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so in special education when students are eligible we start at age three and so we work with regional center to transition students from what's called part c to part b in special education and we become responsible for students offer of a free appropriate public education at age three and that happens quite a bit at longfellow and then we are supporting students through the age of 22 or when they earn a high school diploma so upon earning a high school diploma students end their individual education plans if they don't get a high school diploma and they're on a certificate of completion or they're working on a different pathway they go they may go through age 22 to either complete a diploma or to complete another certificate of of completion and the adult transition program services that and so we work on community based learning with the adult transition program so students work in the community as we can um support them through the workability grant and so we place students at some of our partner businesses in the community so that's one way that students are able to get community-based instruction we also do a lot of field trips so that students learn how to navigate their own community how to take transportation how to access facilities such as the store those types of things how to count money and how to count money absolutely that is part of the the curriculum and so they work on um we call it the dollar up method is one way that we support students who maybe um don't have that numeracy ability but they are able to count money we also have an apartment at adult transition programs so that they can learn those life skills of cooking and doing laundry and recreation and so there are five pillars of the curriculum that um are throughout all of our life skills programs including recreation socialization academics and so on thank you absolutely there any other questions or comments and i i will just say uh thank you so much for the incredible presentation grateful for for all the voices that that shared and just gave some uh just a snapshot really of some of the the things that we have going on and some of the things that that are coming up um i know that i for one am excited to see um this work that we're doing continue and some of these just some which seem like pie in the sky but but are happening and and where we have the the funding and what not to actually bring it in uh to fruition and that's exciting so can't wait to see it and can i just add to that the um i would also like to see which schools have which programs i think that would be beneficiary to even the community um even if it was on the website somewhere and and to know where they want to take their child you know where their child fits and if all the schools are open i think that'd be great too the community can know thank you for that board remember regular explain it because yeah i i would i would say with all of this going into this next season yeah can can we think about how to market how to share um this miss louise even shared earlier just just talking about going on the website what are the things that we see or that that are made um kind of known more publicly knowing that we have all this coming how can we how can we again to eternal question we continue to ask ourselves how can we market and share in more effective ways and in growing ways in better ways and some of the same ways the many things going on okay then if there are no other questions or comments i'll give one more second one more pause then we'll move on to item 5.1 which is adjournment is there a motion to adjourn make a motion to adjourn by point one for a second a second so moved by board member rodriguez pena and second by reporter vote i can't imagine there's much discussion but is there any discussion anymore is gonna want to know why i'm home so early that's all what are you doing here where can i go now all right we'll go ahead and and the motion passes four yes to one absent and so we are adjourned a few minutes early at 6 57 pm thank you everybody

maladies good evening it is 601 pm my name is john mursky chair of the ann arbor energy commission as chair i'm calling this meeting to order i'm participating from my home here in ann arbor welcome to the april 12 2022 electronic meeting of the ann arbor energy commission this virtual meeting is to affect special district or social distancing and mitigate the spread of the covid 19 virus we will conduct this meeting similar to in-person meetings commissioners during the call a roll call please indicate your current location during the meeting please remain on camera just as you would be visible during in-person meetings also mute your microphone when not speeding speaking public comment will be via telephone only to speak during any of the public comment opportunities that's at the beginning and end of the meeting please call one of the following toll-free numbers eight seven seven 853-5247-488-788-0099 and enter meeting id number nine three seven six seven five one six eight one nine on your phone this number or this information is also available on the published agenda in the public notices section of the city website and on the broadcast of this meeting on ctn channel 16 and a t channel 99 as well as online at www dot backslash watch ctn missy would you please read the land acknowledgement absolutely chairman i acknowledge that the land the city of ann arbor occupies is the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the anishinabe and wind up peoples i further acknowledge that our city stands like almost all property in the united states on lands obtained generally in unconscionable ways from indigenous peoples the taking of this land was formalized by the treaty of detroit in 1807.

hello hello can you hear me we do all right thank you hello my name is gus teschke i live at 313 montgomery i'm a supporter of ann arbor for public power thank you for the opportunity to speak i'm calling in support of the landfill solar array project it's a great idea it makes total sense if you want to cut carbon emissions for electricity i believe that the landfill is the only major public open area in ann arbor well we could put an array so it's worth a thorough discussion um and thanks to the energy commission for giving the public a chance to comment on it um you know i've learned a few things about the project that concerned me so i have a couple of questions uh the first is how will the construction of the landfill solar array be financed i understand the subscribers will collectively pay the entire cost of the project through excuse me individual utility bills but the dte will own the physical asset so you know and then question number two will dte assume any unreimbursed costs for this project and if so what are they the city council was told in 2020 that dpe will not have any financial responsibility for the project although they will own it the city has already paid dte's pr preliminary engineering review and distribution study and for the environmental assessment so will dte pay anything for this solar array that ann arbor is going to get to it those are my two questions thank you thank you all are ending in one three four thank you dr stalton chair mursky and garber 28 haverhill court um yeah i'm going to speak on landfill solar too i think we can agree on three things first staff has put a huge amount of diligent and creative work into this project and deserves a recognition for that um second we still need more information i've seen the list of questions from a2p2 and they overlap with a lot of my own i expect that we'll get answers from tonight's staff presentation the third thing we can agree on is that the current plan is not ideal there are a lot of trade-offs yes we want to get this solar energy on the grid as soon as possible that's extremely important but giving this valuable asset to dte is painful especially since we're already talking about buying it back once we can directly use the power buying back the landfill solar project is even in the new muni rfp of course as a business deal this is absurd but we're not a business not to be too grandiose but we're here to stave off global catastrophe but there may be ways the city could keep ownership and use the power directly with only a small delay maybe a few years run transmission lines to the water and sewage plants as a2p2 suggests get in the queue for a miso connection work to legalize true community solar at the state level then implement it here get the seo or a parallel utility up and running and start selling power to local commercial users these options are not mutually exclusive but they do require owning the asset yes we could buy it back from dte in five years seven years but the price will be very high selling would take renewable power capacity off their books so it's worth a lot more to dte than mere market value and we would pay a big premium i share the first caller greg woodring's concern about additionality of this project i think it's a valid question i don't know the answer um if it is if it isn't uh additional then we're better off on our own doing an additional solar farm and even if it is additional i think we still need to um have a conversation around ownership thanks thank you that's all risky very good okay so let me pull out the agenda here just a second so um the first presentation or point on the agenda i should say is the capital investment process and this how that overlaps with our sustainability agenda and um deb i think um you're joining us this evening to present thank you very much appreciate you um spending your time your evening with us and um missy i don't know if you want to introduce the topic briefly first or um if you want to just hand things over to dip i want to thank deb for coming you may not know but deb is retiring in just a few weeks so i think you might be one of her last public meetings and we grabbed her so we could get all that institutional knowledge before she transitions and she's doing a beautiful job passing it on to kayla coleman but i just want to acknowledge that the work that you've done for the city for a blink of an eye but a longer time than that and uh you will be sorely missed but thank you for spending one of your last public meetings with us uh so without further ado deb do you want to share your slides or do you want me to run them i can just go ahead and do a show screen all right so i'm going to click it here in just a minute so my presentation is not terribly long tonight but what i would like to do is kind of quickly cover where we have been in the capital improvement plan and how we started out integrating sustainability where we are today and where we hope to go next so that's sort of my goal and with that i will give you just a second and share screen okay i assume we're all set at this point yes we see it yeah it's always weird how we zoom unlike when we do teams meetings i don't actually see what you see once i go to this mode so we're good so um is there a chance you could go to um like slideshow mode it's still showing some um borders and things like that i don't know if you can do that uh yeah hold on just go view daddy right but i think that i grabbed just the pdf because sometimes that's easier so full screen mode i think it should work view and then full screen mode a little bit farther down near the bottom there we go yes that better that's a little bigger yeah thanks okay great because again weird looks exactly the same on mine so all right so with that um i wanted to start very briefly just explaining how the capital improvement plan is put together so you can see where the ability to integrate sustainability as the plan is put together and then of course once we implement plans is the second and probably more major opportunity so one thing that's important to understand because not all cities organized i'm going to call it cip out of brevity at this point but we organize our cip by asset groups and we set it up that way because generally speaking these groups are not competing with each other for money so when we go to doing the prioritization like we'll talk about later and where we can integrate sustainability criteria um each group has then more flexibility in setting up those criteria and again like water funds don't compete with sewer funds or street village funds so it works well to parse out uh the groups like that so we have three overarching groups that's municipal facilities transportation and utilities and then we break each one down further so municipal facilities include city-owned buildings parks and recreation and solid waste transportation is the biggest group because we have our municipal airport active transportation is the area where things you do that don't involve a motor so bicycling pedestrian activities anything that gets people out of their cars basically we do maintain i believe it's 16 bridges in the city new streets is a very minimal category because generally ann arbor is quite build out we're not really much in the business of new streets mostly what ends up in that category is requests to pave gravel streets um other transportation is other things that happen inside the limits of the right-of-way but that are not about getting around like on your feet or on a bike so that's like signs and signals would fall in there um if the downtown development authority does streetscape projects to beautify them so that's where other transportation is really other right-of-way projects parking facilities the city owns a number of parking structures and some surface lots they are actually operated for us through the dda but they're still city assets so improvements to those still fall in our capital improvement plan street construction speaks for itself and transit is basically the future train station and an idea about um cube jump lanes for uh buses are in there so it's quite a tiny category but we distinguished it out because it has unique properties and then the final asset teams are utilities sort of self-explanatory we have sanitary sewers storm water and water and in the sanitary and water that includes the plants themselves that are operating the system as well as all the pipes that are part of the system so groups of staff are organized by these asset groups and to create the plan i always refer to it as the three p's so the first thing we do is identify new projects and where those ideas come from um is pretty broad sometimes they come directly from citizen requests or maybe it's a group more than an individual citizen but um you know throughout the year i may receive emails saying anything from can you pave my street to i think we need a crosswalk here so we do get requests that come in that way um master plans so many asset groups have long term capital plans and they say when you get to this point you should do x so we get ideas for master plans and then probably the biggest single source is staff knowledge nobody knows better where the water mains are breaking or where the heating and cooling isn't working very well or whatever to suggest projects so we actually have a meeting in which people present projects if we're in the year like this is an even numbered year so we tackle a full six years in the even-numbered years we only look at the front two years and the odd that keeps us in cycle with the capital budget so people can suggest other things that aren't already in the cip and they can also suggest changes to the scope of the project so that's always meeting one of the first of the three p's and just a quick notion of what makes something eligible to go in the plan we're looking for capital improvements that cost more than a hundred thousand dollars and it could also be a suite of projects that cumulatively go over that limit so let's say um missy suggested um you know a series of ev charging stations and it was 25 25 25 25 4 years in a row as long as the project itself reaches um that hundred thousand below that things tend to get funded through operation and maintenance um and then also we will fund studies in the capital improvement plan if they're going to lead to a capital improvement so let's say we do uh you know a study of all our buildings uh an energy assessment then we know that that's gonna lead to some energy related changes or we study you know flooding areas and we know that will lead to some storm water projects so studies that are more than 50 000 that will lead to capital improvements also make it into the plan then the next thing that we do is actually prioritize the project and this is where we're going to spend a little time and i'm going to finish going through the process itself first but if we have this whole body of projects we have to have a way to decide what to do first what's more important to the city you know what contributes more to our goals so any new project that is added is prioritized and if someone suggested a scope change to a project that's already in the plan we re-score it uh to prioritize it and i'll mention in a minute we're using a software called alavance that we tend to refer to it more as strategic value scoring but everybody still calls it prioritization but we think of it as what strategic values can this project exam and while we're working on that finance is off to the side setting the parameters for us because in order to get to the next step of program we have to know how much money do i have to spend in the water group in 2024 so i have to have a financial target for the teams to be keeping their ideas within and then the final step is actually programming and by that i mean what year is this project going to fit in the plan and how much is it going to cost so to create that plan obviously we have a prioritization score and that's very important however it can't be the only thing we might say oh gosh we'd like to do you know a train station tomorrow but it's 80 million dollars i don't have 80 million dollars so it doesn't matter if it's number one it's still not going to happen until we have the funding available um and the other thing is the city works very hard to coordinate projects across asset groups with each other so for example if we are going to be paving a street we always have asked the question is the water main okay under there does the sewer need any attention are we having flooding do we need to do storm water work and each of those might be projects in their own bucket but we have to coordinate them together and then the last little box i have here says staff and contractor capacity and that i'm sure will not come as a surprise to any of you but that's become quite the challenge contractors are busy and we're competing against other cities counties the state for those same contractors we can't predict exactly but we do tend to know which areas were more short than others in contractor capacity so we at least consider that a bit so we put all those projects that we prioritize we try to do the highest scoring ones first depending on the funding availability and coordinating with other projects and out of that we create the six-year capital improvements program and this is basically just reiterating we look if it's coordinated with something we slot at the first available time and we keep adding projects in a given year until our bucket is full and then we move to the next fiscal year and then we go back and keep iterating if another group comes along and says oh i really can't wait another year on my water project but all of that leads to a plan and then the last thing i like to talk about before i turn to sustainability specifically is whose responsibility is it in the city to approve the cip um and so planning commission itself under state law is the body that approves the capital improvement plan it is technically a planning document it has dollars assigned to projects at the planning level but the planning commission actually holds a public hearing and eventually votes and adopts the plan and then at that point the cip is the building block for the city's capital budget so generally in the administrator's budget the cip projects have been moved in you know almost completely intact one place where there tends to be little adjustment is if general funds are used because those are not a revenue source in the same sense of you know we all pay a water bill if we live in city there's the water revenue we you know have a street millage and so on so general funds come from property taxes but they're used both for capital and non-capital so there can be some tweaks but generally speaking what's approved in the cip leads to what is approved in the capital budget so let's turn now to how do we roll sustainability ideas in well back in fall of 2020 is when we switched to the alavance software and up until that point we had the same prioritization criteria across all groups um and there were like eight of them and then there are a couple of special ones that groups came up with but basically every group had the same um scoring and that seemed good on the surface however what we found in years of practice is people would say well that doesn't really apply to our group and i feel like i'm scoring this for nothing or whatever so we began the process of refining and we did our sixth largest of those asset groups in fall of 2020 and scored projects for the first time and one of the things we wanted to do in those change was to start to find an increased emphasis on energy and greenhouse gas emissions climate preparedness equity and so on so as you're all aware the city has had a sustainability framework for a number of years with 16 goals baked into it and what we had been doing was that in all of those groups with the universal criteria sustainability as an element of deciding what projects to advance was the same thing it was basically of those 16 possible goals how many can the project help advance so it was better than nothing um however uh there are things like you know local food source that'll be pretty darn hard for you know say a water project to do anything to assist so again people would say it doesn't feel quite right so once we had this opportunity to define things related to sustainability we began to do that so i'm going to show you a couple of examples of what groups came up with and again this is just reiterating where we were you could score 0 3 7 or 10 points depending on how many of those bulls that you ticked but once we got through these groups so active transportation parks and rec street sanitary storm and water were the groups we've done this tweaking on in some ways for the things like you folks care about the most energy there wasn't a tremendous opportunity to incorporate that component of sustainability but i'll show you where we did it and then you know we'll talk about the next steps so um one of the components of sustainability was equity and one of the things we found is we tried to develop criteria is there's not a lot out there to guide you and so we started with some of the things where we it has to be a scorable metric so for equity we realize that this neighborhood's at risk which is sort of a national level uh data set had set some metrics related to households in poverty so census tracts for the city of ann arbor allowed us to see within each census tract how many households were living in poverty and i have to say it was kind of an eye-opener for me i think we all think living in ann arbor that we don't have households in poverty or a lot of people i think believe that but we do have them and there's definitely differences in different census tracts so one example of an equity scoring now instead of numbers we use low medium and high desirability and behind them there's still a graph so it's not straight line but for example this was used in a couple of groups if the project occurred in a neighborhood with a low percentage of households in poverty meaning less than five percent it got the lower score if there were five to ten percent of the households in poverty in that census track it got medium and if they're greater than 10 and there are such tracks in the city uh then they scored the higher things so this started to bring in um one aspect of equity it being economic equity it's certainly not the only one but it was one that everybody said yes and it helps then keep you from accidentally spending more money in a wealthier census tract than in one that isn't within the city and it was interesting to see having done this for 10 years how it did actually advance some projects based on that score another example was trying to get at the idea that there are some groups that don't consume energy per se but they still have the opportunity to foster non-motorized travel as a way to decrease greenhouse gas emissions so in one of the groups they came up they called the scale user experience not sustainability but they were then looking at the kind of things that encourage uh non-motorized travel so in this group and i believe this was active transportation it's like well filling sidewalk gaps adding crosswalks adding bike lanes helps encourage non-motorized so we just did the same thing and set some metrics the sidewalk gap plan itself has a baked in prioritization so where did it score on that we have a transportation master plan that highlights certain crosswalks that we think will be more important to safety and to increasing mobility so we baked in where they uh would score on that and then also the bicycle network um now in the transportation plan has like critical non-critical and so on so there was another sustainability related uh criteria that a group came up with um parks and rec actually created a criteria called protect natural systems so another way of looking at sustainability issues and they when they tried to decide how do we know what projects are doing that they looked at metrics of stormwater runoff control is it literally impacting natural system and biodiversity you know positively or not positively and what is its impact on natural resources so they seem a little vague but yet when people went to score them they felt pretty comfortable analyzing one project versus the other as to which one was helping more another example um and this was again in parks and rec they literally said does it contribute to a20 goals as a metric and they said if it doesn't contribute obviously it gets a lower score if it contributes to now we're back to counting in a way but at least one of the a20 resilience strategies it can get to medium if it does two or more and they actually to remind people listed in the metric what some of those strategies were like power electric grid with renewable energy switch out appliances and so on and not all these projects could do all of these things but some of them could help also they still recognized if they did something to interconnect people in a way that didn't require vehicles that was helping contribute to the goal so they gave more than one metric at the low medium and high and again the idea was different types of projects trying to find a way that their impact could be differentiated so that was another one that they came up with then we have some groups like water and sanitary well we have two different types of projects within the group like in water we have water plant projects and we have water distribution projects and they are competing for water funds with each other so we said their ability to contribute to sustainability is different a plant project we can literally measure is it reducing energy load is it moderately reducing it is it significantly reducing it but we can't say the same thing on a water distribution project so they said even though they're two different things let's score the social equity as low medium high that way they're a slightly different metric but each project has an opportunity to be evaluated towards contribution to a sustainability goal and so we made a little depth there were some more i just picked some sample ones to say they they're not a cookie cutter here's how we define like if we tried to say does this project reduce greenhouse gas emissions a lot of you couldn't possibly do it therefore as a scoring metric it's not terribly useful but as next steps we haven't tackled particularly city-owned buildings where energy is a very direct thing um you know putting solar on city-owned buildings reducing energy loads in the buildings and so on so missy had introduced us to a group that wants to do a pilot with the city and they have some very elaborate metrics related to um carbon reduction and uh greenhouse gas emissions and all sorts so we're going to do a pilot with our city-owned buildings and airports where we have actual physical building projects and we can apply it in practice to the water and sewer plant projects but it will probably be indirect because of that strange scoring thing so this will be our first opportunity to drill down hard on the energy aspect itself for those groups and you know transit wouldn't be much of a leap whatever works for city-owned buildings would work for the train station but not for acute jump lane so we'll have some serious work to do on that but that's our next step and we continue to try and gather ideas from other communities on what are some of the metrics that they're using to measure so we came from to be honest nothing at all when i first came here to incorporating sustainability framework goals to using some drill down metrics for different groups to continuing that process forward so it's not perfect uh but we've made i think fairly significant strides in trying to bring it in and then the final piece that that's how we would incorporate it in the plan for the plan but where the real work and real change can also come in is once a capital project makes it into the plan that intervening at the design level to incorporate design metrics materials choices all those things that can affect sustainability goals and i believe out of this pilot that we're doing that we will get a lot of excellent ideas that will be more on the implementation end because when a project goes in the cip it is not designed we know what we want to you know achieve we're going to rebuild fire station number four but we haven't designed it so we can't introduce detailed metrics in prioritization but we certainly can once we start