additional dollars for lsdf and just to add all of this as part of the vape so when we talk about lcsf i'm just showing us the breakdown of how our lcf dollars are accumulated so we start with the base then we go to the gray span and then we have our supplemental concentration and all our other atoms so here is our projected supplemental concentration so again we did receive are we read the cola on our projected um for our supplemental concentration as well as the concentration add-on so what this is showing is what we're projected to receive and the out years so we'll see that we're going to receive 11 million dollars in supplemental um 9.7 million in concentration and 2.9 million and the concentration add-on the concentration add-on has been adopted and it will be continued at first we thought this was going to be a one-time allocation um this is now part of the formula going forward so here's a change in um funding so with the um lsdf um funding increasing by the cola we are now projected to have an increase from that was presented at first interim of 3.3 million dollars so our lcs funding will go up to 89.6 million dollars in the 22-23 school year and at 23-24 our lcff is now projected goes to 89.5 million dollars and that is an increase of 4.4 million from that that was presented at first interim and then 24.25 we're projected to have 90 million dollars and that is an increase of 3.2 the reason of the increase does not increase ada enrollment is all because of the projected fullest earth those solar projections have changed from that was first so our lottery you'll see um stays the same lottery is funded off our annual ada there is no change in funding lottery is one of those stand-alone fundings that did not receive a cola so the funding for unrestricted and restricted remain the same through our out now mandated block grant did receive um the 5.33 percent cola and it receives the fuller projected out years so you'll see our mandated block grant will increase from thirty two dollars and seventy nine cents for grades eight um grades eight through eight and it will go up to thirty four dollars fifty four cents and grades nine through twelve both from sixty three dollars and seventeen cents fifty six dollars so here there is no um current the governor does not include any funding towards um calstrs and pers the school service is recommending that all districts um are budgeting to absorb the projected increase in both outstairs and calpers we do know last year um governor did allocate additional funding so that the districts did not have to absorb the full increase for both calstrs and calpers but that is not currently scheduled in this current budget so right now with the um current increase in rates outstairs is projected to increase the 19.10 which be an additional increase for the district of one point five million dollars the one thing about us thurs is projected to stay flat um if there's project um there are no additional increases projected after next fiscal year that can always change but right now this is the projection for calpers on the other hand there is projected increase to go up to 26.10 and they will continue to increase up to 25-26 um calpers increase um for next year will be additional 423 000.

any questions here all right and so here this is a slide also this is from school services um normally this is a slide of duma gloom so typically what this shows is based on what the cola and the increase it would also show that oh even though you're getting extra money let's laugh about it because your increase in calisters and calpers and special education rising cost is going to plummet that um to plant that um surpass that i'm sorry using the wrong word but as you can see over the next couple years it's actually getting more steady it's not equal um but it is getting more um steady and that is primarily due to some stirs not having any additional increases and the increase prefers not increasing in double digits whereas normally it increases from 15 to 20 we're only seeing a 0.9 percent or 0.2 so financially that is not a huge increase that what you already earn and in the current year and now going to our nyp um so using the same nyp from first interim i'm not changing any factors but the increase in revenue it has improved our financial position um we continue to meet our three percent reserve but more importantly we only show deficit spending um in next year which is the 22 and 23 school year and as i shared before deficit spending just identifies that our expenditures of the current year exceeds the current year revenue and that is anticipated as of this year like we have our sr3 funds we have four years suspended we are budgeting some of those expenditures that we are planning to spend next year so since that revenue is received this year it would automatically show that you're definitely next year because you're spending it in a year that you did not receive the money and with that i will open it up to any questions comment yes ma'am mr mod have a question um we talked about if um if we are able to realize the revenue for hold harmless that that would be a significant bump in next year's revenue um would you consider that to be one-time funds and if so um can you talk to us about your your current thinking about how we would invest those funds if they were to be one time yeah um so if the governor refuses to do the whole harmless it would have to change um the way the ada is recorded going forward so the likelihood of that happening is very slim because then the governor would have to identify okay what will be the whole harmless year every year going forward um so if that happens it would just be i it would be one time if it's this year but i wouldn't be able to say that because i know the governor stated that whatever he adopts is going to be ongoing so it will be an ongoing way of reporting ada and how lcs is there so are you saying that if that is if that becomes a new paradigm that the whole harmless would be determined each year and so that could be but could we think of that as it could be a significant increase in revenue next year but then in following years it could be a decrease yes we could have a huge cliff depending on if that becomes our new formula so do you have initial thoughts on what how we would invest if we received a significant bump next year how we would invest either in staffing or facilities or building reserve given that we could have a significant decrease in future years yes i would i could always make recommendations and we have not had that discussion at this time um but i would always for me the passion would always be the whole funds aside for a ready day um but with this um trigger language right now um that will put us in a position where we would have to commit it so if we found out we're going to be held harmless even if it is for one year those additional funds if we do not have planned expenditures that will increase our independent violence and the only way to not be forced to spend that down before june 30th would be for the board to take action and committed thank you i know we all look to you for your professional recommendations and i'm just asking questions so that we can start thinking about um what we would do with additional funds but knowing that there could be some seasons of uncertainty going forward yes i appreciate it and so board question there though it may seem unrealistic to use hold harmless and adopt that moving forward if it is potentially realistic to do the rolling average the three-year rolling average yes and we would still realize how many um from the first year that covets started now um what what is the increase in sark and sarb are we doing since we're not holding a part because i know that there's okay go ahead are you asking if there's been an increase um this year what is the comparison from like the first year right that covet um that we had covered uh we closed all the schools and that was what 2020 and now this year 2022.

and you don't have to um you know do it now but if you could put it on a friday report um just the comparison of the cases of start and serve okay and pre-pandemic oh that's what i was gonna say yeah if we could do that could we include 2019 yeah and the next question is um what what are we doing to to uh campaign i know that before obid we we we had those banners up for uh for um being in school right what are your next steps your projection on how we can one of the things in the lcap was that it was this presentation i'm so sorry um you know l cap the the absentees right so if we had an increase an influx of absentees will of course obed but how many of those are actually not related to kovid right what campaign are we doing moving forward to be able to to make that a priority are we campaigning at each school do we have a contest we did have an attendance campaign correct in september i remember seeing banners at whose site he did not right we did we did have an attendance campaign in september that aligned with the los angeles county office of but but what are we doing to incentivize the families or the kids right we could have a campaign but what is the reward for that do we have anything i don't we don't really have any reward systems in terms of attendance right now um there is the um there's pbis and so we do have our schools that are doing that and so um but in terms of rewarding um just from what i know just like nature that you know um going to the elementary um awards assemblies they give for attendance and the second incentives incentive but it's mainly elementary school not necessarily middle or high uh i i don't know i don't i'm not sure i don't think they do i think they do that that's important yeah i think you're right um i think they do the attendance at the end of the year or you know perfect attendance they do those awards but you're right the elementary i forgot about that i do awards for that um the only reason i'm saying i i wasn't it wasn't the campaign was a little silent we need to make it bigger right i think it would benefit especially if we if we're moving into rolling out three years and doing the average um it's important that you know we we take in consideration that um that the ones that are coming in the ones that are not right um what um other than child welfare and attendance what what is each school doing to incentivize and promote um to promote attendance um it it's okay if we're moving formulas and we're doing but what are we doing to make sure our students are there on time um talking about time which i know we're gonna get um we're going to have a school board meeting um and the agenda item is going to be um high schoolers are going to be starting later if we have to do it by next year correct that's what the bill says will this also affect middle schools the bill the bill does affect middle schools but uh our currently our middle schools are either in alignment already with the bill or a couple of minutes off but there won't be a drastic uh change it's the high school where you'll where you'll you'll see the big change okay we can talk about that but thank you yeah thank you any other questions and that brings us to item 5.0 and specifically 5.1 adjournment is there a motion to adjourn make a motion to adjourn 5.1 second moved by board member rodriguez pena second by board member audionas any discussion hearing none vote and the motion passes five to zero and so we are adjourned at 749

i was wondering [Music] so we're going to get started good evening everyone and welcome to our board meeting and there has been adequate notice of this meeting provided by the board of education january 13 2022 notice and the co-star setting forth the date time and place for this meeting similar notice has been posted in the town hall the brielle school website and the borough clerk has been notified roll call please um thank you and if everyone can stand [Music] of the united states of america until the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible and if someone can please make a motion to approve the minutes from the january 26th yes okay and now for probably the best part of our meeting is the presentation of the brielle elementary school geography winners [Applause] okay you know we have several winners in our room uh this year we did our geography like we did last year virtual um mr picano and mr sabia set it all up students met here in this room uh there were approximately six students from every great eight students from every grade level competing um it was exciting we're going to talk about the winners but i want to also say that when that competition was over uh there are eight schools in our area that also took the same test and have the geography be and um at spring lake heights every year for the last four years they've been hosting ascending district geography so the top two winners from every school get to compete and so that was 16 students in a competition and i'm proud to say as our superintendent principal that brielle took first and third in that competition [Applause] [Music] so when you're competing against that many schools and you take the top two out of three places that says a lot so i want to begin with our geography bit the winner this year uh griffin tomlin tommy took first place as a seventh grader and griffin tommy took first place in the sending district competition last year griffin tomney took second in the competition so he's a hard to beat guy so we're looking forward to next year's competition but griffin our school is very proud of you placing first in the sending district first in our school uh i'm going to end with a perfect score on the test in our school excellent job [Music] [Applause] next behind the camera is uh kiernan [Applause] [Music] took first place in eighth grade so he was our first grade first place eighth grade winner kiernan was also the third place winner in the sending disher competition karen our school the board of education is very proud [Applause] [Music] [Applause] uh the third place overall geography the winner was also an eighth grader willem vandernet he cannot be with us here tonight he's also an 8th grader who took third place overall in our school so we're very proud [Music] [Applause] and then i'd like to go to our uh sixth grade uh first place winner dominic d [Applause] took first ambrosa as a sixth grader last year he was also first place as a fifth grader so dominic the school the border that is very proud of this great college [Music] [Applause] next our fifth grade winner frankie lauria frankie [Applause] this year frankie was our fifth grade overall winner and also for those of you who remember she was our fourth grade champion too so frankie we're very proud the school's very proud the board is very proud of this great accomplishment [Applause] last but not least first time winning for fourth grade is russell clay [Applause] as you heard the school the board of ed is very proud of this accomplishment but do you see the competition like they come back again so this is your first time and we're proud but we expect that you're going to continue doing that year after year to make your family our school and our border bed very proud [Applause] [Music] and there you have it brielle's finals so congratulations so usually at this time in the meeting they like to give speeches and they said it would take a long time so they prefer to give the speeches uh to the school instead of at the board meeting so uh we'll work on that another time right so if you need to go home at this time we have other two other presentations if you want to stay and then the board meeting if you need to go home you can go home so it's your choice because we're doing two other presentations okay congratulations to our geography champions thank you [Music] at this time i'm gonna have mr savia and mrs love to come up for our first presentation the board members all want to turn around um results uh let me show you that this is unlike you know the energetic sl results or even any kind of standardized testing but it was a so we could look at and see where our kids are at and what work needs to be done what work uh kids may be and uh because of the pandemic and the amount of time many school districts you know children you know we're only in the building sometimes twice a week uh that was not our story uh the result and i'm not going to go line my mind i'm going to put this on the website the board members have a copy but what we found as administrators and as teachers is we're not shocked with the results you know the results you know where what we found is uh talk about it the amount of students that need less support um if you look at our nj sla scores which said uh exceeded expectation am i right mr steve yeah sure i mean this was something that was actually asked it was about the involuntary two years ago we chose not to do it like two years ago this year was asked by all districts actually go through and uh administer this to all our students so the fourth graders that took it and actually was looking at it reflecting what from the third grade curriculum did they hold on to when they tested in fourth grade i think as a parent i also received this from my own kids i had a lot more information when i read it on there the most difficult part for a parent is to just see the word support on all three of those columns so it does start off as a strong support some support and less support so as a parent you're always looking at this is saying my childhood support the other side of this two those three columns reflect what the njsla reflects and it really kind of goes into the five different categories there we have a graph so when you look at the graph they break it down to how our fourth grade [Music] 7th and is and pla in all grades and it's what we expected where they fell you know the green says that they need less support or exceeded expectation the number of children that are in the orange range are those who need some support and those who are in the red range are children who need strong support and as we go through this injection to go through this it's a very easy graph to read even in mathematics you can see how we did across the board and as a school uh the one thing that uh you know kev you kept looking at is we really look at who is strong support and this year our board of education we have interventionists in place we have have been doing an amazing job working in small groups the teachers are working in small groups uh we have other assessments that we use things like the dribble benchmarks other assessments that we use it just wasn't this right it was already awesome ready stores so we use a number of assessments in the classroom even daily assessments teachers assess daily uh to see where our kids are at you can see why we're kicking buttons this is the only time that we really administered the start strong assessment so a lot of the other things that mrs carlson just mentioned we were administering those to students prior to the pandemic so when we talked about the ira we were doing those a few years before the pandemic came about and when the students were home they still took it at home you know they were able to do that we got a good sense of how they did and then when we got them back into the school in the classroom they did it again because really every student was doing that three times a year so that was something that we certainly used to help us gauge you know who was needing the support again but when the parents were reading that over i'm sure when they always saw it no matter what the score was that there was support that was needed it could have been real frustrating for someone else we didn't like the words but that's that was the thing like unless support means that they're they're fine but it still has the word support in it so it can be misleading to something the nhs has five categories so like the first one was as strong supports needed and then basically it did not yet beat or partially met the expectations the sub support is approaching the expectations that would be a score of a three when you get those ndsl a scores back for me and then [Music] in our numbers are very low in our black and hispanic population as opposed to the whites or some you know when your numbers are one year ten the other part of this though also i was going through and reviewing it with the upper grade ele teachers he went through and really the number of questions that they gave him was in the 20s but he really only it really only focused on about five or six standards so it really wasn't all of the questions that were offered it was a different standard that they were trying to reach out to there were things those standards were it was repetitious so it really just focused on a few standards when this was really good so i didn't have a broad understanding of the kids um lunch uh children with 504s rpl population our special needs population and our genuine population and that's not facts by the same breakdown pre-produced 504's bll special edition yes building special ed students or does that mess the curriculum itself also sometimes if it's a resource room setting it's also dictated by the student's iep that's also something else looking at the actual curriculum that should have been touched and we know most of our children uh with infps that are specialized aren't too great for a level so the expectation you would say this is what we would expect from them what was the goal of this theme mandating this and trying to see if there were gaps because of covalent a great assessment because it's not really testing all the areas it's not really giving you any information that you don't know we'll take care [Music] what support [Music] you know in the beginning that was it questions you know the question you have is your teachers know about this we're addressing this as i mentioned the specialists know who these children are uh jen at the last meeting column we talked about our win program how our teachers are you know meeting in small groups know the specific skills that children need and so we're addressing that on a weekly daily basis so before we go to the next presentation um what would you say is your priority in on addressing um thinking deficiency what grade level would you say is the one we focus on first what's the priority well we've always shared with you it's been fourth grade third percent of the fourth grade population has a ninety page so second grade uh has not been there but fourth grade his husband our biggest focus and it always happened it's not like it hadn't been on the radar when we went home 23 months [Music] what we've always seen and for those who've been on board a long time what we've always seen is you know it takes the village our scores get better as they get older you know so you build a great foundation what you see out of the test they get better and better for students just like owners you know you take any kind of test and if you take a similar test again you get to get better and better but we see how children have really improved from year to year for an entire year for as many days as we can in a row the students are actually just kind of going through the school routine and we've talked about it you know march 14th we basically asked every family every household to be their own school house you know when we went virtual and things like that so every day we are really just having them forge ahead and just do the best they can in this setting so that's certainly really what i'm starting to see um really from the kids i mean we've the last couple months we've really seen some of the impact of hope and the dolly just regards myself and working with the literacy and the math interventionist like the three of us all year and like as soon as we started with the start strong results and the quality ready like we've just been like analyzing data analyzing data analyzing data and then finding not really focusing so much on a grade but focusing on those students that really need the support to and find that the intervention to move forward so that's really how we've been doing it and not so much appropriate the best program is still having you know students in role we build another one today another one it's gonna start next week for us too so as the needs do arise conversations begin but it's just with the interventionists the irs teams and then you know the support is [Music] and um we're very proud of willem's accomplishment because willem uh in the entire school uh placed third overall in the geography of being test for our school he also went uh to uh support uh kiernan and uh griffin in the competition at uh in the with the sending districts but placing third our school our board of education everyone is very proud of this great accomplishment [Applause] and you do have your speech prepared i did not know he did not know about that we're always teasing i did it you have a great night and thank you so much for being here uh the next thing uh we wanted to do uh is highlight uh some of the things that we have been doing over the past several years uh we have always included you know black history is not something that called the black history month uh we do not believe in that philosophy we believe uh it has to be embedded in our curriculum throughout the year uh that's what the state is that's what we've always done and so we have purchased books in all classrooms we have done a lot of work what we want to do with you today is just highlight uh some of the things we've done over the past few months the top is cut off for some reason but it's supposed to say celebrating diversity and black history can everyone hear me all right without the microphone all right so i wanted to just like miss carlsbad take a few minutes just share how brielle has implemented diversity equity and inclusion and the instruction of the contributions of african americans into our curriculum there are some mandates that have been passed by the state some from a very long time ago which we might not be aware of and i will share this presentation out with everyone tomorrow so i don't want to just sit and read everything but the holocaust law that it actually has in 1994 for instruction that needs to be included throughout the curriculum for elementary and middle school then we have on the new requirements that include instructional diversity and inclusion which will be included starting this september and then we have the amazon law which was the actual amazon bill and that became one 2002 which is on involved incorporating information regarding the contributions of african americans on an appropriate place of the curriculum of elementary and middle school students and then in the lgbtq and disabilities law that was passed in 2019 and same thing embedding it in the curriculum and celebrating the contributions of all people so up here you can take a look when you leave these are a couple of posters and timelines that the second grade i actually gave me today so i wasn't able to put in my presentation but they did a really good job um with those in our school right now what are we doing our curriculum and our instruction has like mrs carlson said always included in instruction on diversity right now i have provided for the teachers since the beginning of the school year resources that are available to them i send them emails and provide professional development for them as well and then this is a crosswalk that we worked on at columbus day and it's a living document where we will always go back and continue to work on it to make sure that all the mandates that i talked about are included in all the different subject areas so this was raised three through five and i went to a workshop on friday at brookdale for the monmouth county curriculum distortion and i spoke with deb lesnick from the state um just because i always like to know things so i asked her you know what would maybe he will be cusack next year what would make us cusack compliant in this area and she said at crosswalk and i said oh again you know what we've been working on and she said yes bad and monitoring lesson plans as long as it's being incorporated in all the brain levels and different not necessarily every subject area for certain subject areas wouldn't make us compliant so as you can see um i'm just really proud of all the teachers in all the subject areas even including music and art and fitness where they are including instruction from all of these so these are some of the educational goals that i'm working with the teachers in with their instruction some of you have maybe heard about like windows mirrors and doors so a mirror is being able to have a student regardless of their background or experiences being able to see themselves in the curriculum being able to see themselves and what they're reading the windows is so that every student can see the differences in others through their reading and being able to appreciate people for how their differences are and what their similarities are and then developmentally appropriate is sliding glass doors where they're able to engage with different people that they're meeting along the way to enter the story and become part of the world the sliding glass tours are meant to encourage reflection to encourage action and it's supposed to help them result in a change in perspective of maybe just how they didn't really see things prior and to become immersed in another's experience so moving forward we're going on this spring and summer we've already started the process reviewing the social studies and literacy curriculum and our goals for both of those are to have instruction in both curriculums that do include diversity equity inclusion and the homicide throughout the curriculum one way we're going to be doing that is i'm going to be creating an evaluation which will also include a self-study to be able to make sure those curriculums and any of the curriculums moving forward do support a culturally culturally responsive curriculum as well and providing ongoing professional development for teachers that they are comfortable teaching and confident and how to include all these candidates into their construction so in brielle we're celebrating contributions not just histories why because we want to disrupt the single story of victimization and i just want to show you a very short video clip that talks about the danger of a single story which is what i want to try to disrupt here in brielle and what we've been working on it's a famous storyteller and author i don't know if you've heard of her chamondia and she describes the danger of the single story and i just felt that it was very powerful and it also explains our goals here in brazil and what we're trying to do moving forward i come from a conventional middle class nigerian my father was a professor my mother was an administrator so we had as was the mom live in domestic health who would often come from nearby rural villages so the year i turned eight we got a new household his name was [Music] the only thing my mother told us about him was that his family was very poor my mother sent yams and our old friends in his family and when i didn't finish my dinner my mother would say finish your food don't you know people like fiddy's family have nothing so i felt an almost for today's family then one saturday we went to his village to visit and his mother showed us a beautiful patterned basket made of guide raffia that has brought that in me i was startled it had not occurred to me that anybody in his family could actually make something all i had about them was how poor they were so that it had become impossible for me to see them as anything else that poverty was my single story okay years later i thought about this when i left nigeria to go to university in the united states i was 19 my american roommate was shocked she asked where i had learned to speak english so well i was confused when i said that nigeria happened to have english as its official language she asked if you could listen to what she called my tribal music i was constantly very disappointed when i produced my tape with mariah carey she assumed that i did not know how to use a stove what struck me was this she had felt sorry for me even before my roommate had a single story of africa a single story of catastrophe in this simple story there was no possibility of africans being similar to her in any way no possibility of feelings more complex than kitty no possibility or connection with human equals so that is how to create a single stream sure of people as one thing as only one thing over and over again and that is what they become and by embedding diversity equity inclusion in our construction all year long and highlighting the contributions of african-americans especially right now how we did it during black history month and i wanted to share just some of those contributions that we've been working on during the month of february even though we've been working on them all year long so you can see some of them up front on the big posters is the second grade biography project they did everything in writer's workshop all the research and everything and they brought everything home and then they decorated the posters at home every morning in the uh tv studio they highlight another uh african-american and their contributions during the tv studio this is cyano who's here in our audience um this was her epic book list for black history month for the students to read in first grade this is just a couple different there's many diversity collections in the uh media center this was just two of them this was kindergarten they were working on different african american inventions and adventures and mr d was kind enough to help me put together a short video of all the different projects that the different grade levels and students have been working on this month there's still more coming so feel free maybe at the end of the week or next week if you want to walk through you'll be able to see them so this is just a real quick video of what is around the school and what we've been working on [Music] okay [Music] up [Music] seventh um [Applause] [Music] refugees [Music] fourth grade [Music] he was [Music] wow [Music] so again those were just some of the contributions and celebrations for black history month we've been continuing to work on it all year long i'm excited to you know keep going through the year and progressing trying to disrupt that single story so thank you for letting me share that tonight [Music] [Applause] [Music] everytime okay [Music] good job [Music] so next on the um before the next thing we have is visitors business but before we move on to that i just want to thank mr xavier and this love for presenting the start strong um it's always good for us to look at this data know where our kids are and be able to analyze it and go from there and be able to provide them with what they need so thank you for preparing that and presenting it tonight and miss love you did a fantastic job with that presentation and i i appreciate that i know that i've been asking for that and um and i i i'm not surprised at your presentation because i know that you put so much time and effort into what you do and you're very thorough um one of the things that stood out to me was the single story because i've heard of that before and that's something that in this country um that's how it's been for a very long time it's that single story and it's you know we've come a long way from them and um i truly believe that by educating our children now they're very young and teaching them of all the wonderful contributions that um african-american people have done for years for centuries um many we don't even know about but that's what's going to start that's what's going to bring about change and and our nation when you learn about other people so i i think that that's really important you did a great job with that um i i during my report i'm i'm going to say um what i was going to say just you know when i do my report because i did want to talk about more about that but um if we have visitors business next any correspondence and so for committee reports before we get into all the because i know that the committees have been busy i'll just quickly uh give my uh report um so you know i'll talk about black history month and so for me it's i grew up in a very diverse community so i for us it wasn't black history month it was every day you learned about different cultures every single day um but i was very pleased to see whenever my son came home i would ask him you know what are you learning what's going on and i saw some of the work that his teachers were giving him and and i was really impressed because you know when i was young i remember that and i don't know if anyone else had that experience here but it was usually her black history mother dr martin luther king day he got a coloring page of dr king and then in history class you learned about slavery and um and i knew many people dreaded going to school during that time because a group of people were reduced to just being a slave i tell my own kids and when i used to teach i would always say they think they weren't slaves they were enslaved human beings and that single story i think that looking at people as just slaves that's what they were in this country they didn't contribute anything when we look at it that way i think that the problems that we see today stem from that but then when you open up um you you provide information and you make them human by doing that i think that that definitely brings about change um it you know outside in our sign i didn't see it but my son came home and he said to my husband he said dad did you see the sign outside the school and jay said oh no i didn't notice what was on here and then he said it says black history month yeah i thought about when he said that and i thought about how when we see the sign we may think something different okay it's like history month they have it up but for a child who's black the child of color when he sees that sign it means something more to him to him it's just not a sign but to him is they're recognizing black history month they're recognizing and acknowledging that i am here and that i'm important and as educators we have to think like children think and i think that's when we have the strongest impact on our kids um but so thank you for taking the time to put the sign out there and for taking the time to do the work and i know that the teachers have been working on this i've been watching and i've been seeing this so i'm appreciative of them um [Music] a friend of mine and i'm going to end it here a friend of mine he was he's a banker and um as a matter of fact he sent something to us today uh he was um they did a article on him and his family and so he wrote something and i was going to summarize it but it just wasn't coming out as good as he said it so i'm going to quote him and his name is mr bob marshall and he said the study of one's history is not meant to denigrate cascade or demonized it is meant to provide knowledge and understanding is meant to offer insight into how human society has changed over time never shy away from inquiry and or scholarship they are both inextricably linked to the collective success of the human race so thank you thank you for that um i will oh very quickly uh cpac which is the special education parent advisory group uh they've been meeting they have a facebook page and um i connected with um two of the parents is kelly valdino and jennifer barr we've been emailing each other and i told them i would they really want the information to get out so that parents know about this group and uh their next meeting is march 2nd at 6 00 p.m in person at school and they mentioned mr savia is working um to have the imrs committee to answer questions which would be great they also have a facebook page and i just think this is a great resource for parents with students who have ieps five or fours um or or especially for parents who are questioning and wondering if their child should have an iv um so i just wanted to give you that information and um so now i'll go to the um committee reports uh district operations teddy asked me to uh to kind of summarize what we were talking about because he wasn't gonna be here today so uh we met about i think it was about a week and a half ago and uh we had a separate meeting with the um the school's architect uh regarding an issue that needs to be addressed in the library where there's some type of moisture that has caused the flooring to bubble up and the suggestion was made that in order to find out what the problem is and not just put a band-aid on it the flooring needs to be needs to be removed so that they can see where the water is coming from during the meeting our initial meeting uh we had some questions about whether or not it was necessary to do that of a project because it's quite a big expense and they're the reason the major reason why it's such a big expense is that the uh adhesive in the floor is from i guess when the school is first built and has asbestos in it so it requires asbestos remediation to do it and there's gonna be it's there's going to be people in the building so there's an additional expense because there's going to be people here to remove it so um we asked a lot of questions about that with him um i think uh look who else and you and i were on that yeah um and you know one of we were asking you know is it possible to do something maybe a little bit less dramatic to get the answer um and apparently that's the uh one of the one of the ideas was to get in there and see if you could look with a camera but apparently the way that floor is basically there's a slab there so you can't get in to do that we also asked you know in his professional opinion you know what's the most likely reason for this and is it possible we'd want to dig the floor and then find out that it was coming from the roof or something like that but based on the location of it um which is more central the most likely thing is that it's either from the water table itself or an old pipe that's just slowly so um i was i was very happy with all the explanations that he gave uh and the reason why this needs to be done um it's a you can see from the inserts here it's a big expense just removing the flooring uh the asbestos remediation is expensive and that's not included fixing the problem when we find the problem and then one of the things that was brought up because of these is that we wanted to order the flooring now so that we have it in the school so that we don't have the project related and the idea being definition before september so um you can see here from these handouts you know the the just the demolition and the removal on the especially which is somewhere between 65 to 75 000.

pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all mr alfano okay thank you mr roman gino i'd like to read a quick statement if i may the new jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the rights of the public who have advanced notice of and to attend the meeting of public bodies which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the revision of this act the cliffside park boulevard has closed notice of this meeting to be published by having the date time and place thereof posted in the offices of the borough clerk or library for borough rec department the office of the board of ed in the offices of school number three four five six and a high school on december 9th 2021 and notices were forward to the reporters of the record december 9th 2021 this is an official meeting like to take the role if i may mr roman gina yes mrs abreu here mr capano here mrs fredo here mr garcia dr pantaliano mr raincourt here mr russo here mr shelley here mr tarabaka mr yanuzi here okay mr roman gina okay i want to would like to welcome everyone to our meeting tonight just a couple of um reminders from my report um to our parents and our students who are watching tonight we've updated our covet guidelines on the website those are the newest guidelines that we receive from the new jersey department of health and our local health officials so please take note of that i will be posting to the website um shortly our pre-k and k registration dates those would be pre-k students who are new to our district and only kindergarten students who are new to our district if parents have children that are currently in our pre-k program they do not have to register for kindergarten but uh any parents who are new to the district um they will be making an appointment and registering at school number four those flyers will be posted to the website uh and also posted on social media those dates are for kindergarten will be in uh april and in pre-k will be late april so there'll be more information coming within the next week or so the last meeting that we had i discussed with the board the mandate from governor murphy making masks optional for school districts beginning march 7th and i'm happy to say that the klitschleit park school district will follow his guideline of making mass optional beginning march 7th i'll be notifying our parents and staff tomorrow because there is some are some policies in our agenda tonight that do update the mass policy once those policies are approved tonight then our staff and our parents will be notified tomorrow so the mass mandate will be optional in schools and offices they are still mandated on our school buses that's as per the governor so if you ride a school bus staff or students you will still be missed and these requirements will stay in effect um hopefully forever but in case there is an outbreak as per the governor's guidelines that were released today we could always go back to that mandate but for now beginning march 7th it will be optional in school for all staff and students i'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate a couple of our students maya winters one of our girl basketball players uh scored her thousandth point a couple of weeks ago uh she was also named north jersey girls basketball player of the week so i want to congratulate her narayg kassar was named best delegate at model u.n at bergen county competition and was also named a rising leader and has been invited to washington dc so i want to congratulate both of those students i also want to uh make mention of our literary magazine pegasus our literary magazine was selected to receive the rank of superior in the 2021 ncte recognizing excellence in art and literary magazine miss woodley who is our advisor and her staff i congratulate them for the great job they do each and every year with our pegasus magazine at this time i would like to call for any committee reports just on building grounds as we know we're probably three quarters of the way done with the high school gym a little bit longer than anticipated with the pandemic with the public service issues happy to report that the concrete floor the self-leveling was done the right way certified by land associates that was done the right way now they're doing an underlayment of flooring and then i believe on the 26th floor the actual flooring will arrive the heat is up and running in the gym so things are moving along the positive about it lou uh as always has been up to date and giving us updates on uh the progress and uh new timelines of when we can expect the completion at this point uh in the game you know we don't want to rush the process we just want to get it done right as we've invested quite a bit of uh dollars in this project that's pretty much it with building and grounds anything i may have missed lou well to your point mr kapana the underlayment looks like george from land and ciro are going to take a look at the progress it looks like it's about 80 percent done uh they should be done by friday thus the new the maple floors coming in on saturday they believe that's going to take a little bit longer probably a couple of weeks and then substantial completion looks like it'll be sometime in april where we'll have a substantial completion of the construction component then we get into closeout documents and everything else like that but i think we got knock where we got the wind in our back right now very good and that that's it for my committee reports i don't know if anybody else has anything else i'll just make mention uh that we have started negotiations with the cpa i want to thank dr pantaliano and mr rincourt are serving or representing the board on our committee uh their contract ends june 30th so we have uh we've had two meetings so far uh things are moving ahead nicely we have our next me our meeting next week so i will keep the board apprised of what's going on as far as negotiations are concerned any other committee reports okay so at this time i would like to uh before i look at the consent agenda any comments from the public any write-ins mr savadano no no thank you okay um if we look at the consent agenda a couple of items i'd like to point out as i go through the agenda uh as always on page two at the top we are approving uh compensation or reimbursement for staff members that have been attending uh professional development uh workshops as i mentioned last time with covid a lot of the workshops have been virtual but as time goes on more and more are becoming in person as an example conquer math is a workshop that our pre-k through high school um across the board uh teachers attend and they're back in person so that's that's nice to hear so things are are moving along our first resolution recommended by the superintendent of schools is to appoint dr caitlin burke as a non-certificated school nurse at a salary of 86 000 that'll be prorated with benefits effective may 2nd 2022 she will be assigned to a school at a later date next resolution on page 3 about fifth one down on the page um we are resolution recommended by the superintendent of schools this was just put on today because i just received an email from jen mcgray she's asking for an extension of our unpaid medical leave jim was supposed to return april but due to child care issues she's asking to stay out the remainder of the year she will return to her position september 1st [Applause] uh page four uh third resolution down um we have a recommend to transfer julia gionata from a permanent substantive uh teacher part-time title one at school number six to a full-time title one teacher school number six so julia has been with us as a substitute she just recently received her certification uh and will be placing julia on step one ba uh next one down ruth maldonado who is a teacher aide with us has accepted a transfer from school number four resource room to school number three our lld program next resolution crystal brown who's a grade 1 teacher at school number 5 uh is applying for maternity leave she will be leaving on or about may 25th and will return on or about december 1st so good luck to crystal claudia hines who's the secretary in the central office is also requesting a medical leave claudia will be leaving on or about june 1st and she will be returning on or about october 31st next resolution kerry goal who's a pre-k handicap teacher in number five is also requesting a maternity leave uh kerry will be leaving uh on or about may 29th and uh will be returning september 1st uh to a position as a pre-k handicap teacher uh last resolution on the page uh terry siegrist who's a payroll secretary in the central office has announced her retirement effective june 30th terry has been with the district 53 years terry started as an intern in high school and everybody who knows terry knows how dedicated she is and what a great job she has done and uh we can only wish terry the best in her retirement so that'll be effective june 30th uh top of page five jerry d'alessio who's been our instrumental uh music teacher for the last 20 honor about 23 24 years has announced his retirement uh effective june 30th 2022.

good evening at this time i'd like to call this regular meeting of the dysart unified school district governing board to order let the record reflect that all board members are present please stand for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all before we get started tonight i just wanted to ask everyone to give me a thumbs up or give me some sort of signal in working at hospital i found i was exposed a couple days ago and just out of an abundance of caution from my fellow board members and i can't social distance i'm wearing a mask and i know it's hard to hear me sometimes so please just feel free to give me a thumbs up if you can't hear me with that move to recognitions and celebrations with b1 dance performance dr kellis thank you madam president members of the board and members of cabinet dr pulling will introduce this item madam president members of the board cabinet and audience it's my pleasure to introduce west point elementary dance they will perform led by miss hannah bradio i've always been the one to say the first goodbye had to laugh and lose a hundred million times had to get it wrong to know just what i like now i'm falling you say my name like i have never heard before i'm indecisive but this time i know for sure i hope i'm not the only one that feels [Music] whenever you want it baby [Music] i knew that was the end of it all i [Music] should know [Music] am i falling in love [Music] every time everyone [Music] whenever you want it baby [Music] oh [Music] what a beautiful job y'all did i see some uh future dance company and palmies over there you guys are definitely on your way doing a great job what grade levels are represented my goodness excellent job thank you for coming yeah with this a different group or the same group oh perfect perfect i keep fighting voices in my mind that say i'm not enough every single light that tells me i will never measure up remind me once again [Music] [Applause] when [Applause] and i believe [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the only thing that matters now is everything you think of me [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] it at your feet you'll have every failure god you'll have it that was a stunning performance for sure beautiful thank you for coming um madam president that was absolutely beautiful and young lady you have a gift that was wonderful [Applause] next we move to b2 city of el mirage and surprise essay winners dr kellis thank you madam president members of the board and members of cabinet dr pulling will introduce these students and would like to invite the board to come down to welcome them and congratulate them thank you madam president members of the board dr kels cadman audience so dysart partnered with the cities of el mirage and city surprise to host a my el mirage and my surprise essay contest for dysart students students submitted an essay that were evaluated on understanding of city services and amenities creativity clarity sincerity of thought and proper grammar each winner will be recognized or has been recognized by the respective cities so i'm going to call all four students if you are here if you would please come up and get a picture with the board so for the city of el mirage first place claire ibere el mirage school third grade city is yep [Applause] city of surprise grade winners for third and fourth grades caleb levitt freedom traditional academy for 5th through 8th grades casey dunn canyon ridge school [Applause] and for 9th through 12th grades valerie ortega at valley vista high school congratulations [Applause] thank you very much and congratulations again [Applause] all right next we move to audience uh with let's see seat one audience with individuals uh we have none next uh superintendent governing board updates do you won student update dr kellis thank you madam president members of the board and members of cabinet we have jocelyn poundstone here from the dysart student leadership council to provide an update good evening madam president members of the board dr kellis cabinet and community my name is dawson poundstone and i'm a member of the dysart student leadership council at our most recent meeting we continue to work on an upcoming event for all the councils to get together and learn from each other we also attended the aasc state convention at north high school this weekend where we went to different leadership activities we did workshops and we listened to keynote speakers and we collaborated with a ton of other councils from all across arizona valley vista shatterage and daisar were all awarded with the title of outstanding council of distinction we're excited to be planning a spirit conference for all of the student councils in the upcoming may and it's going to be held at the westmech northwest conference we look forward to sharing more information and accomplishments with you all thank you next we have superintendent update dr kalas thank you madam president members of the board and members of cabinet um just want to acknowledge that we had a tremendous showing of athletes at state playoffs we enjoyed wrestlers and basketball players and soccer players and we are still keeping an eye on the valley vista girls basketball team and we will be recognizing these athletes in a near future board meeting so congratulations to all them also like to put a plug in for volunteers we have some pretty significant events coming up with the dysart festival of the arts and the vista center for the arts and also we are still open our classrooms are open our schools are open and we're ready to welcome volunteers back into our schools then i would like to just excuse dr dean who's in here this evening he's not having very much fun on a very large boat so and he's not watching online either i hope not next we move to governing board update anyone have any updates um i do have a couple of them um had the opportunity to attend the concert that was at valley vista uh featuring the shadow ridge wind ensemble led by mr forrest and also part of that concert was with the glendale community college community band and that was under the direction of bill humbert who is the director of the concert bands at gcc and bill and i go way back we were in marching band together honor band and orchestra and so it was great to see him and not only listen to a lot of great music that was put on not only by shadow ridge but then also gcc uh also attended and it was just on the spur of the moment visited cimarron springs with dr kellis to hand out a couple of extraordinary pins and thank you miss richards and also an impromptu band number by the band and they were good so thank you mr may for that uh also attended yesterday i went to rancho gabriela to see their win innervate intervention time and win means what i need and that is about 30 minutes of the students all of them do it and it's about 30 minutes of getting that targeted instruction for what the students actually need it's every morning it's for all grades each all the special classes and everybody meets incorporating the writing standards in english into the specials and such as art pe music so thank you uh mr kerr i think he's over there yes and also went to uh countryside for their tutu and tiara taco tuesday with tie-dye shirts it was a lot but it was okay and yes i did actually put on a tiara and a tutu and i looked great i think but it was awesome we had tacos and quite honestly that was the quietest cafeteria i had ever been in and i the once miss hessler and miss hill explained to me is that um each of the classes are getting points and so um they have a point point system that by the end of the year if they've followed all the rules and regs and are respectful in the cafeteria they get points and so um there were a lot of points for each of the grades so that was awesome to see so thank this thank you miss hessler and miss hill and also i received an email um from scott thomas who was our former architecture teacher at with the program over at shadow ridge and he shared that we had two shadow ridge students juniors emma davis and sebastian st germain that won the nahb national championship so this is the fourth unprecedented national championship that the student chapter at shadow ridge has has won and so it actually stands for national association of builders so quite honestly i needed to to say that because this month is still for the next couple of days we're still celebrating cte month so um congratulations to these two students i had to say that that's it anyone else okay next we'll move to item e motion to approve consent agenda items i'll entertain a motion i move that we approve consent agenda items with the exception of items f3 and f4 they be moved to action discussion motion made by crystal chapman seconded by tracy sorry sinkville yep yes please motion carries next we move to information discussion items g1 information on district insurance policies and coverage dr kellers thank you madam president members of the board and members of cabinet at the request of the board we have invited representatives from the arizona risk retention trust otherwise known as the trust to present to the board information about coverage and liability coverage for the district and with that i'll let mr hicks introduce our guests thank you very much dr kellis madam president members of the board it's my pleasure to introduce mr chris welker um acting attorney or lead attorney for the arizona risk retention trust thanks mr hicks and madam president members of the governing board dr kellis my name is chris welker and i am here as counsel for the arizona school risk retention trust i'm grateful for the invitation to be here this evening i'm here just to provide a very brief overview of the trust and certainly to answer any questions or engage in any other discussion that the board would like to to ask or engage in the trust is the insurer for the district provides various forms of insurance coverage for the district its board members its employees and agents primarily the the main coverages provided include liability coverage and that applies when a claim is asserted against the school district or its employees or administrators board members the trust provides liability coverage provides defense and indemnity for those types of claims provided that their coverage by covered by the trust coverage agreement with the district there are various other coverages property coverages there is administrative practices liability coverage that is of particular interest to administrators and and board members that type of coverage is provided for actions that are brought by the department of education or other governmental entities that can be brought against the district or its agents board members employees the trust always interprets its coverage agreements as broadly as reasonably possible to provide coverage uh as often and as broadly as it can now the coverage agreements that the trust provides the district do contain exclusions for various activities various acts various omissions that would prevent coverage so if an exclusion applies then the coverage provided by the trust does not apply and those things are determined on a case by case claim-by-click claim cause of action by cause of action basis whether something is covered or not cannot be determined until the trust knows exactly what is asserted and what is claimed but for purposes of covering the school district its employees and its board members the trust is the entity that provides that coverage if something is not provided by the trust or if it's excluded by the trust coverage agreements then there is no coverage available for the employees board members agents etc again the trust always interprets its coverage agreements as broadly as reasonably possible to provide coverage wherever it can and has had a long relationship with the district so that's a general overview in summary of who the trust is and what it does and what it provides happy to entertain any questions or discussion anyone may have but i don't have anything else prepared in advance but just wanted to provide that overview in summary and let you know who the trust is and what it does thank you for that information um do any board members have any questions i do go ahead down you can go first you mentioned um the exclusions is it possible for us to get a listing of those exclusions i know that they're you you can't guarantee coverage until you're presented with the situation but are there guidelines that we could be provided with absolutely in fact the district should have a copy of the coverage agreements that it has with the trust those coverage agreements uh outlined in various sections of the exclusions for instance the main section of the coverage agreement with the trust is appendix a1 that is the largest section regarding liability coverage and then section two of appendix a1 contains all of the exclusions to the liability coverage there are 35 specifically identified exclusions in appendix a1 the administrative practices liability coverage is endorsement 6a to appendix a1 and that has its own set of exclusions those are contained in section of endorsement 6a to appendix a1 again these are all agreements that the district should have in its possession if not i am more than happy to provide them thank you and do we know where we can find those like are they posted for us somewhere um madam president members of the board we have a risk manager she has our policy yes we'll get him emailed out to the board i'm emailing her right now thank you so if something is not specific to that exclusion um and there is some sort of lawsuit um if we create a policy and somebody doesn't like that policy and then they decide to sue us you wouldn't be able to tell if it's excluded until you actually know what it is correct coverage can only be determined based on the actual claim asserted and so until it's known what is being alleged or asserted it's impossible to make a coverage determination it has to be done on a claim-by-claim or or action-by-action basis in general terms the the coverage agreements will define what is covered in the ensuring language it will specify what typically is covered what types of activities and acts for instance in order for an employee or a board member or any other another agent of the district to be covered they must be acting within their authority granted they must be acting in their official capacity so someone outside acting outside for instance of the course and scope of their employment when something happens wouldn't be covered by the coverage agreements because they're not acting on behalf of the district at that time so generally speaking you first consider the insuring language to make sure that a claim that is asserted falls within the insuring language if it does then you look to the exclusions to ensure that that the acts alleged don't fall within one of the exclusions to coverage and again until those claims are asserted it's impossible to know whether the insuring language applies whether certain exclusions may apply okay and then another question as far as a mandate versus a law if congress has not made a law and this is a federal mandate then are we still within our i guess are we still able to create our policy if it is a if it's not written into law so if there's a federal mandate and then we create a policy it's not a law congress makes the law so i how would that work in a mandate versus a law again it would depend on the specifics it would it would depend on the facts alleged and the nature of the claim asserted before coverage can be determined but i'll i can quote you some relevant language for for instance from the administrative practices coverage there's an exclusion that may be relevant to to the hypothetical you're posing there's an exclusion for any uh acts allegedly or actually arising out of or contributed to by any acts or or or omissions where the results of the axor missions were intended or should have been expected by the covered party covered party meaning either the district its employees its board members under either an objective or subjective standard so again this mean this exclusion means these acts or missions are excluded if they were intended or should have been expected to be any dishonest or unlawful act or omission so the term used is if it's an unlawful act or omission that term unlawful is not defined but it doesn't just mean violation of a statute a federal statute it goes on to say that the exclusion applies to any knowing or informed violation of arizona or federal statutory requirements so it includes violation of statutes laws made by congress at the federal level or the arizona legislature but it's broader than that so it the exclusion applies to any acts that should have been known or expected to be unlawful that is broader than a violation of a federal or state statute violation of a federal or state statute is included in the in the exclusion but it's not limited to violation of federal or state statute so again without knowing the specifics of a claim or an action it's impossible to make a specific coverage determination but that gives you a general idea of how the exclusion reads it it excludes coverage for anything that was known or expected to be unlawful and the term unlawful you just said isn't really definable at this it's not defined in the coverage agreement we know because it includes violations of stat federal or state statutes that it's broader than simply a violation or federal or state statute so that's state statute and just to clarify for myself does that include any federal mandates again it depends on the mandate it depends on who's issued the mandate does it have the force of law so that violating it would be unlawful those are all the types of specifics that would have to be analyzed so what if a case were to go before supreme the supreme court and the supreme court upheld a particular lawsuit even though there's no law would something similar be considered a violation of a law even though it's not typically a law again it's difficult to prejudge without knowing the specifics of a claim or a lawsuit that's brought but courts can create law court decisions can have the force of law so following that conversation when we're talking about these exclusions and i'm sorry i wish we could have had that in really plain language back there but um a court case would be considered unlawful if we tried to go against a court case again without knowing the specifics it's impossible to render a determination without knowing the specifics of a claim asserted or or an action brought either by an individual or a government body it's impossible to make a coverage determination without knowing the specifics of a claim asserted but with that generally speaking courts can create law okay that that can have the force of law court decisions can have the force of loss or something certainly can be unlawful if it violates in the right circumstances a decision by a court with jurisdiction you know there's another exclusion to the general liability it's a little speed it's perhaps doesn't contain so much legalese the the liability coverage afforded by the trust is meant to cover fortuitous acts or omissions meaning not intentional generally liability coverage does not apply to intentional acts they're in what i mean by intentional acts knowing violations of law typically are not covered by insurance coverage or policies and the coverage agreement provided by the trust is no different it contains a very common exclusion that is often used in insurance policy insurance policies for any alleged or actual liability caused intentionally by or at the direction of the covered party so typically liability coverage is not afforded for intentional or knowing acts that are in violation of law it's typically provided for fortuities accidents things that are not intentionally done or knowing violations of law so if we were to you know hypothetically have an executive session and invite you back then we could get a little bit more specific with our questions hypothetically i would have to consult with that i would have to consult with the boards council to determine the extent and scope of the executive session and whether the law would allow such an executive session hypothetically if there was a policy being discussed and there was a lot of questions about the policy and the language of the policy whether or not it's lawful legal or not legal or not would the trust look at that policy ahead of time to say that that would not be a wise path to take or you can still go down it and not knowing what's going to happen but can they do it ahead of time the district is always hypothetically the district's always welcome to submit questions to the trust at any time the trust is there to answer questions but the difficulty is there can be no final coverage determination ever issued without knowing what a claim or cause of action is a coverage determination cannot be made in a vacuum on based on hypotheticals it can only be based on an actual claim asserted or an action brought either by an individual or a governmental entity the trust can provide as i am the language in the general exclusions that apply to its coverage but unless and until a claim is actually asserted it's impossible to make a coverage determination but keeping in mind the general principles