If you could add her using uh like when when there's time to add her. >> Okay. And um and then also I don't think I have if you could also add Justin. >> Okay. So, I think I set it for 6:30 everybody. Hopefully that worked for you. Um, I will already be there. I actually am there too already. Um, I think that's it in terms of this. Um what might be helpful now is that if we can just quickly kind of brainstorm on our notes here about completed t um completed work. What are some of your um is there anything that comes to mind for each of you about like what we were doing this information? So for example um the police interview uh notification uh and the like the these two became separate procedure documents like I know that that's something um basically what are we highlighting like is there anything that comes to mind like like suspensions and expulsions I feel like we just We just like confirmed that it was like appropriate.
So, what do we do? I'm going to keep this very brief because you're about to hear a whole presentation from us in in just a moment about what we've been up to in our department, but um in a nutshell, we oversee special education services in the district, health services, social emotional services, and a variety of other supports that we provide students, and records and residency. Why does it matter? Um because when we are meeting the needs of our students who need the most, we know that everybody benefits, and that's what we work to do. So, thank you, and I will turn it over to Mr. Dennenberg. Thank you. I will keep mine short, too, because last month I was up here talking about what my team and I do, as well. So, my journey started at the University of Illinois, as well, where I was studying elementary education.
Um, so that is you know adding a coach so that they can support that level. Um I believe we just added a level to uh lacrosse? No. Um there was a Which one was it? Yes, lacrosse. Um so, we are Oh, yeah, for flag. >> we do have no-cut sports every season, too. So, um we also make sure and sorry to jump in. No, hey. It's part of this question. I don't know how many no cuts, but when a kid If a kid doesn't make a sport, we'll try to connect them with one of the no-cut sports that we have that particular season, too. So, just thought I'd add Yeah. We also do have like athletic clubs, like pickleball, you know, at both schools so that that um sometimes when students aren't participating, they jump right into pickleball cuz the great thing about activities is you can join anytime throughout the year.
J- high school did that? Okay. Um, you know, the addition or the building of the CTE CTE program with the nursing and um, that they started this last year, the aviation that's upcoming. Um, some of those things with the ALP math program that will be implemented for next year. They wanted to highlight the fact that we're moving forward with some of that. Um, they really enjoyed the Friday focus emails. Um, they felt uh, couple of community members weren't parents. Uh, but they liked the information they were receiving from that. Um, and they liked uh, taking the community survey uh, from that as well. Uh, area of focus for the upcoming year, some of the things they hit at uh, strategic plan. Uh, classroom spaces in mobiles currently. Uh, the continuing work with the architects, reviewing timelines, putting support divisions for the board to move forward with whatever we decide that the board decides to move forward with.
Thank you very much. Is that one? I really appreciate all the work that has gone into this with with your team and the teachers and and tech people. Um, I have a question for my own clarification or under check my understanding. When you said lockdown capability, does that mean if teachers are giving a classroom test on the computer that students can't navigate away from that test? That is correct. >> Okay. And teachers will love that. As a parent, um, what would the interaction with Custodio be like? Is that going to happen on the parent's phone or tablet? And they have an app. This is a screenshot from the website, so they do have an app. You can use the website. Um, so it's pretty it's pretty simple um, in terms of just getting information on use, but then having some they probably have four different rules that you can put in as a parent in terms of blocking it or not or you know, kind of shutting YouTube down.
So if you have any questions on that, we're happy to answer those. One thing we did want to talk about, a bigger change is our homework policy. As you can see, that's on page four and five. And not to take up time, I just will read it real quick. At Prairie Crossing Autumn Elementary, we believe students work hard throughout the school day and deserve time in the evenings to rest, connect with their families and participate in activities that support healthy development. Because our teachers provide high-quality instruction, guided practice and intervention during the school day, we do not assign traditional nightly homework. Instead, we encourage families to support learning at home through simple, meaningful activities that reinforce important skills and build lifelong habits. Then we kind of give some recommended evening learning activities, family time and well-being. Our thought with this is we work our kids hard from 8:30 to 3:00 with this high rigorous um curriculum that you guys have graciously got us at the elementary level.