design so hopefully that gives you an idea i'm going to kill my share of where we've been where we're going and hope that helps a bit well thank you very much you're welcome i'd like to open things up for questions it's kind of a dry topic when that's all you hear so i i have a few if no one else does um i i didn't quite understand if um different categories i'm not asset categories or i'm not i don't know if i'm using the right term um compete with each other in effect even if there are dedicated uh funding mechanisms for example for a utility or something like that does you know something for um stormwater compete with um active transportation for example or are they all eventually in one big bucket um competing against each other they really are discreet with the exception that i was talking about that general funds can jump across a few categories but no by accounting uh principles and how all these utilities are set up water funds can't spend storm water dollars or vice versa or can't spend street dollars so they're competing within their own revenue source against each other so that's why the prioritization can be tailored at that last mega level where there's a handful of things that are capital that use general funds it's mostly some of our dams are funded in part by general funds city-owned buildings are heavily funded from general funds and so technically there's a little bit in the water group that could be competing with the city-owned building project but generally there's almost none of that um each revenue source is designed to support that specific set of capital improvements with that revenue source okay thank you that wasn't clear to me before and the other question um we actually have two questions um so it's clear to me um the various high medium lows and the the criteria that are used to define those how does sustainability weights or scores fit into the overall scoring so i assume they're being rated on other characteristics and my recollection at one time was that sustainability was roughly ten percent of the total is that still correct or is that um incorrect or been changed well you know that's a good question and it does differ from group to group so the one part i was trying not to go too far down in the weeds but when a group is going through this new setup process they call first they define the strategic values you know sustainability or something being one of them and then they do go through a waiting exercise and it's actually one of the most powerful parts of the elven software because uh the gentleman from university of michigan who was really behind it has a phd in decision making and he uses pairwise comparison it's like which is more important natural resources or you know condition whatever and everything gets rated on a higher lower scale to each other it helps people from trying to rig the system so to speak and when done sustainability uh whether or not they called it um in different groups there's somewhere i think it ranks over 20 you know where it's roughly equal to say if there's five the other ones so it isn't the same in every group but in general it's higher than sustainability relatively counted under the count how many of the 16 you score i definitely see a shift you know in thinking with the a2 0 goals and stuff that people are ever more conscious both as staff and as human beings about the importance of that in spending your money so um i it's not the same in everyone but it's reasonably high in all of them thank you you have a couple of questions councilmember briggs thanks i have one question and then one comment um so the question um you mentioned how equity be kind of being a measure of households in poverty is that kind of the only measure of equity that we have currently that we're using the prioritization score yes at present it was the only one we could get some sort of agreement on and have a metric that we could find have enough confidence in the statistics to use but there's continued discussion um particularly in the transportation groups as an example as access to transportation as an equity issue so i know some cogs got some metrics they're coming up with so at present it's the only one we've tackled but were very aware that there are other kinds of equity that are not economic equity and that was the first example i could come up with that's been discussed yeah that's great that's where my mind was going to because you know obviously it's important to be thinking about the census tract but particularly in transportation that sort of access to transportation and having continuity and record recognition that transportation is the second highest cost in household budgets um so good to know that we're thinking about that and then my comment is just um i just wanted to say how much gratitude and um appreciation i have for the work that you've done for the city i've been previously served on planning commission as you know and i've been watching these presentations for a long time and um your positivity and your approach to trying to improve the process and advocate for better software and better approaches um is definitely noticed and very much appreciated and i know it's going to be a big loss for the city so thanks for all the work that you've done over the years thank you both appreciate good evening um debbie congratulations on your retirement good luck on your second career you know you're just starting so you know this your next your next stop's gonna be a good one i think um i have a two-parter for you um the first part of the question um it seems like this new process you've embarked on is a little bit more of a collaborative approach where the project team basically does the scoring and then you just have an output that you're looking at and comparing um i'm involved in a lot of sustainability uh programs with infrastructure behind the scenes and we actually use it more as a screening tool not so much as a collaboration tool or a scoring tool wherein we're looking to eliminate projects if they're not providing some sustainable benefit to the community it just falls off the map completely so a thing like avoiding resurfacing a road if you can avoid a that's a huge source of carbon it may not be you know positive for the future we may have other forms of roadway used in the future maybe bikes or other traffic don't need to resurface you know use it as a deferral tool has that been has that been considered is it ever a part of the process i'd be curious on that and then secondarily maybe in the same breath can a citizen that has some experience in this actually participate in the next round of revisions do you know where that's headed because we'd love to help on the first question no we have not used it as an elimination because the fact that the project has been identified kind of by default says there's a need to address so rather than saying no we're not going to do it at all using your road example one thing we're already doing is drilling down hard on the right fix at the right time philosophy and trying to do smaller fixes earlier in the life of the pavement to avoid those big fixes that are expensive they're you know carbon unfriendly all of those things but we as you know public sector dollars saying it doesn't meet uh something so we're not going to do it at all is not an approach we've taken um on the second thing um any input on these you know kind of changes and criteria are also always welcome and if they're sustainability related probably um sending them through missy as your principal staff contract would probably contact would probably be the best way to figure out um and she would work with kayla coleman my replacement to see how in this process that could fit in but any more expertise you know that is helping come up with these kind of metrics that people already have yay any other questions i have two quick ones folks for missy missy i know what an a2 0 strategy is i'm not sure i know what an a2 resilience strategy is we we don't have them they were the eight zero strategies okay the seven overarching really the sixth substantive yeah i wanna make sure i understood that and then the other quick question was it sounds like you've done a little bit of benchmarking on how sustainability is worked into other municipalities cips and that's what deb referred to where you provided some information about how another governmental entity is is doing that and that's what's leading to these pilots that mentioned you is that correct uh ish so the pilot that deb mentioned actually came from a very different conversation that someone who has worked overseas to help people integrate sustainability kind of into their capital planning process and is looking for kind of refinement in the u.s market they have a tool and so we're we're more uh bleeding edge of that to figure out how this actually works you could be applied within our system uh to your question i mean we constantly are trying to figure out like how do we do this better and i think deb hit on this really well and she always has to remind me that uh the cip is but one process the actual design of the projects is really where we can go deep hard and fast in a lot of selection um and for what it's worth the sustainability team sits on most of the working groups and the assets so we have representatives who you know we don't do water system planning but we're there asking questions to help prioritize the projects that they're bringing forward okay great again thanks deb um have fun in retirement and maybe we'll see you sitting on this side and you're never not order commissioned someday or something like that not necessarily for ann arbor but who knows what some other entity i appreciate and i'll let you get on to your solar farm questions so thank you so much i'm gonna step out have a good rest of your evening all right i just wanted to welcome cole cole thanks for joining us and we are now moving on on our agenda to a presentation on the uh solar uh installation on uh the wheeler or the wheeler center um solar park and um missy's going to present that and um looks like we also have someone from dte joining us so missy we'll let you take it away and make the introductions yeah that's great thank you so much uh everyone excited to be here today and i will start by saying the project that i've always referred to as landfill solar does have an official name so you saw it on the agenda as the wheeler center solar park so that is the name broadly that actually has been moved through dt system and apologies i hear tears in the background so we will likely have a visitor momentarily uh in terms of the presentation we're just gonna walk through some general slides i know we have some comments we're gonna try to address most of the comments and questions that we heard we might get some people will grab them in a q a so i want to thank mr rivet from dte uh for joining us we're gonna tag team the presentation and mike just very quickly should i do you want me to elevate randy or kayla into the panel i think we're good for now we can we can pull them in sounds great uh perfect so let me just pull up my spies for everybody well welcome this uh project is moving slow and fast in all ways it is the very first project that i took on when i joined the city and i'm excited to see where we are today it's been through a lot of different iterations and so for our time together we just want to talk briefly more from members of the public about how this project aligns with a20 uh we got a lot of questions about why collaborate and so we want to address those and talk pretty openly about why we chose this path about the process that we've been through give you kind of an overview of the project broadly talk a little bit about subscriptions and uh guess what there's new developments because there always are otherwise this work would be easy and it constantly is hard so we'll share a little bit about kind of what's happening within the landscape so to kick it off i'm going to start with 820 which i know we're all familiar with you know we have seven strategies there's really six substantive and the seventh is a cross cut that covers every single topic things like equity community engagement metrics so the six substantives the very first strategy is about powering our community with 100 renewable energy and under that are four actions that were identified action three i'll go in reverse order is to start a community solar program that is not legal uh in michigan we can't just start it because we want to so that came up of course we're pushing for community solar legislation it really really matters but we don't have it today so reframing community solar if we were to do it would be illegal unless we worked with our utility so community solar is one of our programs our actions that we want to see promoted action four is explicitly this project the landfill solar project which was called out in the plan and kind of uh if you've read a20 you know there's an entire section on uh these two different elements so our goal was to see both of these move forward and we had an opportunity presented us to do that so i'm gonna i'm gonna talk about that kind of opportunity in the framing of why collaborate and i'm gonna kick it over to mike in in terms of why collaborate one the site is complex right uh landfills are fabulous locations to build solar from an intellectual standpoint from an environmental standpoint i think from a land use standpoint and there is a reason they are not developed frequently they are complicated there are a lot of rules and requirements there are we are taking notes uh we often joke that we're gonna write a paper maybe even do like a netflix movie special and all the things that keep coming up on this project you know there was a box turtle that was seen in 1906 and we have to do special things because no one has seen it since 1906 but maybe it's still there who knows right so there's just a whole bunch of additional layers of complication associated with this project but that doesn't mean not do it right as people have uh commented a number of times we don't have a lot of undeveloped land in the city and we do have energy goals and energy principles and of course h20 that ask us to reduce emissions and to reduce emissions fast to prioritize local where we can and this is the plot of land that we have available to us to do scale and so we keep pushing through and trying to find ways and navigating kind of that train broadly so this is a complex site and having a partner with us is important we want community solar right it's one of the actions in a20 and right now the only way to do any kind of community solar program is with our utility we got agreement in the vgp or section 61 filing for this project with the city being the anchor tenant meaning we'll be the off taker and that's how we got community solar to move forward through through the project and we've been working on designing that uh kind of in lockstep with what's also really neat is that we can connect to dt's distribution lines so you heard some callers mention that yeah we did pay for some of the initial studies every development pays for those studies we however because we thought we might have some room on the dt distribution lines not the transmission lines we were able to do an assessment and the answer was we did there is room on those lines with some updates which are built into the project costs but that means a lot of things one it means we are not in a long wait line the itc to get on to the micro market and the transmission lines that is a really long list we're talking years um and not one or two many many years because lots and lots of projects are coming on so you have to go back to the end of the queue it costs a lot more money the studies are very that you have to do additional studies in this process so we knew if the dt distribution system wasn't capable of taking this we were going to have to go and get in the queue if we wanted this process to move forward and because it's in the distribution network the energy we're producing is likely to be used locally right it's not likely to go somewhere else in the big transmission system and then another reason is we care about scalability transferability and being a leader in the space this allows us to demonstrate what's possible through multi-institutional collaboration and that's not just with the city of dt pittsfield township has been beside us in this project you know this land that we're talking about was uh and is in a pud with pittsfield and so we've been working with them on design doing public engagement uh within the community in pittsfield township and pittsfield township is excited to be one of the off takers of the project itself and so there's lots of collaborations that are coming forward and i would be unequivocally remiss if i didn't know that in the section 61 agreement which is that third bullet point the vgp we also designed this program and got approval to make a low-income solar offering an option what this means is we can in fact buy down the cost of a number of subscriptions so that people don't have to pay the premium they get the credit on their bill and they can subscribe low income eligible qualified people can subscribe so we've been working on two mechanisms to make that manifest although we're open to lots and lots of other ideas and folks have them one is uh dt is working on a low income solar program broadly right now where people can contribute funds to a low income this pool of money and then projects get financed and the credits for those projects go to different low-income residents in their distribution network or in their service territory the other is we've been exploring at the city buying down if i got uh hypothetically two million dollars in funding somewhere if i get a grant can i put it down towards that project and reserve two million dollars worth of output for residents and so we're working on all of those structures uh in collaboration with dt but that's part of what excites me about this project too so kind of big picture bullet points we don't have to stand up new infrastructure by doing this which is a long time and if speed is a criteria which we all said it was when we adopted the energy principles and criteria this allows us to move fast to get renewable energy on the grid it is additional this does not count to dte's credit for their renewable energy uh portfolio in terms of like their requirement to meet this is in a separate section a separate filing so this is new this would not be built if we did not bring this project forward because it is not my can can share more about that but it's not at the scale the dt is looking at it's a complicated site so why would you start at this site uh and so it is fundamentally additional to what would move forward and it's the only way we can get community solar so we're excited about the project despite all of its complications most of the time i'm excited about this sometimes i cry a little bit myself but mike do you want to take over now i'm going to go and mute for a dog park great thank you thank you missy and i i do not enjoy following missy because she has so much energy to bring the table and is so enthusiastic about this project but i will try my best to keep that going dt is extremely excited to be a partner on this and missy talked a bit about the section 61 and renewable energy plan settlement which ann arbor was a part of that was a really important step to this process i know a lot of you have read news articles and mlive articles and et cetera around kind of this process along the way from 2019 and so we partnered before we we actually had approval from the mdsu to move forward on this we started partnering early to really drive down to the details and understand is this feasible what can we put there how much would it cost um can it tie into the grid and so a lot of that leg work was was taken on by both dta on the on the call side but also in arbor as a partnership in the beginning and so coming out of that settlement we were able to really have the approval to move forward on a framework and so that framework laid out how we were going to go out and bid this and it was going to be an open rfp we brought in a lot of requirements from the city to make sure that we were aligned with how the city would like to uh conduct rfps and and those uh those aligned well with us so there really wasn't any complications there we did issue an epc which is engineer procurement construction uh rfp in october 2021 and what that really is is we had a tabletop design that's what a lot of people saw numbers were put out you saw some drawings that tabletop design needs to be taken into a full final design we need to go through and do finalized permitting uh finalize the electrical interconnection and etc to make this into reality and then obviously procure and construct it and so we issued that rfp in october 2021 it was originally a four week rfp we extended a fifth week as we saw more folks coming into the mix and they were asking for a quick week extension so we were able to give that week extension and we received a great amount of bids 10 bids from very qualified ebc contractors um we were extremely happy from the gt side to see the the names and the the size of companies that wanted to come in and compete on this and i think a lot of them were just excited about the project it's it's a large um large local project it's not the largest of projects that you'll see in solar a lot of a lot of the universal scale projects are 100 megawatts 200 megawatts but this is really unique high publicity and really cool aspect with the landfill uh we did go through and and typical to rrp which aligns with um npsc approved processes we did review those and went down to a round two where we brought those select uh four bids into conversations and really dialed into their bids currently we are down to one single apc contractor that's going to provide the best value for this project and uh we're currently in the middle of negotiating with them to finalize that agreement which would ultimately decide the pricing and uh give us enough information for us to work with the city to understand whether or not we can move forward on this and at what price point so looking at the project and let me minimize what i can see here so i can see the slides as well um so looking at the project you can see uh four arrays here and i'll talk through kind of the specifics around those arrays um this is a 20 megawatt project i know there are some questions around it used to be 24 we heard um it was a touch larger we did end up um you'll see there's not any solar arrays on the floating around the reservoir there's no more floating on solar missy i think can speak a touch more to that as ann arbor was pretty well involved on that portion as well but it seemed like we were not going to get the approvals needed from our regulatory bodies in the environmental side of the house um to have that go forward and so it's a it would have been a fascinating thing from an engineering perspective and sustainable perspective but um the decision was made to drop that portion of it so what we're left with is 20 megawatts and 20 megawatts is jammed really tight in there this is about 70 acres and on 70 acres uh 20 megawatts is no small fee as you can see with the row spacing if you're familiar with solar it is tightly packed um which is great for the city uh it's great for that dual use land i'm really excited about that piece as you're really getting as much value as you can out of that that portion of land um some other uh discussion points i want to just touch on here financing the project dt will finance this project this will be a utility capital project just like any other generation project we have so there is no capital output from the city from pittsfield township or any subscribers and so we have the ability to to finance this and offer it at a subscription rate and that subscription rate is that levelized cost of energy that you'll hear in the new here in some of the news articles and missy and myself have talked about and that's really it's a it's a cost recovery mechanism that we put into a tariff just like we would with a migraine power project if you're familiar with our volunteer renewable energy portfolio we do expect to qualify for 26 itc uh investment tax credit that is and that is being baked into the pricing as as we're currently working through it right now so i know there are some questions around whether or not we qualify and whether or not that would be passed on to the city and to the subscribers it will be and then additionality i won't touch too much on that i think missy did a great job in talking about that the the approved megawatts that came out of the renewable energy plan settlement those megawatts are for customer domain those are for our voluntary renewable energy program the city of ann arbor happens to be one of those customers demanding negligence and so those are incremental they're additional they're not going to be built otherwise without customer admin and uh just talking a brief you know brief more about the slide here so construction is expected to to start in early 2023.

okay brown is here mrs galbraith here mrs walters here mr sawalis here dr hall vice president rule here president albrecht sure our mission is to empower each student to positively impact the world for a bright new future okay my mic is on now um terry do we have any public comment no sir did anybody come for public comment okay um okay next up board updates yeah i had a question so it's been brought up twice i know we talked about it the con the census of 2020 right and there we've talked about um the changing of the seven districts so i guess i just want to get the clarification on that on what our responsibility is because i had a conversation with somebody else last week with another attorney trying to figure out what our role was in that so i reached out to dr kara to at least talk with our district attorney what is our position i mean what is our responsibility so i should be here yeah i think great here we go the district it is our position that the district does not have an obligation to redistrict at this point in time after the 2020 census um i'll give a little bit of brief background information as to why um the district has seven voting districts that were created pursuant to a court order um that arose out of a litigation matter back in the early 90s okay um and and that is the the foundation of the basis upon which district 201 got voting individual voting districts for its board of education that is different from how voting districts are created through a process that is outlined in the school code so specifically section 9-22 of the school code lays out a procedure by which a district can basically voluntarily choose to uh you know with voter approval to have seven different voting districts as opposed to an at-large voting system um section 9-22 of the school code which we just described there does require a redistricting after a you know the annual or the 10-year census right that is not what district 201 has district 201's voting districts were not created per section to section 9-22 of the school code and accordingly district 201 is not obligated to redistrict after a 10-year census like other districts who might have districts who might have voting districts that were created pursuant to that school code procedure so all that is to say that no district 201 does not have an obligation to redistrict at this point in time um they just have to make sure you know they they have no obligation under the school code or under the uh court order that was issued back in 1993 they have no specific obligation to do so is that the reason why we have seven districts is because of the court order from 1993 yes so that's why we don't need to re uh do that every time you're after the census that is correct okay but we did redistrict back in 2010 11 after the 2010 census and that was because the population had grown correctly a certain percentage or something to that effect right so the um the court order that was passed in 1993 essentially requires that there be uh you know seven voting districts one for each board member um and that two of those districts have a majority of their population be african-american um and then uh that the each district is you know within a certain range you know close in population so i you know i was not personally involved back in 2010 in the redistricting but it's my understanding that yes there had been a change in the populations within the districts and that within the voting districts and so district 201 opted to redistrict as a result of that to ensure you know continued compliance with the court order making sure that there was reasonably equivalent numbers in each of the voting districts all of which is to say that the district is not prohibited from considering or looking at redistricting but at this point in time they are not obligated to so so if there if there was if there was accelerated growth like in some other towns kind of prior to 2010 i mean anywhere between 1998 and 2006 there was rapid growth in money and crete and other areas but since then we haven't seen that so as long as we don't see that kind of growth like we see in other towns manhattan new lenox you know in surrounding areas that are a little out further west it's not going to change much right i mean i don't have the demographic information in front of me right but but as a general rule i think that's correct which is that if the if the population numbers which within each individual voting district have not significantly changed such that they are you know within uh like 10 of each other then there's no obligation to uh no obligation to redistrict all right thank you and when you guys i'm sorry no when you guys decide basically through that component say yeah we can do it if you want but it's going to be a cost i said no thanks correct it is an expensive undertaking to do that yeah that's my person over here yet i said no thanks and again i don't think the population has grown much i think there's like 21 000 they're about 22 23 000 registered voters and each voting district has about a little over 3 000 you know we which equates up to 21 22 000.