are liability coverages are afforded for unknowing or accidental acts or omissions typically and again there are exceptions to every rule but typically liability coverage is not there to provide coverage for intentional or knowing acts or known violations of law and again that whole unlawful unlawful word is very subjective unless you know the specific situation correct without knowing the specifics it's it would be impossible to make a determination whether it's an act or omission was unlawful without knowing a claim asserted or a cause of action filed it would be impossible to know whether the cause of action is alleging an unlawful act but the and that is not a defined term so it will be given its ordinary meaning but the exclusion does apply to exclude coverage for acts that were either known or expected to be unlawful so if i just kind of give you an outline you can kind of give me uh maybe maybe not if i give you something more specific with more specifics we can provide probably more language from the coverage agreements that may or may not apply there still cannot be a specific determination on coverage unless and until there's actually a claim or an action asserted or filed well i have a question just in general um it was my understanding that as long as you're working within your scope as a board member then as far as any liability as well um you're not going to be personally held responsible as long as you aren't going outside of your scope of a board member then you're covered so is there something that you if that's not always the case are you able to provide some information on when that might not apply sure so as i mentioned earlier there is there are two primary components to determining coverage for any particular claim or cause of action first you have to determine whether the potential claim may fall within the ensuring language or the cover covering language and that includes whether the person against whom the claim is asserted was acting within their official capacity course and scope of their employment if so then they're a covered party so that's kind of the first hurdle to get over is the person against whom the claim is asserted a covered party were they acting within their official capacity that has to be met for their for the coverage to apply any time someone is acting within the course and scope of their employment within their official capacity they meet the definition of a covered party so that the insuring language could apply but then the second determination is are there any exclusions to that apply to the coverage so even though a person an employee a board member may be a covered party because they were acting in their official capacity or in the course and scope of their employment they could still be subject to exclusions to coverage which is the second analysis they may be covered as a covered party but then does the claim or the lawsuit or the action brought assert acts or omissions that would give rise to an exclusion for coverage and the the hypotheticals or general issues we've been discussing touch on some of these exclusions where there are exclusions for intentional or known acts or omissions that are unlawful or that violate there's another exclusion i can give you this language too there's an exclusion for known for any alleged violation of statutes regulations penal quotes or ordinances committed with the knowledge of the covered party and knowledge is defined to include whether the covered party actually knows or reasonably should know that the acts or omissions may violate the statute regulation penal codes or ordinances at issue again the general idea being though a covered party may be covered by the insuring language because they're acting in their official capacity or within the course and scope of employment the exclusions may then take away the coverage to the extent the acts oral missions fall within one of the exclusions and for our purposes if we've been as we've been discussing those could include intentional or knowing acts okay so let me give you a hypothetical but make sure i understand this so let's say for example speaking to that exclusion about should have known i don't know if that's exactly what you said not is that should have known or had reason to have known actually knows or reasonably should know that the acts okay or emissions will violate a statute or ordinance or penal code so maybe how this could fit is are you saying like for an example the board writes a policy that they want to paint every every building in the district pink and in in writing that policy the attorney says i really wouldn't do that and we say well we're we think we're within the law we're going to write this policy and then someone sues us personally is the attorney that said i wouldn't do that kind of us reasonably should have known does that fall into that exclusion i don't know of any law outlaw outlawing painting buildings no no no that was a total hypothetical yeah no i i'm in other words if whatever the whatever the ish the policy is if in the midst of drafting it the attorney says ex uh expresses concerns or advises against and the board does it in a way where they they feel is within the law or tries to be very careful about it whatever and and and it passes and it's a and it's a policy and then someone brings a lawsuit forward and um not just sues the district but also individual board members as their own person that exclusion that speaks to should have reasonably known is that position going to hold up simply because you should have reasonably known because your attorney told you you shouldn't move forward do you see what i mean i do i understand the question so again with without seeing the specific claims or the specific lawsuits it's impossible to make a coverage determination but in general terms or discussing general principles if an employee or board member or anyone is sued individually and accused of knowingly violating the law and it it is shown that it was a violation of law there is a risk that that exclusion would apply and and so that there would be no grant of coverage to the individual accused of knowingly violating the law well no that's assuming they i don't think and i would hope nobody would openly try to violate the law and write a policy that was definitely unlawful i'm saying things are up to interpretation and if someone out there says i i think that's wrong and i'm going to sue you for it that's what i'm talking about and and so to your hypothetical if if an individual had been advised that their acts were unlawful and then someone another individual ultimately sues the employee or agent of the district saying in fact the the la the acts were unlawful yes the the the information that the employee or representative of the district had received would be relevant to determine whether they had should have reasonably known that their acts were unlawful so any and all information would be relevant to that analysis including advice given by other board members by council by administration all of that would be relevant to determining whether an individual reasonably shouldn't have known they were acting in an unlawful manner thank you so what happens if there is an exclusion what happens if we create a policy and then somebody decides to sue us and the upcourt the court upholds the lawsuit what are what are the ramifications of that even if there isn't if there is an exclusion and then if there isn't well if if the lawsuit filed is against an individual who is acting in their course and scope of employment or within their official capacity so that they're a covered party and the lawsuit is the type that is covered by the coverage agreement and no exclusion applies then the trust provides a defense and ultimately potentially indemnity for that individual if an exclusion applies and again that only can be determined once the claim and or lawsuit is filed to determine whether the exclusion actually applies if individuals are sued personally and individually and an exclusion applies so that it is not a covered claim then the trust would not step in to defend or indemnify if the exclusion does apply to remove coverage okay so let me just make sure i understand if there is no exclusion and if something happens somebody decides to sue the district there's no exclusion um worst case scenario we end up having to pay out the money are there consequences from that are we going to lose insurance or anything like that that gets into um the district's loss history the district pays contributions into the trust and those are based in part on the district's loss history so it could affect the amount of the contributions for the insurance but if they're if a claim is clearly covered and the party against two bits asserted is clearly covered and no exclusion applies again then the trust will defend and pay for any covered claim down the road it could factor into the to the district's ultimate contribution for the insurance going forward that would be the case of everything's covered and no exclusion applies again on the flip side if an exclusion applies or the claim asserted does not fall within the insuring language it's not covered then the trust again would not provide the defense and would not pay the claim thank you so to that point um if there's an determined that there's an exclusion and board members are not covered then each board member would be responsible for their own legal service is that correct correct if the trust does not the trust is the insurer for the district and its board members and its employees so if the trust does not provide the coverage then the employees board members would be on their own to provide their own defense to look to whatever other sources of insurance they have okay thank you so it all depends on that one definition unlawful i don't want to i don't want to put it that simply because the coverage agreement is hundreds of pages and there are 35 exclusions just in appendix a1 and there are multiple endorsements and other appendices and so again it's it's not as simple as it's just this one exclusion that was one relevant exclusion for the hypotheticals posed um but there could be numerous provisions relevant to any analysis of coverage for a given claim thank you any other questions um yeah so i i know that there are statutes at the federal and state levels and laws and case law that that you have to consider and this board considers those as well um but i am wondering hypothetically if you're presented with a situation and you analyze that situation yet you have two separate case laws that contradict each other or two statutes you know a federal versus state how do you determine whether that's the intent to go against one of those laws or statute that's all part of the analysis that's why it's so dependent on what the specific allegations are made against the district or an individual the coverage determination cannot be made without analyzing the specific allegations of a claim that's asserted against the district or one of its agents or representatives the specifics of the claim is obviously vital to the to any analysis of the coverage just one more example because i mentioned that there are numerous exclusions and numerous provisions there's an exclusion to coverage for any alleged or actual liability which is caused by or done at the direct direction of a covered party with the covered party's knowledge that the occurrence or offense or wrongful act would violate the rights of or injure another person and again this is it says in this exclusion for purposes of the exclusion knowledge shall conclusively be deemed to exist when the covered part party actually knows or reasonably should know that the acts may violate the rights or injure another person so that's just one more example there are numerous but that's one more exclusion that could be relevant to any coverage analysis for a claim asserting someone's rights are violated a knowing act an act that knowingly violates the rights of another is part of this exclusion thank you thank you very much for all your information appreciate thank you again for the invitation it's a pleasure to be with you all right next we move to g2 update on restroom use dr kalis thank you madam president members of the board and members of cabinet at the request of the governing board administration is set to provide some information regarding the use of restrooms within the district we have several pieces of information that several of us will be presenting so first of all i'd like to just talk about why we're talking about this and this is obviously to protect the privacy of students when they're in the restrooms one of the things that we have been looking at as ways to look at the physical facilities that we currently have and how they might be retrofitted to provide more privacy for students and then we also have an estimate on what the cost estimate would be to provide additional human resources to monitor student safety or privacy in hallways or traffic to and from restrooms and we have also developed and communicated procedures regarding the use of restrooms that the board has had access to not the restrooms the procedures and then just as a note that these procedures have been communicated to administrators through professional development training and then the board had asked for information about the types of accommodations that students receive whether it's medical safety or other for the use of restrooms so to start off with the first would first couple of items the estimate for retrofitting bathroom facilities to ensure greater privacy mr ken hicks will provide this information thank you very much madam president members of the board and just looking at our restrooms we have over 1600 restrooms or fixtures within our district but just looking at groups at the school level we have about 161 groupings of restaurant restrooms that have multiple fixtures in all of the locations and so looking at if we were able to reconfigure and look at it the option two that was put before the governing board to reduce out and take out all of the fixtures the urinal fixtures and then extend the the doorways which would require some metal doors and frames to extend to increase privacy within those would be about sixty thousand dollars is the estimate we have to do that if we did that now there's a caveat we have not researched the ada requirements and other health code requirements of the number of fixtures on every facility there are health code requirements of number of fixtures you have based on your occupancy and anticipated occupancy and such and so our facilities director has started looking into that and has not got a response back on that so that is why um if i looked and said could we take one of those groupings and do this modification so it would be only one at every heist at every elementary and then one per building at the high school so that would create approximately only 43 instead of 161 groupings to kind of whittle it down that would be around 2.5 million dollars to make that modification and then the other cost requested for me to look at was to if we had a restroom monitor um if we paid that person on a 190 say 97 day calendar at the minimum wage knowing that minimum wage is going to go up in january since that is the one thing that's tied to inflation will guarantee to always go up and so um just estimating um what that would be the second half of the year um the total cost is around with benefits for a fully um fully benefited person full fte there's about 30 a little over 32 000 a year for that position total cost of the district that's not that's salaries the arizona state retirement and also the fica as well as the medical benefits also following that same lineage of one um one per k-8 um and then at the high school putting one at every one of the one building per building would be 43 of those which would cost about 1.3 million if you only did one per site it's about eight hundred thousand so eight hundred thousand one percent one point three million if we did added a little bit more for each of the buildings at the high school level and that was just my own editorial cost of adding the high school and there was no reasoning behind that except for just wanted to provide one thank you mr hicks the and we can come back and take questions the next one was procedures for students who request to who request assistance with bathroom use and when we talk about requesting assistance there as i mentioned are multiple categories there's could be for medical reasons it could be for feelings of feeling safe as they need to use the restrooms it could include being allowed to leave class a couple minutes early there could be some some emotional issues with using the bathrooms in public where they're allowed to have an accommodation to leave early or be late or whatnot and then any mixed gender type accommodations and so those those procedures have been provided by the board i think they're in the word packet but basically to start off with if a parent or guardian or a student presents to administration a request for assistance the administration will meet with the student and the parent to make sure that both are part of this plan they will develop a personalized plan including available options to use other restrooms such as the health office it could be a private single use restroom the communication with staff to make sure that there's an awareness that if a student is out of class early for whatever reason that they know that they have permission to do so so communication and then obviously the monitoring of the plan and then these plans would be reviewed regularly to make sure that they're working or that they need to be revised it's important to know that every employee currently is responsible for student safety at a school and that includes monitoring restrooms and locker rooms employees and students must report any misuse abuse or misbehavior in and around restrooms or locker rooms and then if if that's the case then those reports would be investigated just like any other report of misconduct and then regarding the meeting with administrators last week there was a full all administrator meeting and these procedures were shared with the administrators and then the question was about the accommodations the number of accommodations that are being provided four restrooms and we have collected that data and dr pauline will share that information thank you madam president members of the board dr kelson cabinet um dr dean and i did reach out to our principals who you know you supervise different principles and to get an estimated number of of how many students are on you know a commission plan and um for the medical category probably about 27 students across the district k-12 for safety plan about eight about eight students across the district and for gender identity about seven across the district k-12 those are the ones that have approached and made a plan so with that information we're open to any questions from the board i'm sorry could you repeat those numbers again yes the first number is 27 the second number was eight second number her third number was seven what were the the 27 was uh for medical like an iep or or uh health and safety or health plan second category was for uh safety that was eight and the third was for gender identity and that was seven okay thank you you're welcome dr kellis when you were going over the the safety plan you you quoted it i think correctly however in print for the step two um the school administration will meet with the student or parent or guardian but you stated and uh ms desmore thank you for that clarification it is the intent that whenever this plan is developed is done with both students and their parents or guardians right but in print it's ore we will correct that thank you okay so do we currently do we currently have students using restrooms based on their chosen identity not their biological identity madame president miss jaffen yes so if i don't want to use the restroom with a biological male i have to get my parents to sit down and meet with an administrator to come up with a plan madam president miss chaffin if you and your parents would like to meet with administration to discuss the uh challenge that you have or the the concern or complaint then yes that would be done with the administration and then so what if we have i don't know ninety of of our pers ninety percent of our students asking for individual bathroom plans and we've got forty five percent of those who are you know being released from class early third period and then 45 percent of those who are late to fourth period we've got a ton of students wandering around the halls how how do we anticipate to monitor that madam president miss chaffin right now with our current numbers we are not seeing that volume and right now the plans that are being developed are definitely manageable so as far as the what ifs if we had that many then we would have to regroup but we're not seeing that happening right now so what would you say what would you say to those parents who bring up the loudoun county virginia incident where there was a boy who identified as a girl on two separate occasions in two separate instances and sexually assaulted a young female in the restroom at one high school and then identified as a girl went into the women's restroom and continued to sexually assault another girl um what would you say to those concerns madame president chaffin the details of that incident there's many details i think you gave a brief summary there were other details of that case that are specific to that case as we have included in the plan that we do not tolerate the misuse of restrooms and what happened in lounge county could happen in any restroom across the america america schools airports movie theaters anywhere where there is ill intent and misbehavior so as it says on the plan that any misuse or abuse or misbehavior would be should be reported we still have boys restrooms and girls restrooms and if students are inappropriately using or accessing the restroom then there are consequences to that so we we really can't do anything until something has already happened and what about locker rooms what if i am in a pe class and i do not feel comfortable what if females or males don't feel comfortable undressing in front of someone of the who is of a different biological sex madam president miss chaffin um just to clarify your first statement that we can't do anything until something happens is incorrect we do have as i stated in the plan that every employee is responsible for monitoring the safety of students on campus including restrooms and so that is preventative as far as students in locker rooms this these procedures also apply to locker rooms and individual plans can be made i have a question so um so we have seven seven students right now with plans and that's the circumstance of a potentially a biologically male student using a female bathroom and a biologically female student using a male bathroom right madame president that is correct okay so um and it looks like just based on this plan here you're saying that um you know the step one would be the parent or guardian um needs to be involved and requesting a conference to have that happen i'm assuming so not everyone is just randomly using whatever bathroom i'm correct madam president that is correct okay so what if and again honoring the rights of of everyone and looking out for the safety and discomfort of everyone what if you have a student who say feels uncomfortable going into a bathroom where they know a student of a different biological sex is going into that same bathroom and they feel uncomfortable with it but they they don't necessarily have the opportunity to tell their parent hey because this is happening at my school can i have a plan to go to the nurse's office if i want to or you know what i'm saying to where i don't know that we should require and i don't know because i again i it's new area as far as the legalities and everything of it but i feel like we need to make sure all of our students are comfortable and if there is a student who maybe witnesses another student that's not that identifies with a different gender than their the bathroom and they don't want to go in there they shouldn't feel forced to or feel like that's their only option because they haven't had a conference i feel like we should be able to just in general allow if a student doesn't feel comfortable going in there then if they want to use the nurse's bathroom then that should be like no questions asked they should be able to do that so they're comfortable because they're not going to be able to in the moment say oh i i got to talk to my parents about having a conference madam president i would agree with you 100 percent that no student will be will be denied access to a restroom where they feel private fill the need for privacy and i would confidently say that anytime a student goes to the nurse and asks the nurse to use the restroom that they would not be turned away from using a restroom in the nurse's office if this becomes a norm i mean they're they're if the student's in a little bit of a crisis right there and needs to use it right away then we're not going to ask to have a conference with a parent but if this is something that the student feels like there's a need for ongoing and continuous then it would be required that there's a meeting with the parents to work out this plan so an ongoing issue could just mean they know that there's maybe a student on their campus who's transgender and uses their same bathroom they would have to have their parents come in and have a meeting to get them excused from using their right their their bathroom that they had been using so they could go to a nurse's office to use the bathroom madam president with such any time a plan is developed it would be developed with both the student and the parent i i don't know i i think we might want to consider changing that step one only because um i mean i underst i don't know i'm torn on it because there could be several students who maybe you guys are going to have meetings all the time then you know if there's students that say i just don't i i want to have privacy or i don't feel comfortable being a a girl in a bathroom where there could be a boy or being a boy in the bathroom where there could be a girl coming in and that maybe is that's unfamiliar to them and their family or uncomfortable um that they should without causing a big thing of maybe parents taking off work or having a huge meeting to say hey can i just if you know they're not telling people they can't go in the bathroom they're just saying i want to go into a bathroom where you know the door goes all the way down or i can shut it or whatever whether it be a staff restroom or a nurse's bathroom that that should be allowed and then in regard to um on this valley vista plan as far as delete the urinals patch walls i don't i think that's a lot of wasted money to spend when you can i don't know why you have we would have to rip the urinals out i think that again looking at the comfort level of all students because you know we all have different opinions and different lifestyles and i don't think one lifestyle should trump another and there's the truth of the matter is there's going to be kids that are uncomfortable and that's that's okay for them and i don't want anybody to feel um at a disadvantage if they say they don't feel comfortable so as far as again using those two other options for bathrooms if we were to retrofit um you know adding the the doors that go all the way down in the stalls as an option i think would provide some privacy for students that feel they need it but then as far as the monitors 32 000 per position that's an awful lot of money um when we have students or the earth teachers the expectation it'd be in between like passing periods and things they're supposed to be in the halls kind of monitoring student behavior so if i'm outside my classroom and and that's the bathroom then i just watch it you know i and it's it's it's not like a because you were saying as far as to miss schaffen's point of you know doing something when it's too late and you had mentioned well everyone's responsible kind of for watching we can say all of our staff are responsible for student behavior but we know we have student behavior problems so i think i don't think we can we can be as hands off with it and just assume that if something happens we'll report it i feel like because of you know times are changing and and now we know we have um transgender students that are using bathrooms that they identify with which could cause some discomfort for some students that we need to be more deliberate maybe in our planning of not necessarily hiring people at 32 000 but just again if i'm that's the bathroom and this is my classroom i'm just watching the bathroom so and then to that point so during passing periods students can feel like okay if i go in this bathroom especially before we get the retrofit done if that's what we do um i know that if i'm if i'm uncomfortable if another student comes in who's not who identifies differently with a bathroom then um there's a staff person there like maybe that will give them a feeling of security or safety and i don't want to speak to it too long because everyone's different and to one to some people they could say that's ridiculous why are people upset well that's some kid's realities just like i mean it goes both ways so again honoring the position of all students i feel like um we have to be mindful of that and so that in between passing periods someone's watching but if someone has to go the bathroom in the middle of class then i think because of i think we need to be flexible in there's a student knowing okay no one's watching that bathroom my teacher's not watching like they normally do i'm going up to the nurse's office we can't have nursing staff turning students away or saying no you have to go to the other bathroom we have to make sure the message is clear that it's allowed madam president yes um so lots of comments to respond to as far as ripping out all the urinals um one proposal could be that there's one modified restroom at a in a building or where students know that okay if i really want that privacy this bathroom has the the all the way to the floor and almost the ceiling doors um in both the boys and the girls bathrooms um the urinals could be taken on