Thank you. Okay, so let's catch us up. Sure, because they they invited look at an action item. Um, there is one. Um, and it was kind of a waste of time to do it, but um, that was a stupid job. Um, this is Robinson and this is Nardi to develop a an org chart for you uh, relative to the the central office um, staffing level and we'll do what it is just to give you the brief description of what each one of them um, do. Uh, and our next board meeting actually is the the night of um, the 2nd. I would recommend that that we first start at the finance uh, committee level just to review, but um, possibly be able to share that with you. If that's all right with Sounds good. All right, so the chair is going to make the motion and we'll have a second.
Any questions for him to answer now or later when he learns more about it? So, I get the program. So, like how Like if I'm in high school and we adopt this, like how is it going to benefit me? It's probably a couple years out before this to like really impact. We're going to continue to do our work-based learning. Um one of the nice things is in kind of teaming with West Aurora and East Aurora, they're at little different spots than we are, too. With some successes and setbacks just like us. So, I feel lucky to kind of work with those two school districts to kind of see what they're doing and how they're processing through this. In education, we tend to kind of all do our own thing and not really collaborate very well uh because we think like our circumstance is so different.
So, it really is for students and adults as well. So, when we're talking about data privacy, we're talking about um kind of two different buckets. So, cyber security and data privacy. So, cyber security, I like the the um metaphor here that um was included. So, the cyber security is more like the lock. So think about your infrastructure. So your technical controls, firewalls, encryption. So basically the the back end um of what we do in the IT department. Data privacy um that's the keys and that's talking about the policies and agreements that govern um how you're using your technology, who has access, what information you're sharing. Um sometimes knowingly and sometimes unknowingly. So that's why I think this is so important. So when we're talking about data privacy, we're talking about both legal and ethical uses of information um that are granted once we start using a a product.
So, the chair votes that the Canton Board of Education revise the 20 FY26-27 Board of Education final budget based on a recommended financial reduction from the Board of Finance in the amount of $375,000 to include technology hardware for $155,000, technology infrastructure $38,500, educational software for $17,500, staff professional development for $20,000, small capital for $92,000, and then 2.0 staff members, non-certified teachers for $52,000. This equals $375,000. Discussion.
And that's just not the case. We can learn a lot from each other. So, I'm really happy to work with East and West Aurora on this project and then to learn from other organizations that can help improve our product um in terms of what we're doing with work-based learning. So, it's going to be a couple years where I think we'll start to see the fruits of this. One of the really exciting pieces will be the data piece, Ed Systems, and I think I put a link in the the memo to what they've done with other statewide data. It's really helpful for making some data-based decisions when they are compiling the data for us uh and mapping that data to see what's happening in our region versus other regions. I think if I can add on, if you don't mind, Brad. >> Please. Um for me to answer your question, Raquel, I think one of the additional benefits to though is as well as Brad put, while we kind of navigate towards the more robust programming under this particular area I think this gives us an opportunity to sharpen the things we are doing right now.
Um and that could be something that's paid like a a curriculum online curriculum that we're using, we're paying for, we have an agreement, but there are also all of these concerns with anything that you can access for free. And I think um Penny is going to talk a little bit more um in a couple of slides about just how many um apps and programs we use. We were actually shocked um when we started looking at it and doing our audit. Um so this is not just like a nice to have. This was also a legal mandate. So there are a bunch of different state and federal regulations. Um the federal one being furpa which is the federal law that addresses student um privacy, access to student records. Um, Kappa, this is not as applicable to us. Um, it mostly applies to students under 13. So, most of our students when they start, they're usually 14 or soon thereafter.