understood thanks okay thanks for bringing that up i just want to say thanks for doing this because there is a lot of misconception in the community and i think it comes from that whatever that number 9.22 or whatever was it that school code or whatever versus the court order versus rumor and i know mr sawalish was contacted i've been contacted i don't know if other board members were because there was an assumption that after every census you had to take a look at all the sub-districts and supposedly they could all be up for re-election blah blah blah blah blah so and the blah blah blah i just can't get into so i'm glad that we're doing this and hopes that it clears it up to both all of us i mean i wasn't clear on it and i know a lot of the community wasn't so thank you for taking the time to put this out and and clarify to the best of our ability how this really works i appreciate it and i appreciate you guys making sure that we did take care of it because i think it is important i think that people then think we're going and we're doing something we shouldn't legally be doing or whatever so again i just think it's great to have this information out there and hopefully we all remember it 10 years down the road okay any other updates from board members okay under this agenda item board updates we are going to have a presentation on program changes to the multi-needs program and cara do you want to yeah i'll say a few words um this evening we wanted to share some information with the board as well as our community and our parents that we've invited here this evening regarding some of the changes for our multi-needs program which is our k-5 program which is currently housed at coretta scott school as you know from our previous meetings the teacher and staff shortage has certainly impacted our district especially at the multi-needs program and all year we have been really struggling to make sure that we could provide enough staff along with some aides to help support the classroom setting due to several of the factors we have are needing to make some decisions in the best interest of safety for our students in particular to making sure that we can run and sustain a strong program we have found based on our our predictions for staffing for next year that we are going to be running short so our team along with hr mr neil had been talking quite a bit about what are our options for our programming and the best needs of our students for safety when it comes to staffing and so forth so we have talked about this we have met with our teachers there was a parent meeting we want to present this to the board this evening so you know what is going on with the programming and what our future plans are for the program as well you know before we make any staff changes at the next board meeting next next week this evening i have invited ellen bilotti to come and she's a director of special ed program to share a little bit more in depth about the the challenges that we've been facing this year some of the decisions that we have made and what our intent is in moving forward for the future of this program ms baloti it's all yours thank you and mr neil and i may be jumping in to give our two cents here and there so please don't mind us thank you so much all right well with a very heavy heart following a process to sustain the multi-needs program we can't hear you yep there we go is that better okay to begin again with a very heavy heart we went through a process to sustain the multi-needs program the decision was made to transition the program at the end of this school year for kindergarten through fifth grade to our cooperative speed middle school and high school will remain the same i thank you for the time to explain the process that has occurred first our challenges open positions we have witnessed many concerns through covid and we have seen that we have had a loss of workers in many jobs but those affecting education have been especially challenging from teachers to paraprofessionals to food service to maintenance to everything in between our district and those around us have a diminished workforce filling positions has been an ongoing endeavor since spring and summer currently in the area of special education here we know that we have many paraprofessional positions open as well as teachers went unfilled posting for one additional certified staff in the multi-needs program this summer resulted in just two applications and neither had the necessary qualifications regarding the posting for paraprofessionals the applicants there too were limited and many of those did not have even minimal qualifications for the positions those that had were unlicensed but had some college credit day care experience or some other like position i contacted them offered support as they went through the ispy process for licensure that resulted in two more paraprofessionals of course we did advertising indeed reaches many many communities and has been renewed every 30 days since july of course there's our own district website which incidentally also goes to every single staff member and we offered full-time and part-time para professional positions we were able to add two part-time positions we hope that this would be successful and we were able to add one person to talala and one person in our multi-needs program at csk the shortages of substitute teachers and substitute paraprofessionals necessary due to the high number of staff six days has been difficult additionally in the program we had resignations and retirement where our substitutes were needed we had one retirement we had four resignations and two paraprofessionals did not return and they didn't notify us till august other step steps that were taken to sustain our program most importantly we looked at our students and many of our kindergartners had minimal school experience because in march 2020 when we moved into virtual learning they were three in march 21 we were brought back into the buildings and many many of our students especially our little students stayed virtual so in the kindergarten we added a certified special education teacher into that classroom so that the students had two certified staff as of course the prayer professionals and what occurred was co-teaching again this was due to their limited school experience that we were aware of as they came through our door during the first week of school as the elc students began a few days later our paraprofessionals from the elc kindly came over and provided temporary support as we brought them in for that first week i need to note that the principal the assistant principal and the elementary supervisor were also frequent supports throughout the year in the classroom where there were challenges and shortages of teachers and paraprofessionals we adjusted schedules and we adjusted classrooms to address the student needs in fact the teachers elementary supervisor and i created a profile of the multi-needs students in the program supports and services needed as part of our work in team meetings in this last year due to these current challenges and concerns in november an alternate plan was proposed to the teachers for the two other classrooms we discussed the possibility of suggesting that the two classrooms that did not have co-teaching combine and become one of course they would have seen an increase in our classroom size but we would have stayed at the legal limit of 13 and each of these classrooms and multi-needs would have had co-teaching or to certified staff this plan was met with vigorous dismissal by both teachers and some of our parents note the plan was again developed because of our concern for our students this takes us to the end of february and march unfortunately we have been unable to secure enough paraprofessionals the paraprofessionals we do have we know that two of them are leaving us in the fall to pursue their education and student teaching we are concerned about our teaching staff as there are many openings in the district and quite frankly it's been a tough year they may have considered moving into one of those open positions in the district the program would not be ending with a full staff this spring as it did not end last spring with a full staff there have been copious emails from the staff and also from parents regarding the challenges this year expressing their concerns which please know we shared too there was optimism as we ended last spring semester that we would find the needed supports for this program as we began the year we were optimistic that we would have that increase in staffing especially paraprofessional staffing that we needed we lost a speech path in august we were fortunate to be able to fill that position in the fall we were optimistic that was what was going to happen with our positions in the fall there was optimism last spring there was optimism in the summer and there was optimism as the year started but there isn't optimism this fall unfortunately we now know the reality is that we cannot sustain this program in the district we needed to establish a transitional location for the program we contacted speed and they were able to accept the cooperate into our cooperative building this program speed has been our cooperative for many many years we've enjoyed that partnership of course transportation will be provided just as it is now and the location will change but the students goals services supports that they see in their ieps that transitions with the students next to our transition steps with our families and our students and staff the difficult task to share the definitive plan with staff and parents occurred on thursday both sharing this change before sharing this change it was important that the actual plan was developed and the reason the inability to sustain the program due to staffing was provided an invitation was sent out for the virtual meeting on thursday and 11 of our parents were able to attend another invitation was sent last friday to attend this board meeting where the transition of the program would again be shared the parents have also been invited to our speed cooperative on either wednesday or thursday of this week to meet the principal and of course see the building i realized the notice was short but speed is on spring break next week and knowing some parents would want to visit as soon as possible these dates were set another date will be set for those who could not attend after speed returns from spring break iep meetings to change the location of the program will begin on april 21st and go through april 25th the invitations for those meetings began to go out yesterday as in all iep meetings we will find a mutually agreeable time between the home team and the school team to make this change we will be respectful of the parents time in these meetings as always that changes to the iep or the location the serving school as well as the instructional minutes at csk which are 1725 will change to the speed instructional minutes of 1800 remember that our students at csk eat at their own tables in the general education lunchroom and and some do eat in their classrooms too but all students will be provided transportation as i mentioned car riders this year as every other year may choose to change their mode of transportation if they wish the district to transport parents will need to register at both the district and at speed both of which are virtual communication will be sent out to explain how to register on speed's website and of course our website here and it will also the communication will include information regarding the school hours at speed as well as their calendar future planning will begin when school resumes in the fall there'll be a committee form to review programs and services district-wide we have a continuum of services here in the district from three years of age through 22 years of age both in district and with our partners out of the district within the continuum we will also review a satellite option thank you for your time would you have any questions i have a question um uh my my excuse me for my ignorance maybe i just missed this but it sounds like like have we been talking about this okay so then it sounds as if if no and then i'm not the only one then it sounds like this decision has already been made and you all are just informing us that this is going to happen or i don't i'm trying i'm kind of confused with this so so the question is how many teachers do we currently have right now it's a four or five we have three um multi-needs teachers and our co-teachers are our two resources i'm sorry no disrespect though but i need my question answered first yeah sorry no i know yeah um is this a done deal or are you all informing us or are you asking us are we is this still up for discussion that's what happens so we can probably pick you up as well and miss mr neal you can add to this as we we've had this issue all year we we know that and what comes up is when it comes to staffing as you know in february and march is staffing month where we start taking a look at our numbers for next year and we start trying to figure out if we how our programs look and in our conversations uh with mr neil as well as taking a look at our programming we were seeing that this program was going to be again deficient in staff members it has been a hard year this year and we were concerned about having another harder year next year for certainly our students making sure that they had enough aids in the classroom as well as you know the extra work with our teachers with with the stress level without having enough aids in the classroom to support that and while i don't know if you want to add to that about the staffing piece and what we've been looking at well i don't have a whole lot to add other than you know we we started trying to staff for this year back about january february of uh 21.

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 here rachel cholesky here michelle colella here kate canetta you're gladys cooper here lauren daley here jody silva joe dacilla will be arriving late okay here albert rousseau here louisa brinton here and ralph professor president we have recognitions this evening good evening everyone like at this time um invite up dr christie who is going to recognize the women's club of danbury new fairfield the recipient of the connecticut association of schools distinguished friend of education award i'm actually going to let a cast member a former principal good evening my name is mike morocco and i was the principal of old saver middle school for 25 years and i retired in 2013 i'm still an interim principal throughout the state i want to make 55 years as an educator i don't do it for money because i love kids so it's my honor to be here tonight and actually this is my second time recently because i visited middle school for the chair of the committee for the distinguished connecticut associate principal and i see that she's here and i think she's a jeweler for david from the school and for the community she blew us away the school blew us away and i prayed both in the administration great job but really why i'm here is i'm on the committee for the recognition and awards which is one of the biggest awards when you have the women's club you've got to read very carefully it is my honor to be here with christie to award this award to the women's club of danbury little fairfield cafes established this award distinguished friend of education was in 1983 to honor individuals and organizations whose efforts helped to better the schools and communities which our children learn and live it is the highest award given by our association to entities not directly involved in public education we host numerous recognition programs each year and the distinguished friend of education is by far our most popular every year we receive dozens and dozens of nominations from schools around the state and every year it is a very agonizing process to narrow down our selection this year was absolutely no exception the fact that the women's club of danbury new york fairfield was chosen this award from such a large and competitive pool of nominees gives testimony to the power and importance of this work on behalf of cass and the members and schools we represent i congratulate the women's club on the achievement achieving this much earned recognition and i thank them for the wealth of resources and opportunities that they have so selflessly afforded to the students staff and families of the danbury community i would like to have christie speak through like janet dabisky come up and accept it on behalf of the women's club these are many of the members there are other members that are tuning in from home so hello to you the women's club is no stranger to danbury public schools they've been helping out in many of our schools and they're just such a group of generous women who want to give back to their community and the way that they have been helping us last year as many of you know we started 501c3 i think i got all those letters and numbers right we basically have a non-profit at our school because of so many students that are in need of food they're food insecure so from the pandemic dana because she is so amazing along with one of our secretaries terry and our school social worker karina started the meal training and so one of our old retired not old people retired first practitioners was was sewing masks when the pandemic first hit and we raised tons of money we were able to fund it last year you know the funds were getting a little lean and these lovely ladies put on an amazing dinner for us that raised over 12 thousand dollars for our meal they didn't stop there because they love to give back and so they work with us this year and in conjunction with our pto they have purchased for us two picnic tables and our pto has two picnic tables for our new greenhouse that we got from our title one money last year so we are on our way we need two more anybody wants to build it but they have been such wonderful women and we are really proud to have been working with them and thought that when i saw the opportunity dana and i said we've got to nominate them for this because they really need the recognition they're not they don't ask for much they're not out there but they're really giving back and it's just such a great testament to our community and danbury and how we want to support each other so thank you [Applause] um what i'm going to say is probably repeating doctors of the celta um how it all began in 2019 a member of the woman's club mentioned to our community improvement committee writer's park middle school weekend program needed help with some food for 15 and 15 to 18 students at first we started to buy and replenish the tiny cupboard uh with convenient food that the students can take home and put in the microwave or just heat up as time went on we found more students and families needed help and that was when i opened my mouth and suggested a silent auction thirty give back baskets were made and tied with green ribbons twenty one gift certificate information uh was placed in plexiglas stands ready for the display and one week to go we were all excited and then came covered all baskets had to be stored food had to be checked for expiration dates and replaced businesses had to be contacted to see if they would still honor their gift certificates for another year after three postponements we finally held the auction on june the 18th 2021 it was hard work we had lots of fun and we raised a lot of money i only thought we were going to raise two thousand dollars and our president who couldn't be here tonight so we she said no we'll make five well we raised 12 over 12 000 and that was the thanks to the generosity of the area businesses your pto and the members of the women's club and my wonderful committee then nancy probably repeat thank you she's my co-chair hi there the education committee of our club has been involved in many educational projects they build a lending library for the interfaith learning center as well as donate supplies they collect the box tops for different elementary schools every year 40 of money raised from our point status sales is given to scholarships to high schoolers in the danbury area the remaining 60 percent goes to the greater danbury area charities finally on behalf of the danbury club of danbury and new fairfield we want to thank cas for their award also dr zelta dana perez and karina chelsea i hope i haven't messed this up for organizing this worthwhile project thank you [Applause] good night thank you very much right now moving on to public participation there's no one on the list is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak tonight nope okay make sure consent calendar i make a motion that the board of education approved the items on the consent calendar exhibits 22-43 through 22-48 as recommended second lauren move segmented by al is there any discussion just a correction on the minutes exhibit 22-43 i was president of that meeting so could we have a direction in our next meeting that i was in attendance um is there any other discussion any other questions so i need a motion to amend the minutes i suggested so move by kate is there a second sure any discussion on the amendment seeing none all those in favor any opposed motion carries back to our original motion lauren i moved dissected by that was you now any further discussion on the original motion all [Music] um educational staff representatives our student representative laura's yours how are you i wasn't able to print out my notes today so i was wondering of course thank you good evening board of ed members and community members thank you for allowing me to represent and speak on behalf of the alternative center for excellence tomorrow the ace environmental science students will be taking a trip to the normal program with kante and dj on thursday melissa laski will be taking students to dhs to experience burgerfest on may 6th ace will administer its humanities benchmark the day is a whole school event that will see students participate in grade level benchmarks to assess our diminutive writing skills during a three-hour session and is coordinated by the ace humanities department ace will be hosting prospective dhs students from may 2nd to may 13 20 dhs students will be coming for a day to visit our program on saturday may 14th from one to four facebook posting and barbecue to celebrate our founder joe kaepernick the day will also include activities for the kids as well as time for alumni and staff to share stories and special memories related to gel and the ace experience ace would like to recognize our super attendance award when it's kristen balani and nicole kushby um do you also like to celebrate our for demonstrating leadership in the classroom and the ace community thank you for allowing us to share what's going on [Music] did you say this is [Music] is it open to the public we are expecting principal weather to come back to provide some more details from the last what do we the next board meeting um um going backwards because i see some of our staff representatives would you like to speak this evening action items uh kate would you do action item a i'll make a motion at the board of education to approve the 20-20-22-2023 school calendar as recommended by the community relations committee and in accordance with the exhibit 22-49 is there a second part um i just wanted to i just want to say that you know the conversation we had dr selig brought forth the results of the survey that went out to our community um and it was a 60 40 split 60 were in favor of the uh the half day sessions so that is what the recommendation is from the committee uh you know recognizing that we're not going to please everybody but we are trying to follow the feedback that we got from the community thank you for that any other discussion all those in favor one abstention motion carries um action b michelle would you do that please 2022 high school graduation date motion that the board of education set the high school graduation date at wednesday june 15 2022.

not are there any other nominations for secretary saying none will hand out ballots please thank zelda not just come terry i'm gonna stuff the box i got too i love you man uh that was a short back to where i started next to miss cooper i'll take that any i think i have one in here a lot of things happen tonight yes oh [Music] like i never left guys so more good news from rogers park middle school i would like to start there as part of the superintendent update this two weeks ago now we had an amazing as typical of the rogers park administrative team and great teaching staff over that building there's always great things going on in that school and two weeks ago no different the leadership there forged a partnership with the nearby school district had an amazing day titled harbor me rogers park study and student exchange program and we have asked christie's elita and dana perez and staff to come down and walk us through the excitement that took place a couple weeks ago [Music] thank you so much for having us here this evening we have a little presentation so you can get some visuals in july this past july tim salem jamberry native and principal at shelter rock middle school in ridgefield reached out to myself and dana to ask if we were interested in pairing with his school to do a book study so of course the way that we roll is that we'll pretty much try anything we love to collaborate and talk to other people and learn from other people so he said of course they met with them and their his media specialists and our media specialists came together and talked about doing a book club we have very different makeups in our schools obviously and we thought it'd be important where we have students come together and see that while it may be different in many different ways we're all still human they're all still crazy bubbles of course and anybody that has a middle school or who has had middle school it doesn't matter where you live we're all a little crazy but we still love them and we you know use this time in middle school to help them set themselves on the right trajectory make good habits and learn from each other so with that we moved into picking a book and harborview was a wonderful book that was chosen by the media specialist that really looks at students from a diverse group of diverse backgrounds but they're in a school that the students are placed in in a room it sounds crazy once a week with no adult and it's just like what are you gonna do so they forged this friendship and they learned that although they have all these crazy backgrounds they all still have something in common which is that they at the end pledge to harbor each other knowing that harvard is a place of refuge in rough seas and when things are uncertain and so they come together and they end up hiring one another and it's interesting in reading the book so the assumptions that you make when you start speaking because they don't tell you which kid has which ethnic background or which kid has is from a more affluent part of town and your your own biases which we all have kind of come to play and then you're oh man but it was such a great read for kids i highly recommend it to anybody no matter no matter your age but so what happened is we got together and then as a school we used our social justice club we're really proud of our after-school programming that we have we offer many different things for students to get involved in and so we thought that the social justice club would be the best move to vote so we had about 25 or there's like 50 kids in the group we brought them all together and it ended up being about 25 kids that really wanted to get into reading the book talking about the book and then they talked about them you know you're actually going to get a field trip too which is really cool because no one's been anywhere for two years so each month we start in november and the kids would read you know chapters one through eight and then we'd meet the library media specialist mr duff and miss foley they did an amazing job they did really the hard work we just took attendance and got the kids there made sure we had coverage where it needed to be but they really did the hard work of getting kids to talk to share and this is kids across sixth seventh and eighth grade so they aren't just a group of kids that came from in an english class this is a wide diverse group of students that came together and really started to to uncover things about themselves and each other and so we would meet in person and then we would meet with um scott's ridge scottish middle school online so we met with them twice so if you can go to the next slide and thank you so i kind of talked about that already so this is the cover of the book by jacqueline woodson so this was our first digital meeting so we were lucky to work with cass of the connecticut association of schools and tim and his team had presented previously around book study and so the lady in the corner rosie is the cast person who helps facilities facilitate this and help us and i'll talk about the later slide how to move forward so we met this was the first one in november you could go to that side and we would meet and we would talk and then we'd come together again with richfield and then the students we went through specific questions about the chapter groups and then our first meeting was in person at statridge and that was back in march so you see us coming in that was the top left when we were first when we were all you know you come in and grow like you could tell who was who because we all had to stay together they stayed together and then the team at scottridge put together a couple different activities of the human scavenger hunt find out who has the same birthday month as you and that kind of like easy ice breaker stuff so the kids started to say oh look okay you have a september birthday too and then we did an assumptions activity which was fun of course pizza brings everybody together so after our tour of the school we had some pizza together and then we ended it with another group of another part of our book study so the kids by the end were like oh i can't wait to you know to see you again i want to go to school with you all day it was really awesome to see how they kind of came together as a group and kind of broke down any barriers that might have existed before just because you didn't know anybody so you could go and so our second meeting was in april that was uh mr walson said two weeks ago when they got off the bus this time there were hugs and they were like they were so excited to see each other so our students are in the blue t-shirts and then um scotch ridge is right there in the front and they had brought we had we all signed that will you harbor me we all signed it as we left and they brought it back to us actually stopped in my office and then we had nato welcome it's hard to see welcome to rogers park from to the staff sergeant so you go the next one so our day we started with an acrostic problem and we put a twist on it so where as you're usually going like kkk is really hard once my first initial let's go with d d for dancing dancing game so instead of going like d a and a we would try to find what are the things that are common between us and so the kids would pair up with roger sparks students and statues students and then what are the things that are the same in the top right hand corner and that was one of my favorites the way that they all it all shook out they were all epic so they all had an e in their names and so it was really cool to see the kids connect and we were in our new learning commons at our second floor of our media center and so kids were working on that then we moved into our story walk so similar to um what is a privilege walk it's we didn't do it in such a like you know i mean like as heavy a topic but it was like have you ever felt you know alone and then take a step back or have you ever felt like someone supported you at school take a step forward and so at the end of it you couldn't tell which kids came from your school because at the end of the day we're all having things that help us move forward and things that pull us back and we ended it with a circle so we circled up and kind of shared it out and we take away from them we facilitated them the kids were talking they'd share a lot and bring it back but then at the end of the day they walked away knowing that while you may feel alone when you look across at all the other kids they're going through things too and so you know this theme of like having empathy for one another and understanding that like they said you're not alone okay so we came back we also did a tour it was fun mr salem had his first student teacher was in there mr andreoni and one of his former students is in there and mr navarre so it was like a big reunion from salem and the kids really loved it of course if there's got any food we like to represent with those gringos and they provided us with delicious the chicken that went quick the rice was