just the one bathroom because they secret to all who don't use the boys restroom there are no partitions um on the urinals but you could just choose not to use them if you were uncomfortable that's correct and so those could be those could stay there as far as the cost for the the doors and the the partitions um the sixty thousand dollars could be reduced by uh minimizing the scope of the of the retrofit as far as teacher monitoring of hallways yes that is an ongoing expectation for all of our schools is that during passing periods referring to middle schools and high schools who have passing periods um that yes that there are teachers in the hallways that they're monitoring to guarantee that every teacher is going to be stepping outside their door there might be a student who's asking the teacher some questions after class they will try very diligently to assist the student and know that they need to be out monitoring as far as a restroom monitor the the position that mr hicks mentioned that was a suggestion certainly not something that would make or break the plan because as you mentioned all employees are responsible for student safety everywhere on campus there are opportunities to monitor students not just in the bathrooms but in the cafeterias the playgrounds the hallways everywhere and we take that that responsibility seriously um so yes as far as monitoring the restrooms as part of the responsibility of the staff and it's not just a teacher's responsibility for the students the safety of students it's everybody's responsibility um that would definitely as it mentions in the procedures is part of the plan so these procedures basically speak to to students um who are not transgender um we couldn't create procedures for students who choose the transgender lifestyle president miss jeffen just for clarification these procedures are not for any particular group of students any demographic of students this would be for any student for whatever reason is requesting an accommodation it's just cut sorry go ahead you go ahead okay i was just going to say it kind of reads like cisgender students have to go out of their way to make sure that they're comfortable and most students don't care what particular lifestyle anyone chooses like i don't care what you can identify whatever you want to don't really care live your life but most a lot of students do not feel comfortable and i'm sure they're students in our schools who are using restrooms not with their biological sex that administration and parents don't know about um i guess it just seems to me like we're having to cater to one small group of students the cisgender students are going to have to go through this whole process just to make sure that they can use a restroom without having to be in front of somebody of the opposite biological sex but that's assuming that that that that that person hasn't already made accommodations you're assuming that the other person has not made accommodations are you talking about are you talking about the transgender student yes so if a transgender student gets accommodation to go into the opposite sex bathroom so now we have cisgender students who are going to counter that to go to a private restroom it just it seems kind of complicated it seems pretty simple to me they can they ask her transgender whoever has asked for an accommodation through the parent and there's the procedure has the district received any complaints from anybody regarding this procedure about a student going in inappropriately to the bathroom or locker or whatever madame president miss grant um that's a impossible question has the district hypothetically the if any individual in the district has received a complaint i can tell you that the superintendent's office has not received any complaints about this um as far as as has a teacher received a complaint has a custodian the district is everybody so i i would i would has that made it to the superintendents uh madame president mrs grant no it has not okay thank you well maybe it hasn't made its way to the district office because people just don't know that it's happening on a regular basis maybe you can always assume but maybe maybe people just haven't been made aware people like who maybe haven't been made aware maybe but you said earlier that most students really don't care so most students probably don't go home and tell their parents oh by the way so if there is a student that is uncomfortable i'm sure they would have i would assume they've told their parent and it's not been i don't know if a principal we haven't surveyed the principles to ask them but if there's a problem i would like to clarify that most students probably don't care about somebody's choices but they do care they might care when they have to use a restroom with somebody of a different biological sex like they i mean they don't care what you do as long as i don't have to use the same restroom and as you do whatever you want to do but then when it starts coming to them using the biological the restroom with somebody from a different biological sex that would make them uncomfortable because then it affects them and again we're going to assume that i i think according to all of this these students the transgenders etc have asked for accommodations and i don't know if there's other students out there that have never asked for an accommodation maybe but i don't think they want to bring attention i mean there's a whole lot of other things we're going down a very slippery slope right now i'm not i think we could what if forever and a lot of what-ifs can happen today and it has nothing to do with um that person's choice of life it can happen just because so this is a restroom and locker room safety plan um so getting away just from the gender piece for a moment yep it in step three we're talking about employees and students must report misuse abuse or misbehavior in restrooms or locker rooms to the school administration how are those things being handled right now um potentially for bullying or vaping or maybe some other inappropriate activity that's going on in the restroom spitfalls i don't know something ripping out sinks tick-tock challenge right madam president miss densmore per the discipline matrix there are different violations of of behaviors so depending on what the violation is if it's bullying we have a bullish bullying consequence if it is destruction of property then there's a vandalism consequence the discipline matrix outlines multiple pages of behaviors that those behaviors could apply to and that isn't necessarily specific to the bathroom but anywhere if it's vaping the same thing tobacco all those would fall within the designated discipline category but do we have a schedule where some staff members are really truly monitoring those restrooms or you know those hiding spots where things tend to happen madame president densmore i think it would be dependent on school by school generally if you look at the lower grades they're the students walking online escorted by a teacher from place to place as you get older into the middle schools and the high schools um typically the general supervision is um is assigned for before and after school lunch time there are duties that teachers have they tend to rotate those then or depends on the school okay um but as far as one of those assigned duties being the restrooms i would say probably not but that would be the general you're in charge of this hallway you're in charge of that hallway for supervising that would be dependent upon each school's plan okay in regard to the locker rooms um again not violating anyone's being careful not to violate anyone's rights or putting restrictions on anyone how does that look as far as if [Music] male or female identify as one or the other they're in a locker room with their peers and you're disrobing we can't make them [Music] separate out to go somewhere else but we can't that how is that handled then madame president with regard to locker rooms i think you would see that there is definitely some pre-planning that happens and that we consider the privacy of all students in that plan probably have some very close communications with our attorney on that one okay so what does that look like when you say um each student has a plan can you kind of give me a little bit uh more specific what that what that might look like man president chef and i would say right now with the plans that we currently have in place that schools have with the various categories that were mentioned with medical safety and and gender they want to use the nurse's office and then for those monitoring locker rooms are the pe teachers responsible for monitoring locker rooms am i president miss chaffin yes yes so they're the ones um when they get these requests the pe teachers especially have to accommodate them whoever it is in their locker room and while they're monitoring it the pe teachers are basically kind of enforcing these uh procedures in the locker rooms and president yes the pe teacher if it's a pe class is the adult supervis responsible for supervision of the safety of students if it's a athletic team then the coaches but the employees of the district the adult employees of the district are responsible for the safety of students in the locker rooms on the court anywhere but yes absolutely in the locker rooms and then how how do the pe teachers feel if there is a male pe teacher and he has a biological female and this biological female is trying to just stay under the radar just really wants to identify as a male just trying to keep their head down what if that puts the male pe teacher in a compromised position where he doesn't feel comfortable being monitored over this biological female memphis chaffin as as i mentioned just minutes ago that plan would have to be very carefully drafted with the assistance of the attorney and typically we would make sure that the rights and privacies and the supervisory responsibilities and comforts of the staff are all taken into account just a couple of quick questions dr kellis um we don't have locker rooms in elementary schools correct um madame president of source think bill i'm looking tour the person who knows every inch of this district mr hicks i would say no but as soon as i say no there's going to be one somewhere not that quick but i would say no no so we are looking at the high schools for this and in the high schools speak into it you had just said miss chapman we have not only male high school pe coaches and female high school pe coaches so i would like to think that they would be part of that plan that if the male pe coach was not comfortable in supervising or that particular area i believe i hope that he would be he would be able to team up with that female high school coach in order to alleviate anything like that well my question to dr kellis mr hicks what would that look like because typically the men's locker room was over here the women's locker room was over here the boys were over here dressing out and then the girls are over here dressing out so if you have a female who identifies as a male and that male pe teacher is uncomfortable but this person has an accommodation to where they can undress in the male locker room i want to make sure our staff members are protected too because i mean anybody can make any sort of accusation madam president miss chef and you're correct and as i mentioned that that would be a significant part of the plan and just to clarify also there are girls and boys locker rooms absolutely for pe and there are also athletic locker rooms that are very closely and separated from but close to the the pe locker rooms so there are two boys locker rooms two girls locker rooms and there could be some some greater privacy it could also be done in the nurse's office it could be done in other private areas in the area typically as as you mentioned most people don't want to draw attention to themselves and they want to [Music] have the the discrete protections of their own privacy and are very willing to find private areas where they're not making other people uncomfortable or drawing any attention to themselves i i appreciate that i just want to make sure that our staff members are protected too yes and if our staff members are uncomfortable then we would do whatever we could to accommodate them also yes i guess i just want to just want to add that this is a not about because i miss grant had referenced just as far as maybe things happening or whatever i this isn't about criminal behavior or criminalizing this whole situation this is just speaking to discomfort people's perception is their reality and i wouldn't want a transgender student going to school in fear with anxiety of going into a bathroom where they feel they could be bullied or harmed and i don't want a cisgender student going into a bathroom where they have in their mind a real fear of maybe being a little girl taking her clothes off or rosin right next to another male student who comes in just going to the bathroom but for that child it's upsetting to her and that's her reality and whether you're transgender and worried about being harmed in the bathroom or a little susie going in and feeling uncomfortable knowing there could be a boy right next to her it's very real to them it's going to impact their ability to learn and focus in school and that should be our focus is making sure our kids are getting educated properly and i just feel like we need to be sensitive all the way around so it's not like oh we need to do all these things to avoid these headline awful things from happening it also just comes down to everyone feeling comfortable everyone feeling like they have an option available to them without judgment and not being because i to be honest dr kell is my my biggest fear is if a student if a cisgender student feels uncomfortable and asked to go to the nurse's office they're going to be told no or they're going to be told to wait and i just want to make sure just as everyone else has opportunity to choose their bathrooms that means everybody because i don't want anyone feeling uncomfortable for one second because again it's their reality we can all say that the statistics say it's not going to happen it doesn't happen in our district and we can firmly believe that our schools are safe but for that one student who you don't know what goes on behind closed doors in their home or their traumas or whatever they may have gone through that that's their reality or that's their biggest fear i feel like if it's just a little accommodation to allow them to go into a bathroom that makes them feel safe if it's a nurse's office then that's the least we can do so they can focus on their academics and their social growth when they're here you know it shouldn't be a headline issue or a criminal issue it's just everyone feeling safe and comfortable regardless of what gender they identify with madam president yes absolutely as i mentioned earlier no student will be denied access to the private use of a bathroom okay thank you i just have a follow-up question it's a follow-up to ms densmore's comment about safety and vaping etc what are the sro's roles in all of this especially now in middle schools how will they fit in with this guideline madame president grant the sros are an exceptional resource that we have resource school resource officer but they're an exceptional addition to our our schools and provide extraordinary assistance to the administration to the teachers and they develop amazing relationships of trust with students so that they can assist them but the role of the sro with the bathroom usage would only rise to the level if there is a crime committed but they are also part of the adult supervision on the campus they also monitor hallways and inside outside corridors and so as another adult on campus they would share that responsibility well i'm sure they hear i mean when we're talking about bathrooms we could be talking about kids going in trying to vape or smoke a cigarette or other things so i'm sure that that's where the sro would hear from other kids the rumblings of keep an eye on that bathroom or whatever that's a good one to go into [Laughter] so i know this was an information item but we did talk about some things that at some point would we'd have to take action on if we wanted to move forward as far as any construction or retrofitting current bathrooms things like that so at this point dr kellis i guess we would just determine whether the board wants to either have a continuation of discussion specific to construction or an action item at some point or what were your thoughts on the follow-up to this item madame president thank you for that clarifying question this absolutely is an information item to provide the board the opportunity to discuss the matter together and to ask questions moving forward the intent is that if there is direction tonight we will proceed but we could bring back recommendations based on the conversation that we've had this evening for a future agenda item with possible action i think i've um and i don't know what the rest of the board thinks but as far as i know i'm not interested in spending 2.5 million dollars on renovations for bathrooms um especially like for you know patching urinal hall ripping your arms out maybe if we start with um again for making all everyone feel comfortable maybe one bathroom i think dr kellis you and i had a discussion about um starting maybe with one on a campus that has the stahls go all the way down might be a start to get some information on maybe what that would cost as again a starting factor maybe starting at our middle schools high schools um i don't know i just like to get maybe more kind of now narrow type pricing on what that would look like and present we can bring that information back i i agree as far as the getting the pricing on something like ms pritchard said i guess my bigger concern is if we start having all of the restrooms completely closed off what that looks like in the opposite you know the safety perspective if someone gets locked in there we there's no way to access so if they someone barricades themselves in because they're having you know a mental issue whatever uh what does that look like so do we do i mean if you looked at the actual materials themselves or i mean do we have doors that can be unlocked from the outside madam president miss densboro as you can imagine this is not a unique question to dicer this is a national topic it happens with the new construction of airports movie theaters college dorms and as you consider the market yes there are products that are now very explicitly designed for this type of of accommodation as with our current bathroom stalls right if there's an emergency happening then whatever steps are necessary to take we will make sure that there's we will do what we have to do right all right anything else all right thank you for the information next we'll move to g3 school report west point elementary thank you madam president uh members of the board members of cabinet dr pulling will introduce this item mr president members of the board and cabinet it's my pleasure to introduce miss amy michaels principal west point elementary good evening madam president members of the board dr kellis cabinet and community as stated i am amy michael so i am currently the interim principal at west point elementary and been serving in that capacity since the end of august i would like to have my team you heard them do a little hoop and holler if they could stand i'll introduce them as well i'm joined tonight now they're embarrassed by miss jennifer evans our assistant principal laura orcad our tls teresa de long our our fourth grade team lead lisa salas our first grade team lead and heather berner our second grade team lead so i appreciate them being here to support tonight so at west point we currently have 706 wildcats on campus our colors are navy and silver and we are very proud um to offer the arts academy you saw a little picture of that this morning or this afternoon when our dancers were performing and we that is one of our pride and joys at west point as we've talked about and discussed opportunities that we've taken this year and needed areas of growth we've narrowed those down into three areas so first is academic growth and achievement our student behavior management on campus and building instructional practices so i just want to talk briefly about each one of those so as we analyzed our azmerit data from last year we noticed that there was going to be a need to focus on our proficiency levels in both ela and in math as well as our student growth levels while our growth was actually really in good shape our proficiency levels were needing some significant intervention so our goal was all has been all year to reduce our minimally proficient students and help them move along in that proficiency so to do that we have worked to establish an instructional support team which we are thrilled as a as a title one school we have two reading interventionists on campus that are full-time we have two full-time math interventionists and we also have a full-time data specialist and so that team has been instrumental in moving learning forward at west point not only are they working with students right to get them moving forward and making growth but they've also been providing their expertise with our teaching staff to help again build that instructional practice on campus we've also been able to have a lot of district support um our focus with that district support and that's with ms dana dana noble and her team has been it's very hard to not say dana k um has been to focus on our third grade reading and eighth grade math and while both have made improvements through that support process we were thrilled to see that our third grade reading scores um the growth level was the highest in the district when we looked at benchmark one to benchmark two another area of academic growth and achievement has been what we call our pick six so each teacher on campus has identified six students that are within that minimally proficient category and um they have committed to moving those students forward so there's a variety of ways that they've done that but um tier two interventions um working with them independent individually so that pick six has been um an area again that we've that we've been to target our growth and achievement so the second point is student behavior management so as we came into the year this one honestly cut us a little bit off guard but i think you've heard throughout the school year that behave that student behavior has been a concern across campuses not only at district the dysart district but across the country and so are we are not unique to that our students we see them struggling in the classroom to engage in their learning we're seeing adverse behaviors that have been a challenge and so while our referral data really has stayed consistent we're seeing that some specific behaviors have intensified so disruption defiance and disrespect in the classroom have been kind of what we're targeting so to do that we've revisited our sparks if you've ever been to west point we have spark logos throughout and spark stands for being safe productive always responsible respectful and safe and so we've revisited these core values with our staff and our entire staff to make sure that we are having common and consistent language we are teaching those expectations as well to our students and then re-teaching and sometimes teaching again we've instituted an adult mentor program for students who are struggling and so they're connected with somebody outside of their classroom teacher again we want to focus on relationships and connections and helping them feel safe on campus and so that extra person that extra familiar face and happy face is one way to do that we have a positive referral system where teachers can nominate students for exhibiting spark on campus and so administration will have that positive phone call home to do a little celebration for that referral and then we are thrilled within the last month we've been able to hire for our sst that's the student support technician and she's already made a world of difference on campus with some of our students who have we've been seeing some high behavior needs i'm so that person that's dedicated to checking in on behavior interventions has been really crucial for campus and then our third was building instructional practices so we've been uh very stro focused on west ed protocol and so when we walk through our classrooms we're gathering data specific to the west ed protocol and then planning professional development based on the needs that we're seeing and the data that it shows um we're also noticed that math scores were a little bit of a were a struggle more than ela from easy merit and so we've utilized again those math interventionists to do some professional development specifically on how to use math manipulatives and that conceptual understanding of math so celebrations arts academy is always the the pride and joy of west point and so whenever i talk about west point with anyone in the community it's always let me talk to you about the arts academy but we're always looking to to grow that which we'll continue to do but we have expanded our dance program to include kindergarten through eighth grade so if you ever want to feel a little joy i would invite you to come see kindergartners in dance class um it is an exceptional experience um our play for the year is going to be little mermaids so you'll be receiving invitations that is the end of april and then we also have a before school dance club and a choir club and so those are just ways that we we continue to roll out and expand our arts academy the second celebration is our mtss routines so we've again had a lot of support from district on how to just have a separate set of eyes look at our systems and routines and how can we improve those to make sure that we're using our time wisely and so rti routines have been realigned and and we have a team in place that's really focused student by student on the interventions and be able to track their progress and then we're focusing on tiers of instruction and how we can really help support teachers in lesson planning as well for the uh to to to improve those instructional practices and then just back to data driven decisions everything we do is based on what we see and what the numbers tell us to do so those professional development opportunities are planned from data as well as our tier two groups our win groups so you've talked about when so we also have a win time on campus of what i need and so those groups are planned by what the students truly do need as we're looking forward and the focus for the year and actually moving on to next year again it's those three core areas so student learning and achievement spark school expectations and building our instructional practices so we believe at west point that change happens by degree and so we're taking step by step to make those changes that we need on campus so that we are having a positive impact on our student achievement we want to continue to foster a love of learning that i feel it was lost a little bit during the pandemic when students were at home on a computer and so fostering that love of learning is important to us at west point we also want to refer back to our mission and vision which is to have authentic learning experiences and then continue to expand our arts academy by really looking at what's happening inside the classroom during the day can we have more arts enriched opportunities for students so again with spark we're just going to continue to focus on that tier one what is our core expectations having that common language and consistency on campus and then building our instructional practices you've heard in previous presentations about the plc plus so how can we um help provide structures within our plcs where the plus is also valued which is that adult learning opportunity so with that do you have any questions for me thank you very much it was a great presentation and i appreciate you taking the time to outline your interventions that you're implementing so thank you thank you anyone else just just really quick i'm glad that you are utilizing the win intervention uh like i said i really liked it over at rancho so i appreciate you using it there tell me just a little bit more about that adult mentor program i know you team up one of the students with an adult what does that look like a little bit more well it really will depend on each student's need so students might be recommended for that program for a variety of reasons maybe maybe they come from a single-parent household and so they need that mentorship in a different way maybe it's because of behavior adverse behaviors that we're seeing in the classroom so the expectation is that one to two times a week that adult mentor will check in with that student maybe it's before school and they have a standing appointment at their classroom door while they're greeting students to come check in see how their week is doing maybe it's to set goals for their behavior and check in how they've done on those goals and just be that follow through for that student awesome awesome and you had mentioned more arts enriched programs what besides dance and music classes what else is there well we have a vision that arts would be used in ela math science and social studies so for example if it's in the social choice classroom we might make sure that we are incorporating art from the different areas that the students are our genre or air is i'm sorry the areas that they are studying so that that is also part of that arts enriched opportunity for them okay thank you all right thank you thank you all right next we move to information [Laughter] for board monitoring of adopted policies section 10 students 10.0 to 10.34 dr cullis thank you madam president members of the board and members of cabinet dr croto will introduce this item thank you dr kellis madam president members of the board secretary kelly's cabinet and guests tonight we continue with our monitoring of our policies our governing board policies and we bring to you tonight section 10 on students 10.0 through 10.34 and at this time we do not have any changes to that so we'll stand for any questions you may have or comments any questions or comments from the board all right thank you next we move to item five board bond dream adopted