So, if you want to set an interview you can if you want to set a date to interview and then chance what you can uh which I think probably be my recommendation would be to set a day of June 8th or June 10th or something to I don't even know what those days are but that week of June 8th. Um and if we get applicants, fine. If we don't, then you have to decide what your next steps will be how you would go about filling that. But you have 30 days. The other thing uh Tyler brought up which I think is actually accurate. Um the closing for the No, if everybody was on the board and you were just running and you all you were doing was re-running, you have to have done that paperwork by June 19th of 18. >> 18 was what we said.
Uh, they really know things inside and out. They are very solutionoriented. You can tell they want to be there. They want to collaborate with each other. U, so just very grateful for all the teachers involved in updating our curriculum maps. It's been a great process. Um, really appreciate them and their work. Um, want to thank our elementary music team. On May 6th, we had several hundred of our second graders uh on the Taft football field. I was able to catch the tail end of it. Lots of happy people coming out. Uh, family members, grandparents, friends. Um, just a really unique opportunity for our second graders. And just a big thank you to our elementary music team for their creativity to put on an event like that. And there were so many second grade teachers there, too, supporting their kids. It was just a very, very cool event.
If you want to hear from them, we we invited them for that very purpose. Maybe >> we will get to that. When we get to specific questions. That was a generalization. It was a general question. TCE and PCE are carcinogens. Yes. Okay, so we have dangerous stuff. We acknowledge. >> Okay. My next comment is um with regard to the correspondence from Mr. Lucas's office on May 13th. And I And I guess I'd like some of the other commissioners to weigh in on this because this is my opinion and we haven't We haven't discussed this as a as a commission. But uh on question one on um uh the commission's comments to um in response to um I believe it was supplement two. And this was answered in supplement uh three. Um It says the Conservation Commission as been as has been stated in hearings requires characterization of the site as part of the notice of intent process.
>> Nope, I did not not I wasn't thinking of that at all. Okay. I I just I just I just want to set the record straight that at no point in time I think we have a phenomenal business manager. This has nothing to do about specific books finances. This is oper. I'm looking at it through a lens of operational and comparing ourselves to other districts. It's not about the way we run specifically. It's about comparing ourselves to other uh like-minded or similar districts. Think of it as similar to the dark group. Um but yeah, no ple please make no uh mistake that I was not referring to any kind of trust um with uh our staff here. Um I just think at the end of the day if this town if this town's going to ask for money for this school department, you know, we we got to be we got to be as transparent as possible and every step counts.
>> For over a year? If you say See. So, I do have a transportation question. With these gas prices being double what they used to be, could we run into trouble in our transportation fund spending money faster than anticipated? Um State aid does. Yeah. State aid does. We're close to the end of the school year. Even our yellow bus contract has a fuel adjustment clause in there. So, that's a win some, lose some. When the prices are lower, we get a credit. When our expenses Otherwise potentially once they do their final reconciliation, they come up and send you a bill to pay for that fuel adjustment. Is that contract still good or is it coming up? Yeah, we got 3 more years on it. Okay, good. Okay, and we've got enough padding for this year and next year for that in our budget that We do not have a slush fund and we don't have a money tree in the backyard.
Um but there are there are significant number of kids that are AM or PM in that group. Um on certain days Uh no, certain Yeah, only certain days um for other groups that go Monday through Thursday, and not on Friday, that um it made sense for us to assign a building administrator, or two in in the case of Barnum, to oversee the early childhood program, but we still [snorts] thought it was very important to have somebody with um what's relatively niche knowledge around early childhood uh development uh and the special education needs of students in the grade level. So, as I was thinking of a parallel to this sort of role, I previously shared um the you know, the idea of it being like a RAM position, where RAMs are very involved in the data, teacher coaching, um professional development of our staff at the elementary schools, or um as Marlene and I had talked a little bit earlier, you know, almost like some of the things department chairs do, except department chairs teach uh during the day.