amazing and eben we barely got one which was awesome because the kids really enjoyed food and then we ended it again with a book study wrap up and then the kids our kids had our writer's parks and they had all the kids like signing their shirts so it was really cool by the end of it that they really connected and shared handles instead whatever those things are all social media stuff those were good this time so we were really excited and um moving forward we're actually presenting a poster we're doing a poster presentation at the cen conference in may around our collaboration with ridgefield and we're working with rosie and tim to do a cast webinar to try to kind of spread this out to other schools to say hey partner up with a local school and see you know how you can bridge some more gaps so thank you so much for letting us present we're really excited about it and you're all welcome anytime [Applause] big thank you to your media specialists and teachers at the school thank you so much [Applause] voice for change update for the board of education and school community a couple weeks ago we had was that the black box we had miss heather lorenz the civics teacher at danbury high school and a number of students a couple of students present out on the projects that they were submitting on behalf of danbury high school to the state of connecticut the commissioner's initiatives a voice for change in which schools would receive in which winners would receive twenty thousand dollars for uh presented projects and friday the state made an announcement of the winners and so there were two winners for the state one that was chosen by the commissioner the commissioner's office and then another winner that was chosen amongst the peers so of those two winners and sorry i just have to grab again danbury high school had more applicants than any school in the state of connecticut and lorenz thank you again for your amazing leadership in this two winners both by the way danbury high school the first winner of the student election the student election is the project is called water fountains water fountains which was led by the state's 20 000 grand 20 000 grant will be enough to help buy and install 11 new water fountain refill stations within our school there are currently four active water fountain stations refill stations serving a school of over 3 300 students this grant will help take out the old porcelain water fountains and replace them with the safe and effective water fountains which also have a bottle refill station creating this project will allow numerous students within the school ready and quick access to awarded instead of needing to travel between buildings this will create a more healthy and happy school in addition to enriching the learning of students as as there will be less class time spent looking for water furthermore refilling bottles will have a small but noticeable impact on the use of disposable plastic water bottles as many students will start refilling those while bringing in stronger material water bottles uh congratulations to the sioux students and the winner of the commissioner award i can't help myself um damn very high school again uh furniture for the faculty nancy sarmiento matt newton and liam wong the commissioner stated she specifically chose this project because of the out of hundreds of projects submitted to the state this was the only project that focused on the mental and physical health of the teachers the state's twenty thousand dollar grant will help to provide an efficient and refreshing environment for the danbury high school staff in the teachers lounge as the school has grown the number of students who need to work in a teacher's work room is to eat lunch there has grown too the grant will help to replace the current furniture with your tables and electric outlets chairs and furniture teachers can choose to relax on thus providing a restful environment for faculty another addition would be to provide portable chargers if the grant money allows new equipment for heating lunches now new refrigerators and possibly a sink to clean dishes which be additional upgrades and then we have a list of all of the students who participated in voice for change from the ap government and politics and peer leadership class and i'm going to i have a lot of names here so i'm going to read first names sarah sophia lyanna jessica jillian leticia kayla reagan faith marianna pamela hannah paz paz matthew dunn aaliyah tyler saifully nancy chris christopher junior chiara pj chapel sydney ava liam kanika camillo jaylee justin viviana and scott wait a minute there's a few more william lisbeth caitlyn haley matthew nicole lewis natalie taylor jackson kayla florence ian olivia marcus olivia chloe gregory chloe and alexandra heather lorenz thank you so much for your leadership and dan donovan thank you for your leadership congratulations [Applause] all those two students city council update um ad hoc committee was last night and if you and grace want to come up you're going to be nice last night was our ad hoc committee i recognize all the board members can't make all the meetings and the ones who are able to make last night's meeting i really appreciate the support we had a number of folks from the council who not only had our committee but were there were also very interested in the outcome of last night's meeting several board members a couple of people from the community and of course many members of my team as well were able to make it john and i representing the district in the budget and proposed budget again we reiterated our need rationale behind 152 million dollar request last night despite our case last night's recommendation to the council from that our committee will be a recommended budget city the mayor's budget 145 million the team and i i know the outcome ultimately will be tomorrow night but the team and i certainly we will roll our sleeves up get to work and determine what this means for the district so our position has not changed just in terms of the expiring um grants that we are facing and the cliff that we've talked about for that's been well chronicled for the last couple of years the team and i will provide an update for the board i'll be in the next couple of court meetings but this means for us to move forward but you know i remain optimistic that the partnership we try to afford for the city will help realize some better outcomes moving forward and for right now we will deal with the hand that we've been dealt and dig deeper and figure out other steps so we will get back to you and speaking of updates a little more positive in this regard and that is updates regarding goal 2 for the superintendent's update go to family school and community partnerships andy grace from this department provided a brief update about community relations committee and i have asked ann and grace to come to give an update to the full board i believe you're going to need us to move in a minute again because you have some presentations to make the board might recall our investments in family engagement through the through the positions we've hired called family liaisons so ian is going to speak about that this evening but as part of the goals this year we've also talked about developing parent leadership programs we were recipient of a grant this year and through that grant leadership of and in grace they've been able to mobilize a lot of parents in this community so they can speak to some of those great things going into the community and that will get out the way so that you can provide those examples thank you good evening everyone you settled for a minute i'm going to stand for this all right so welcome back to ralph and good evening everyone this is a great opportunity to share all the work that comes out of the office of family and school community partnerships so right now as you know we're located at our 17th cottage street while the renovations are being uh are taking place at um our home at 49 osborne street so we're excited i go there about every three weeks and take some pictures of them the alterations and everything that's going on and then share with the whole staff so they know what they're going back to um and are getting very very excited about that we hope to be able to return both the people in august towards the end of august and then we will move our central registration families probably our staff probably back closer to the end of october when registration has slowed down so that conversion and that move is still in the works so go ahead so i want to just give you a little bit of foundational knowledge on what we do and why we do it the philosophy behind it our goal is to engage empower and educate our families our parents and when we say families we try to stay away from the word parents to a certain point because it's really families our we know that our students come to school that they live with grandparents um they live with foster parents um you know not every child is raised by their biological parent and so we want everyone to feel welcome so we use that more inclusive term family when speaking about it so the goals of our office is to place trust and teamwork at the center of the homeschool relationship and that's really what all of this is built on is how do you build relationships between school and family and so i think as you'll see through this presentation that mantra is in everything that we do you'll be able to pull pieces of these three key parts out the second one is that we anchor high impact family strategies in student learning and well-being our focus is what can we do to help families support their student learning so that students are more successful in school and then the last one is we look at looking at building systems and structures that enables this work in an efficient high impact way and so i can share more documents after this i've shared one document that i'll walk you through a little bit but i can share the connecticut framework with you which even gives you more of that why and how common why we have this bad impact or why we use these high impact strategies so we ground our work in what's called the dual capacity framework i'll show it to you in a second this was written by karen mack who was one of the three gurus in the united states are international around family school partnerships she had a rendition that she did for the federal government that came out in 2018 and through a lot of revisions and a lot of work with everyone throughout the united states about what is a good partnership what is dual capacity she was able to change that and you'll see the new model in just a second but what we do maintain throughout everything that we do is that we consciously link student learning and improving their outcomes to everything that we have here great so this is a little bit hard to read and i will make sure that you all get copies of it but it talks on the left hand side what are the challenges what are the challenges in a educational system and then what is what are the challenges in a family system you know families being able to access materials access training and then for the teachers you know being comfortable in um working with our families you know when we first started that pandemic when we first shut down i got a lot of calls from teachers saying how can i talk to my family this is brand new to me i've had english i had math or i'm a math teacher whatever but i didn't have a course in what is effective family school partnerships can you help and then we go through process conditions other conditions that have to be in place because you can't see it i'm going to skip right to the end where we really want to or actually that green section where we want to help build the cognition appearance the ability to be able to support their children we want to build the relationships that they have with their children and with their schools and we want them to become really strong in advocating for themselves and other children in the district and so i'll share this so you can see it on the better so out of this whole philosophical piece we have written a um plan for the district of what we will do and it is aligned with mr wallston's goals and so no idea it's not a misprint family school engagement is goal number two out of the four goals that kevin has so this one is develop strategies to promote a high level of communication collaboration and interaction within our community to build trust confidence and credibility and i want to talk to that for just a second because i very strategically have built the team in which i have it's really really important that you have key people on the ground i don't speak another language i don't speak another language so people say how are you the director of this when you don't speak that language because i'm very careful in how we coordinate our staff how we use our community partners which you'll see later in the presentation and how we strategically place staff so that when a family comes to the center they're met in a language that they um need and so my assistant director is grace molina and she has come in with a whole my raised skills right on the technology piece and so we've been able to jump in to many ways to raise that sense of communication that our families have or the ability to be able to communicate so we are in the process right now of launching the new danbury website it's a slow process because you go through many steps from you know development of the wild wire frames to what it starts to look like in color and content so you'll see more of that is that on rolls over the summer and we are in almost the final stages of parent square this past newsletter that we had last week went out through parent square and as i look at the data we're doing pretty good our families are reading it i can tell from the back side of the program how many open it how many read it how many seconds and minutes they're actually in the program so i can tell do they just do a nice letter from you know that guy or look at all this stuff going on in this lab and so that's really really important so we can share those stats down the road with you too next phase in that schools we'll start to use it right now we're just using it from the district office side we continue to do as i said that newsletter um that goes out through the parent square to educate our folks educate our communities share resources and things that are coming up events that are important for families i already talked a little bit about that welcoming center it does have registration it has extended learning program it has early childhood resources in it it has a welcome packet so when families first come to the district they get this nice welcoming packet once all the registration paperwork is good to go it has the calendar in it we'll be very happy tomorrow to start the package for next year put the new calendar in thank you for voting not today i can't tell you how many people have come looking for next year's calendar already has a letter from mr walston in it has all kinds of community resources many of these families are new to the community maybe sharing space with other families they need heating assistance they need to know find out where to um get medical insurance and food all of those different types of things so that welcoming packet is just has great stuff it it also is jam-packed with the importance of food school attendance and so that's in many different languages in that packet that says you know we expect your child at school every day unless your child's sick we are in the middle right now of a district-wide welcoming school initiative we have 77 people trained in this initiative this is a curriculum or a protocol that's written by the capital region education council so all of our family liaisons went through the training and then we had representation from every school and we tomorrow is our first walk through rogers park so a a welcoming school specialist from craft will come down we'll meet with the team that has been put together at rogers park to do this walk through they're going to look at physical environment they're going to look at when they walk down the hallway to somebody just walk the opposite direction or do they say hi how are you can i help you they're going to look at how they're treated when they arrive at the school the signing is you know can they find the front door they know where to park um they're going to look at written materials is everything just in english or does it count multiple languages to the family there'll be a couple of debriefing after they do the walkthrough and in this walkthrough it's teachers social worker nurse the principals decided on their teams and all of them have pulled in families so from that school so we're really excited about that um some pto members are on there some of you may have gotten calls we actually lisa and i went for a walk through at um west side today okay great so it did start today okay right right i did look at the schedule to see exactly what was up because it's they're doing it now right good so that's good news what will happen after that visit the people from the capitol regional education council or prep will come back and generate reports of improvements at school they'll put a small budget line into it and then we'll work with our sites and facilities and our budgeting department john and superintendent wallston to make sure that we can you know fund these small things that need to be done in these schools otherwise it's just a report that sits on the shelf and part of the work in this will also the recommendations will go into the school improvement plans as well so this is all part of a bigger picture as i spoke last week at the community meeting we had a great showing of 99 of all of our kindergarten teachers did virtual phone calls home visits at the start of last year we knew that we couldn't bring all our kindergarten students into the schools because i was just too much and we're still trying to be coded safe so what we did is we had the teachers call home make an appointment to meet with that family they could do google they could do a zoom they could just do a telephone call and the teachers asked one question what are your hopes and dreams for your children and that just opened up the door for a flood of conversation between the teacher and their family about that child again focused on that child and from that the principles really got to the principals and teachers that did the kindergarten teachers really got to understand where the families were coming from and what makes them tick and what was special about their children so the very first day of school it wasn't like all these new children walked in the teachers already had an idea of what the children liked and what they did like so again creating that bridge between involved in school the second to last is our open communication our monthly chats with kevin i think there's one coming up right after vacation on that tuesday night um they have been well attended uh pretty deep conversations with the families and a couple of community folks that join these conversations and i don't know if you'd like to add something to this about them they're great conversations they're very informal their questions are difficult enough okay and lastly in this goal we have or my office has convened what i'm calling the menu improvements so we engaged sodexa who's our food service provider we've gone through a couple renditions of the meaning our first one which is a general meeting how are we going to structure this what are the needs of this group what are the needs of the district what are we hearing from parents and how do we move forward our second meeting we brought in students from moore street and boy those little fourth and fifth graders are really really honest about food let me tell you and they not only told us what they didn't like they told us what they liked and how to improve it and so immediately i hope as you looked at the menus you saw a change in those february march menus yeah january was the february venues uh leah who is our dietitian is always open to new ideas of different food within the usda guidelines that were given what they can do and then in individual kitchens they make sure that you know if they know so in my building in cottage street or our building cottage street the preschoolers don't like stuff together they like chicken they like sauce they like the beans and here's the burrito and so amanda who is our food person she serves it just like that and then the kids put it together the minute you mix that all together don't like it so and we're you know aware of you know sensory issues with our children and not liking different textures mixed and so amanda does a great job okay they also put in place um sodexo put in place a feedback sheet that all of the lunch staff could give her so she's getting monthly feedback from the staff to feed the kids what they like what they didn't like and how to make improvements our last month we met with the students at rogers park so we've been meeting pretty much every other month for these changes in the menu so hopefully you're seeing better menus your students are coming home from school for those of you that have students and saying i like lunch a lot better okay you know that that's the goal of this we will continue to meet with them every other month to improve these venues we've had a lot of policy questions about could children receive a second fruit or a second vegetable we try to clear up all of that and just recently we have taken their menu change text and added a spanish portuguese version to it so that parents can sign up ahead of time you can get a text in the morning that you know you're thinking it was going to be chicken burritos and now it's changed to a corn dog your child knows i mean not eating that corn dog so as a parent you can provide a multiple childhood so we're really really happy with the changes that we've been able to make there so that's an ongoing process all right so now we go to goal 2b which is really our family education opportunities our opportunities that we have using our community partners to be able to pull in funds to run the actual office itself because my office also works under many federal and state grants most of those grants have a five percent set aside that all have to go towards family engagement so like our 21st century learning grants we have four of those in the district right now they have a five percent set aside so we take some of those funds you'll see who some of our other funders are with some of our partners and this is how we're able to bring all this education to you so grace has her earpiece in here somewhere she took it off but we have parents see on tuesday night so right now right now there are here that's what it was 22 people taking this course this is of course that was designed by the center for school change in hartford we have patrice nelson and felicia bears out of manchester who are actually facilitating the 12-week course save the date of may 3rd at 6 o'clock place to be determined you will all get invitations for the graduation this is the eighth time that we've been able to run this class since i've been here in the district in 2008.

okay well the time is 5 30 and we will go ahead and call this meeting to order of the board of education for the zeus unified school district on march excuse me april 12 2022 we'll begin with our flag salute and begin 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 right on then to item 1.3 our roll call uh board member rodriguez president remember here board member cruz gonzalez here hi bourbon greer i'm also president but remotely and board member audianus is uh sick this evening and will not be joining us i will move on then to item 2.1 approval of the agenda is there a motion to approve make a motion to approve 2.1 i'll second by board member rodriguez pena second by board member beau any discussion hearing none you will go ahead and and i i apologize i'm not i'm not logged in you'll take me a second um board member rodriguez pena yes remember yes board member so the motion passes four yes to one absolute that brings us to item 4.1 approval of resolution 21 22 27 a resolution of the board of trustees of the zeus unified school district for claiming for president yes um i believe we're on uh 3.1 thank you very much for that correction 3.1 which is public comment on agenda or non-agenda so this is an opportunity for the public to address the board of education on agenda or non-agenda items individual speakers may be allowed up to three minutes to address the board of education on any agenda or non-agenda item when the public wishes to address the border on any agenda item they may fill out a blue card stand at the podium or raise their hand while in the zoom attendance the board will take blue card requests first followed in order by speakers at the podium and then those in zoom attendance and again just remind everyone that you have three minutes if there's anything that you'd like to to say and we'll go ahead and take any any commenters that we might have for this evening we have anyone uh salisa yes thank you good evening superintendent cabinet and a student board firstly i want to thank you all for your work and efforts to meet the needs of our students and the present while also making decisions and taking actions for the future of our district i've reviewed tonight's presentation pdf and i'm excited about what's to come i look forward to having our middle school and high school students benefit from the abundance of resources on one campus as opposed to having resources split and thus taking away opportunities i see the district making efforts to create base programs that make all elementary and school elementary schools desirable and equitable with expansion of steam and visual and performing arts programming this is what i hope to continuously more of the ability for someone to enter azusa know that no matter what elementary school they choose their child will get an incredible experience is a dream i hope to see come to fruition i'm aware that not every program can be at every school but if the choices between schools based on programming versus equitable programming schools across programming across the board i choose the latter as the district moves forward to making decisions i hope questions are answered and systems put in place to address the marketing of our schools and programs if i were a new parent to the district logging into the website today i would be unclear on which school offers what under about us our schools i would be able to see some district highlights but might feel a lack of clarity on which schools and where if i were a new parent looking for a preschool on the website current information might lead me to believe that longfellow is the only available preschool creating successful programs also means successfully promoting so our family knows the abundance azusa offers and doesn't feel the need to look elsewhere finally as programming is selected how are we setting up systems to best support our teachers what incentives will be made available for trainings and our extra time put in how can programs be set in place to be sustainable in the long term and not be dependent on a single staff member or teacher meaning the loss of that individual would mean the loss of the program or activity so in conclusion the three questions i pose for board members to consider tonight is how can we make sure our programs and schools are equitable and sustainable across the board how can we best direct staff to plan and implement marketing in a way that ensures clarity and accessibility and how can we best incentivize and support teachers and staff and making programs successful and sustainable for all involved once again i thank you all for your work i hope these questions are taken as a caring nudge to not only dream about what our district can be but consider how we can ensure it happens and that no one falls through the cracks thank you for your time thank you miss louisa are there any other um anyone else in attendance there or anyone else on zoom no other hands raised on zoom thank you ben now we will move on to item 4.1 which is approval of resolution 2122-27 a resolution of the board of trustees of the azusa unified school district proclaiming a local emergency ratifying the proclamation of the state emergency by governor newsom dated march 4th 2020 and authorizing remote teleconference meetings for the period of april 13 2022 through may 13 2022 is there a motion to approve make a motion to approve 4.1 a second i bought remember rodriguez pena second by board member uh cruz gonzalez and i'll i'll just add this is something that's typically done in consent calendar but just due to the fact that uh just the timing uh that is the one item that we did bring into this study session uh to to which which allows for um us to continue having uh these the option of having remote teleconference meetings are there any other comments questions or discussion and then we'll go and the motion passes four yes to one absent which brings us to our our feature item of this evening for our study session which is presentation of the azusa unified school district programs dr mitchell all right good evening good evening board president greer board of education superintendent ortega and cabinet as we plan for the future design of ausd programming our planning approach begins with the vision for what we want all students in ausd to experience an innovative rigorous relevant culturally responsive and engaging learning environment with educational and extracurricular programmatic offerings that begin with a strong foundational experience at our preschool and elementary schools and a middle school experience that aligns and supports high school programming with all programs and grade levels at support and nurture our students sense of wonder excitement creativity and critical thinking skills that open the doors of possibility and opportunity for all students at this point in our design thinking process we've begun to get input from multiple groups secondary and elementary academic advisory and articulation committees the high school student advisory committee that consists of students representing all of our high schools our site and district administrators and it's important to note that these initial conversations as well as conversations from a school reorganization committee have helped to shape the beginning of our thinking behind the planning and as we continue to develop our plans we will get additional student staff and parent feedback we're going to present our initial plan tonight to the board of education and get any input or feedback that you might have and then continue to get input from our partners in education again including student groups parent groups act plus and staff before we talk about our programmatic offerings we're going to begin our presentations with the expectations of our learning environment that all students will experience then beginning with the end in mind we're going to share high school programming followed by middle school then elementary and then our early childhood education reorganization process has enabled us to not only dream big but also to create plans to make these dreams a reality for our students and we're super excited to share these plans with you tonight we do have a team approach as you can see in the audience tonight we have several of our team members who are here who uh share with you our programmatic planning so we will begin i will invite norma camacho who is the director of multilingual services and categorical programs and aaron kramer our director of special education who will begin and talk about our student success drivers okay thank you thank you for letting us start out um so as we come forward thank you mr sanchez as we start to share we want to highlight that azusa has a standing commitment to prepare our students for college and career readiness this commitment is aligned to access and equity for all of our students we are grounded in guidance from state resources such as our california state standards our state frameworks the english learner practitioners guide or english learners with disabilities the english learner roadmap and the state literacy plan among many other resources that support our work our learning and our professional learning opportunities together also our internal work utilizing a lot of these resources in implementing azusa's student success drivers with a focus on language and literacy through collaborative practices academic discourse and cognitive rigor early childhood education begins a coherent educational program that is aligned with college and career readiness standards college and career ready students exhibit capabilities which include demonstrating independence building content knowledge responding to the demands of audience tasks purpose and discipline they come to comprehend and critique they use technology and media strategically