policy section nine instruction nine point two five to nine point five zero first read of an additional update to policy dr kellis thank you madam president members of the board of members of cabinet um this specific policy 9.29 is brought to the board with a modification and is presented as a first read the added language says permission to volunteer in the dysart unified school district may be revoked or suspended due to current misconduct or unreported previous misconduct happy to answer any questions again this is the first read any questions i appreciate the language being added thank you i have a question regarding um how we're defining misconduct does that need to be outlined or defined in some way i'm asking like an open question do you think that that should be in the governing board policy or in the procedure i don't know that's why i'm asking yeah well either i think i'm from what i remember i mean normally the procedure tells us how to carry out the policy correct so it perhaps makes sense to have it in um i guess i don't have a preference either way i just feel like it should be in there um for when it's time to take action on it madam president just as an fyi typically when we reference misconduct um there are multiple policies that refer to staff conduct which would apply to volunteers so staff conduct misconduct it's there's ethics there's there's multiple pieces and parts that could be included within a definition of misconduct but generally it would apply to the same [Music] expectations as our employees when it comes to conduct so we can before it comes back for action you can maybe attach that whether it be in the policy or the procedure for review madam president yes we will include that in our procedures thank you thank you any other questions i'm a little confused in the the procedure is the policy just to clarify more of the procedure because the procedure says oh heck i just lost it any volunteer whose actions are not in the best interest of the school or students will not be permitted to continue to volunteer unprecedented grant yes that is covered in procedure but it is codified in policy with this recommended language i think for something as big as potentially revoking a volunteer badge i think we should not leave anything i think we should we should not have it remain like a subjective i think it's misconduct you know i like that we're gonna be more clear because i think it would be a big um a big deal to revoke a volunteer badge so i wouldn't want it to just be a a subjective type thing i think it'd be good to define exactly what that is whether it be pulling like you had mentioned dr kalas if we have language about misconduct or staff conduct already then perhaps we use the same thing you know why couldn't we just use that sentence the one that you just read yeah because i think it's still subjective you'll never be able to cover every every type of misconduct i don't think it's every misconduct i think it's what we put in staff already so what is good for our staff should be good for our employee for our volunteers and if we already have defined that within our staff policies then i think it's an easy fix unless there's a reason why you don't want that attached no i just as the best interest of the district and that they would be let go so well what if we what if in the procedure we include that verbiage like all school volunteers are expected to adhere to the same conduct that we expect from our staff if i'm a volunteer i'm not going to go and look that up so we'll just attach it just like we attach our staff conduct then madam president miss chapman miss grant um the reference at the bottom of the policy makes has links to procedures we could include the links to the staff conduct policies and procedures as well but we could also provide some additional language in the procedures that is copied and pasted from from other policies thank you all right next we move to item six review of policy 2.17 agenda preparation and dissemination dr kellis madam president members of the board and members of cabinet at the request of a board member this policy 2.17 is presented for discussion and thank you dr kellis and the reason i had asked for uh this to be an agenda item um is quite honestly i feel that we are not adhering to this particular policy and um as it regards to the second paragraph for 2.17 says the superintendent or board members may place items on the agenda any board member desiring to place an item on the agenda will notify the superintendent of the board president in writing of the particular item of business at least five working days before the meeting um i feel that we are adding items to the agenda um one maybe two days before the actual meeting and quite honestly i don't think we're adhering to this we have had a couple of instances where an agenda item has been added on a monday and we've been asked to review it and act upon it on a wednesday board meeting one of the things and this just came to mind when we were talking at our last board meeting and quite honestly i know that consent agenda items may be removed for discussion and we can talk about it just like we did tonight we removed something from the consent agenda and we'll talk about it during our action discussion area um but i'm just wondering and that's two separate issues right there but i'm just wondering just so all board members can have the opportunity to review it even further like for instance the last board meeting ms chapman had pulled the expense vouchers for us to discuss a particular book that was purchased under the expense at voucher and i had no clue what that book was and quite honestly i probably would have looked it up if i had um proper notice because i couldn't make an informed decision on that particular book to see if in my mind i would have voted for it or against it but i don't think that we are following some of the things in our own policies now i know we can change our policies at any time but quite honestly the one especially with the five days five working days before the meeting um it would give the entire board the opportunity to actually review that item instead of just one or two board members so i would like your feelings on this so i'll give just a recent example that seems very appropriate right now on item g5 the volunteer policy that we just reviewed those were suggestions that i made during the last meeting and i assumed would be presented to the board instead it was brought forth in the consent agenda and i asked for that to be moved yesterday okay so is that within the 24 hours or outside of the 24 hours well when you're moving consent agenda items it doesn't have to be 24 hours before you can move it 24 hours before or you can move it during the meeting with the majority if the majority approves right so again i was just going back to the book thing regarding you were the only one as far as i know you were the only one that knew the information regarding that restorative justice whatever the name of that book was or there was two of them i believe teaching tools and then in education or focus on education and um so i understand what you're saying miss jensmore but um in order for all of us to make i mean it was more like it was being zeroed down to a certain thing and quite honestly i would like to have more information before walking in to the board meeting if i'm supposed to zero in on something that detail does that make sense um kind of i i honestly i sometimes i don't decide to pull it until the last minute other times i just kind of want to deep dive into it and then i don't think i owe anybody an explanation as to why i want to move things well wasn't that on that was on a that was a consent agenda that was consent agenda item that i moved to action discussion yeah that wasn't a new um that wasn't a new request for a new agenda item less than five days prior that was moving something from consent to action right so technically we all had the information and we're all responsible for reviewing the the information provided in the agenda yes and i spent hours looking through those expense reports line by line as we've all seen that was regard with regards to the ex the consent agenda item um but we did have and like i said once it was gelling in my brain during the meeting i'm going okay so we even had an instance last year where something was added to action and discussion that was put on the agenda two days prior um and i've actually just had a conversation with this with dr kellis because i didn't realize that i had not requested an agenda item and so i requested it 24 hours before thinking um within law is is that correct by law we have up to 24 hours before the meeting to post it so i went oh i forgot to ask for this item and i forgot to submit it i wonder if i can get it submitted 24 hours before as long as i make that request now to my understanding and my correspondence with dr kellis and miss brown that as long as it's able to be posted 24 hours then it is within law to add it up until 24 hours before consent or action or adding anything adding anything so it says any board member desiring to place an agenda item on the agenda will notify the superintendent or board president in writing of the particular item of business at least five working days before the meeting so do we need to change the policy to coincide with the law i'm just telling you that that says five working days and yes we can change our policies at any time but as like i said as i was thinking a little bit further when we were talking about the book then i started thinking a little bit further that one particular item that was added to the agenda on a monday and we voted on it on that wednesday and i have to say it had to do with policy governance that it was added to the agenda on a monday and we voted on it on a wednesday and that was not five working days before the meeting well there are some instances where we make requests for agenda items and they are denied and so we go back and forth and then two days before sometimes we get them added and sometimes we don't but even when we submit them five days in advance sometimes they don't always get on the agenda can i just clarify as someone who's involved in creating the agenda that i have not denied any board member requests for an agenda item thank you i didn't think you did okay i just wanted to and i never said you did okay no i never missed saying that they've been denied i wasn't denying anybody right and even as board president before i never denied anybody to put something on the agenda but my thing is that if something is added on a monday it's sometimes not going to give us enough time to review it case in point it was the policy governance that was added on a monday we had two brand new board members and we took action on it on wednesday and quite honestly that was not enough time for all of us to digest that particular agenda item so i'm just saying that we need to kind of watch this we need to kind of be careful um but two days prior um yes i understand about the 24 hours but it's really kind of hard for the entire board to know what's going on when only one or two actually know i'm just putting that out there and i know this was an information item we can change our policies to fit the way the agenda is completed do whatever but i just we just need to be careful i think the other thing too is that board members always have the opportunity if they feel like like in your reference to the issue that happened a year ago um if ever there is a feeling of the majority of the board that they don't have enough information to vote we can always move to table and i know i've personally never denied an opportunity having been board president in the past ever denied the opportunity to table an item if it means giving a board member more time to research or consider some action so if ever something happens because it sounds like um there's been some from what little miss schaffen is sharing some maybe circumstances to agenda item requests that have maybe impacted how soon they get on or not that if ever then they get on late i guess just board members knowing that if you feel like hey i this didn't come on until two days prior and i haven't had time to read it then talking to the board about can we table this because i don't have enough information that's just always an option for people too because um like i said i i haven't denied a request so whatever conversations that's happened between the superintendent any board member i may not know i perfect example i didn't know an item was going to be added tonight um you know until after the fact until after a gender review so things happen where maybe you know it's not within that that five day time frame so knowing that things can happen just knowing board members can just you know speak up and ask for more time or more clarification then i would say we need to look at the policy then we can bring it up i mean if you want you can bring it for action we can change the policy is it correct so then um dr kulas that i know that agenda needs to be posted within 24 hours so does that technically mean that legally an agenda item can be added up to that 24-hour mark because as long as we have time to change the agenda then technically it's allowable what by law is this or is that five days in law madam president the five days is district policy that is not in statute and the timeline if the board wants to have well-informed conversations on these topics administration appreciates the time to be able to prepare the information for the board meetings and currently the president and the superintendent meet on fridays to discuss the the agenda so that it can be ready for the board to receive on friday afternoon so the board has plenty of time to review it if you consider the spirit of of transparency we want our public to have full access to board agendas we've been publishing those on mondays so that our community knows that the business of the board is open and transparent and for that reason it's it's posted when it is and when there are changes that doesn't always get communicated out to the general public who think that they have seen the packet when they saw it when it was first published as far as the 24 hours and going right up to the 24 hours just as a note of time that the board meeting starts at 6 pm 24 hours prior to that is 6 p.m offices are closed around 5.

no good evening i'm going to call this meeting to order dr foley roll call please president kaler members of the board please let the record show that all members are present thank you so much we're going to have a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance all right i move that we approve the agenda 2.1 second any comments or questions about the agenda all those in favor aye motion carries 5-0 michelle said yes all right next is superintendent's report dr foley president kaler members of the board we begin tonight with our favorite part which is the points of pride and tonight we have representatives from the district office groups that are going to be recognized tonight so we have several individuals who we are very thrilled to highlight and honor tonight and we have three presenters who will start off tonight i'm going to start with having mom martens begin by presenting good evening president kaler vice president anderson members of the board in our higley community can i ask miss elizabeth cruz to come on up please [Applause] so liz i'm going to give this to you so you could help me hold but here's your certificate and little thank you from us so liz is our hr specialist and she focuses primarily on information systems she joined our team back in july of 2019 as a transfer from bridges she had been working as their hr at pub not hr their admin clerk and she has just been a wonderful addition to the department so i'm just going to share collectively what some of her colleagues shared about her which brought her to us tonight she's a go-getter and from the beginning she has been respected and valued by everyone in our department and at the district office her work ethic and dedication are commendable she is never too busy and always enjoys helping others not only is she a team player she's always willing to lend a hand but she also has made very pardon me has made many individuals feel truly welcomed she's always responsive and thrives to make sure that she does her job and does it well we've been short staffed as many of you know as many of you are representative from the district office for well over a year and she always just makes sure she helps wherever she can and has done multiple roles for at least a year if not a little over the year and she's just been a true professional and we feel lucky to call her our colleague so thank you liz for everything [Applause] you get to take a picture you're not used to this you'll take a picture with the board but would you like to share individuals who are here to support you tonight well i just want to say thank you to the hr team i really appreciate and love working with you guys also the rest of the district office thank you guys all and thank you mom so much for everything [Applause] tyler would you please would you please recognize our next one i will hold all right i have the honor of recognizing the sharon rush camp if you can come up here [Applause] so sharon has asked me to keep this short and brief but i have a couple things to say so first i'll summarize what some of the individuals who recognize sharon said to quote sharon takes on a lot of responsibility as the director of director of finance but she's always has time and attention to help other people she's always making decisions with students first even in the finance department sharon will always treat you with kindness and respect and is a true representation of higgle unified school district a second sharon always has a smile on her face and is very kind to those around her no matter what is going on when a problem arises sharon finds a way to put a positive spin on the situation sharon continuously goes out of her way to help anyone that may need her assistance sharon's quick witted and has a funny sense of midwest humor that makes the finest apartment an enjoyable place to work and i'll also add sharon has provided an invaluable level of commitment to the district and especially in the finance department in her short time being here she has still yet to realize that we are close on saturdays and often has to be kicked off the network by it on holidays and weekends sharon also uh is a proud midwesterner and she has habitually reminds the finest department on how to correctly pronounce such things as calling soda pop and several other midwest sayings so thank you sharon for your outstanding contributions to higley unified school district [Applause] thank you so much [Applause] um i just wanted to thank everybody for coming my husband matt he has supported me for 38 years greatly appreciate that the finance team without you i would not be up here because you guys are a tremendous team always willing to help out and my dear friends dina and louis who dina took me in my very first day here at higley showed me the ropes and greatly appreciate it so [Applause] and sherry well is going to come up here and help us acknowledge our final points of pride tonight kaler members of the board cabinet community this is probably the best time of the year when we can focus on our unsung heroes there are several of them in this room there are three that we're going to acknowledge right now so if you ever wondered why the lights turn on the ac works the water runs ah and the toilets flush there's one individual in this room i want to acknowledge for making sure those things happen and that's mr tim mcdonald [Applause] mr mcdonald is a supervisor of facilities and maintenance this year he has stepped up led a team of skilled tradesmen that includes plumbers electricity electricians hvac individuals painters and the people that fix the random things that go out mr mcdonald leads that team who has been called when a pipe breaks and you have a fountain shooting off the roof of a building on the weekend of course mr mcdonald steps up who gets called when the lift stations overflow in the parking lot and we need crowd pleasers who knows what a crowd pleaser is it's a fancy latrine with music which we got to use for how long tim it was quite a while anyway he tried to make that as pleasant as pos possible so he's an inspirational leader the guys that work under him appreciate his leadership guidance and support so tonight we didn't get you flowers we got you a gift card to get a meal and then also leaders eat last because you're the kind of leader that everybody in this district wants to follow so thank you tim [Applause] stay stay for a picture and then if you want to acknowledge people we forgot to say that tonight he had the opportunity to work on the faucet across the hall that wouldn't quit running so i forgot to tell him we need your services this evening as well okay [Applause] is there anybody in the audience you want to acknowledge um just um it's been a tough couple years and uh i just think if we stay positive and work as a team everything will work out which it has and that's it and thank you thank you [Applause] all right when the rest of us are sleeping soundly in our beds who's on call for our students that are driving around in the middle of the night on a bus mr crosby come down please [Applause] so we have so many examples of how mr crosby steps up there can be a flat there can be a minor accident the bus break gets down and he's there in the middle of the night i have so many examples the past two years have been challenging for transportation across the nation many districts have had to cancel routes leave students stranded without an option to attend school mr crosby would not allow that to happen and had everyone in his department driving buses including himself i know that he's driven close to a hundred plus days himself this school year not every director would do that it's evident that he's created a positive culture where his drivers his bus aides his mechanics and office staff all want to come to work every day it's not unusual for josh to be flipping pancakes cooking burgers and serving his hundred plus staff members there's no way for us to tell you how much we appreciate you thank you josh [Applause] no flowers for you either that may be a burger and a book there you go yep we off center not too bad [Applause] thank you i'll echo what tim says it has been a rough couple years but we are we will get through it we have gotten through it and i just think we've come a long way um i'm 22 years at the higley school district we used to have three governing boards and meet in the library at higley traditional our only school when i started here we had 371 students and we had seven school buses and there are days i wish we were back to that because i knew which i could look at a student and tell them what bus to ride and what stuff they got off and everyone went to higley traditional so no students got lost we only had one school to take them too so we've come a long way but it's amazing to see what the cotton fields and corn fields have become and it's changed a lot there i i can remember seeing coronado elementary school being built from the hda campus because there was nothing else in between the two buildings so it was just open farmland so we've come a long way so thank you so much and thank you all for the award and i look forward to a few more years retirement thank you yeah i think he knows this district better than most of us for sure so if you have questions about anything ask josh all right so our last and individual has literally carried us through the past two years i can't even tell you the number of hours she sat in a conference room with us trying to create plans communicate plans sit on the phone with the department of health come back and counsel us and hold us together that individual is julian fulton please come down julian had numerous people nominate her for this award and i'll read a few of the things that they said about you you have supported advised and really provided all around customer service to our entire district your demeanor is always pleasant your work ethic is second to none and your professional perspective balances the need of our school community with the ever-changing public health expectations or we could say coven right many times we will find her serving in a health office on a campus or behind the scenes doing the work the real work so we respect julian for that the most important thing about julian is she's always smiling she treats everyone with respect and compassion and i've never had her say that's a dumb question right oh it goes without saying she's a class act and we wouldn't have made it through the past two years without you you are wise kind thoughtful and the hardest worker i've ever met thank you [Applause] do you want to talk real quick i bet you do i'm better i can't say what sharon said because i did look over at my husband and say you're not getting me to say that about the 38 years but i love you and my parents are here and my two of my daughters are here so thank you because kind of dawn made a comment earlier and we were first in here about thank you to them because sometimes i spent my own accord so much time the past couple years away from them doing everything but thank you guys too because it's kind of like a second family so everybody has to deal with me on both ends so it works thank you [Applause] thank you to our amazing points of pride winners you are more than welcome to stay for the rest of this evening but we also know you've some of you've been working a very very long day and if you would like to leave at this time please feel free to do so and thank you for coming okay president taylor vice president anderson members of the board the rest of the superintendent report shares some upcoming upcoming events this coming friday we have a superintendent's visit at centennial we have been warned the students want to lead us through a yoga activity so come dressed ready to stretch and enjoy yoga with students if you are able to join as you can see we have several important events coming up over the next month and this is just a snapshot of the many things happening but wanted to put those on your radar for this evening and that concludes the superintendent's report thank you dr foley no board comments tonight i mean i'm sorry board comments that's next oh did you want to speak oh thank you president taylor um i just wanted to um thank the community for we see we received a lot of emails regarding um the sauceman trip to disneyland and the fun that they had and the experience that they had and i just wanted to thank them for sharing that we don't get to see what the kids see we don't get to feel what you feel i wanted to give a great thank you to the chaperones i don't know if it was work for you guys but if it was thank you for going and thank you for the students wanting to become better through this experience and with the new policy change i want to thank you say thank you to all the staff that adjusted to it and did everything that they needed to do to make sure that everything was done right uh i just want to say i attended gilbert's historical museum event on saturday night and i just wanted to say our higley rotc program or higley high rt's program was there were exceptional they were so um nice and helpful and it was just amazing to see that they were so so yes i concur our rotc program is the best in the state so thank you and no request to speak all right we are moving on very quickly we are going to i make a motion to adjourn to executive session pursuant to ars 38-431-0385 discussions or consultations with designated represent representatives of the public body in order to consider its position and instruct its representatives regarding negotiations with employee organizations regarding the salary and benefit package for the 2022-2023 school year second all those in favor aye aye motion carries and we will come back after this executive session did you sleep all right welcome back we are going to move on to consent agenda item i move that we approve consent agenda item 7.1 to 7.14 second any comments questions or concerns all those in favor aye aye motion carries five zero i do want to notate curtis if you could pull up please the gifts and donations i know there were several i want to make sure that we give a thanks to maricopa county for those home tests that we are able to send home with our students in case that they need that our power ad company helped higley with their digital scoring table which is awesome and then santan pto also helped with offense extension at their kindergarten playground so again thank you to all those that gave us gifts and donations okay next on the agenda is 8.1 and we are going to have a presentation on our code of conduct process which will include mr walker and mr larsenheiser good evening president kaler vice president anderson members of the board tonight uh we're excited to come to you and present what the process and help explain to you what the work is going to be doing in looking at our code of conduct and looking at the process you're going to find some similarities between the course guide process and the code of conduct process because there's our goal to create something where we're going to look at it and look every year and on an annual basis review this and so mr walker and myself have been reviewing this process we're going to present it to you james is going to do most of the presentation here about what we're planning to do what we've already started the work we've started when it's going to come back to you as a board and what how we're going to launch it into the 22-23 school year curtis which way do i point it thank you okay sorry it doesn't work okay uh president kaler members of the board so the proposal that we have today for the code of conduct review process consists of some goals to create an annual process to be able to review the code of conduct with a committee and then bring it forward every year and keep a sustainable program that allows for the governing board to be informed of what changes are made to the code of conduct um brought this forth this year because did some research and we found the last time that the code of conduct was actually brought to the board was 2016.