Hearing none, we'll vote. This is a um, money vote, so it'll be a voice vote. So, all those in favor I'll go right around. Say my name or just say No, just say I. All those I. I. I. I. I. I. I. So, that's seven of us, seven all, motion carries. Before we adjourn, I'll mention you a few things. One is tomorrow night there is a there is a choral concert that starts at 7:30. If you can make it, that would be great. Uh the final thing is we do have the uh annual Memorial Day parade. Not sure how the weather's going to hold. Hope to see you all there. Uh we line up at 9:30. Step off at 10:00, I believe. 9:30 step off at 10:00. Yeah. All right. Uh any other business come before the Board of Education this evening?
Uh Um if you look at the language in the text, a lot of it is based around presentation. You will see a lot of familiar language that our teams have presented to the board about what we're doing. Like if you take the education pathways program for example, a lot of the work-based learning skills that are coming through this, student internships that we've been talking about, working with some of our teachers at BHS right now who are taking the lead in developing the foundation for us to get ready to launch paid student internships that we will host Um there's a lot of work in that. I think these are the things that give us the the kind of that North Star navigational tool to keep heading towards. Um so that when we are ready to kind of launch bigger, um this where we're like foundationally ready.
So, we have fewer restrictions than say a middle school or an elementary school. But, it is still something that we need to be aware of. Um, that CMR 17 Massachusetts regulations about student records and student privacy. And then uh finally NDPA that those are national data privacy agreements. So um we have a local um cooperative that we're part of but it's based on a national data pro p privacy agreement which gives a framework for what we should be looking at when we're um getting into contracts. We're buying software. We're engaging in different contracts. So there's a national standard for data privacy. And different states have different laws and regulations as well. So there also you know you you start with the national framework and then there are other it's called an exhibit or an attachment to those agreements that are based on state specific regulations.
We're set. And we're aligned to the standards that the state's looking for as well. So. That's all I have to say. Yeah, there were some pretty smart people on those calls. Other questions? Okay. So Brad, next steps? You learn a little bit more about it. >> I'll learn more. I'll bring it back next month and we'll see where we're at with the agreement. Okay. Great. All right, item 13, board and superintendent comments. Tom, anything to start with? As is always, this is my one and only comment tonight. Um I liken tomorrow evening to the final act for those of you who appreciate the theater or fine arts. If you're a sports enthusiast, this is the Super Bowl tomorrow night. Um so excited to be at graduation. See our students walk across the stage. To me, that is the highlight of what we do in education.
So we again we learned so much um but some key takeaways if we could summarize um the first one is about active auditing. So really getting a good handle on what is it that we're using? What's our paid software? What do we use for free? What are staff using? What are students using that we may not even be aware of? Um, P, are you talking are you mentioning go teacher in your >> I certainly can. >> Okay. All right. So, she can go a little bit more into that. So, basically how we're doing this audit and how we actually find out what we're using. Um, so it's really important that we find out everything that we have and um, we look at the consortium that we're a part of. I'll talk a little bit more about that. But if we're using a particular software, a program, a platform, is there a data privacy agreement available for that um resource?
To see our students as they matriculated through the district and now move on to their next goals in life and you know, um so just really excited. I know in my visits to the buildings over the last week or so that a lot of students are excited about this the event for tomorrow night and so all I have to say to the board is my only comment is go Bulldogs tomorrow night at NIU. Great. Board member comments. Okay, Christine. Thank you. Uh I just wanted to mention that I can't remember his name, the gentleman that spoke about the piano. Mr. Peoples. Mr. Peoples. I think I've mentioned before the park district program where um they have discu- conversations and there was a conversation about music in Batavia and he sat next to me and so I had a [clears throat] conversation with him about his dad who was a music educator.
And if there is, we access that right away. It's a very simple process. And if not, it's something that we we can request on our own. So that's about the auditing piece that she'll talk more about. Um the human factor, and this is this was I think really important to kind of take in. So there are things that we're just learning about. Um but you can't hold the students and staff accountable if they're not aware. So um we've started to do some professional development on this and we'll be doing more um in the fall. Um we'll have a a roll out and we're working on a specific process for approving software and different tools that we're using as a school. So right now we're still in the middle of that. We don't have an approved list yet, but that's what we're working towards um to try to protect this as much as possible.