and they comprehend and come to other come to understand other perspectives and cultures this is reflected in instructional practices that encourage curious learners who are engaged and excited to come to school it is evident through project-based learning activities in which students engage in scientific discovery art and music experience and collaboration with peers to encourage creativity and rigorous rigorous conversation that help them think deeply thank you we would like to now bring up um mr gabriel fernandez high school principal to talk to us about high school programming good evening so above here are our current pathways that exist both at gladstone and azusa high school uh we have two courses in our automotive pathway we have two courses in engineering that is confused with project lead the way curriculum we have two courses in computer science the ip and then it culminates in an eighth course in principles of computer science there are three course path uh course sequences so to speak in public services they are fire tech emergency medical tech and forensics slash admin justice which would prepare students for a career in law enforcement our graphic arts and digital media coursework is two courses that leads kids through video production uh web design and uh podcasting our award-winning uh medical academy has four courses in their sequence to prepare students for careers in the medical profession and we have four distinct areas of arts individual performing arts we have our visual arts we have music performance we have drama as well as our award-winning programming for music we also have these current programs at both gladstone and azusa for our advanced placement we have 19 ap courses district-wide at azusa and gladstone currently we currently have four levels of avid through 9th through 12th grade our early college program that exists currently at gladstone but will be coming over to azusa is for juniors and seniors that is up to 12 courses for students in the ecp program with citrus college that culminates in about 36 credits of transferable college credit upon graduation our international baccalaureate program there are 17 courses available to students at the junior and senior level at azusa high school our upper upper bound program that's a partnership with azusa pacific university gives a cohort of students in each grade level the chance to get specific support and tutoring after school twice a week with tutors that helps them especially in advanced math course work or math coursework one of the main barriers to college success uh we have four levels of jrotc currently at azusa and gladstone uh four years and that's not just to prepare students for military service it also gives them leadership skills that prepares them for other careers as well and we also have 16 sports teams that our males and females can play on as well as a leadership class at both course both schools all three schools that prepares them for many opportunities to lead student culture here are additional supports and programs that we have in place in the district that can support our student needs and family needs so first right off the bat our big one one of our big ones here is our community school partnership with laco that has four pillars that organize that program the first one being integrated student supports where the school works with the community and the committee to service sel needs mental health and also material needs such as housing they do work in partnering are leading our parents to housing assistance when necessary a second pillar is expanded learning time and opportunities which involves tutoring supports and third one is using activating family and community engagement there are parent workshops being planned for this year or next year along the lines of technology and how to support students for college success and then we have a good partner that last pillar is collaborative leadership and practices which is really honed in on our community school advisory council which is a partnership of community resources parents teachers staff the laco people who are part of that program all looking at data robustly uh they committed a needs assessment at the beginning of the year looking at data to see what our kids truly need to be successful in school and that's not just a school-led initiative that's really a a whole team approach to meeting the unique needs of our of our students in this time now that advisory council really is an important part of developing the school's culture and making sure we have the right resources in place to meet the needs of their students secondly we have a partnership with the los angeles department of public health the well-being centers that are available both at gladstone and azusa high school do provide services twice a week to our students along the lines of again sel supports mental health referrals they do do some reproductive health education where students can get uh information regarding reproductive health and lastly uh bringing back the link crew to azusa high school next year to really hone in on that key aspect of connection and relationship uh looking at developing a three half day event for students going into azusa high school this spring we will be recruiting link crew mentors from the junior 10th and grade 11th grade classes at both azusa and gladstone to work together to mentor our ninth graders at asus because we want our community seeing as the one school and they're gonna start working together next year to mentor students along their high school uh experience and that's awesome collaboration i've reached out to azusa beautiful to help us with uh outside of school event to occur as part of the link crew orientation was different from link crew but we really are trying to engage our students in the community and see their culture as as a plus and build up their identity and build up their their dreams as they come into azusa high school next year thank you mr fernandez oh yes um dr mitchell would you like us to ask questions along the way or yes i would absolutely uh mr fernandez i had a question about the early college program could you talk to us about um what the difference is between the early college and a middle college program and if we're thinking about moving to middle college it's been a while since i know the exact particulars about middle college in terms of what grade levels it services i can tell you that the early college is 11 through 12th but i would defer to maybe mr ortega or dr mitchell on the grade level found for middle college and maybe frank can expand on this but we have been in conversations with citrus a middle college program unlike an early college program right now our students are graduating at a high rate with their high school diploma and about 36 transferable units so technically around one year of college completely done for free a middle college program would double that and so when students graduate from high school they're graduating um with a a double diploma field or they're getting their high school diploma plus an aaa or an as um if they if they subscribe to the program and they get through the program all the way because it is double uh typically uh those students are starting in ninth grade uh starting to take uh those courses and being part of that program and again i don't know if frank and our data want to add anything else but we have uh had conversations with citrus about um how this would work and how we might introduce something like that in our district do you have anything else to add to that actually that summary was perfect um but it is is um the incoming freshmen will start and often times that the incoming freshmen will take courses that are more introductory like a counseling class something to get them understanding the rigors of college but then they don't take the real rigorous con um core classes until probably their sophomore year because um the community colleges feel that the syst the ninth graders are a little more immature in regards to taking college-level courses but mr ortega was correct and um saying that it starts at ninth grade and moves all the way to twelfth grade and they usually graduate if complete with um an aaa or an as and success rate of our ecp students have been fantastic over 93 um with at least 30 credit and aside from any um i mean the challenges of just implementing a new program are there um economic or political considerations when trying to offer a middle college here saying that our student could get their a or a s through a middle college program instead of enrolling at citrus or another community college so it my question is there is there a fight over dollars or enrollment no uh because the way the the way the programs work whether that's the early college program or the middle college program uh the students are actually enrolled at both schools um and so there is no um that's not a that's not a barrier and so how are students um funded as citrus college enrolled it's a college student if you're not paying tuition sure um so when they're in college at citrus and i know they don't call it 88 frank you know that term up apportionment yes they receive their apportionment when the students are attending their courses uh typically that will be at the ends of a day so for instance uh first and second period or uh fifth and sixth period um and so when they're with citrus citrus is grabbing their apportionment and then when they jump back on our campus so third fourth fifth and sixth then we get the ada i i have a couple questions um so with the pathways that were shown are they all complete pathways they are yes and i noticed you didn't have um the um the early childhood is that still at zero do we still have that or not anymore i know this was just azusa we just listed azusa and gladstone as they were combined um over at sierra we still have child development production we have the medical career pathway as well as um the friends again admin of justice all right great um and then i just wanted a request could i get a copy of the list of who's part of the community schools committee it is just a high okay thank you very much all right let um let's talk about uh middle school six through eight um we this idea of combining our middle school programs are going to offer our 6th through 8th grade students with an opportunity for choice as well as an opportunity to provide programmatic programmatic alignment to azusa high school in addition to our core instructional programming students will be able to select from a rich variety of educational programming offerings and you can see uh the programs that we currently offer now we have project lead the way studio 26 we've got choir and band avid and art drama leadership we've got uh spanish as our world language uh something else we'd be able to do with the larger middle school is to offer beginning and advanced band uh and that would be something that we would be able to do because we would have more students at the at the middle school the middle school will also continue to host the district mariachi program like to bring back mr chang to talk about a very exciting programmatic implementation with the gladstone middle school stem lab yes very excited about this um a couple of years in the making and now we have great opportunity to bring this to glaston middle school in 2023 this is essentially a stem lab but focus on career and college readiness mainly career and it is a completely new lab environment there will be new furnishings new equipment et cetera we have um an idea of where we want it in regards to what location on the gladstone middle school campus and it is truly an engaging and authentic hands-on experience and it's problem-based learning in which students team with another student they go through a customizable content that lasts for about two weeks and then they rotate to another lab sitting so they go from station to station and if we want to do it like a nine week window an 18 week window or a 36 week window we can custom create the lab environment that they're going to be participating in can i ask the question on that place yes of course is that is that similar to what central middle school had when they had their lab when they were going from station to station right right and so center is using pisco right now it's a little older and we're trying to adapt as technology has technology needs have increased but another thing that is more that is different about this lab is we're going to customize it to feed into the pathways we'll be offering at it was the high school right now the pisco offerings are a little more wide and varied um which is good in relationship to understanding basics of needing stem but now we're going to customize it so that the students get a taste of career exploration in the fields that we offer the career pathways that we offer the students really enjoyed enjoyed that going from stations to station yes right learning about the rocks they're learning about the brain or even their cooking a little bit there when i went to visit them right oh yeah you got it right there exactly yep um and so this will be hands on entirely and it's really going to be teacher facilitated instead of you know lectures or anything of that nature students really learn by doing it and i want to show you a video it's only a 50 50 second video and you get a sense of what i mean um with this lap so um hope if you can just um or don't know who you know can click on the collage of pictures right there yeah [Music] so that's just a taste of what they're going to experience i've went to multiple schools to look at how it's done and i've talked to the teachers they have these internships they are thoroughly excited for the students and you can see the excitement of the students that they are engaged regularly the teacher says i don't really need to tell them anything um they come into class then they go straight to work and um during that time there's a bustle and in the classroom and the hustle in the classroom that really makes that noise level um that kind of noise level you appreciate in the classroom you know so it's exciting to see um to give you a sense of what that classroom would look like um we put together a mock-up i met with the pax and paterson people and we did a mock-up of the classroom and we picked out some of the curriculum um it is not finalized yet because we want to vet it with each of the teachers who are leading the pathways to high schools but they do have a sense of what they want i've been talking to the teachers they're telling me we i wish we had more students who are interested before we are the ones who are talking to them and this is exactly what this will bring so if you can go on to the next slide just one quick minute and we're back yes thank you and so as you can see this is a mock-up of what the room will look like and it will be all new furnishings it would be new equipment equipment purchased specifically for each of the two-week curriculum and you can see the different types of pathway exploration that we are investing in for example you can see intro to computer science intro to engineering uh intro to child development uh computer graphics and gaming forensic science et cetera these are all going to be aligned to our high school pathways so this is a career exploration opportunity for our student you also see this is not rows and columns facing one direction these are pods created um specifically for students to work in tandem and you will see then a rotation basis as the curriculum correct as the weeks progress um don't worry this is all grant funded we were able to secure grant funding with a lot of hard work from dedicated people to be able to secure the grants the cost is anywhere from 75 to 100 000 depending on which content areas we choose but all of it will be paid by grant we expect to start construction in that classroom um sometime in the fall target date is october of 2022 and then completed early spring of just in time hopefully for a showcase event to bring incoming sixth graders to the lab so they can see and possibly to bring the parents so they can also see the lab before they select um which they will select lasso middle school as a school they're going to go for middle thank you okay mr uh mr chiang why you are there uh we want to continue to talk about um other programmatic offerings will you talk a little bit about the naviance program yes naviance has been with our district for several years we have already in place a lot of exploratory activities that allow students to look at career exploration activities as well as college choices interest surveys etc what they do within naviance is they're given tasks of activities and throughout the districts it's consistent all sixth graders all seventh graders all eighth graders will be doing these activities naviance is also at the high school um so throughout um currently we have seven through twelfth grade students doing the same activities across all middle schools in high school from there we're able to gather the data and determine next steps for possible career pathway changes but the benefit of naviance is also to give our students a sense of what challenges or rigors that they should expect moving on to high school as well as college so these kind of interest surveys that are given career guidance surveys that are given they complete these in their middle school years and then prepare them for the tasks ahead in high school as well as what possible majors they want to explore in thank you uh we also want to talk a little bit about athletics at middle school um we in our our current middle school configuration we have um a ausd middle school athletics league and so um our four the four schools play one another in a kind of inter-district league so they have softball they have volleyball there's football and they've been able to play uh one another in this situation now we have an opportunity for our students to play sports at a beautiful facility number one and number two it provides us with an opportunity to seek out other middle schools to join a league other middle schools do that they have them they actually have a middle school athletic league and so they play uh schools all over the place and so we are looking to do that to provide that for our students as well so uh we're super excited about that opportunity for our students another possibility that we're exploring and this is something that was brought up in the secondary academic advisory articulation committee they talked about really thinking about offering what's called a sixth grade wheel and so for sixth graders they would have an opportunity to possibly take a mini course with electives maybe six or eight weeks and it would give them an opportunity to try different electives and so then by the time they become seventh and eighth graders maybe there was something that they really liked um that they didn't have an opportunity uh to try before so they could try stem for a few weeks and they could try music for a few weeks so something like that so that's something that we're very interested in uh exploring what a sixth grade wheel where students would take these different uh opportunities on a rotating basis um another uh program that we would like to bring in is called web and web is where everyone belongs and this is the free uh link crew program and mr fernandez talked about uh the ninth grade link crew program so webb is the same uh organization as link crew and it's the same philosophy so this is a program for mentoring for the sixth grade students to come in and you have your seventh grade and eighth grade students uh uh are their mentors to the sixth graders you do a really big orientation and you welcome the students and then you provide different activities throughout the year to make sure that students are feeling connected and feeling that they belong so it's an outstanding program so we're excited about that one well also like to bring up again ms camacho to talk about dual immersion so our dual immersion program our pathway will continue on through the middle school our students will have the opportunity to take two of their courses um in spanish they'll take their sla course in addition to another content area in spanish um to continue our students along that pathway of being bilingual by literate and bicultural thank you we're also very interested in making sure that we have lots of opportunities for our middle school students to participate in after school activities we have think together programming there's athletics opportunities but what about other things our middle schools offer programs such as the feminis we have other clubs and different things after school but we want to make sure that we have a very full offering so students have an opportunity to continue on after school one of the things that we've also done is we have been meeting with the parks and recreation department at uh at the city and we reached out to them to explore um a partnership what would what would an after-school uh partnership look like and we're thinking teen center activity um what would be things that they would like to you know have our students participate in and possibly could they come over to uh gladstone middle school and um and have some programming there um we would work with the city and what in conjunction with think together they my understanding is that a couple years back there was some conversations with everyone together to talk about how we could collaborate so we're very interested in that and we're interested in really building a very strong after-school opportunity for our students i have a question sure um may not be regarding programs but i would like to see a well-being center at glaston middle school um you know these students especially conducting the pandemic they have faith you know death and their family or illnesses even losing homes losing jobs and now the high gas that's probably going to really wonder why they're not going anywhere but i think it's very important at this age level especially all the students coming together i think it'd be nice that we had a well-being center somewhere where they can go and speak to someone um and feel comfortable yeah i agree with you that's a great idea um we just submitted our application for community schools and we applied um for the rest of our schools so um the middle school would uh would also be a part of that um so part of that application is having a well-being center at all of our schools so fingers crossed that that that we can have that happen but i agree with you i think that's an excellent opportunity to provide again additional services for our students dr mitchell yes there's a question on the well-being center yeah um would the community liaison be a part of the well-being center staff at each school and does each school currently have its own full-time community liaison that's a really good question and so we have we do have community liaisons at our schools and i'll i will have um norma camacho talk to us about the community liaisons um with the community schools initiative um that would be an opportunity for our liaisons to be a part of the um i want to say the committee right so i'm actively involved in working with families and connecting them to services at the well-being center so um yeah ms camacho can you tell us a little bit about the community liaisons there are currently our community liaisons are three-hour positions at elementary and middle school and eight hour positions at our high school so will that change um because there's going to be more students at the olympic center um gladstone middle school would you know there are more students there so it doesn't go by the enrollment how many hours they give to a staff member yes so we will be looking at how to proportionately staff our middle school with the appropriate hours for our community liaison so that students and parents have access to the resources our community liaisons provide thank you now i want to talk a little bit about what we're exploring so right now we are exploring what's called the middle years program the nyp and this is a program that aligns to the international baccalaureate program that's currently at azusa high school the uh the middle years program is not a curricular program rather it is an instructional framework that's implemented school-wide for all students in all classes and so as we explore gladstone middle school becoming an nyp we would we would gather a committee of students and parents and staff to learn about the program and the implementation components and the requirements and then we would have the committee participate in visits to schools that are already implementing an exemplary nyp program so again the purpose of the committee would be to study nyp and to make a recommendation to the board for implementation and what would be the timeline for this uh the timeline would be we would begin this in the in the fall we got to explore it and to get a committee together to do that all right let's transition to our elementary k5 base program in ausd based programs at the elementary level include a guaranteed and viable curriculum in all core subjects and as we are looking to the future the base program will be supplemented with integrated equity-focused project-based units of study at all grade levels that incorporate english language arts english language development science history social science and that's incidentally exactly the kind of model that we're learning in the seal model in support of our diversity equity inclusion initiative our teachers on special time assignment team our team posa team as well as classroom teachers have been compiling a list of just over 150 a5 books with themes of diversity equity inclusion and social justice and are matching them with integrated units of study as well as for our classroom libraries so our next steps are continue to work on building out supplementary units of study and continue to provide professional development on project-based integrated equity focused lesson design and implementation how do you see that rolling out how do i see it rolling out in terms of moving through the yeah so um so right now uh with our especially with our steel implementation um they are doing and i guess i could also have norma camacho come and talk about the professional learning that they're doing with that so um currently our teachers are in fact we have two unit development days this week um our teachers who are working on implementing the cl model are developing units of study around um different themes and they include social studies science english language development and in the course of their work as they learn these high leverage strategies um there's six modules altogether they continue to add elements to their units of studies so those units of study actually don't become fully complete units of study until after they have completed their two years of professional learning so if you will as they go through a module they then add other elements to their unit of study so by the end of next school year our kinder and first grade teachers which are the first cohort will have their six fully developed units of study to implement so it is a process well so at three how many schools we're at three schools and so if this is the base program across the district and what how would that roll out then so we would have a similar professional learning and uh implementation with the rest of the grade level so we already have some teachers who have been implementing this and are willing to do some professional learning um and help us with this but this is something that we want to see in all of our all of our classes so i guess what i'm saying is i want to see a more concrete like plan like okay this year you're doing k1 and 2 in these schools right and and then next year or whenever you start the upper grades and then are we talking about across the district then are we talking just these three schools we are across the district that's what i'm asking about in terms of like okay so then when do when do the other schools start do they all have the same base program yeah so the ad services team has been working on our professional development plan so we've been meeting to um to work on exactly the rollout for everything for all of our all of our um uh our curriculum our instruction and our plan so we're working on it i don't know what do we expect to have a draft plan i would stay before the fall the other piece um that we've been working on is a coherent mathematics uh program and so this is work we've been doing with edu california education partners with our preschool through third grade mathematics coherence project and so uh we've had a a team of teachers pilot teachers who have been working all year on developing different ways to implement mathematics strategies in our classrooms in preschool through third grade uh they've been collecting data and uh really finding some uh some i would say um some concrete instructional strategies that we've been able to see in the classrooms and so we're continuing to scale up that work but we've had gosh i want to say at least 20 20 teachers i think it is that have been participating um in this pilot with something called counting collections and so again this is something where we're working really hard to make sure that we have a coherent program in all of our our grade levels especially our preschool through third grade all right so now i want to talk a little bit about um steam and so another piece of this base programming is that we want to make sure that all of our students again have access to a base program that's going to enhance and extend science and visual and performing art and so the base program includes all students dk through 5 having access to steam education which stands for science technology engineering art and mathematics you have you have heard of in our other presentations that we purchase materials for all grade levels to have coding and robotics program that's coherent and develop skills and knowledge across our grade levels and you did see some examples of that at our last study session we have our preschool and our pk students are learning robotics and coding through blocks that represent an action and each block contains a movement code for their robots and they create a sequence for their robot and they use the robot to scan the codes and watch the robots move and the kids love it it's super super engaging um we also have both beginning and advanced a robotics program that's called ub tech robotics for primary and upper grades all year long our teacher on special assignment uh randy goode our science hosa has been providing professional learning for teachers on how they can uh facilitate the robotics instruction during uh during the day and how they can integrate that into their instruction as well as provide after-school robotics programming for our students as well here's something that's also pretty exciting our next step so as we continue to provide training on our robotics curriculum we also have another piece and our next step is the 3d printing design and if you see this photograph right here there is uh that is one of our uh ultimaker 3d printers that we we've set up one and we have one for all of our schools and so as we're integrating technology and math into our instructional program one of the best ways to apply a mathematic concepts is uh through 3d design and kids really learned about things like surface and volume um through 3d printing and so uh this is one for example we just set this one up at valley dale but we put a couple of pictures on here for you um that these are things that you know students can design they can design 3d printing on the ipad cart that we purchased for the innovation labs and then there's filament and they can print out these um these really neat things um the the program that they used is part of the autodesk series it's called thinkercad and it's the beginning of the autodesk and autodesk is something that the um you know 3d mechanical designing and engineers and design communication they use the autocad product and so um it's it is going to be a very exciting opportunity for students to apply their mathematic knowledge so we're super excited about that for our students and all of our sites will have that speaking of innovation labs um so we have uh we've ordered all of our um all of our equipment and furniture we're very excited about this as well and this again base program all of our schools will have the lab and so here's an actual model of one of um one of the labs and we'll have the 3d printer in there the robotics and so here's just an example of a very flexible design um you have um the tables and chairs that have wheels they can move them around in different configurations uh there's a place for flexible feeding so um it's gonna be a it's gonna be an awesome are those green things bean bags yeah they are they sure are yep got bean bags you have the soft seating um you know they can they can move around the table