hey all right welcome everyone we'll call the meeting to order seven p.m welcome to the february edition of our school board room we'll start with our roll call adam humpkin tammy hines andrea corey craig meyer scott middle camp yeah lisa schumacher here tyson search here perfect of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice like to welcome everybody to brave the weather this evening and join us and viewing from home in their nice warm cozy house hopefully so thank you for all i mean fortunately the weather was a little scary at first there but i think it led up just enough to get a meeting in so watch it for that correspondence is circulating right now oops i'm sorry i missed one very very important part so uh welcome to all the visitors thank you for again for grading the weather and uh move on to public comments i think we have a couple people would like to call in so let's go ahead and get those out of the way first not out of the way and we'll give them some priorities they have to wait too long again right everybody our comments are good three minutes please thank you my name is tammy filthy i am an art teacher at cmn and um i just wanted to share a few things um it's fairly difficult for me to put in towards what makes a good building level administrator from a teacher's perspective but in my more than 30 years in columbia unit school district i've worked under many principals and assistant principals and in my experience the best of the best put themselves in precarious situations they take a hard stance or what's right they will make unpopular decisions they'll anger some in their efforts to allow teachers to teach in the most productive classrooms and in our current climate with all of its challenges i think it's important that we as a strong united district provide consistent leadership built in people that are determined to do the right thing our building principles psychial and high quality and equitable learning opportunities for our students for me personally the arts are an important part of a well-rounded education that i believe every columbia student deserves that's why it's so important to have administrators like david ackerman who understands and supports the teaching of the arts that cms the driver has gone above and beyond to understand the nuances of artist education he's grown he's listened he shared his personal experiences with the arts he's worked hard to understand how students learn and experience art in the classroom it offers support in many many ways i could cite a bunch of studies about the importance of art classes music and drama to education other positive effects on academics mr ackermann likely already know about these studies but what we both know is that the real value of the arts are that they help students mature emotionally socially and psychologically the arts give people a way to process information differently to present who they are creatively and to form an identity to this point our middle school principal our middle school assistant principal and our principal for that matter are the best at respecting personal differences and recognizing that everybody deserves to be included regardless of their socioeconomic status their gender their sexual orientation their family background their disabilities or their religious beliefs mr ackerman recognizes that both students and teachers come to school with varied experiences philosophies and backgrounds david eckerman is respectful he's inclusive he is determined to do the right thing and all the while he's one of the kindest human beings i know he's interested in helping both teachers and students and he works hard to do so he's a unique individual respectfully on state that our schools need a number of unique individuals just like dave working together to meet the many diverse needs of the families of colombia i sincerely hope this important fortification grants david eckerman the opportunity to continue to work to do the right thing in santa i certainly appreciate the time to speak thank you thanks tammy great hello my name is carly atwell i have taught at columbia middle school for 15 years and my oldest daughter is currently in students there i have a few words to share with you kind compassionate humble steady engaged these are just a few of the words that can be used to describe current cms assistant principal and my friend mr david ackerman i think it would be quite difficult to maintain all of these qualities as well as mr ackerman has what has been an eventful tenure in the columbia school district he has worked under two different head principles three different superintendents and three different assistant superintendents he has worked during a global pandemic and through some of the most challenging times to be an educator or an administrator in any place even if these challenges had not been part of his time here so far at columbia middle school mr ackerman has been an exceptional administrator i have not worked under an administrator who is as engaged as kind as patient as humble and as gracious as dave ackerman administrator visibility is vitally important and mr ackerman is consistently visible in hallways and classrooms i have never had an administrator who pulls a student desk to different areas of the hallways to supervise what is happening during classes calling it a satellite office this is just one way mr ackerman is visible to students and staff at columbia middle school he is also one of the kindest people i've ever met he treats everyone at cms equally whether that person is a teacher student or support staff member he is compassionate compassionate and willing to give anyone a second chance one of the tenants of his monday morning announcements is that it is a great day on monday because this is the start of a new week with new opportunities he teaches our students to have a growth mindset and to do better than just than they did a week day or even minute before now he supports our struggling students but also holds up to firm and high expectations he works to make all students at columbia feel included and part of the community in all aspects we cannot overstate how important this is to this eighth group of students especially mr eckerman is also truly supportive of his staff he trusts what we are doing in our classrooms and is always willing to listen to the ideas that staff brings even if he doesn't always agree he is willing to listen he is also gracious with his time any time a staff member has had a question especially in regards to technology mr ackerman will come as soon as he can to assist some administrators might feel that assistance is below what they are tasked to do not mr ackerman and though he is an expert he has never made us feel any lesser than because we might be struggling he has made videos offered small group sessions and works one-on-one with teachers office to make sure they understand how to navigate our new tech heavy educational world mr eckerman or just say that he is better known among our staff has been a tremendous blessing to columbia middle school and to the columbia uniform school district i am happy to eat as principal to all our students but especially to my own daughter campbell his leadership is one reason she's had such a positive experience in fifth grade this year and she speaks highly of him but i already knew this ahead of time david ackerman is both a tremendous administrator and exceptional person he has helped me to be a better teacher and a better person he is exactly what we need at cms thank you for your time all right thanks where should i stand wherever you'd like sir my name is mark tellis i'm currently a fifth grade teacher at columbia middle school i appreciate getting the opportunity to speak tonight but as is the request in my classroom each day i urge you to really really listen we are professionals we're in the school environment every day we know what works and what does not one thing that does work is what does not work is lack of discipline many of us have been around a while and can tell you we've watched discipline handled or not handled based on social status in the community the neighborhood a student comes from our athletic ability etc i was once told that a kid should not be reprimanded because their mother was big in the pta this mentality never works currently we have a team of administrators and staff at columbia middle school who are fair and impartial students have the same consequences regardless of who they are who their parents are as assistant principal mr ackerman has had a huge role in helping to change the climate of our school regarding discipline for him it's not just about discipline it's about getting the student to take ownership of their behavior and turn things around we've watched it happen time and time again several students who've struggled with behavior have changed their ways as a result of mr ackerman's guidance he does his homework he investigates he does what's right for the students many parents will attest to this i do think it's a shame that the students and parents who are most familiar with mr ackerman are the ones who have been involved with negative discipline issues if you were in our school every day you would see how hard mr ackerman works on the positive side of things he's personally invested he wants students to be excited about coming to school i mentioned earlier what i think doesn't work and here's something else in the 32 years i've been in this district and community i've watched her feelings personal opinions and even vendettas damage our schools i beg you tonight to stop this cycle we need a district environment in which people are educated willing to listen fair impartial and level-headed currently we have these attributes in our cms administrative team however small town politics and ideas don't always respond well to truth truth and fairness often step on the toes of entitlement personal feelings because we get our feathers ruffled a bit we end up making decisions that hurt our students i do remain an optimist i feel that within each of us is the ability to see what is right and true and i ask you to find that part of yourselves tonight because as you may have realized what is right and true is really what's best for our students thanks becky alexander my name is becky alexander i have been a teacher for 25 years 17 of those years have been in the columbia school district and i currently teach fifth grade math and language arts i'm addressing you tonight to show support for our middle school assistant principal david ackerman in my 25 years of teaching i have had many administrators some have been very good some have not some i remember fondly and some for one reason or another did not make a lasting impression that is not so when i think of david ackerman i would put mr ackerman in the top three best administrators i have ever worked for in my teaching career he encourages students and staff alike many days you will hear him on the announcements reminding us all that whatever mistakes we made yesterday don't matter today is a new day make today great mr ackerman is also willing to stop whatever he is doing at a moment's notice to help if he can i quite possibly might have the farthest room from the office yet many times when i need help or have a question there he is at my door he is a regular site in the hallways and can even be found at his satellite offices located throughout the building at times working monitoring and engaging with students and staff if anyone were to step foot in the middle school for any length of time they would witness what those of us who work there every day see and know and that is how well our principal angela huels and mr ackerman work together the positive atmosphere in our building is because of their hard work and dedication to our students and the entire staff they are an educator's dream team when it comes to principal and assistant principal their doors are always open they are the constant we need when things seem to be changing in education every day anyone who is concerned about the social emotional health and well-being of students and teachers would see that mr ackerman cares about everyone in our building and goes above and beyond to make sure we have what we need i was told not too long ago that i was an admin pleaser i was worried at first that this was a negative label being placed on me after some thought i've come to realize that i want to be an admin pleaser when i have administrators like david ackerman he puts in 110 day in and day out he is one of the people that drives our bus literally and figuratively and keeps it moving forward i want to be part of that if that makes me an admin pleaser so be it mr ackerman inspires me to do better and be better through his kindness empathy and support losing him as our assistant principal would have a negative impact on our building culture in a time when we need all the positivity we can get thank you and caca amber haven my name is amber haven and i'm a fifth grade teacher at and future parent of columbia middle school i am speaking tonight in support of mr david ackerman as the middle school assistant principal in my 11 years of teaching at columbia middle school i have experienced five principal and assistant principal combinations the cms teachers and students have fought through changes and inconsistencies in the office for years however for the last few years mrs huels and mr ackermann have worked together and brought stability to our school with this team i have felt more supported more trusted and more encouraged than ever before this administrative duo is the most effective pair i have ever had the privilege to work with and because of their support i feel like i've become a better educator together these two administrators led us through the last two years of figurative fires unburned mr ackerman and mrs huells brought us together and provided comfort steadiness and predictability during a time when it seemed everything was changing daily mr ackerman is understanding of individual student needs he meets our students with respect and empathy upon entering his office students are greeted with fidgets to make them feel more comfortable a rubik's cube or even his famous ukulele he is honest he's objective he's respectful and he's fair he and the students in his office work through their issues and resolve them together his communication with and his dedication to the success of each student is admirable mr ackerman is the assistant principal i want my son to experience when he gets to the middle school i read a quote recently and although i don't identify with its words at the moment the message really hit home for me it stated national teacher shortage is a fun way of saying that the usa has made a passion-driven job so inhospitable that even the people who just care about teaching not the money don't even care about teaching anymore i have friends and relatives working in different districts who feel this way however i've realized that i do not feel like this because of the culture created in our building by our building admin i plan to stay in my own little bubble at cms where i love coming to work because of my co-workers and the students but most importantly because of the upbeat learning environment created and fostered by mr dave deckerman i invite you to visit our school witness our positive climate the encouragement and the sense of belonging that mr ackerman extends throughout our halls the thought of losing mr ackerman one of our biggest cheerleaders and sources of support who challenges us to be the best teachers we can be and who cares about each and every student simply feels like the straw that will break our collective camel's backs well like while the quote i stated above does not feel like my reality right now losing mr ackerman would impact my love for coming to work every day the cms staff would not be the same a necessary piece of the office would be missing he's truly irreplaceable thank you kitty wrap good evening i'm katie ruff i'm here tonight to tell you about the positive influence that david ackerman has on cms i was hired in july 2020 in august 2020 i spent 10 days working with dave ackerman as he taught me google classroom skyward embrace pbis and many other applications and extensions dave's i.t knowledge is indispensable he's a vital part of our team dave is our representative who works closely with the pbis reward program that program aligns with one of dave's predominant character traits and that's being positive with our faculty staff and students dave is always looking for ways to reward rather than punish or take away when i think of dave ackerman the words that come to my mind are caring helpful genuine patient intelligent and approachable dave cares about the students at cms last year i had the privilege of riding in the small white bus to deliver soaring a eagle awards his enthusiasm made each student feel very special and very appreciated when a student gets the recognition such as a soaring eagle award that's a big deal well dave made certain they felt like it was a big deal he drove the white bus to the student's house honking and hawking the horn over and over yelling through the megaphone the students and their parents loved it at that moment i was so proud that i was part of this faculty more recently last week to be exact a student of mine came to me with tears in his eyes i asked him what was wrong and how i could help him his answer was i want to talk to mr ackerman about what happened he'll handle it earlier when i said dave was approachable i wasn't just speaking about his faculty and staff i was speaking about his students the students at cms love dave dave will play beat the bell trivia questions in the morning announcements find particular coloring pages or something around the hallways at cms for prizes and so much more the students at cms have fun at school while on lunch duty i observed mr ackerman having a water bottle flipping contest with the kids another time dave ackerman rewarded the students by allowing them to dj with miss klein during their lunch hour there's nothing like walking down the stairs and hearing a cafeteria full 5th graders singing john denver's take me home country road at cms our administrators are very visible they are in the hallways the classrooms in the cafeteria they play games with the kids on the playground they are waiting for their students in the morning and they're there to see them off as they leave for home if a teacher calls the office with a question or needs help dave and angie are in that classroom in a matter of minutes to assist them okay thank you michelle spidey stand away from the camera good evening for those of you that do not know me i'm mickey spidey and i've been teaching district for 17 years like others tonight i'm here to speak about the leadership at cms recently people have been questioning whether or not mr ackman would be at cms next year upon hearing these rumors i was personally saddened but not shocked i immediately thought of course another district our company snatched him up due to his technology expertise his professional and fair relationship with his colleagues and certainly his positive attitude and enthusiasm then selfishly i thought not another change in administration angie and dave had been a dynamite jewel creating a positive atmosphere that truly has the best interest of our students in mind all during a global pandemic we all know people are not knocking at the doors to get into this occupation a recent business journal posted an article titled teachers are quitting and companies are hot to hire them we should be thrilled to have someone with mr ackermann's qualities and experience wanting to work in the columbia school district as a parent in the community it is difficult to understand why administrative changes occur even when students teachers and staff find them to be effective leaders in my opinion mr ackerman's two of his greatest attributes are his adaptability and his positivity his three and a half years in columbia are unlike any other years that i've taught numerous mandated changes frequently occurred and his ability to adapt to these changes demonstrated his resourcefulness and his problem-solving skills with his technology skills he was able to lead the district through the remote phase of teaching he was our expert and go to person for google classroom he made himself available at all times and led with an extremely positive approach dave is very creative and embraces the chance to try new things to improve our school he was the first to jump on the pbis awards and have been effective in its implementation this program focuses on improving behavior and awarding kids that do the right thing again he was readily available with helpful answers to our many questions he is visible present and engages with both staff and students thus creating a sense of community where all feel connected on top of that dave is approachable and willing to listen and consider concerns and questions from his staff and students he truly cares about cms without a doubt mr ackerman has been a huge asset to colombia he has kept the morale up during a pandemic that seemed impossible to survive if he leaves he will be greatly missed and extremely difficult to replace if the board is truly voting tonight on whether or not to renew his contract my sincere hope is that all of you will take into consideration what you are hearing tonight from the people that work beside him daily please vote to do what is in the best interest of our staff and students do not allow us to lose yet another dedicated strong leader thank you cali zavorka hi good evening my name is kelly zavorka this is my 21st year of teaching and it's my 18th year of teaching 7th grade math at columbia middle school in all those years i've never felt compelled to speak at a board meeting but just as i would stand up for any student that was treated unfairly or with a lack of respect i will stand up for an administrator just the same we are a family at cms i'm thankful to have had the opportunity to work with many excellent administrators during my years however i can wholeheartedly say that the team of mrs huells and mr ackerman is by far the best example of true teamwork creative problem solving effective communication and an incredible dedication to the needs of their staff and students our cms webpage states our mission is to serve the needs of our young people by encouraging educational excellence in an environment which promotes the development of productive and responsible citizens mr ackerman is instrumental in creating that environment for both teachers and students together with mrs huels this administrative team supports teachers in providing quality instruction a positive work environment and a safe place for student interactions they both hold students to high expectations while treating all students with dignity and respect mr ackerman started a positive behavioral interventions and support program known as pbis at cms four years ago this program has been successful in reducing behavioral problem behavioral problems and increasing positive relationships between students and staff because of the proven strategies of this program it is now a district-wide initiative that was adopted by all three schools i have been fortunate to work with mr ackerman in that initiative both at the middle school and the district levels and can say that he truly cares about making school a fun safe and productive environment for every student it is no secret that the past several years in education have been by all standards challenging however the challenges both students and teachers have faced at cms have been possible to overcome due to the support of our incredible administrator team i believe as i'm sure that all of you do too that in the field of education that we should all continually strive to do better for our students the disruption to this administrative team is not better for anyone this unnecessary and unjustified change will most certainly have a negative impact on both the teachers and the students in our building it must be reconsidered thank you heidi klein yeah my name is heidi klein i have been teaching middle school at columbia for 31 years i am a strong supporter of mr ackerman our assistant principal i am here because i believe in him i support him and i am for him they have spoken of his attributes and we have shared all that he has done and i would like to share a list of what mr ackerman does not do he does not give up on students he does not lose sight of the truth that he is in education to help students become the best version of themselves he does not forget to remind our entire school that we have a new start a fresh start every day he does not worry about or seek out credit or glory he does not judge he does not speak little of others he does not back away from tough situations he does not jump to conclusions he does not avoid hard conversations he does not problem-solve for our school without involving teachers counselors and social workers he does not have his own agenda and he does not have an ego and mr ackerman is the assistant principal that we need at cns he listens he reflects he brainstorms he problem solves he stays positive and every day he rolls up his sleeves and he works hard we want mr ackerman at the middle school again next year and we are scratching our heads wondering why he may not be our assistant principal next year we see who he is and what he is and what he does at the middle school and we are for him will you be for him too thank you rosemary lang gang hello i'm rosemary langing i'm the guidance counselor at columbia middle school i've been in columbia middle school for 17 years i've been in the school district for 25 years i'm also a graduate of the district when dave ackman came to columbia middle school three and a half years ago i was encouraged by his approach in intervening with middle school students as he met and spoke to students whether it was to discuss tardies or to praise a student i was invited to be a part of some of these conversations ask the role of a counselor however what i learned quickly learned as i took part in these conversations was that in all honesty they didn't need me he was the counselor in these meetings with the students he was playing both roles dave develops rapport and relationships with the kids quickly he performs amazing magic tricks he tells jokes that surprisingly do make the kids laugh and his fidget spinner contest that he has fidget spinner contests with them i've also been a part of many tough conversations where dave has had to unfortunately give consequences to students for their poor choices but you see dave's approach and consequences is pretty unique he at times negotiates with the students on what the consequence may look like and the student and mr ackman come to an agreement on let's say two lunch detentions for example there are also so many times that a student has had such a long conversation with mr ackerman because of their actions the student leaves with only the consequence of having that long conversation with him we've had a pretty good winter weather season but unfortunately we've been stuck inside for lunch recess and some of our cold and snow days what do you do with 150 kids for 15 minutes to keep them happy and making good decisions dave has been creative in creating indoor recess games entertainment that involve all students 150 of them at each lunch we have four lunches four lunches which involve bottle flip contests heads and tails four corners karaoke rock paper scissors columbia board of education i welcome you to join us during our lunches and see how entertained and well-behaved our middle school students are because of the guidance of mr ackerman and mrs hules i welcome you to come and visit our hallways during passing periods where you will see mr ackerman and mrs huels connecting with students and constantly building a positive climate for our students if you haven't already i welcome you to discuss the climate of columbia middle school with our staff members i know that you will hear that throughout all of our stress and strife of covid these past two years that we at columbia middle school were doing okay and not just okay we're really okay we couldn't have done this cogan google thing without dave there's no way i welcome you to join our columbia middle school team to be on our side to support our administrators and staff and all that we do to support our students because i feel that truly successful team starts at the top the top in our building is solid now we need the top in our district to join us and not divide us so together i feel that we can make a super fabulous magnificent caca team sarah klein hi my name is sarah klein this is my second year as the school social worker at cms and chs i'm here to speak in support of our assistant principal dave eckerman when i first started at columbia i wasn't sure what to expect anyone who works or has worked at the middle school recently can imagine how pleasantly surprised i was when i walked in on my first day the positivity teamwork and overall support i felt were overwhelming one of the first people i met that day was dave i was very nervous i didn't know anyone in my first conversation we had he told me a personal lighthearted story about himself and i immediately felt more comfortable if you know dave on any kind of personal level you understand what i mean he has a way of making everyone feel welcome and at ease and this is not a quality that is easy to come by the current administration at columbia middle school has it completely figured out dave and angie have a perfect blend of professionalism while still being approachable and personable they work exceptionally well together and make the staff at cms feel supported appreciated and heard i know that if i had anything going on professionally or personally i could go to either one of them and they would make the time to listen and do whatever they could do to help dave is a vital asset to our cms team he is at lunch duty as we've heard almost every single day getting to know students and making him laugh when we're stuck inside he's the first to come up with a game or activity to ensure that students have a fun break while they're stuck inside he was the driving force in getting pbis going in our district which is a school-wide positive reinforcement incentive system to look at school discipline from a different perspective when an issue comes up with a student who i personally work with he will ask for my feedback to better understand how the student's social emotional needs may affect their behaviors he is always listening he's always willing to listen to everyone's input and ideas and he genuinely does his best to put those ideas into practice dave is not just a vital part of the administration but a vital reason as to why i and so many others here tonight enjoy working at cms during arguably the most difficult time to work in education dave makes the job fun and enjoyable he has done his best to make students and staff feel a sense of normalcy during an unprecedented time his work ethic is superior he is constantly doing more than what is asked of him and he goes above and beyond to ensure students have a productive learning environment and that teachers feel supported in his interactions with students he always shows them respect and kindness even when having to deal with a discipline issue he teaches students instead of