>> [snorts] >> It's nice to see him again. Um and then my second thing is with the amount of emails and concern we've gotten about Chromebook usage, if that is something that people would be interested in putting on a future agenda, I think the timing is not great cuz I would want teachers to be involved in that conversation or at least to get feedback from the BEA to get an idea of like what what it what it actually looks like in the classroom. Um but I was just wondering if people are interested in having that conversation at some point in the future to get more information about you know, what does it actually look like? Yeah. And I'm wondering for our school update meetings coming up here right the schools, can we have them comment on that or ask for their feedback and input on that?
Um, and also transparency, building trust with families. So, um, you know, families, they get the student handbook, they sign off on it. There's a lot of information in there, as you know. Um, so what are we actually doing to make sure that we're doing the best we can to make sure that students is are safe, that they're not accessing things here while they're at school that they shouldn't be, that things that they're not accessing at home. Um, you know, that they're we're not selling their data unexpectedly. you know, we sign on for an agreement and if we're we're not careful and we don't have an agreement, we might be unknowingly selling that students contact information, their data to an outside provider. So about a year ago, uh we joined the tech student data privacy alliance. It stands for the education cooperative. So this particular alliance, they uh cover 16 different states.
Yeah. Um how about on Tuesday evening I can also present I I put our our committee messages are designed to intentionally be summarize of a you know, two-hour long meeting, you know, so they're not minutes per se, but they're a summary. Um Next week what I can do is share a snippet of like what our conversation was at DCC. We did begin our conversations around the use of screen time. We had a conversation about devices. This was a conversation we had with the board in the fall. We've talked we also discussed the AI maturity tool that I've shared with you earlier. So a lot of these things that are being raised do not I think a lot of the speakers actually spoke to this is they don't live in isolation of each other, right? They're all they're all tethered to each other. They all touch each other and I think it's really important as we respond to this, we look at it holistically and and at DCC we had a conversation to kind of start navigating what that might look like.
Uh Massachusetts is one of those. So, we joined it about a year ago. We pay I think it's an annual fee. It is not expensive at all and it's been an incredible tool. They've been great partners so far. Um, so what they do is they help us to access those data privacy agreements. Um, so we have a portal, we have a list of all of our approved agreements and we can also research if we if a teacher or staff member wants to start using something new, we look on the database, we look up is that resource available? um you know with a data privacy agreement if it is we sign on to it and it's very quick and easy. If not they'll do actually do the leg work for us to create a new data privacy agreement um so that we don't have to every time we want to use something we don't have to send something to our attorney and have them view it and vet it.
But I can give an I can provide an update at the Tues Tuesday evening meeting. Start with that. I would say start with that and then I agree with you like if we were to have a discussion the teachers are like the most important piece really, so maybe in the fall. We'll see where we're at. Half of it's teachers. Yeah, just a reminder at the DCC level half of that group is teachers as well. So I was a part of that DCC group, so. They're part of the discussion. And then my last thing is congratulations to our Bothell graduates. college or trade school or I hope you feel that your BPS experience has prepared you for what's to come. I know some of you probably had hurdles to overcome to get to this point. I hope you're proud of your accomplishment. You persevered and you made it.
This is um what they do. This is what they specialize in and they make it incredibly um easy and much more safe for our school. So, Pennyota, you want to take it from there? So, um, yep. So, after all those things that we learned at the conference and beyond, uh, we came back here and worked with our team to come up with, okay, what are our next steps forward? Um, so these are our district um, technology strategic priorities. Um, really what it boils down to, first off, student centered learning. We want to make sure that um you know when we bring in technology that students still remain at the center of the thing of of the work. Um equitable access. So with technology come opportunities and sometimes barriers. So looking at that piece um the systemic security piece um like Brenda mentioned before making sure that um from an infrastructure standpoint everything is safe.