so when they're ready to you know have their their robots do different configurations they can you know move out of the way and come back and forth and it'll be it'll be a very um a very fun space so wanna talk about um another very exciting opportunity so this is um we we are planning to expand our visual and performing art um as part of our strategic uh plan so beginning next year we are planning to hire four elementary art teachers uh you provide arts education in all students pk through five uh next year it'll it will include grade stick i can ask you a question regarding the um so i do know that it was an apu that was the performing arts or how yeah would they continue are you talking you're talking about the teal program or oh yes yes they will next year yes uh-huh yep and i'll talk a little bit about that too when we get to some specialty programs what are what our plans are for that a good point um so we will be we're working with um our visual arts coordinator um for uh the secondary arts and uh the the team is going to begin to work on some lesson planning and design for arts education we are interested in our in all students receiving art instruction and things like drawing and painting and sculpting and so while the art teachers are implementing art instruction that's going to provide an opportunity for our classroom teachers to engage in data plcs professional learning and collaboration as well so dana with four are teachers um how much time do you anticipate a child getting of direct interaction with the art we think we've done a little math we think we can have each class have one art uh art period a week so the you know the older children it'll be a little longer but the the younger ones will probably be able to maybe 30 minutes or so um so here's the thing about this is that the we are planning to have these four art teachers be on uh like a nine to four schedule um we do have teachers in the district who right now who have that kind of a schedule and what that would do would allow us to be able to have art programming after school it's built in right so the teacher would be doing arts education you know during the day it wouldn't start until nine o'clock and so that would mean that we think at least two days a week at each of the schools when we reorganize we'll be able to have at least an hour of after school arts art club so that would not be like think together that would be a separate like art class correct the an art class not by the credential teacher with four of them then how would it rotate around then or yeah it would rotate around yes and then dr mitchell how does that incorporate music education i'm glad you asked that and so once once we reorganize the plan is to we'll take a look at our our vocal music instruction to see how we might be able to expand that as well so right now we have uh vocal and instrumental music for fourth fifth and sixth um and so as when we do the reorganization we'll take a look and see how we might be able to expand that and how how are they to um the mariachi program they started fourth grade they sure do yes and so does orchestra okay so where is it where is it going to be housed so how the students can get there to practice yeah so right now we have the orchestra program is still um is still at the high school azusa high school and the mariachi program is at foothill which the mariachi program would just move to gladstone middle school well in terms of the the music program so would it be would there be opportunities within the school day for these students or the i mean and is it all students that will be learning music or yeah it'll be all students yes during the day all students will play at least one instrument yeah and um one of the things that we did with one time finding this was a year ago we were able to purchase um really wonderful um well-made instruments um for our students so our fifth and sixth graders right now are playing we we have and we've got flutes and horns and tubas and all kinds of instruments and so um our our students have access to that they're able to check out those instruments and anybody can play they want to purchase transportation wise the parents we need they take them now right already yeah that's correct yeah for mariachi and for orchestra they do take them to the after school that's that's correct i just want to clarify something you said any anyone can play so is it an optional thing or everyone does does like yeah so right now um students have an opportunity to when they're in fourth grade it's vocal and fifth and sixth grade is instrumental but they can choose between vocal or instruments in fourth and fifth and sixth grade okay i want to transition to a base program still physical education um we currently have a program called spark pe which is a research based program that promotes lifelong wellness to improve the health of children one of the pieces with our physical education program and this part this curriculum in particular they have updated the curriculum and now it aligns to castle the castle framework which stands for the collaborative for academic and social emotional learning which supports um students social emotional learning um as they are developing their their physical education as well so we're going to update um that program as well because they have new components to align to that but so then does that take away from the physical piece of it it doesn't um so what it does is that um while they are engaged in um you know physical activity they also incorporate the social emotional learning as well so cooperative um you know participation getting along with one another you know working in teams those kinds of things all right so um wanna uh talk about after-school programming and enrichment we're still going to continue to offer our after-school programming with our think together partners and we will be adding before school programming offered by think together and this was uh we have one-time funding that can support that but eventually we would transition to um our lcap funding uh for that uh this is would be at no cost for families to have both before and after school uh programming how early would that be that is gonna be six thirty yeah six thirty thirty yeah and it will be all grades at all schools it will be all grades at all schools right elementary or element elementary yeah um we talked about the district mariachi and orchestra program so we we will continue with those programs available to all students beginning in fourth grade um and again we're we're continuing to offer um opportunities for after school steam programming um we have uh we have several schools and it's it's it's catching on like wildfire we have lots of uh teachers who have been trained and now are wanting to provide the robotics and the stem programming after school in addition we've all we've also purchased other stem curricular programming so it's not just the um it's not just the robotics and the 3d printing but we also have other stem activities where students can learn things for example there's hits where they learn about force and motion they learn about um you know anatomy there's all kinds of different kits that we're gonna that we've already purchased that we're equipping in the in the in the innovation lab so um will be a great opportunity again for students to have um you know again very enriched interesting innovative after school dr mitchell as as we look ahead to the shifting start times for um secondary you said that there was before school programming for elementary our elementary campuses is that something that we are looking at or considering for secondary for middle and for high school correct it's possible that something we could uh we definitely could look at um at uh high school we do have uh zero period offerings uh middle school we have zero period offerings as well um but that's something that we that we could definitely look at and consider thank you for that question dr mitch i have a follow-on question so for the before school programs will that be staffed by district staff or think together or another group of adult think together all right now let's transition and talk a little bit about uh the possibility for uh or specialty programming uh exploration so we're going to continue to offer what we refer to as specialty programming at specified sites so for example uh we talked about teal right so we have a teal which is the technology enhanced arts learning project currently that's a powell and depending on how the boundaries uh the attendance boundaries are finalized maybe that moves that would move to another site maybe it would be lee we're not quite sure yet but that would definitely move uh we have dual immersion of valley dylan hodge we have project lead the way at dalton and we have seal at valley dale murray and hodge and so um these are programs that we are going to uh to continue and in alignment with our plan to explore the middle years program which is the the uh alignment of the um international baccalaureate middle school we would include um a primary years program for consideration as a specialty program and so um same thing we would have a committee of parents and engaged uh you know families and students um sharing the data sharing the research really digging into the program let's learn about the program um and then take a look at uh our sites that don't have a specialty program to consider what we might want to add at the sites that don't have them so you're saying next year you'll have this conversation right maybe in conjunction with the creation of the community schools initiative with that with that engagement would align so when would we when would we anticipate thinking about which schools would have the primary year program the primary years program yeah so i think the first thing that would happen is we would once there you know that we start thinking about um the again we know which schools don't have the specialty program so we would want to uh get a committee together of our staff and our parents and students um to begin to talk about here are the options and here's what we have um do the same thing we would do with middle school um and go visit exemplary programs i think it's important that we have a committee to really take a look and dig in um and and you know make some recommendations on what they might like to have and we would start that in the fall okay now we're going to transition to we've got mrs jenny lee who is our director of early childhood education programming and she is going to talk to us about early childhood education and i'm going to show i show the video first if i can hang on one sec [Music] here at azusa unified school district we understand that early education is crucial for student development and academic success which is why we offer early childhood education programs for children as young as those who turn three by december 2nd of the enrollment year preschool early transitional kindergarten transitional kindergarten and kindergarten classes are offered throughout the zuseon unified school district the california state preschool program classes are offered at elementary school sites throughout the district our district offers a full continuum spanish dual immersion program to prepare students for a global future immersing students in both english and spanish from an early age develops their speaking reading and writing proficiencies in multiple languages students will also develop positive attitudes towards speakers of other languages and individuals with diverse cultural backgrounds it's so exciting to see how they change for the better and become more compassionate more flexible and excited and confident there are multiple benefits academically socially emotionally culturally it is a fulfillment of the promise of public education really i've seen great things happen in azusa for children who attend the dual immersion program we have children who speak spanish going into our spanish really immersion program as well as english only and you can see by mid first grade both group of students they are quite fluent in spanish there are many great programs and practices in azusa unified school district one of these practices is our work in aligning learning objectives instructional practices assessment and programs including robotics from preschool to third grade aligning early childhood education and elementary education ensures a smooth transition and continues success as children move into kindergarten and beyond in azusa usd we strive to provide high quality early education in a positive caring learning environment that supports student development of age appropriate foundational skills and prepares them for mastery of the california state common core standards [Music] thank you dr mitchell good evening i would like to expand a little bit on the information in the video as well as share the plan for ece our early childhood education programs regardless of whether special education preschool or your immersion or tk follows the california preschool learning foundations which describes competencies knowledge and skills that most children can be expected to exhibit in a high quality program before entering kindergarten chilton's progress is measured by the desired results developmental profile or the drdp our tk report card aligns with the measures in the drdp and that's fully intentional in addition to the strategies provided by the preschool curriculum frameworks our ece teachers also use sobrato early academic language project which is still pneumatic units for preschool and for tk we have four units and they use the strategies these strategies and play-based math and county collection strategies to support children's age-appropriate development as well as academic skills our early childhood education program strives to provide a high quality and i keep saying that because that's what we're shooting for always and always i'm improving and growing that is in alignment again with the k through third grade program in terms of teaching strategies for work women and assessment our ece teachers also use word of world of wonders or wow and em4 curriculum which is the districts language arts and math programs in their planning of the curriculum as well as instructions and they work collaboratively to plan within their grade level early curiosity and development in coding and robotics are recognized and supported with hands-on activities opportunities in addition to the um the tibos steam robotics we also have purchased coding express trained by lego that teachers can use to model coding a new component to our program this year is the amaze work program this is designed for early childhood education it is a literature-based supplemental curriculum that our teachers have been trained in our tk teachers as well as our preschool teachers and that would foster social emotional learning throughout through the lens of anti-bias education this is to support social emotional development in our youngest scholars ausd offers multiple early learning programs to meet the needs of children as well as provide parent choice and we would like to continue to do that and to grow for the school year of 2022-23 we would like to continue to offer the california state preschool program at all of our elementary school uh sites including the sites that will pose in 2324 uh except for hajj at this time i mentioned i'll mention in a bit this will allow us to continue to serve families who will have continued to have children all the children attending elementary school that will be closing the cspp program is not bound by district boundaries nor zip code so therefore parents do have a choice to enroll or their child or have their child attend a program at another site we have also looked into the possibility and we have found a location at hodge to implement cspp so that in the very near future we can say that all of our elementors school offer csvp um preschool now licensing can take some time that's why i couldn't commit to saying that it would be next year because licensing can take up a year or longer so this is based on my conversation with our licensing analysts at the uh for who oversees our program but sometimes if things come through and quickly or quicker than we anticipate so as soon as we get it licensed we can actually move some of the spaces that we have csv spaces at other sites which we have plenty of over to hodge and open programs there so it can happen that you're depending on uh when licensing occur and when interest um parents interest warrants the do immersion preschool program and transitional kindergarten do immersion will continue to be offered at longfellow and at valley jail the eece program also oversees part c and part b with the special education that offers six classes or sections at longfellow serving children ranging from mild to severe disabilities they also follow the california learning foundations next up modified based on their needs specific needs early transition of kindergarten and of course transition kindergarten program will be offered at schools that will remain open um and that um that i would not be designated close so ausd we are actively seeking opportunities that are working on expanding our program to include full-day full year we're excited that there is a grant that has been released and we are pursuing background thank you all right let's um let's transition now to additional programmatic support and i will ask for uh miss norma camacho and mr gary creel to come on up and talk to us about that okay so i shared a little bit about community liaisons we will continue to offer community liaisons at all of our school sites along with our parent centers to support our parent and family engagement at all of our sites and continue that learning that we have been providing through cobit as well so that will continue along with the other supports that we have in our site we have a myriad of support um our largest i think partnership is probably with mckinley children's center that's something we've had for approximately six years i think and in many ways it's a cutting edge partnership that we have in the beginning when we started partnering with the children's center they had uh clinicians on each of our campuses and those clinicians were sort of embedded at the campus and so there wasn't any of the stigma that students may have felt the clinician or therapist but not because they're on campus and the pandemic happened and so they like schools had shift and mckinley children's center then went to a different model where students were meeting on telehealth and but and so right now they're transitioning back to the program that they had before where the clinicians would be we also have partnerships with uh foothill family they provided a lot of service and even some of our trainings uh pacific clinics a new specific university we have doctoral students diabetes psychology who work with our students going back to mckinley the way that that worked is they build medi-cal so their services don't cost the district any students who have private insurance we use apu clinicians other grant operated partners that will work with with those students might have private insurance uninsured students uh they also can work with the mckinley children's center clinicians basically on a pro bono sort of situation and foothill family actually has a specific program in addition to the doctoral candidates from apu we have bsw interns bachelor social work they work with some of our uh lower yes not not high priority not high issues getting the badge so they would be working with students in the past um think together as dr mitchell talked about as i was thinking sitting here thinking about that he's been partners that think together for i believe 17 years they provide just an unbelievable purpose for the community that they've been you know taking students after school for years you know evening this new opportunity in the mornings to provide for school care at no cost uh for the families i think is going to be a huge draw dude because when i had my daughter i was paying over 500 a month just for that of course aaron so we're able to off and i think that's going to be a huge service you can see it fills the need that we had we tried to offer it at one point at a very nominal time but it was still a thought so it didn't really work now that we're funding it one time money for that gonna be something so uh think together also provides our kindergap hours the kindergartners that early bird nightbirds think together provide that that gap care for those students while classmates feature their thing together is also over the years they've been working with dr mitchell and the team and facilitating summer extravaganza our spring break program that we had this year um again and these are things that really a lot of schools don't really for districts don't offer they've been a great benefit believer in the second year of our partnership with western justice center they too have provided some of our staff development training for us we're getting more and more people trained at the abc's conflict resolution those sorts of things uh i was part of the panel that presented at the peer mediation invitational a few weeks ago he had some of our students there as well that we were talking about the program what it meant was unified uh just bringing in this program and great thank you can you clarify something well a couple things um so with the art is that perhaps gonna start this next year or it's starting in 2023 the art the elementary art teachers it's starting in the fall all right and then this is for you arthur and um and latasha so can we get a clear sense after this about what's being funded how each of these pieces is playing i heard mentioned several times to one-time funding i want to just get a sense of what's what's being funded by what pot of money for now um then we can have a conversation about sustainability and also um like what grants are we using for which program i heard there were grants many times also but what grants are we are we talking about thank you all right so we'd like to um open it up if you have any comments for us or any questions we'd be happy to i just have a question regarding the um the adult transitional um at magnolia campus is there gonna be any changes at the adult transit yeah i guess um is your question about facilities or program or well yeah because it's it's to me it's been the same all the time is there any going to be any change any new programs any i don't know so certainly so our adult transition program is part of ourselves but i just wanted to ask the question because i do know that when they give them lunch they bring the lunch in and then the staff has to serve them so in terms of the the lunch that is provided through our nutrition services um program through our that department and so those lunches are not grab and go but they the students pick up their lunches um and then those are accounted for and it just like when we how concerned is this is it is it i don't say edible but is it warm enough for them and temperatures right absolutely so i'm on campus quite a bit actually and so they are very engaged in their lunch time they enjoy their lunches i haven't seen any concerns from what i've um observed over the years in terms of what's your question about um like their program yeah their program absolutely so um for those of you who may not know about adult transition program for students with more intensive disabilities um sometimes referred to as severely handicapped we house the east san gabriel valley life skills program um as do a couple of other districts so um for example bonita walnut valley azusa offer program for students up to the age of 22.

knowing where we live work study and recreate does not change the past but a thorough understanding of the ongoing consequences of this past can empower us in our work to create a future that supports supports human flourishing and justice for all individuals thank you so now we will take a roll call before we start that two points of note first of all i received a notice from cole stevens that he's going to be late for the meeting he'll be joining us about halfway through and i also wanted to announce that we will have a new energy commissioner um she's officially appointed already but she's out of town and presenting at a conference and so she was not able to attend um tonight's meeting her name is sheree smith and she will attend the uh may meeting at which time she will introduce herself give a little give you a little bit about her background um she works um as a consultant in the energy space and missy and carlene and i have all met her and reviewed her resume and everything and she's really in us outstanding addition to the commission so we're really looking forward to welcoming welcoming her next month you see if you could conduct the roll call then that would be great who will be chair mursky you're from ann arbor thank you vice chair colvin garcia here from ann arbor also thank you thank you forgive me i'm trying to capture this end notes uh commissioner hook um okay commissioner mccomber you're from ann arbor thank you councilmember briggs all right here from ann arbor great thanks levin here in ann arbor thank you uh councilmember radina here in ann arbor commissioner mccoy and did you see ann arbor okay great thanks um commissioner george i hear from ann arbor thank you commissioner kerber you're from anatomy commissioner peck you're from sunny ann arbor sure commissioner juno let me just see if nicole is here okay so cool's not here right now and sharish is not that chair you have a corn you're on youtube thank you very much um so we um have an agenda and hopefully people if they can look at that can i get a motion to approve the agenda and then a second and we'll take a vote so a motion from uh council member rodina and a second i think was from council member briggs all those in favor say aye or raise your hand i any opposed any abstentions i guess i should have asked any any changes um uh i let me do that retroactively or or after the fact is are there any uh necessary changes okay so we will stick with the agenda as as approved then we also have minutes they're posted on legistar um i've reviewed them hopefully others have as well can i get a motion to approve those minutes so moved by commissioner mccoy and seconded by commissioner mccumber um all those in favor say aye all those proposed ones opposed they passed unanimously so now we're at public input um i just wanted to mention before we got into public input that we received uh and the commissioners all know this but we received two letters commenting on one of the presentations scheduled for tonight that's on this the landfill project one was from a representative of ann arbor for public power and the other was authored by three commissioners one of whom um was myself and um we will do our best to address the questions posed in those i just wanted to mention that um so when people are thinking calling in they know that in advance so we still encourage people to call in and to provide comments on anything relevant to tonight's agenda as well as any other topics that are important to you related to energy this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes if you're watching on ctn please call again the numbers 888 eight zero zero nine nine or eight seven seven eight five three five two four seven and enter meeting id nine three seven six seven five one this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and in the video feed city staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star 9 on your phone you will hear an automated message that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sound so that we may hear you clearly and finally please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments [Music] hello can you hear me we do thank you uh my name is greg woodring i'm the president of ann arbor for public power and i wanted to call in about the solar landfill presentation i appreciate uh chair mursky mentioning the email that ann arbor public power submitted asking a few various questions i just wanted to call in to reiterate that uh you know we're really curious to learn more about this project um there's certainly some very attractive something very attractive about building up some solar power in the city especially with the speed that it could be built at but there are a few concerning aspects that i'm hoping will be cleared up throughout the presentation one thing that i'm wondering about is is the solar that we are building up going to count against ete's requirement to build up renewable energy generation it seems that if that is the case then we're not really increasing the amount of solar that is going to be uh available in michigan in total we're simply allowing dte an easier avenue to build up that solar generation that they're already required to create additionally uh i've heard in the past that there that we may be selling wrecks based off of this energy renewable energy credits i'm curious if that's the case um because those two things put together seems to indicate that we would really be potentially creating less renewable energy total by doing this project rather than not doing it at all we would both be reducing dte's requirement to generate a renewable electricity as well as selling off selling credits that would alleviate someone else of their obligation to build up renewable energy so i'm hopeful that we'll get cleared up and finally i'd just like to say that i really hope we can think of a way that this could be rolled into the seu project or the traditional muni project uh it seems like it would be a much better value to ann arbor residents if we owned it directly i'm curious to hear what the reasoning for having dd own this uh solar project is but from an outsider point of view it certainly seems like it would be a much better deal if ann arbor was the primary owner of this uh landfill project so thank you for your time i look forward to a very elucidating presentation thank you for your comments caller ending in 661.

um what we're looking at is it's a commercial operation date of end of 2023 and that would mean that we would expect generation in early 2024 um as we finalize a contract with the engineering procurement construction firm that will solidify that schedule a little more but the the expectation is to finalize the the construction end of 2023 and have generation ready for 2024.

so i think that's been consistent over the last many years so i just have one question of the the court order said that two of our seven sub-districts must have a majority of african-american voters correct yes whose responsibility is that to make sure that we're abiding by that the court order does not specifically state that the district has an affirmative obligation to you know take steps every certain number of years to ensure that right um so procedurally if somebody you know had reason to believe that that the district was no longer in compliance with that um you know certainly if somebody could conceivably um you know go to the court and see if we're still in compliance with that alternatively if the district had reason to believe that it no longer was in compliance with that there's nothing to prohibit it once again from taking affirmative steps um to to do so so once again that's where i'm saying at this point in time there's nothing that creates an obligation for the district to consider redistricting but if it has a reason to believe that it's in the best interests of the district or its compliance with that court order it certainly has the ability to take to make that undertaking so there is no official watchdog on that correct the district has an obligation to comply with the court order but there's no specific procedures in place um uh you know there's no there's no oversight or panel or anything overlooking it should uh like i said should if there's a member of the community that felt that we're no longer in compliance they could try and you know go into court to enforce that or alternatively once again the district had reason to believe that it needed to take steps to ensure so what about at that time when that court order was imposed they said at that time they could only come up or with two districts that was considered majority minority districts because of the population but since then just using for example crete i think the population of african americans in crete back then was like 12 i think it's more like 20 25 28 right now so how does something like that come into play so what the court order requires is that at least two of the districts be the majority um you know african-american majority minority districts in terms of how you know if the minority uh percentages have increased in within the community overall um as i read the quarter i don't believe that imposes an obligation to change the voting district structure at this point in time the district's obligation is to comply with what the court's order was back in 1993.