shaming them for making mistakes hopefully this evening you all will understand the necessity of keeping the current administration it is very hard to imagine anyone being able to replicate our current climate at cms in a time when social emotional health is at its utmost importance the social emotional impact of all decisions must be considered i'm also reading the following statement on behalf of the staff member who was unable to make it tonight um i have had significant interaction with dave when it comes to the support of our students at columbia middle school the decisions are always with forethought integrity and looking out for our students so they truly understand the importance of an education his dedication to our school is evident by the amount of hours he works his professionalism and concern he has for our students to lose this truly amazing man would definitely be a tremendous blow to the columbia school district i strongly encourage the board of education to continue to employ this dedicated educational educational professional thank you michelle haven were you interested in doing public comments thank you all for taking the time and sharing your stories we definitely appreciate it yeah we've had some changes uh caitlyn holiday high school english teacher has added to the resignation so you've got six individuals there that are resigning employee education and support personnel we added the linda christie bus driver mcniel nap maintenance which has worked two days he is no longer being hired so we can take him off laney randall cms paraprofessional is going to be added to the league of absences and then because of caitlyn holidays we've added a vacancy of high school english teacher given all of those changes um the administration recommends that you approve this as presented any questions discussions comments without entertaining a motion to accept the agenda consent agenda as amended presented tyson for a second tammy hines yes andrea corey yes craig meyer yes scott middlepant lisa schumacher yes from tyson search yes for that item c7 is our communication report presentation start with our enrollment reports got it in move on to our administrative reports we had with us is a brand new assistant principal at the high school so welcome i don't know if you sit stay in um i was at the very first board meeting obviously there are other items being discussed back in the middle school gym but i didn't have a chance to properly introduce myself mr gribble thank you for introducing me i'm jeremy blackley uss principal high school has been a fantastic welcoming by the community the school of staff students more than i could have imagined i i have been in chester the last 14 years i still reside there so i get a lot of time to pod this live podcast and become more intelligent at least i think so um so as i told my 12 year old son that we talked about why those two way back uh to and from work but it was a risk but uh well worth it i've enjoyed every every bit so far i have a wife that's a reinterventionist in education about the same amount of time i've been in and then also two boys a junior and a seventh grader it keeps me pretty busy my report kind of i'll just make it as short as possible there's a few things i'm involved in startup if you uh if you attended this past sunday we have a group of columbia students that are very active in the monorail startup organization entrepreneurs they work extremely hard i'm impressed every time i get a listen just i get to sit on the board meetings and then they give their presentations on on planning execution and problems they've made it's neat that's a core group of individuals that are hitting a home run i wasn't able to attend this past sunday but i did uh they had a meet today that kind of went through issues they faced and the successes of it one wanted to mention that it's a fantastic program i think for the high school it's not a massive number of students but we'll have nine i believe in next year so hats off to them as they finish out the rest of the year some of the the teachers that talked in middle school tonight hit on this often in their speeches and thank you for talking tonight i appreciate it but uh mr grody one of my first objectives and i got hired i think i attended one two pbis training days and it wasn't necessarily on the radar i always read a little bit about it didn't know much what it entailed but the one of the goals that we made at the high school as was mentioned it's going to be a district-wide um program but i was kind of slated to take the lead on that and it was a great opportunity mr reeves put me in that position and it was a chance to kind of grow a little bit and clear uh work as a team collaborate and build off what has already been established obviously in the district uh these four years we're trying to get going at the high school so after the trainings that a lot of things we were hearing this our team was a lot of well it takes longer than high school level it's weight it's different at the high school level it's not the same as you can make it elementary or or younger so uh we have we have definitely i think uh been given quite the task in so far what we have produced i feel pretty confident uh as we are taking a step in the right direction so i brought some uh this was a a unique idea now i cannot claim credit for actually uh my secretary dana i went to her i wonder we want to like try to some way time limited implement a small piece of what pbs i will pbis will look like in high school and we came up with the only the only thing that we could turn around quick but also have a pretty big impact so i brought a little tag for everybody and it's been um i guess in action for the last two months now but i have seven so if you can take one and pass it uh however they couldn't share the partner maybe but they are uh they are currency or our little badger i guess you call it but there it's a lot goes into it a big thing that i suppose during lunch we have a cafe created by mrs adair's class which is the special education coordinator and that actually funds the things they do outside of school the property they make and kids love a little sugary high carbs who doesn't have snacks it's a very very popular stand so somehow i want to incorporate that into a a way we could make it a positive reward or reward positive behavior and yes it is something that is um i guess an extrinsic reward and that isn't the main scope of it this was just another case but we wanted to bring the whole school in it so a lot of a lot of students come in to the office usually it's not necessary for good reasons necessarily or positive reasons but they don't even know all the secretaries are on the staff so we made um these are or what the what the money looks like the voucher you can spend at that cafe and if you notice slowly work we're releasing the whole line of louis and our staff uh ms klein's was actually sarah's was created today because of it i went today and said hey make a board presentation we need to expand our money she designs it dave designs it and uses it and uh i i sat down one night i just made every time kind of currency name i could think of and uh sarah's actually uh a little tiny currency yeah nice and we use our bitmojis the students love it it it it says who it is and it actually becomes more of a collect collective item as well they do turn it into the stand get three items it's a full circle revenue to that stand um the students that did the right thing teachers are involved they they go on to skyward trying to really incorporate into it they typed up a positive for whatever may have done and that's all passed to you next this is an example of uh hudson bryant made by ms arnold they'll be right on the back of this one this is like what i call their trophy tell them take it home show mom dad tell me oh you steak dinner or a new cell phone you did something that you did something good or positive because that's the point i think that pbis lisa intended but uh they get to keep this it would replicate the same obviously take their picture uh taylor puts it on social media it's been a very i mean extremely responsive i think on social media a lot of comments family members comment on the some of the posts and uh it's a it's a full circle full circle kind of item it's a small piece of what we're going to do but this is a little bit of our our kickoff or our start and right now we're nearing 30 30 plus positive referrals we had a group of students during the snowstorm last week they want to stay anonymous but they went out uh geared up and took on the conditions they were literally scraping all the employees windows front back sides and a couple teachers called them i i saw them too when i tried to run them all analyzing vehicles but they took pictures they sent it in on what we could do and the first step was they were recommended into that into this uh this pbis small small ticket item but it it to me i think it kind of bridges the whole concept of trying to high school and we spend so much and i heart on this a lot i had the means we spent so much time uh focusing on you know some students that don't make the best decisions choices a lot of our effort and time is consumed there i this is my favorite time whenever i get a knock on the door of the classroom and pull one of them out some are very bashful and don't be necessarily in front of the class they did the right thing but i'll read it out and put it and they acknowledged that and had it on so they get their three free dorito bags at lunch for free but that's one one small initiative we started it's it's it's really went very well so far i'm waiting for my money to be developed hopefully soon collected bucks i think is what they're calling that one but pretty too they they treat my trading cards they had an issue with trading cards and student ids students started to use them as trading cards and we wanted to not do that because that was not okay but this one to try to collect the series and eventually have the whole high school office in there maybe expand the apartments too because my mind keeps rolling with ideas that i'm sure dave is shaking her head right now and saying but very small one that will be on top of what the bigger plan is and i don't have a long speech on that one that was my focus uh that hopefully we get at the level that the middle school is because it is a i think a fantastic building a a culture that has to exist inside every school folks more on positive not those negative things we are we met today for the second time as a group pbis team mars marsden high school we are we are focused on a pretty intensive freshman academy we're trying to draw a um an outline on what that would look like two day week or two before school starts we want to invite a sophomore class that didn't get home because of colvin and kind of retrain or re-learn uh behaviors that were running all kinds of money but it will it it's it's developing this a pretty neat pretty neat uh theory we have to have structured out and be able to present to the board in a month or two and get approval to start to criticize the freshman academy where we can kind of teach them the norms of how high school runs behaviors schedule things like that but that's in the works and then also if i could interrupt you real quick um we heard a lot of comments about pbis and you mentioned it several times in your things for us that don't know what pbs is and people at home can you just explain the program real quick so there's a lot of acronyms around and some people yeah yeah you're right and i apologize i thank all of us in education we did a quote a big dictionary so it's a positive behavior intervention system structure um and it's basically based in the in data is what will eventually direct how your how you're creating ways to uh correct negative behaviors but at the same time start to really promote positive behavior systems you structure positive behavior systems inside your school one big thing is they make a lot of levels and i think the middle school has one you looked at it maybe you've used it there's a common language matrix you start changing you take the negative language out of a lot of different parts of discipline even things you stick with inside classroom and you change language into a positive or a positive language type of deal that's developed and then as either quarters semesters or years go by is study your data on a parties improving maybe you'll focus on targets disrespect lunchroom behavior are those referrals starting to go down because of positive behavior systems you have created as a team as a school adapted and then implemented you want to see that data and it should start to at least positive behaviors start to raise and negative behaviors start to go down that's the that's the concept it's been around for a while i guess i never thought that i would be in it when i made the move here then mr grody said or do a pbis let's go whole district and wait but after learning more about it it is pretty exciting i think our pgi is pretty exciting what what will lead to but that's the main thing positive behavior innovation system um that that's what the acronym stands for it's it's pretty intense can be complicated but we are we are going to uh maybe take this little piece of the pie and eventually uh take on the whole thing our our goal wasn't i told mr goody in high school we were we were hoping two years full implementation and used the middle school as an example we also stole principal parkview he does something with like houses i guess or lunch or like a competition to [Music] curb any behaviors that's the third phase of ours that's we're starting to create we have a student id issue where students don't always like to wear them we're forgetting them they're not valuable enough for them so hopefully get home runs back next year and that our third phase is that we create competitions among home rooms they get to name their home room and they can compete one quarter and it'll be freshman or sophomore home rooms or whatever it may be but we're gonna have two articles two or two ids if you're caught doing you know if you're called doing the right thing or something positive for another person a staff member or you're out picking up trash in the parking lot a teacher will have a scanner they can scan a qr code it'll it'll automatically go into a data system so those people will get to publicize that data and have like a graph and so all those working together will open that's the direction our pbi is eventually good that one's a little farther out from development but that's the goal this was the our little baby and we're taking it along hopefully toddler slash middle schooler soon it'll tie it'll all tie in together eventually um that's our that's our pbis what we think should look like fingers crossed we can uh we can get the whole school to buy in and uh be like a little bit huge that's all i got sorry so long sure it's all should raise your hand over there parkview cea report um so my name is carla wontek i teach second grade at parkview i wanted to talk a little bit about the teacher donations for the pta trivia night so pta trivia night was a huge success they raised over they raised more money than what their goal was 37 37 000 dollars i think their goal was 35.

[Music] rachel celestine yeah michelle colella here kate canetta [Music] kate is absent yes glass cooper lauren bailey here joe silva frozen raven jordan president catherine hodgson president albert russo explosive louisa britton here i do just want to say before we get to public participation that this is not a public hearing this is not an open forum it is a board meeting in the public public participation offers an opportunity for the board to hear your thoughts and concerns it is strictly a time for us to listen and not a time for discussion but we are listening we are reading your emails and we hear you loud and clear we are not voting on mass this evening just so everyone is aware it is not on our agenda we understand during times like these that emotions run high and that we all want what's best for our kids despite differing opinions this board as well as our community have a good rapport keeping things civil and having mutual respect for each other i hope that we can maintain that level of respect this is a volunteer board and some of us have our own kids our own grandkids in the school system and some of us may share some of your thoughts and concerns please keep sentiments on the issue uh we do have to conduct business this evening and our bylaws state that we cannot go beyond 10 pm um so if you could please be mindful of those things and lauren would you read our public participation the board welcomes public participation and asks us comments be limited to to two minutes the public may offer objective comments of school operations and programs that concern them the board will not permit any expression of personal personal complaints or defamatory comments about board of education personnel and students nor against any person connected with the danbury public school system [Music] so with that said are you our student representative would you mind just standing to the side so that we can have our published speaker uh come to the table with the microphone right that hopefully the microphone works yes thank you you can sit down if you like take a camera just take a chair with you there you go thank you okay so first on our list is colin widoti [Music] the bad listeners in my class are not listening as well because of the math and that is why i do not think we should wear masks in school anymore good evening um i know i only have two minutes so i'm going to get right to my point thank you um i would just like to say that i am here to talk about math choice for our schools and once again danbury is being left out of all the surrounding towns being the only ones to still have such holiday restrictions put in place new fairfield bridgefield brookfield even the preschools have already dropped this in the area and i know what we're going to say that we're not like those towns and then we have bigger issues in hand so i'm going to cut right to the chase and compare us to the towns that you are all going to mention you're going to compare us to bridgeport you're going to compare us to norwalk stanford new haven all of those towns have had a city-wide mass mandate or indoors up in place up until 2 16 was the most recent i'm sorry today bridgeport just lifted theirs today as of today as far as i could tell stanford you sponsored stanford norwalk you still have to wear maps anywhere you go indoors new haven you still have to wear a mask anywhere you go indoors danbury has not had that in place since october if you would like to compare us to those other cities then we need to ask bigger questions why is the rate in jamberry so hot that we have to wear masks in school but now we go to the grocery store and now when we go to thrills and now when we go to the mall and all of the other insanely crowded and populated places with our students in them they are the same students that are then showing up to school on monday and being told that there have too many germs and that they carry too much red and then they need to have a mascot the numbers don't change depending on what location in the town of danbury you are in so we can go since october through the surge in january and everything else without having to wear a mask indoors i think it's time to take the mess off of our children in school thank you ally you guys why gomez don't like masks in my school um i don't like masks in my school because i'm constantly being told that i have to wear a mask above my nose i find it kind of difficult to breathe with a mask on and especially in gym class when we're doing it indoors in the gym um it's very hard to breathe and i don't like it because um you know we're doing exercise i need i need to breathe and um like sometimes when we're we can take mask breaks while we're on our desks but when we're not at our desks our masks have to be above our nose all the time [Music] optional because some people believe that they protect that they protect themselves with the mass but some people don't believe that so i think it should be a choice because i think that people should be able to choose what they want to do [Music] today i'm gonna i'm gonna say why um i don't like masks often i do lessons with my teachers and i cannot hear them very well and why i don't like the masks is because i feel a little uncomfortable how how they be tight on my ears and that's what i'm going to talk about juan rivas so since i have two minutes i'll cut the pleasantries out and i'll get to my point so hello there we go i like to bring it to your attention and issue spreading my son who's a student at broadview middle school my son who is an honor roll student voice of brian and student council member was suspended on february 1st for allegedly using inappropriate and offensive language we'd call which caused another student to push and pull my son down to the ground as most of you know on this board know my family and i personally being a minority family and the work that we do in the community we would never condone or use this type of language in our home we believe our son did not say these things as a result of this incident we were made aware of instagram pages with videos footage recorded in the school in most cases a few in particular of the incident my son was involved in one of our main issues tonight is how this video was recorded and circulated through social media we also believed he was scarborough bully and targeted prior to the incident on february 1st all video and screenshots were shared with school administration an email sent out to the superintendent to schedule a possible meeting was sent almost a week ago with no response in return as a parent i'm concerned with my child's well-being and safety while in school it's disheartening to see instagram pages that are filled with over language violence all taking place at robbie middle school it's upsetting to see the lack of enforcement of the cell phone policy and realizing kids are being boldly recorded during this process we have asked for a policy handbook which we did not receive i have inquired about the arts as sro being involved in other measures that could have prevented this we have been left waiting for answers and android follow-ups i have with me tonight copies of my correspondence printed screenshots of such instagram pages at one point in time the video of my son's incident was viewed 146 times and with a and over 100 followers on that instagram page i'm here tonight to highlight the issue that we have in the school i hope this board takes this matter seriously and that we can come to a resolution of this matter to better safeguard our children and make school a fun safe environment thank you for your time i am also pro-mass choice please let the kids make that decision cindy a dodo hi i'm cynthia dodo i live at 17 ridge road i'm a parent of two children one current and one former student i'm here tonight to comment on the february 16th board of education committee meeting to discuss masked mandates first i'd like to thank theresa beauzei and michelle coelho for standing up for our children like i had said in the february 9 meeting children have had to unfairly carry the burden of coven 19 for the past two years stanberry needs to end the mass mandate in its schools and let the parents decide in addition i was disappointed that there was no mental health professional on the committee zoom meeting last week kelly trushes did read a statement from a psychiatrist from yale basically stating developmental and mental concerns for children however it would have been more informative and meaningful if the person took questions from from the committee also there should have been local pediatrician on the panel because in fact we are discussing children's health having dr bed and er doctors speak and field questions from the committee only gave one side of the story the worst cases lastly i would like to comment on the results of the survey of the 339 people that responded it was stated that 38 percent of those wanted the mass mid date to remain another 30 wanted to remove it and another 31 wanted the mass to be optional in some social distancing by no means should the 38 be considered the majority here the 62 the 62 do not want mass to be required meaning optional are the majority thank you for your time i'd like to remind everyone that we are still on a mass mandate right now so if everyone can please put a mouse on benjamin dodo good evening uh benjamin dutto cindy's husband um again i agree with cindy and i thank mrs buzayden um for standing up for the students at last week's meeting on the policy committee the um it was really disappointing watching that committee quite honestly with the word salads and platitudes about children's safety that we've been hearing for the last two years even to the effect that many of you were talking about injecting toddlers instead of removing the masks that was unbelievable um i walk away with this sort of an analogy of the boy the crag wolf where us parents are the villagers the students are the sheep and you meaning the collective you everyone enforcing these policies from the board to the school districts to the teachers unions to the professionals to the elected leaders here or the boy your decisions for the last two years have mainly been proven wrong your experts have been wrong instead of apologizing you continue to move the goal post and change the narrative we simply lost faith in you and we all know how that story ended for the sheep [Music] we ask that the mass mandate be lifted and just personally i don't know if i can ever forgive you the collective you for what you've done in the last two years thank you amelia gomez hi my name is amelia stephanie gomez i'm eight years old i'm in third grade and i go to hudson country montessori school i believe everyone should have a choice to preach freely and my choice is to breathe freely i miss seeing my friends faces i miss seeing my teachers faces i want to sing without my mask on i miss doing gym without my mask on thank you sophia gomez hello my name is sophia stefania gomez i'm 10 years old i'm in sixth grade and i go to hudson country montessori school i hope that all of you here tonight will make the right choice for children like me for their families for the community and for the whole world breathing is simple natural and we should not have to negotiate it yet for the past two years breathing was taken away from us how many of you had a concert where you sang played an instrument and danced while having to wear your mask how many of you played soccer dodgeball and with your friends all while having mouth and nose covered i want to breathe free and i don't ask for much i want to conclude by quoting the sheffield declaration this declaration was approved on january 12 1773 and this declaration led people like elizabeth freeman to their freedom this declaration stated that mankind in a state of nature are equal free and independent of each other and have a right to the undisturbed enjoyment of their lives their liberty and property thank you very much um i have alexis i'm having a hard time random rhondelli raymondelli can you speak your address for the record please sure i'm actually a um federal resident i'm here supporting my niece and a bunch of other children here in the district if you want my address i'm giving my dress as well but i am here to express my support for the masses being optional in the danbury school district as you all are very aware that governor lamont's mandate has been lifted on our children school boards across the state have been lifted to mandate allowing for parental choice numbers are low and this virus is a 99 survival rate these are torment and they are abusive to every child as a health care employee i can assure you that these cloth masks do not work they are not effective for an airborne illness they are in fact only used i'm sorry regular masks are not even effective they are only used for droplet precaution n95s are also useless unless tested properly which you can youtube yourselves on your own time so the one you're wearing there is not helping you in any way in our entire yale new haven medical system at the beginning of this week we have 130 patients in the entire system with code now mind you they did not come in with coven if you test positive in the hospital you are held as a coveted number out of all those numbers there have been zero children because zero children are susceptible to this virus at no given moment in time should the board of education ever be the deciding factor on our children's health you do not get to decide what is best for our children or any of the children in this room i have witnessed first hand at what this virus done has done however we are not where we are were two years ago we are just not and we're grasping at straws with these cloth masks children are not pirates category and it is time that you take them off of them and let them learn in a fun-filled environment well they deserve that thank you uh dominic ellie also bethel that's my sister okay i don't have a fancy speech like uh everybody else prepared her tonight can you please put your mouth so i'm just gonna wing it i have two children one school one non-school yet and i don't even know what to say because you all know the truth we've been right the whole time i really don't have much else to say the numbers are out there these look at these kids they want to breathe let these kids breathe wow this is exciting okay the first thing i want to say is thank you to the members of the board of vet thank you for your time efforts and collaboration on behalf of our children in the danbury community i appreciate that you are working together and with parents and teachers to ensure our children have quality education while keeping their safety in mind secondly i want to express my faith i have faith that you will make a good decision here tonight i understand which was news to me that you're not making a final decision this evening but i'm sure in all of your minds you have decisions going on i believe without reservation that removing a mass mandate and giving children the choice to mask is the best thing you can do allowing the choice to remove masks will not put our children and the staff in imminent danger as is proven over and over again as they interact in the community and surrounding neighborhoods allowing the choice to remove masks will bring back at least one semblance of normalcy that is so very needed allowing the choice to remove masks will empower kids over their bodies and let them smile at each other again allowing the choice to remove masks will be consistent with our american values of freedom and liberty allowing the choice to remove masks will prove to the community that you hear our voices and care about our opinions in the surveys when you ask for them allowing the choice to remove masks will demonstrate the type of leadership i know that you are capable of and that we need right now as i close i thank you and everyone else here tonight for letting me speak my mind and listening to what i had to say you have my best wishes and support as i understand how hard you are working to do right by my children and the community i live in i wish you a good night and please keep my faith intact remove the mandate thank you