Very rarely are they purchasing anything that's digital. And to talk specifically, uh, from Fisk's standpoint, they, you know, thinking about the online textbook, they're not on that in class that much. I mean, they may be for part of it, they might be using it for a reference or to do some homework problems, to pull up what the questions are, but in the class, you know, they're working with they're working together to solve problems, they're working, uh, with lab materials. The textbook isn't the primary way we convey material. So, again, as Ken has said, digging into we particularly looked at two-dimensional motion and vectors, which is something that students sometimes struggle with and is an area where we might say that, "Okay, we want to have that extra piece that they can go to." And being the online textbook, uh, would be that that piece for us, but it's not our primary curriculum driver.
You're talking about pension, you're talking about 403(b)s, talking about FSA. There's a lot of things that that individual does uh, uh, along with some of the uh, other HR stuff that kind of flows into that. So, um, I'm not really sure uh, if there's any any more workforce reduction in that area uh, at all up in the business office. Actually, I think that office is pretty light. Um, but everybody can disagree with me, that's fine and we're going to make do. Um, just like, you know, again, when I was brought in here, uh, I had an assistant, that assistant's no longer there. So, we're all we're all doing with less that we thought we were going to have. So, we're going to continue to do that. And I and I just want to say one one more thing if I can. Uh, actually two things.
There weren't like changes we made. Can anyone think of anything for those? >> What about the staff interviews and searches? >> What was what was your question again? So on these slides when you um when you look for each policy that we changed we gave one to two reasons things that we changed. So um like time compliance apparently or the expectations versus obedience. In this one we redefined bullying and expanded what harassment might look like. I'm wondering sorry some of this stuff was done quite some time ago. Is it something that we have to do in this meeting? Do we have to or can we work on it when we're not in this? I would have to go through personally each one to see like what were the major changes we shifted? >> Um yes. So I'm open to either thing. It felt like this was just going to be you and me doing it.
I did not run into anyone there, but that's where I was. That landed me um some great opportunities, 4 years teaching in the classroom, fifth grade and third grade. And while I was doing that, I started working on my master's in technology in education. That landed me in some other great opportunities, uh 7 years in technology teaching. First 3 or 4 years was in a computer lab where I had kindergarten through fourth grade students coming to the lab. And then I helped the another district with the technology integration uh teacher role. And while I was doing that, I worked on my educational uh master's in educational leadership degree, and I am now on my 20th year um as a chief technology officer or a similar role. Um I was doing the math, as well, and I believe this is year 30 in uh education working in schools.
It's not just one um sort of, you know, tryout spot. But, our athletic directors are really good about advocating, especially when the number hits a certain level where it's like, "Whoa, that is That's a lot of cut. Can we add another level?" And then we go through that process. Cool. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. And I'll just, you know, back to the the question [clears throat] that was asked. They didn't meet their goal, right? So, their goal could have been I wanted to be on that Right. True. They might have ended up on another team or a different activity, but still not met their goal that they set at the beginning of the year. So, it doesn't necessarily mean they weren't involved. Yeah, no, the the kids I mean, they were pretty honest with their responses. Like one student said like, "I chose eight." And I was like, "Ooh, set unrealistic goal." Um or uh behavior concerns, like "I'm always grounded." I'm like, "Okay, wow, behavior concerns.
Um, high school parking. Um, safety in buildings they thought was good, but they want to be opportunity for conversations for improvement. Uh, did I miss anything else from the five of you that were four of you cuz you weren't there? Um, okay. So, let me pull up Kyle's notes for DLT. Thank you.
So there are some options there for parents. That's all part of the Parent Square communication. Yes, sir. Thank you. I want to throw more on your plate, but but one idea that just popped in my head um, that might help parents is um, in August when we're having open houses or whatever when parents are in schools, if there's some resource they could go to. Sometimes with technology it's easier to be right there doing it with someone instead of trying to read about it or watch about it. Yes, and we're including it in enrollment packets as well. Um, and again, especially for elementary parents or some middle school parents who won't see a device, we're not expecting them to remember it um from communication in May. I want to go down a rabbit hole, but I found the app, so thank you for saying that. How does that work if a family's already using it at home?