and we as as ellen pointed out we were optimistic that we would be able to fill all positions prior to the start of the school year over the course of this year we have suffered a shortage of between probably about 20 and 35 teacher assistance district-wide which is a very significant shortage of people we have pulled teacher assistance from other programs including shutting down some general education programs to staff this program to make sure it was covered so we have been discussing this all year it has been uh to kind of address dr hall's question a little bit um it has been in the fyi a couple of times throughout the year i believe once was in november and then again i can't remember the second time there was more information in last week's fyi as well spelling out the problems and explaining that we had significant shortage in staffing in this program and while we were trying to meet the needs of this one as well as all other special education programs throughout the district we were just becoming very concerned about our ability to fully staff this program as we went forward right now special education positions i believe we had four or five that went unfilled this year teaching positions yes so we're already short not just in multi-needs but in other programs so we we are looking district-wide at all programs to try to correct as much of this as possible and and and get ourselves turned around so we can get the staffing problem corrected so i guess my question is has this decision has has this decision been made or are you all informing us because as you know i work at a school and we had a hard time staffing our our building as well so should we send the kids to crete that's kind of frustrating well the the problems that we run this time of year if we wanted to play this out is it's it's april we may be looking at more than a couple positions to replace in that program and if we're going into june we don't have we have to reserve our spot with speed or we lose it like we did last year so that that was some of our concerns you know i just you know there's no saying that desperate times take desperate measures to solve these problems and it sounds like we just gave up and you know and and again this this is you know i read some of the parents letters very very detailed very labor intense a lot of fervor uh was involved with doing research with this and and it just seemed like we just taken again i'm not the pro at this but it seems like we just taken for lack of a better phrase the easy way out and you're saying we posted for these positions nobody bought into it did we take measures like possibly putting a bonus or a stipend or anything like that you know anything like that to draw a candidate in it doesn't wow that's what i i don't know i don't i don't know i'm just asking the question that's the issue we can't do because of the cma well that's what i said i'm just asking a question that's all i'm just asking a question trying to get the minds you know we got to do more than just think out the box here it's thinking way out here so i'm saying did we take every measure we could up to this point because it sounds like as dr hall alluded to that this is a done deal and lio you you stated a couple times that it was an fyi fyi for the board but nothing to the extent that our director said putting things in chronological order did it ever come to the board in such a magnitude so i'm just appalled i'm i'm somewhat disappointed how this has played out and as far as i'm just one board member here i will not stop and again thinking outside the box and even further i don't know again about this program and how how speed interact and all of that other than what i just heard our directors say those teachers at speed that teach this program are they only going to teach our students here that we're sending over there or they are their other students because it's it's amazing how we took mec it seemed like overnight we got a new program for them new building and bam here we are so which is a good thing and i commend dr cosman at least for driving that process and why can we not have that same rigor to take this home and give our students what they need and how how come we could provide a bonus where is it written in the contract that you could that we couldn't provide a bonus for a hard to fill position or something to that effect or even talk to the you i mean because the union to say hey maybe i mean i've seen other districts do it so it's not impossible to do i i don't know i don't i don't yeah when you said you tried everything like you tried the norm of what you typically do if you can't feel a position that's what it sounds like to me i didn't hear anything different i didn't hear anything creative to garnish and harness the staff that we need to teach this program or why can't we keep people that's the that's the bigger question to me as well because as you know people don't necessarily quit jobs they quit leaders so there's something about that that makes them quit what's going on because we're saying that this person left and that person left and this per then that's telling me that there's something going on to where they don't again i say it again they don't quit jobs they quit leaders i'm not saying you per se or whatever but who whatever or whoever that they're involved with directly so and i would just like to add we're talking about from what i hear what i see the letters that i've received and the board members have received from parents and even talking to our superintendent this is a highly successful program highly successful and taught at a highly successful school and i mean we should go out on a limb and and bring to the board here are the options these are all the things that we are looking to do to keep this program where it is keep it going not reasons to move forward and put it somewhere else lyle just is there i mean setting kind of contract limitations aside i mean is there a market that you could offer for these positions that would fill them or are there other dynamics in the marketplace that just there's a limitation on the number of of these type teachers with these types of credentials and paraprofessionals as far as teachers the the there has been an increasing difficulty finding special education teachers in recent years and part of that is changes in federal law and how teachers are certified that we can no longer use emergency licensed staff they have to be fully licensed in order for us to use them in a special ed program that's funded by federal funds so that has reduced some of the opportunities we've had to be creative with licensing and getting teachers on board the other issue is you know just simply having the license isn't always enough because different programs have different needs so you have to be able to have the training that goes into being successful in that program so as we have we were able to have three teachers in the program out of four which we were able to manage with our numbers the bigger issue has been the teacher assistant numbers and that is that is a system-wide issue i don't have a dollar amount but the districts that i talked to were having to go in the 20 to 25 an hour range which is almost double what we are paying according to our contract right now now the contract is in negotiation depending on how that comes out that may help alleviate some of that problem but just having the teachers isn't enough in a program such as this i believe we had 12 teacher aid positions and four teacher positions and throughout the year we had five teacher aides who were in that program we lost two during the years so we're down to three at the end out of twelve and we've moved other aids from other parts of the district but we are short 30 plus everybody every program was short so again can we can we offer bonuses absolutely if we can negotiate them with unions we can offer them um there's a there's a process for that uh we can uh you know we can do whatever we want we want to negotiate with the union we can we have advertised far and wide we have reached out nationwide for teachers teacher candidates it is just a very hard market right now i'm not saying it's impossible but i'm saying it's very hard and we were able to keep the program staffed this year we do have some staff members who are looking at other positions in the district i don't want to say any more publicly and that will leave it even more positions to fill for next year and and that's what we had to reach out and ask if there was an option for the co-op to help us out for a year or two as we try to rebuild the staff for the program it is our intent to bring this program back into the district as soon as possible but we can't wait till the last minute to decide we need the co-op we have to tell them ahead of time so they can be prepared so i want to ask the question can the teachers from speed come here uh no if speed would choose to satellite the classes on on our in our campus that would be absolutely fine we can do that that's just one option in my opinion and i i did instruct uh i did instruct ellen to to speak with the co-op and let them know we're prepared to satellite their programs here yes until we can again these are desperate times these are abnormal times everybody know that everybody has challenges and again i commend the district for being able to do the things that they have done to get us to this point with all the other issues that you have discussed so here we're talking about this moment right here when's the last time we had this many parents or teachers or staff here at a board meeting so this is telling me this is very important this is very important so it's very important to all of our public right there and possibly some staff members as well and it's very important to the board and it's very important to this district that we keep this program going so once we have um held a spot with speed can we can we back out of that well that's i was going to ask ellen uh what is the grace period that we have to hold that in case comes august we have no teachers we really need to move forward with what we are doing with speed because they have to plan and have planned just like we have to plan every year for our program do they give us a deadline though i mean are we looking at june july oh goodness no because they have to staff the program so what because i was just wondering if we could continue you know our search and maybe offer the bonus or something and try to fill those positions you know what i can contact steve to speak tomorrow and i'm happy to do that but they are a school district they are school district also and so they need to do their planning just as we did our planning and and that's the challenge that all school districts are having well that's that's what makes us warriors we're different so then i guess i would suggest if we can then um talk to speed i'll call them tomorrow and see if we can continue to fill those spots but have that as a backup obviously um i mean i get it number one is safety of our kids so we do have to have the proper staffing but clearly it is a very important you know topic here so i think it is something we have to give 110 so please know that this decision was not made quickly it was made very slowly we took steps during this year to try and increase staffing to try and remediate through co-teaching etc our teachers got tired as did our paraprofessionals it was a rough year we can't i don't think i don't think anybody is questioning that and i commend the rigor and the hard work that our staff has put forth thus far we're saying here's our problem and what can we do to fix it we're saying that the answer that you gave in my opinion is not good enough so my question is can we understand you have to make a commitment to speed to reserve space but can we accelerate and see if we could accelerate i mean can we pull back out of speed if in august first we figure out a way to have the program my concern is is you know they are staffing for our students well and that may be there there may be some financial penalty to the district to doing that but i think we should explore that and i think as a board i think as a board not only you our director i think we need some more muscles i think we need to put a directive towards our superintendent to be your backup or be the for the front runner here i guess i have a question though i have other questions too but you just made me think of one immediately they're staffing for our children why can't we staff for our children i mean where are they getting the people from am i i'm sorry it just dawned on me i don't mean to be a smart aleck but when you're saying they're staffing for our children how are they getting people and we're not is it because they're they're paying them a different what is how are they getting the people we ca we went to speed and said can you provide this at every right around now every end of february beginning of march we provide to speed the number of our students that are returning the existing students that are returning from all the feeder schools and they had to look at their numbers to see if they could take in our new students and they were they are able to and i'm sorry you just said that we couldn't back up because they're going to be staffing for our students which means they're they're making sure they have enough for our kids and these kids and these kids and these kids i don't know where they all come from that that's that's not here or there but if they're upping their staff somehow they're getting staffed because they must be we're giving them high i don't know that they're hiring staff they told us that they could take in our students i think we need to look at those guys so what i think what we've decided here of what we've heard here is uh ms bellotti is going to contact speed tomorrow yes she's going to find out what's the latest deadline and even so what's the penalty for us to pull out in august september if uh if we find that um you know we meanwhile can we up the antenna the other questions the other questions with mr brown your muscles need to be involved up front doctor cognitive yeah i mean let's at this point look the other thing i want to build on mr brown i haven't done yet a little bit is one of the things that you brought up was one of the questions is still could they can they teach here what's the difference i mean now the program and the kids are i said can they come here i mean we're missing that i understand can we hire people but why can't they come here but the other part is mr brown is right and i mean i'm and i'm telling you right now i'm sorry to say this but a couple months ago parents were here right they were frustrated and unfortunately thursday they had a parent meeting with someone they're frustrated with why hasn't i crime up the ladder to to address that i mean i i mean look at this i mean there's you're right i mean dr hall brought it up mr brown this is cannot be a done deal in this moment i understand timing everybody understands the respect level of telling a parent august first i'm sorry i have nowhere to go or telling them now but you can do that one if you've done all your homework like we've discussed but two i'm going to tell you now that the relationship that these parents have with the district is not good i mean the communication part of it is terrible and i'm i'm and i'm telling you the word communication in this district is awful it's all the way around like top to bottom and now we have parents here and the communication here is is again two three months ago we had parents here complaining you know about what's going on with the director and now here we're in the same spot and that person's letting all the what all the parents thought i mean come on the seven of us are sitting here going you know what do we do you know and now we're caught in in the middle of this and and here we are mr brown asked it what do we do dr hall asked it what do we do like did we do we exhaust everything um have we even talked about any of these of bringing them in and we talked about anything about adding the stipends or whatever if we can i mean miss roop is in a negotiation right now for uh acme has she been approached you no i am i'm sorry miss gilbert has anybody been brought up in in that meeting that that's what we're talking about that's the thing we haven't gotten sorry i can't really disclose anything but we're not to that we've only had like two meetings and the first was to tell us what we were doing so i mean again my question here is what are they doing to get teachers that we aren't doing number two when were these parents informed that it was ending have there been talks all along that this was a possibility okay unfortunately i can't let you um if if somebody else decides but i don't have that authority well i was i was going to ask could we go a little bit outside of our regular procedure now that we've had a discussion to let parents say something or i think we need to hear what what they've gone through i mean and what are we going to do if if they end up having to go to speed what are we going to do to integrate these children who only know this environment are we just going to show up the first day and throw them in a classroom i sure as hope not because that will be extremely traumatic i mean what is our plan if we have to go to speed how are we going to bring these children along that they're going to a different location i'm so i mean those i have more questions but those are my major ones and i really really really want to know how they're getting teachers and we're not yeah well i see my i guess my confusion is you just said that you continuously uh stated that they needed to prepare to staff and then when asked the question how are they getting teachers and where not you say well you don't know if they're getting teachers so you don't know if they need to staff or do they need the staff what i guess they assured us that they could welcome our students and so that would imply that they had the staff available so they don't need to get any other staff so that means that they can we can talk to them and you said you're gonna call i get that so you're gonna call to see about making sure that we can wait because is it a matter of if another district comes along with more kids or that they have to go out and hire because they have to go out and hire then we need to do the same thing so well go back to your original question yes this is the first time we're discussing this right true that's that's one thing i wanted to say i didn't want to throw anybody under the bus but my disappointment was that we get emails saying we're informed that the board knows and we didn't i saw it on facebook friday night i was going to email but i know that sometimes i do miss stuff so i wanted to make sure i went back to reread everything to see that i didn't miss it i know we have we have talked we had parents here like bill said and problems were because we were short staffed so i mean we we were aware that we are short staffed so i do understand that but we it never was stated that we would most likely have to eliminate the whole program and so i felt a little blindsided and i and and that's why i didn't answer any emails because i i just wasn't prepared to say anything yet because we hadn't had the discussion maybe we were going to invite everybody here tonight but i asked that we did that for the parents and um thank you for coming out i'm glad to see this many parents but um yeah so i'm just a little disappointed in the process but nelson if we could go a little bit outside of procedures i think we could either have a second public comment now or we could do one after all of the administrative updates i think that the parents got some answers or some feelings and some of the things that we've all brought up and i would like to be able to hear those no no i'm saying is the public comments should probably put in if well i think that we've made them sit here this far let's so do board members have any other questions for ellen or or or lyle or for dr dr cara on the presentation no no no if not then um any parents who would like to speak we have our kind of oh well we need we do need have we do have a procedure we do have a procedure we do have a procedure for public comments so let's still follow that but you need to just fill this out take one and then and then hand it back to me and so we have your name okay just just put your name down so and maybe they also want to tell them about repetitive questions you may want to tell them about repetitive questions yeah repetitive of course they may be asking i think one person is going to speak for all right and who's speaking okay okay and she is jillian going to speak for everyone is that that you want to speak to okay can you guys hear me okay no no can you hear me yes okay please bear with me i was not prepared to speak tonight and i'm very emotional about this matter so please bear with me while i get my thoughts together here i want to start off by saying that my name is jillian summers i was born and raised in crete i went graduated from crete money school district in 2002.

is there a second any discussion about the graduation page all those in favor aye any opposed any extensions motion carries unanimously um i will now open the floor for a nomination for the board of education secretary for the remainder of 2022.

the funding comes from the parent trust fund out of hartford so we're very through the department of education so we're lucky to get that also along with that we've just received the pep oh so let me just go back to the first one parent c is helping families understand how boards function there were some people that came to a board meeting that one night that we had snow or canceled and we went virtual they were all going to come to class it was so exciting then we went virtual because of snow but they'll be back so they're understanding how all those board policies are created and then what is their role in helping to create positive change okay they've done all kinds of hands-on activities some of you may have been interviewed over the last couple of weeks i think um so they're looking to make positive changes on a district um part of the school park our people empowering people this will be i think the 14th or 15th time that we have run this raceway with one of our family liaisons um marine molina from rogers park to take the training through uconn and they will start that class on the 27th 27th and that will go for 10 weeks we're all kind of short on time because some of this funding has to be done by june 30th but we're really excited and you have how many folks we have 18 so that's a nice nice nice number nice number to work that will be in person parents see right now is virtual because we started in january um we weren't sure where we were going people wanted to be safer just staying in their own ways okay let me go to the next one all right um ongoing workshops that we have so though we try to aim for the higher impact ones that are a longer period of time those 10 weeks those 12 weeks there are certain workshops that lend themselves to be a shorter workshop so we have talking to your teens about alcohol kelly trooshes and her group grand one already on the drug prevention rate yeah a couple of weeks in plain sight and then what you look for in your kids so you know we hear from parents i'm concerned about this are we going to call i don't know what to do with this or i talked to jim antonelli in the police department he's like we really got a problem on this how about we join together and do some parent education around different topics we have um so the talking to your tongue teams about alcohol coming up um in two weeks the eight dimensions of health and welfare wellness strategies to reduce drug and alcohol use in the home through prevention is on may 12th and then internet's safety digital parent seminar is only for parents that night with scott driscoll and um clicking last week's newsletter and all that registration material is there for families we'll we'll broadcast further the internet one we'll broadcast all of them further but the internet safety one is really really important at this point we are seeing all kinds of new things i'm sure you're hearing them on the news all the time of programs that students are getting into that they just don't need to be into and so how as a parent can you know give them that internet connectivity but how can you make it safe for them and so scott does a really really effective kind of scary presentation but it makes you realize there's a lot kind of out there lurking on the dark web we've i felt i feel and my team feels that we've given families lots of opportunities for feedback on district-wide decisions and budget development and certainly that was around the escrow funding and then the development of this next year school budget i guess the kudos program to take away that we're really really proud of is our school-based family liaisons and they are the ones that are creating that bridge between families and schools when mr wallston came in here to the district he was like what do you mean richard liaisons who creates that bridge and i said well it's whoever the school can do there's not a person that's doing it and so we have taken the best of the knowledge that we have from other districts throughout the united states and in connecticut of what they've done and we are definitely flying the plane as we're building it because every school has slightly different needs in building that bridge with their families and so we only have at this point two schools that don't have one we're excited that we've been able to um i joke i was stood on the corner and said do you like families you do apply for this position and we have found some absolutely wonderful folks out there to be our lighthouse so far every single one of them which you know when you walk in the door and you don't speak english and someone's speaking your own language immediately there's a sense of comfort so that is you know been absolutely great to be able to do that for our schools the feedbacks and principles is just wonderful we meet with them every friday morning religiously at 10 o'clock in the morning we bring in community resources so they hear about what does action do what are the resources that they have there we bring in children and families aid of how do you help a family linked to mental health services all different types of services out there then tomorrow we start back with my baby's favorite play to learn playgroups anybody want to come out at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning this is life so exciting to be able to bring our families with their children birth to age five back into our building at sacred heart in the gym to partake in an hour play room so they come in they play for a while we then have a curriculum it's either a book being read some usually pretty good messy sensory project for the children to partake in we have some gifts for them to take home tomorrow then there's a 10 minute segment where the other adults will pull away the children and play with them while the parents go over and talk about something that they need to know about tomorrow they're going to look at the sparkler application which is a developmental application that we encourage parents to use on their phone and get a daily tip specific to their child's age of activities that they can do and then we will start to do the ages and stages with all our families and what we have found in these play groups is we are able to help refer many many families to our birth to three program which is a state-run program for children or for parents who have concerns about their developmental uh milestones for their child and so that earthquake iii program is able to bring these families in and many times provide services for them that then they're done and released out of that service and never come into our three to five system so we know that early intervention works and that's what we want to do okay the next page this section goes really really fast but i just want to highlight some of our community programs and our partners we had we still do we have a fair amount of parents come in to register their children they're new to danbury they're ready to go they're ready to start school and then they say you know today my appointment for my child's physical is may 5th well that means that that child can't start school until after may 5th so we have partnered with original dna health services we run a clinic every month so for like next monday they will send in their social worker hearing site registered nurses they do all the pre-physical part and then on wednesday the doctor will be there we'll actually do a physical with the children he she will dr saunders absolutely wonderful she will sign off on what vaccines they need the social worker will again meet with the family if there's any other resources that they need they fill out that entire blue form front and back we have it's kind of like like this machine work you know you do this and then you move to here you move to here we have translators in each section and so the families get their whole physical um and we've been doing not only our school-aged children but some of our babies too because we've got a lot of three to five year olds that aren't getting physicals like they should be and they're just not up on their vaccines so thank you to uh rachel viennel next one is our family leadership training institute that is the other big parent training here in danbury it's run out of families network of western connecticut on main street that's a 20-week course i know many of you have been through that course as well and some of our 21st century funding helps support that program that five percent set aside that was talked about okay uconn fairfield county extension service comes in through our 21st century program buys meals for the families and then through this pandemic we haven't been able to do the cooking on site they do a zoo meeting and talk to parents about healthy meal preparation and it's really they're really cultural or culturally responsive because they add in all these different foods that families like but they're showing them how to prepare meals that don't have a lot of fat don't have a lot of sugar and really you know fulfill the vegetables and the fruits so fairfield county extension service that's part of our yukon program last week we found out through the stop and shop charities that we've been working with that broadview established rogers park in haystown food pantries will share a 20 000 rent from stop and shop for their food pantries so by the amount of students in your school they'll receive gift cards for those families to be able to go shopping and stop and shop so those families that are identified as foodborne we are starting to see unfortunately the need for food to go and back up it's really sad last week we're also notified too through the connecticut master gardener association that we've been granted funding for our summer pollinator vegetable and flower garden at great prince school and so that will be started with our elp students towards the end of the school year and then manage the entire summer with our sensational summer program and then back to our eop in the afternoon it'll be in their courtyard and it'll just look fabulous and principal smith is really really excited about um this is another partnership that we have through the state connecticut was one of the 11 states that applied out of i think probably 50 states applied to the federal government for a family school partnership grant 11 districts were chosen connecticut being one and the capital region education council administers this grant and what happens here in danbury is they are all part of this national network of partnership schools and so i work with those schools in making sure that they have more goals around this year we have uh two academic a behavior and a family engagement so for instance at mill ridge they're planning a weekend of cleaning up around the school as that engagement piece um our building we're going to be doing hopefully building some picnic tables to be able to encourage families to be outside for a place to sit for registration again the the true academic and the behavior or the social emotional our goals are all aimed at encouraging and supporting better student success in school lastly we're coming to the end here we have been so fortunate to have been especially during the pandemic work with the connecticut food bank trump and beaumont ingelheim they did uh great food at the bottom picture there is the bi folks we would begin part of the pandemic go every day pick up food and then we would go to the federal housing sites in denver and just and deliver meals boeing or stays sandwich is supporting us as we start to move forward in our new endeavors in danbury next one is the moore street youth program through our family resource center they just received a nice grant to do more youth development and theater work out there through sde of course david library jammer youth services and united way all support um the programs in one way or the other through services we don't see usually cash through them but it's referrals and its services that we we partner with them and our last slide this is our newest program that we are proud to be rolling out we constantly hear from our families we don't understand this u.s school system back before we moved out of osborne street we registered a look with family through boys from the congo they came out they got registered we knew that we thought they were all set they came back about three weeks later and they said their laptop students no idea what power school was no idea how to get into the computers what was a computer they just never what's google right they just had no idea and so based on parents saying we need supportiveness we have been able to partner with the harvard graduate school of education on massachusetts we have three of their senior graduate students working on this program funded by lindy corporation that is in the process of developing two different modules the first module is really technical what does it mean to get into google how do you get into google how do you navigate these computers how do you get into power school what does power school mean to you how do you use parent square in all of that the second module will be more fit based on the learning of students and we will be out getting clips done from the first grade math specialist that then will go up into the module in different languages so parents can click on these modules and find out that you know they're a first grader they need help in math but they could click on that and be able to get that help that they need um we're fortunate with these harvard students they're doing it this work as part of their project we do have a focus group on a thursday night seven o'clock so if you're interested we can send a link out to that if you want to hear about families responding to them we've also done a survey out to our new families too that have just recently come to the district on what what help do you need and so we're hoping that a program like this will level set the parent knowledge before they even start schools and end as they start schools so that they're off and running and really successful so i think that's the last one any questions thoughts yeah nice to see you again great job great job as always can you send the copy i'm assuming i didn't get it yes i will send all of you [Music] one meeting i'll get it out too because i feel like you will get nothing interesting i can't spring a presentation i'm just saying in general you gotta get a week before to ask some questions right and you know that hardware is always open to come down and see us pick up the packet from our welcoming schools uh work that we did the principal said you know could we put a sheet in for our schools in the packet so principals and school secretaries are working on their sheet we sent them a template and said please fill this out tell us a couple things about your school who's the key folks that people need to know and so um that's out there so when somebody comes in no care comes in to register a child says i've got one broadview one at whatever school we'll say here's your pack and here's your sheet from broadview damn very high and whatever yeah yeah yeah great thank you very much thank you thank you dr me grace molina thank you both of you alicia and board chair celeste that concludes the supervisor um before chairperson's report i don't have anything really except to say welcome to our new member ralph education um welcome back i should say are there any other board communications comments questions i just need to give a shout out to my friend chapel for his success with the voice for change program he would be very upset if i didn't mention that congrats thank you anybody else any updates comments questions and i wish i knew secretary wallen's success thank you terry for stopping by do you need you need my part canvas you're good tonight probably okay there's a quiz only for you rob just kidding well don't start extending the length of our meetings we heard we said it a week before so you can ask questions baseball practice