thank you all right thank you i just wanted to say thank you to everyone on the board even people with differing opinions you know it's volunteer job and we appreciate your service you guys have been navigating us through very difficult times just wanted to give you a quick account uh as a dad i have a first grader and a fourth grader in the danbury public school system my first grader's learning has been severely hindered by the mask in school closure policy of this district he's never been in a classroom without a mask his reading and writing are significantly behind where he should be because of this because of these policies because of this my wife and i work with him very hard every night every single night on his reading and writing just to keep them up to grade level it's been very taxing on us as parents it's been very taxing on the children all of my kids have had copic within the last 60 days including myself and my wife everybody in my household for the kids it was a non-issue they've had colds that were worse and our doctors tell us that they had 90 days of natural immunity where they have nothing to worry about so why are they messed in fact i pulled the numbers off the state of connecticut website today in the zero to nine age group there have been sixty five thousand one hundred and seventy three positive cases of cobits and two deaths that equates to a three one thousandth of one percent death rate basically zero in the 10 to 19 age group there have been 93 527 positive cases and four deaths or a four one thousand of one percent death rates so the kid for the kids is non-issue so why are they masked and the superintendent's letter which clearly states the kids are not the problem due to low transmission rates uh and the low risk of serious illness i agree it's indisputable uh but you also mentioned that it's the staff members that we need to keep safe and those are the ones in the high risk area so somebody needs to be masked it should be the staff members not the kids in addition i hear from my kids they have to lean into plexiglas masks when they're eating at their desks please get rid of the plexiglas masks and let them go back to eating in the cafeteria and being kids you're over two minutes okay i'll help finish up but time has come for this body to lead and not follow and mandate freedom thank you um [Music] um [Music] so i'm not here to talk about math i am here to respectfully request that the board allow people to email their public comments i think kate put it up at a meeting recently um so that's really what i'm here for because i know um with coving some positive things came out of that and public speaking via email was one of them and i don't know why that was taken away so that's my formal request because parents work they have little ones the board always seems to ask for community input they want it but yes you took this vehicle away so i'd like to see that reinstated thank you chris bell are you in here i've watched it like six times [Music] i have two kids one of them used to go to great plane i wasn't sure what was going to happen this year so i sent them to st briggs um you know i couldn't chance it like pete said before i have kids that are behind he's in third grade i felt like he missed you know half of first grade most of second grade when every school district around us was in so i do appreciate the job you guys have done getting our kids back to school and i'm sort of shocked to say that after the break and went back to school because i thought that was not going to happen but in hearing some of the summer meetings and then when you opened it up for questions i heard a lot of people talk about remote learning and that scared the heck out of me so i wanted to make sure that i was speaking on the other side when it comes to math so i'm for mass choice i'd like to see um you know the kids like the other districts lose their masks i don't feel like this is doing much like this lady said i go to the gym three times a week nobody's wearing a mask there's a lot of high school kids in there so if they're getting coded they're bringing it right to the high school with it so i don't think they're doing much i agree with the nurse especially the cloth mask which most kids are wearing so um it does hinder their learning they can't speak well they don't see their friends my poor sixth graders in west side and can't see you know all his friends and they're all new kids so unless he plays with them after school or outside you know he's at a disadvantage so i just wanted to lend my support me and my wife um you know we're for the mass choice if you want to wear masks fine no problem i'm not afraid you know to send my kids i don't you know like pete my kids had coveted it was a cold for them no big deal and you know they're better back in school so thank you melissa [Music] chelsea [Music] hello everyone my name is melissa ligouri and i'm a danbury resident and this is actually my second time speaking here i came it was dr sal's last meeting i think it was in june so i'm talking to you about this subject once again um i have two young children i have a six-year-old who is in first grade and i have a three-year-old as you are aware governor lamont stated that he would be repealing the state's masterwide mandate as of february 28 2022 in our schools the decision now rests in your hands there's no more pointing fingers this is in your hands as it comes to masking of our children i ask you to please implement parental choice when it comes to masking and give the power back to us parents to make decisions for our children my six-year-old asks me all the time when he will have this when he will be able to stop wearing a mask his whole school experience this past two years has been wearing a mask it's time he tells me he has trouble breathing in them and doesn't like it because he can't see his friends faces my three-year-old is now required to wear a mask and i can't even find masks that fit his little face um and even if they were effective he's not wearing them effectively he's three years old i ask you to please please implement parental choice i know this is a hard decision for everyone but it's about time that we put this the safety of our children in the parental hands um i ask you to please unmask our children and i want to thank you guys all for your time and your service i know this is not easy for you and i respect all of you and i thank you very much thank you thanks god oh terry scott sorry hello thank you all right so i know a lot of people are here to talk about math mandates and that's not what i'm here to talk about um i tried to type something but um i'm just going to speak from the heart so last week earlier um last week my daughter had to endure some very challenging moments in her life that i am not satisfied with with the school district i did meet with the superintendent as well as the ap but as a parent i must speak out publicly and let everyone know so that we can work together as a community to solve these issues so one of the issues was that the spanish teacher addressed the class by the n word um which that teacher is still in front of the kids which i am very upset about um and so as a community i want to know what is the community doing to address these issues and hold these teachers accountable for what they say in front of our children um as a black family it's unacceptable um the majority of this population is very diverse however the teachers that is not and so we need to speak about these issues as a community to figure out what we're going to do because this is unacceptable um the second big issue that my daughter had to endure was in history class she was asked to take on the fight of her ancestors and write a a letter about being a runaway slave unacceptable that should have never been an assignment that my god had to do and so um i spoke to mr wilson we came up with you know we talked about some things but i didn't know that the teacher was still gonna be in front of my daughter um i'm not i'm not pleased with that um but also i just want to say as a community we have to do more to make sure that all of the kids um feel safe and in the school district they feel heard and their culturally sensitive curriculum put in front of them every single day and i don't know if my husband has anything to say but that's all i need to say okay [Music] good evening my name is cheryl rachelski as a parent of twins graduating from january high school in june it is my utmost request that the remainder of the school year be mask optional data is proving that the greater danbury area severe coded cases have significantly dropped and that the greater majority of our children have not been infected with the virus or at least hospitalized as a result of the virus in a recent periodical that was published online january 26 2022 they reported the following from recent studies and i quote that masking is a barrier to speech recognition hearing and communication and that masks impede children's ability to decode facial expressions dampening children's perceived trustworthiness to faces research has also suggested that hearing impaired children have difficulty discerning individual sounds opaque masks of course prevent lip reading some teachers parents and speech pathologists have reported that masks can make learning difficult for some of america's most vulnerable children including those with cognitive delays speech and hearing issues and autism masks make may also hinder language and speech development especially important for those students who do not speak english at home masks may impede emotion recognition even in adults but particularly in children end of quote my first experience as well first-hand experience as well is that the majority of these students do not wear a mask when not in school do not wear a mask when hanging out and socializing with friends or attending high school social events i have not heard that our students severe illness or hospitalization numbers have risen or if these numbers even exist those concerned about their safety should continue to wear the appropriate protective masks and like our neighboring towns that have made masks optional i'm not asking you to take your mask off but rather i'm imploring you just to let me take my children's mask off thank you elena smith is there anyone that's all i have on the sign up sheet is there anyone else in the audience who would like to speak can you state your name and address for the record you can come up to the i've right only a resident of connecticut um for another six months i'm from pittsburgh pennsylvania prior to this i lived in west virginia um i lived to 10 east pembroke road i'm a veteran of 22 years of a teacher at the prison in denver and i have two children one in ninth grade so he's new to this school system and the other one is in seventh grade and my i would like to speak about my older son in particular um he is extremely bright and he's always been extremely excellent in some social things um so everywhere he goes he observes for several minutes to an hour maybe the entire day until he enters the social scene and he always he's very aware he's always been very socially aware um he hasn't made any friends here since he um been here it's hard to speak with the mask on um but uh you know he sits at lunch in the locker room every day so maybe if he could like she spoke it just brought to my attention when she said about this you know social cues and the its facial expressions maybe he could relate to people better if they could actually speak to one another and uh [Music] is there anyone else who would like to speak before we move on to our our business could you please state your name and address for the record yes um my name is sharon ellington i live in new milford but my daughter goes to ganbury school and they have pieces that go also um i just wanted to talk really quickly obviously covet has been a very polarized subject for everybody i work in the healthcare field and i see everyone under you know being over it and being still very scared of it and that is fine everybody has the right to feel how they feel um i see my daughter and all of her friends and my nieces suffering in ways that i never really thought that i'd see her suffer and she doesn't really enjoy school the way that she does that she used to she can't really tell when her kid when her friends are joking or her teachers are joking she doesn't see those facial expressions that are so important and for kids you know those are the times that you're really figuring out how to be a human and how to socialize you're figuring out what's important like being there for your friend and showing them on your face that you care or that you're sad so you can communicate in other ways than just by words sometimes that's the most important way that we communicate i see my knee suffering from anxiety worried about if her teacher's going to say something if she needs a mass breaker she needs to get water because she has to take her mask down or you know what if she can't eat so long because her teacher's going to yell at her because she needs her mask down longer i have my other nieces are struggling because their language skills are not where they should be they can't see their teachers making the sounds of the letters i have a very bright niece and she she can't figure out sounds of words like i know she can and it's just it's hard seeing them struggle when they're so little they should be able to enjoy each other and their teachers and i i understand some people are comfortable with masks and some people are not cdc has said itself masks protect the wearer not the other way around it does not protect the other people so if you want to wear the mask that is wonderful that makes you feel better by all means where the mask i don't think there should be discrimination either way i think that children need to learn oh okay sorry i think that we just have to teach your kids that if if their choices to wear the mask great and if it's to not to not but if we could just have that choice i would appreciate that thank you thank you is there anyone else before we begin the rest of our meeting okay thank you all for coming and being here tonight consent calendar laura did you make that motion be absolutely thank you any promotion that the board of education approved the items on the consent calendar exists 22 um through 22-22-22-26 as recommended second moved by lauren seconded by joe is there any discussion no not hopeful lisa yes rachel celesti aye michelle solo hi gladys cooper yes lauren daley i joe the silva all right bridget guertin aye catherine hodgson aye albert russo aye lisa britton aye unanimous motion carries um do we have any staff representatives this evening i don't see anyone no okay and our student representative thank you so much for waiting [Music] please please do and yeah feel free to adjust if you want to sit yeah thank you or ken could you help me all right there you go okay um i'm speaking on behalf of uh nicole today i don't know how to pronounce the last thing but um good evening florida members cabinet and community members thank you for allowing me to represent and speak on behalf of the alternative center for excellence ace will be administering the 11th grade s.a.t on wednesday march 24th kyle churcola will serve as the s.a.t administrator on march 2nd sc sat proctors will participate in the sat training after school on march 24th all ninth and 10th grade students will have the opportunity to participate in an environmental theme field trip at white memorial park and lynch field the trip has been organized by chemistry teacher katya pierre gustini also on march 24th diana dinardo will be taking 22 graduating seniors on a trip to both novichok campuses students will participate in the nbcc placement test um ace would like to publicly recognize tyler sharer for the ace of spades award for hard work ace would also like to publicly recognize andrew latino for to be voted for being voted the ace of hearts for demonstrating care and kindness for other students staff and our ace community lastly we would like to publicly congratulate kristin brianna villani for earning the january student of the month award for consistently demonstrating the five ace behavioral expectations thank you for allowing us to share what's going on with our ace family down on 26th lucas avenue stay safe and remain uh a strong everyone thank you very much moving on to action items um i'd like to ask for a motion to table action letter a the january 2022 financial report i would like to make that motion section by al seconded by catherine uh sorry no you're good um theresa bosaid yes rachel chaleski hi michelle colla hi gladys cooper yes lauren daley i joseph silva bridge guertin aye catherine hodgston aye albert russo yes louisa britton hi it's unanimous so that motion has been tabled um presentation [Laughter] and while karen is getting set caravans is the director of data and assessment on behalf of the district and we'll be reporting out on superintendent gold one student learning and achievement college and career readiness indicators carol will explain how some of these educators were not able to report out on all of them fully this year as a result of the pandemic but i don't want to take away more presentation and there's likely no questions afterwards good evening for those of you who i haven't met personally at the paralyzer as mr walsh had mentioned i'm the director of data's subtitle research so as a part of um typically quarterly would report out specific data reports that relate to like the timing of release for the connecticut state department of education oh why not now so it is a little different this year so i will um i will just kind of revise some of the pieces that we've done in the task but also um when the board requested that additional pieces be added we modified some of the reporting charts so um as kevin um spoke earlier about the um superintendent goals basically we're really focusing on tier one and increasing access and equity for all students um and that would be goal 1a and 1b as a part of the superintendent goals in the presentation that the board received i think last friday is a result of being attached to the agenda what's included is our accountability index last week's growth graduation rates ap and dual enrollment course numbers as well as planning absenteeism and college entrance and and persistence so we'll kind of get down to a couple of those pieces but just initially as we look at some of the highlights of the report we do we have seen a increase in the ap enrollment as we've offered in 2016 we opened enrollment kind of detract at jamboree high school offered more access and equity to students since that time we've had about 21 increased enrollment in that area the deco program is another place where we offer college and career readiness to students um it is more reflective of the student population demographically which we will discuss later in the presentation the csde typically pushes out the accountability indexes time of year and i did include some of the pieces and the indicators that are included in that index we get an index accountability index for the district and each school this is the places where you've seen schools of distinctions in the past different categories that schools are placed in a kind of a tiered approach and we'll get down to a little bit of how that has changed over time and how it includes growth and proficiency um but it was suspended during the pandemic so as many of you know we reported out earlier smarter balance was administered the sats um and the ngss was administered last year but we were not tied to the accountability anymore so they didn't produce any scores associated with that we do expect it to resume this year as stated by the state um overall our cohort graduation rates increased by 1.7 for all students and 2.3 percent in january high school that yellow student population increased 7.1 percent specifically for that demographic we did see a decrease in african american students by 10.3 we'll talk about that a little more specifically we are as as evident by our meetings today engaging with every high school to look very deeply at that data to look at how students are persisting and staying on track um at jamboree high school um our six-year cohort graduation rate so that means that if you start your freshman year of high school that you would um not graduate in four but then by six years if you stayed enrolled what do those numbers like to look like for our high needs students those have increased 3.1 percent our high needs are students who would be designated as free and reduced lunch ell or students with disabilities you could be one of those students identified according to the state um or you could be offering so um just so you know we're going to use that term a couple times throughout the presentation um the last links growth sports which is also used in the accountability system we've seen a steady increase of that growth over time as we've initiated different strategies particularly at the k5 level and provided now a new eld program we are seeing an increase in the growth sports there so um as we will discuss as well places that we're looking more deeply at including our chronic absenteeism rate clearly that's an issue across the state of connecticut since the pantone and those rates are reflective of those challenges but we do have some intervention strategies um in place so um just as i spoke earlier the next generation accountability uh system is for um districts to really track progress help schools make improvement we use it very much to gauge how we're doing the student outcomes over time um it also is a federal state requirement so um and it really is a piece to promote transparency with the public to see how the district is doing with the indicators that the state provides so this is just in order for you to see where we um were in 2018-19 that was the last year that we had a full school year before the pandemic um so in those places the people who are veterans of the board have seen these numbers before the stars are places where we have exceeded the state average so essentially um when you're looking at these numbers it's a formula there's a system that the state gives us you can earn a certain amount of points where you hit the target um and so once you um once they look at the enrollment they look at the chronic absenteeism etism numbers the four year graduation six year they then say how many points did you earn towards that target and then you get the percentage we were in 1819 at 72.6 and then um the state's overall average was 74.2 so it gives you just kind of an indicator of where we were um in the fall i was here with you all um reporting out the testing report and and all of the student outcomes associated with the standardized tests we had available so that kind of takes care of a lot of the pieces in the accountability index which are down until about um 2e so i'm trying to fill in the gaps for the board so you can see really how we are measuring progress in times where we don't have the accountability index so that's what's following so um the one piece that's in addition to the accountability index is looking specifically at achievement gaps this is something jamboree public schools looks at on the regular basis of how we're looking at district data team agendas how we're looking at instructional leadership to say what does it look like with non-high needs outcomes compared to high in these outcomes so um in this case the indicator which is why we dive deeply into how students are remaining on track for graduation as well as graduation rates are to see if we do have a graduation gift so um in this case the last time we were reported out at the state level we did have um we weren't out layer for our gap for non-high needs students and high-knee according to graduation rates um so that is just something we continue to moder monitor um so the lost links growth which was where we talked about in the accountability indexes to e um and so we're looking here and for those who remember back to s back rows and talking about how students are doing over time from one test to another the lost links is a required assessment that's given um to our students who are um english language learners it's a state requirement um and so that's all grade levels um it it measures and you'll see on the next slide kind of all the sub-tests it's a it's an extensive test and what they do at the state level is look at how students performed from the one year to the next school year so in order to be on the lost links growth outcomes you need to have taken at least two test scores in connecticut so um for average target achieved there are different levels of english language learners and those students have different growth targets the growth targets are um dependent upon what level they are in so a loss level one student doesn't have the same growth target for a year that a last level four student would have so um that is all taken into account and averaged okay of where they got towards their target so in this case average percent target achieved it's pretty much measuring how far did everybody get to their finish line of their growth target so in this case for literacy which included which includes reading and writing on subtest as well as oral we went from in 2017-18 overall to 67 percent so we've seen instead we've seen a steady increase in the literacy components of the loss for the students in germany public schools in addition we saw similar growth a little over eight percent in the oral skills of the student and this is their english language acquisition right and so what are their oral skills related to that um 40 54 to 63 the other lower numbers that are slightly slightly lower about are the growth rate numbers those numbers are um how students how many students cross the finish line to their growth target and so um so that those numbers would represent if i was the last one student i was expected to grow 30 points did i make that 30 points okay so that would be 37 of in 2017 we see a similar number in 1920 okay and that's the last time they've been reported out for the growth scores um oops so the last one's achievement is similar to looking at how students do overall there's a proficiency and above and once you hit proficiency in certain areas and that's scoring a four or a five in certain subtests those students will be exited as english language learners in our district so in this case um proficient or above it's a lot to move right so you could be you could enter as a lost one student you need to score a four or five in particular some tests in order to exit which is considered proficient or above so um in these cases you can see the different levels of where students are proficient or above at the end of the 1920s school year we monitor those very specifically down to the school level and work um very closely with the department heads and the principals to look at those scores and who's making the growth and who's hitting the proficiency the next piece that we um that has also been a part of the accountability index is looking at the graduation rate time to transfer daily public schools you see the slight increase from 2017 to 18 um into our projected rate of 2021.

we won't know until we get in there what the reason is for it um we talked about um where the money's going to come from to do this and we do have money in our our main is reserved to cover it so uh we don't have to you know worry about where the money's coming from but obviously we're hoping that it's not going to be a gigantic expense but we're i think we're prepared for it i think that was that's pretty much a good synopsis does anyone have any questions about that yeah not too much on the project but on how the on e3 um how is this vendor chosen it was the lowest price defender so mike when asked me um which is a consortium and two vendors responded to the his stacks of putting the floor back together and they were in in um something designed but they were the lowest they were lowest bid actually yeah i'm just drawing two d3 so the first one the hair consultants so we can get other quotes for that or not [Music] okay and then on the other one i guess you'll unlock this i think before um it was two companies out of the same co-op to fit on it i know but can we add it to the agenda because like it the public may not see a purchase order but if someone get a question as to how okay any other questions today thank you jay trying to kill the questions thank you thanks for reporting now and um and i just wanted to add that i came in and i met with um dawn and she took me to the media center and i was able to see it's a it's a real problem it's a really raised it's gotten a lot bigger over the years and it's it takes you know a huge space it goes from the media center into like where the computer lab is so it's definitely something that needs to be problems for years and building the ground we've talked about this for years but yeah so again it's it's been a long time so um i agree with you know dave i think that um i'd rather see it get fixed then just do like a quick repair at this point um and representative tamanna swan um that's not here curriculum in programs kurt said we didn't need curriculums and programs met and that it was there was a lot of information i'll just give just a general um about about the meeting uh and then he can send his report and talk about it during the next meeting if he but we talked about there was a lot on this agenda and one of the things that um we talked about was miss miss love talked to she gave us an update on the gifted and talented the beach program um we talked about the win talked about what's going on with intervention intervention um she stated that all students came from second were administered the the dipples which is the dynamic indicators of early literacy um the the math talked about bridges find the the plcs to analyze benchmark data we also talked about program well no that's a platform right the atlas yeah it's a platform atlas and she gave us an update on that and this should be on the website now right it's on the website thank you for that briefly talked about that did so much talking that meeting it was a lot of stuff um also talked about i think you talked about mr xavius on the english language learner's three-year plan and uh mr xavier resubmitted that thank you for that and um talked about the diversity updates we discussed that um the amistad mandate and everything that you're doing for uh african-american um infusing that into the everyday curriculum and you did a great job showing us we talked about talked about that uh and health and so yeah i'm looking at this i don't have notes here so that we ran out of time for that but uh when mr gets back and i pray that he's feeling better soon he'll give us a more in-depth report but i just want to just quickly summarize that um any questions okay yeah on the ell plan numbers 57 58 59 61.

jerry's also done a great job with us in all of our schools with our music program and i know we all wish jerry the best joe rocca who has been a part-time custodian with us for a number of years i believe it's 12 years has announced his retirement uh from school six beginning april 26 or effective april 26th a little further down we have a kindergarten teacher at school number three gabrielle vuzi who's uh we accepted her resignation uh effective april 7th 2022.