hello hello can you hear me we do all right thank you hello my name is gus teschke i live at 313 montgomery i'm a supporter of ann arbor for public power thank you for the opportunity to speak i'm calling in support of the landfill solar array project it's a great idea it makes total sense if you want to cut carbon emissions for electricity i believe that the landfill is the only major public open area in ann arbor well we could put an array so it's worth a thorough discussion um and thanks to the energy commission for giving the public a chance to comment on it um you know i've learned a few things about the project that concerned me so i have a couple of questions uh the first is how will the construction of the landfill solar array be financed i understand the subscribers will collectively pay the entire cost of the project through excuse me individual utility bills but the dte will own the physical asset so you know and then question number two will dte assume any unreimbursed costs for this project and if so what are they the city council was told in 2020 that dpe will not have any financial responsibility for the project although they will own it the city has already paid dte's pr preliminary engineering review and distribution study and for the environmental assessment so will dte pay anything for this solar array that ann arbor is going to get to it those are my two questions thank you thank you all are ending in one three four thank you dr stalton chair mursky and garber 28 haverhill court um yeah i'm going to speak on landfill solar too i think we can agree on three things first staff has put a huge amount of diligent and creative work into this project and deserves a recognition for that um second we still need more information i've seen the list of questions from a2p2 and they overlap with a lot of my own i expect that we'll get answers from tonight's staff presentation the third thing we can agree on is that the current plan is not ideal there are a lot of trade-offs yes we want to get this solar energy on the grid as soon as possible that's extremely important but giving this valuable asset to dte is painful especially since we're already talking about buying it back once we can directly use the power buying back the landfill solar project is even in the new muni rfp of course as a business deal this is absurd but we're not a business not to be too grandiose but we're here to stave off global catastrophe but there may be ways the city could keep ownership and use the power directly with only a small delay maybe a few years run transmission lines to the water and sewage plants as a2p2 suggests get in the queue for a miso connection work to legalize true community solar at the state level then implement it here get the seo or a parallel utility up and running and start selling power to local commercial users these options are not mutually exclusive but they do require owning the asset yes we could buy it back from dte in five years seven years but the price will be very high selling would take renewable power capacity off their books so it's worth a lot more to dte than mere market value and we would pay a big premium i share the first caller greg woodring's concern about additionality of this project i think it's a valid question i don't know the answer um if it is if it isn't uh additional then we're better off on our own doing an additional solar farm and even if it is additional i think we still need to um have a conversation around ownership thanks thank you that's all risky very good okay so let me pull out the agenda here just a second so um the first presentation or point on the agenda i should say is the capital investment process and this how that overlaps with our sustainability agenda and um deb i think um you're joining us this evening to present thank you very much appreciate you um spending your time your evening with us and um missy i don't know if you want to introduce the topic briefly first or um if you want to just hand things over to dip i want to thank deb for coming you may not know but deb is retiring in just a few weeks so i think you might be one of her last public meetings and we grabbed her so we could get all that institutional knowledge before she transitions and she's doing a beautiful job passing it on to kayla coleman but i just want to acknowledge that the work that you've done for the city for a blink of an eye but a longer time than that and uh you will be sorely missed but thank you for spending one of your last public meetings with us uh so without further ado deb do you want to share your slides or do you want me to run them i can just go ahead and do a show screen all right so i'm going to click it here in just a minute so my presentation is not terribly long tonight but what i would like to do is kind of quickly cover where we have been in the capital improvement plan and how we started out integrating sustainability where we are today and where we hope to go next so that's sort of my goal and with that i will give you just a second and share screen okay i assume we're all set at this point yes we see it yeah it's always weird how we zoom unlike when we do teams meetings i don't actually see what you see once i go to this mode so we're good so um is there a chance you could go to um like slideshow mode it's still showing some um borders and things like that i don't know if you can do that uh yeah hold on just go view daddy right but i think that i grabbed just the pdf because sometimes that's easier so full screen mode i think it should work view and then full screen mode a little bit farther down near the bottom there we go yes that better that's a little bigger yeah thanks okay great because again weird looks exactly the same on mine so all right so with that um i wanted to start very briefly just explaining how the capital improvement plan is put together so you can see where the ability to integrate sustainability as the plan is put together and then of course once we implement plans is the second and probably more major opportunity so one thing that's important to understand because not all cities organized i'm going to call it cip out of brevity at this point but we organize our cip by asset groups and we set it up that way because generally speaking these groups are not competing with each other for money so when we go to doing the prioritization like we'll talk about later and where we can integrate sustainability criteria um each group has then more flexibility in setting up those criteria and again like water funds don't compete with sewer funds or street village funds so it works well to parse out uh the groups like that so we have three overarching groups that's municipal facilities transportation and utilities and then we break each one down further so municipal facilities include city-owned buildings parks and recreation and solid waste transportation is the biggest group because we have our municipal airport active transportation is the area where things you do that don't involve a motor so bicycling pedestrian activities anything that gets people out of their cars basically we do maintain i believe it's 16 bridges in the city new streets is a very minimal category because generally ann arbor is quite build out we're not really much in the business of new streets mostly what ends up in that category is requests to pave gravel streets um other transportation is other things that happen inside the limits of the right-of-way but that are not about getting around like on your feet or on a bike so that's like signs and signals would fall in there um if the downtown development authority does streetscape projects to beautify them so that's where other transportation is really other right-of-way projects parking facilities the city owns a number of parking structures and some surface lots they are actually operated for us through the dda but they're still city assets so improvements to those still fall in our capital improvement plan street construction speaks for itself and transit is basically the future train station and an idea about um cube jump lanes for uh buses are in there so it's quite a tiny category but we distinguished it out because it has unique properties and then the final asset teams are utilities sort of self-explanatory we have sanitary sewers storm water and water and in the sanitary and water that includes the plants themselves that are operating the system as well as all the pipes that are part of the system so groups of staff are organized by these asset groups and to create the plan i always refer to it as the three p's so the first thing we do is identify new projects and where those ideas come from um is pretty broad sometimes they come directly from citizen requests or maybe it's a group more than an individual citizen but um you know throughout the year i may receive emails saying anything from can you pave my street to i think we need a crosswalk here so we do get requests that come in that way um master plans so many asset groups have long term capital plans and they say when you get to this point you should do x so we get ideas for master plans and then probably the biggest single source is staff knowledge nobody knows better where the water mains are breaking or where the heating and cooling isn't working very well or whatever to suggest projects so we actually have a meeting in which people present projects if we're in the year like this is an even numbered year so we tackle a full six years in the even-numbered years we only look at the front two years and the odd that keeps us in cycle with the capital budget so people can suggest other things that aren't already in the cip and they can also suggest changes to the scope of the project so that's always meeting one of the first of the three p's and just a quick notion of what makes something eligible to go in the plan we're looking for capital improvements that cost more than a hundred thousand dollars and it could also be a suite of projects that cumulatively go over that limit so let's say um missy suggested um you know a series of ev charging stations and it was 25 25 25 25 4 years in a row as long as the project itself reaches um that hundred thousand below that things tend to get funded through operation and maintenance um and then also we will fund studies in the capital improvement plan if they're going to lead to a capital improvement so let's say we do uh you know a study of all our buildings uh an energy assessment then we know that that's gonna lead to some energy related changes or we study you know flooding areas and we know that will lead to some storm water projects so studies that are more than 50 000 that will lead to capital improvements also make it into the plan then the next thing that we do is actually prioritize the project and this is where we're going to spend a little time and i'm going to finish going through the process itself first but if we have this whole body of projects we have to have a way to decide what to do first what's more important to the city you know what contributes more to our goals so any new project that is added is prioritized and if someone suggested a scope change to a project that's already in the plan we re-score it uh to prioritize it and i'll mention in a minute we're using a software called alavance that we tend to refer to it more as strategic value scoring but everybody still calls it prioritization but we think of it as what strategic values can this project exam and while we're working on that finance is off to the side setting the parameters for us because in order to get to the next step of program we have to know how much money do i have to spend in the water group in 2024 so i have to have a financial target for the teams to be keeping their ideas within and then the final step is actually programming and by that i mean what year is this project going to fit in the plan and how much is it going to cost so to create that plan obviously we have a prioritization score and that's very important however it can't be the only thing we might say oh gosh we'd like to do you know a train station tomorrow but it's 80 million dollars i don't have 80 million dollars so it doesn't matter if it's number one it's still not going to happen until we have the funding available um and the other thing is the city works very hard to coordinate projects across asset groups with each other so for example if we are going to be paving a street we always have asked the question is the water main okay under there does the sewer need any attention are we having flooding do we need to do storm water work and each of those might be projects in their own bucket but we have to coordinate them together and then the last little box i have here says staff and contractor capacity and that i'm sure will not come as a surprise to any of you but that's become quite the challenge contractors are busy and we're competing against other cities counties the state for those same contractors we can't predict exactly but we do tend to know which areas were more short than others in contractor capacity so we at least consider that a bit so we put all those projects that we prioritize we try to do the highest scoring ones first depending on the funding availability and coordinating with other projects and out of that we create the six-year capital improvements program and this is basically just reiterating we look if it's coordinated with something we slot at the first available time and we keep adding projects in a given year until our bucket is full and then we move to the next fiscal year and then we go back and keep iterating if another group comes along and says oh i really can't wait another year on my water project but all of that leads to a plan and then the last thing i like to talk about before i turn to sustainability specifically is whose responsibility is it in the city to approve the cip um and so planning commission itself under state law is the body that approves the capital improvement plan it is technically a planning document it has dollars assigned to projects at the planning level but the planning commission actually holds a public hearing and eventually votes and adopts the plan and then at that point the cip is the building block for the city's capital budget so generally in the administrator's budget the cip projects have been moved in you know almost completely intact one place where there tends to be little adjustment is if general funds are used because those are not a revenue source in the same sense of you know we all pay a water bill if we live in city there's the water revenue we you know have a street millage and so on so general funds come from property taxes but they're used both for capital and non-capital so there can be some tweaks but generally speaking what's approved in the cip leads to what is approved in the capital budget so let's turn now to how do we roll sustainability ideas in well back in fall of 2020 is when we switched to the alavance software and up until that point we had the same prioritization criteria across all groups um and there were like eight of them and then there are a couple of special ones that groups came up with but basically every group had the same um scoring and that seemed good on the surface however what we found in years of practice is people would say well that doesn't really apply to our group and i feel like i'm scoring this for nothing or whatever so we began the process of refining and we did our sixth largest of those asset groups in fall of 2020 and scored projects for the first time and one of the things we wanted to do in those change was to start to find an increased emphasis on energy and greenhouse gas emissions climate preparedness equity and so on so as you're all aware the city has had a sustainability framework for a number of years with 16 goals baked into it and what we had been doing was that in all of those groups with the universal criteria sustainability as an element of deciding what projects to advance was the same thing it was basically of those 16 possible goals how many can the project help advance so it was better than nothing um however uh there are things like you know local food source that'll be pretty darn hard for you know say a water project to do anything to assist so again people would say it doesn't feel quite right so once we had this opportunity to define things related to sustainability we began to do that so i'm going to show you a couple of examples of what groups came up with and again this is just reiterating where we were you could score 0 3 7 or 10 points depending on how many of those bulls that you ticked but once we got through these groups so active transportation parks and rec street sanitary storm and water were the groups we've done this tweaking on in some ways for the things like you folks care about the most energy there wasn't a tremendous opportunity to incorporate that component of sustainability but i'll show you where we did it and then you know we'll talk about the next steps so um one of the components of sustainability was equity and one of the things we found is we tried to develop criteria is there's not a lot out there to guide you and so we started with some of the things where we it has to be a scorable metric so for equity we realize that this neighborhood's at risk which is sort of a national level uh data set had set some metrics related to households in poverty so census tracts for the city of ann arbor allowed us to see within each census tract how many households were living in poverty and i have to say it was kind of an eye-opener for me i think we all think living in ann arbor that we don't have households in poverty or a lot of people i think believe that but we do have them and there's definitely differences in different census tracts so one example of an equity scoring now instead of numbers we use low medium and high desirability and behind them there's still a graph so it's not straight line but for example this was used in a couple of groups if the project occurred in a neighborhood with a low percentage of households in poverty meaning less than five percent it got the lower score if there were five to ten percent of the households in poverty in that census track it got medium and if they're greater than 10 and there are such tracks in the city uh then they scored the higher things so this started to bring in um one aspect of equity it being economic equity it's certainly not the only one but it was one that everybody said yes and it helps then keep you from accidentally spending more money in a wealthier census tract than in one that isn't within the city and it was interesting to see having done this for 10 years how it did actually advance some projects based on that score another example was trying to get at the idea that there are some groups that don't consume energy per se but they still have the opportunity to foster non-motorized travel as a way to decrease greenhouse gas emissions so in one of the groups they came up they called the scale user experience not sustainability but they were then looking at the kind of things that encourage uh non-motorized travel so in this group and i believe this was active transportation it's like well filling sidewalk gaps adding crosswalks adding bike lanes helps encourage non-motorized so we just did the same thing and set some metrics the sidewalk gap plan itself has a baked in prioritization so where did it score on that we have a transportation master plan that highlights certain crosswalks that we think will be more important to safety and to increasing mobility so we baked in where they uh would score on that and then also the bicycle network um now in the transportation plan has like critical non-critical and so on so there was another sustainability related uh criteria that a group came up with um parks and rec actually created a criteria called protect natural systems so another way of looking at sustainability issues and they when they tried to decide how do we know what projects are doing that they looked at metrics of stormwater runoff control is it literally impacting natural system and biodiversity you know positively or not positively and what is its impact on natural resources so they seem a little vague but yet when people went to score them they felt pretty comfortable analyzing one project versus the other as to which one was helping more another example um and this was again in parks and rec they literally said does it contribute to a20 goals as a metric and they said if it doesn't contribute obviously it gets a lower score if it contributes to now we're back to counting in a way but at least one of the a20 resilience strategies it can get to medium if it does two or more and they actually to remind people listed in the metric what some of those strategies were like power electric grid with renewable energy switch out appliances and so on and not all these projects could do all of these things but some of them could help also they still recognized if they did something to interconnect people in a way that didn't require vehicles that was helping contribute to the goal so they gave more than one metric at the low medium and high and again the idea was different types of projects trying to find a way that their impact could be differentiated so that was another one that they came up with then we have some groups like water and sanitary well we have two different types of projects within the group like in water we have water plant projects and we have water distribution projects and they are competing for water funds with each other so we said their ability to contribute to sustainability is different a plant project we can literally measure is it reducing energy load is it moderately reducing it is it significantly reducing it but we can't say the same thing on a water distribution project so they said even though they're two different things let's score the social equity as low medium high that way they're a slightly different metric but each project has an opportunity to be evaluated towards contribution to a sustainability goal and so we made a little depth there were some more i just picked some sample ones to say they they're not a cookie cutter here's how we define like if we tried to say does this project reduce greenhouse gas emissions a lot of you couldn't possibly do it therefore as a scoring metric it's not terribly useful but as next steps we haven't tackled particularly city-owned buildings where energy is a very direct thing um you know putting solar on city-owned buildings reducing energy loads in the buildings and so on so missy had introduced us to a group that wants to do a pilot with the city and they have some very elaborate metrics related to um carbon reduction and uh greenhouse gas emissions and all sorts so we're going to do a pilot with our city-owned buildings and airports where we have actual physical building projects and we can apply it in practice to the water and sewer plant projects but it will probably be indirect because of that strange scoring thing so this will be our first opportunity to drill down hard on the energy aspect itself for those groups and you know transit wouldn't be much of a leap whatever works for city-owned buildings would work for the train station but not for acute jump lane so we'll have some serious work to do on that but that's our next step and we continue to try and gather ideas from other communities on what are some of the metrics that they're using to measure so we came from to be honest nothing at all when i first came here to incorporating sustainability framework goals to using some drill down metrics for different groups to continuing that process forward so it's not perfect uh but we've made i think fairly significant strides in trying to bring it in and then the final piece that that's how we would incorporate it in the plan for the plan but where the real work and real change can also come in is once a capital project makes it into the plan that intervening at the design level to incorporate design metrics materials choices all those things that can affect sustainability goals and i believe out of this pilot that we're doing that we will get a lot of excellent ideas that will be more on the implementation end because when a project goes in the cip it is not designed we know what we want to you know achieve we're going to rebuild fire station number four but we haven't designed it so we can't introduce detailed metrics in prioritization but we certainly can once we start design so hopefully that gives you an idea i'm going to kill my share of where we've been where we're going and hope that helps a bit well thank you very much you're welcome i'd like to open things up for questions it's kind of a dry topic when that's all you hear so i i have a few if no one else does um i i didn't quite understand if um different categories i'm not asset categories or i'm not i don't know if i'm using the right term um compete with each other in effect even if there are dedicated uh funding mechanisms for example for a utility or something like that does you know something for um stormwater compete with um active transportation for example or are they all eventually in one big bucket um competing against each other they really are discreet with the exception that i was talking about that general funds can jump across a few categories but no by accounting uh principles and how all these utilities are set up water funds can't spend storm water dollars or vice versa or can't spend street dollars so they're competing within their own revenue source against each other so that's why the prioritization can be tailored at that last mega level where there's a handful of things that are capital that use general funds it's mostly some of our dams are funded in part by general funds city-owned buildings are heavily funded from general funds and so technically there's a little bit in the water group that could be competing with the city-owned building project but generally there's almost none of that um each revenue source is designed to support that specific set of capital improvements with that revenue source okay thank you that wasn't clear to me before and the other question um we actually have two questions um so it's clear to me um the various high medium lows and the the criteria that are used to define those how does sustainability weights or scores fit into the overall scoring so i assume they're being rated on other characteristics and my recollection at one time was that sustainability was roughly ten percent of the total is that still correct or is that um incorrect or been changed well you know that's a good question and it does differ from group to group so the one part i was trying not to go too far down in the weeds but when a group is going through this new setup process they call first they define the strategic values you know sustainability or something being one of them and then they do go through a waiting exercise and it's actually one of the most powerful parts of the elven software because uh the gentleman from university of michigan who was really behind it has a phd in decision making and he uses pairwise comparison it's like which is more important natural resources or you know condition whatever and everything gets rated on a higher lower scale to each other it helps people from trying to rig the system so to speak and when done sustainability uh whether or not they called it um in different groups there's somewhere i think it ranks over 20 you know where it's roughly equal to say if there's five the other ones so it isn't the same in every group but in general it's higher than sustainability relatively counted under the count how many of the 16 you score i definitely see a shift you know in thinking with the a2 0 goals and stuff that people are ever more conscious both as staff and as human beings about the importance of that in spending your money so um i it's not the same in everyone but it's reasonably high in all of them thank you you have a couple of questions councilmember briggs thanks i have one question and then one comment um so the question um you mentioned how equity be kind of being a measure of households in poverty is that kind of the only measure of equity that we have currently that we're using the prioritization score yes at present it was the only one we could get some sort of agreement on and have a metric that we could find have enough confidence in the statistics to use but there's continued discussion um particularly in the transportation groups as an example as access to transportation as an equity issue so i know some cogs got some metrics they're coming up with so at present it's the only one we've tackled but were very aware that there are other kinds of equity that are not economic equity and that was the first example i could come up with that's been discussed yeah that's great that's where my mind was going to because you know obviously it's important to be thinking about the census tract but particularly in transportation that sort of access to transportation and having continuity and record recognition that transportation is the second highest cost in household budgets um so good to know that we're thinking about that and then my comment is just um i just wanted to say how much gratitude and um appreciation i have for the work that you've done for the city i've been previously served on planning commission as you know and i've been watching these presentations for a long time and um your positivity and your approach to trying to improve the process and advocate for better software and better approaches um is definitely noticed and very much appreciated and i know it's going to be a big loss for the city so thanks for all the work that you've done over the years thank you both appreciate good evening um debbie congratulations on your retirement good luck on your second career you know you're just starting so you know this your next your next stop's gonna be a good one i think um i have a two-parter for you um the first part of the question um it seems like this new process you've embarked on is a little bit more of a collaborative approach where the project team basically does the scoring and then you just have an output that you're looking at and comparing um i'm involved in a lot of sustainability uh programs with infrastructure behind the scenes and we actually use it more as a screening tool not so much as a collaboration tool or a scoring tool wherein we're looking to eliminate projects if they're not providing some sustainable benefit to the community it just falls off the map completely so a thing like avoiding resurfacing a road if you can avoid a that's a huge source of carbon it may not be you know positive for the future we may have other forms of roadway used in the future maybe bikes or other traffic don't need to resurface you know use it as a deferral tool has that been has that been considered is it ever a part of the process i'd be curious on that and then secondarily maybe in the same breath can a citizen that has some experience in this actually participate in the next round of revisions do you know where that's headed because we'd love to help on the first question no we have not used it as an elimination because the fact that the project has been identified kind of by default says there's a need to address so rather than saying no we're not going to do it at all using your road example one thing we're already doing is drilling down hard on the right fix at the right time philosophy and trying to do smaller fixes earlier in the life of the pavement to avoid those big fixes that are expensive they're you know carbon unfriendly all of those things but we as you know public sector dollars saying it doesn't meet uh something so we're not going to do it at all is not an approach we've taken um on the second thing um any input on these you know kind of changes and criteria are also always welcome and if they're sustainability related probably um sending them through missy as your principal staff contract would probably contact would probably be the best way to figure out um and she would work with kayla coleman my replacement to see how in this process that could fit in but any more expertise you know that is helping come up with these kind of metrics that people already have yay any other questions i have two quick ones folks for missy missy i know what an a2 0 strategy is i'm not sure i know what an a2 resilience strategy is we we don't have them they were the eight zero strategies okay the seven overarching really the sixth substantive yeah i wanna make sure i understood that and then the other quick question was it sounds like you've done a little bit of benchmarking on how sustainability is worked into other municipalities cips and that's what deb referred to where you provided some information about how another governmental entity is is doing that and that's what's leading to these pilots that mentioned you is that correct uh ish so the pilot that deb mentioned actually came from a very different conversation that someone who has worked overseas to help people integrate sustainability kind of into their capital planning process and is looking for kind of refinement in the u.s market they have a tool and so we're we're more uh bleeding edge of that to figure out how this actually works you could be applied within our system uh to your question i mean we constantly are trying to figure out like how do we do this better and i think deb hit on this really well and she always has to remind me that uh the cip is but one process the actual design of the projects is really where we can go deep hard and fast in a lot of selection um and for what it's worth the sustainability team sits on most of the working groups and the assets so we have representatives who you know we don't do water system planning but we're there asking questions to help prioritize the projects that they're bringing forward okay great again thanks deb um have fun in retirement and maybe we'll see you sitting on this side and you're never not order commissioned someday or something like that not necessarily for ann arbor but who knows what some other entity i appreciate and i'll let you get on to your solar farm questions so thank you so much i'm gonna step out have a good rest of your evening all right i just wanted to welcome cole cole thanks for joining us and we are now moving on on our agenda to a presentation on the uh solar uh installation on uh the wheeler or the wheeler center um solar park and um missy's going to present that and um looks like we also have someone from dte joining us so missy we'll let you take it away and make the introductions yeah that's great thank you so much uh everyone excited to be here today and i will start by saying the project that i've always referred to as landfill solar does have an official name so you saw it on the agenda as the wheeler center solar park so that is the name broadly that actually has been moved through dt system and apologies i hear tears in the background so we will likely have a visitor momentarily uh in terms of the presentation we're just gonna walk through some general slides i know we have some comments we're gonna try to address most of the comments and questions that we heard we might get some people will grab them in a q a so i want to thank mr rivet from dte uh for joining us we're gonna tag team the presentation and mike just very quickly should i do you want me to elevate randy or kayla into the panel i think we're good for now we can we can pull them in sounds great uh perfect so let me just pull up my spies for everybody well welcome this uh project is moving slow and fast in all ways it is the very first project that i took on when i joined the city and i'm excited to see where we are today it's been through a lot of different iterations and so for our time together we just want to talk briefly more from members of the public about how this project aligns with a20 uh we got a lot of questions about why collaborate and so we want to address those and talk pretty openly about why we chose this path about the process that we've been through give you kind of an overview of the project broadly talk a little bit about subscriptions and uh guess what there's new developments because there always are otherwise this work would be easy and it constantly is hard so we'll share a little bit about kind of what's happening within the landscape so to kick it off i'm going to start with 820 which i know we're all familiar with you know we have seven strategies there's really six substantive and the seventh is a cross cut that covers every single topic things like equity community engagement metrics so the six substantives the very first strategy is about powering our community with 100 renewable energy and under that are four actions that were identified action three i'll go in reverse order is to start a community solar program that is not legal uh in michigan we can't just start it because we want to so that came up of course we're pushing for community solar legislation it really really matters but we don't have it today so reframing community solar if we were to do it would be illegal unless we worked with our utility so community solar is one of our programs our actions that we want to see promoted action four is explicitly this project the landfill solar project which was called out in the plan and kind of uh if you've read a20 you know there's an entire section on uh these two different elements so our goal was to see both of these move forward and we had an opportunity presented us to do that so i'm gonna i'm gonna talk about that kind of opportunity in the framing of why collaborate and i'm gonna kick it over to mike in in terms of why collaborate one the site is complex right uh landfills are fabulous locations to build solar from an intellectual standpoint from an environmental standpoint i think from a land use standpoint and there is a reason they are not developed frequently they are complicated there are a lot of rules and requirements there are we are taking notes uh we often joke that we're gonna write a paper maybe even do like a netflix movie special and all the things that keep coming up on this project you know there was a box turtle that was seen in 1906 and we have to do special things because no one has seen it since 1906 but maybe it's still there who knows right so there's just a whole bunch of additional layers of complication associated with this project but that doesn't mean not do it right as people have uh commented a number of times we don't have a lot of undeveloped land in the city and we do have energy goals and energy principles and of course h20 that ask us to reduce emissions and to reduce emissions fast to prioritize local where we can and this is the plot of land that we have available to us to do scale and so we keep pushing through and trying to find ways and navigating kind of that train broadly so this is a complex site and having a partner with us is important we want community solar right it's one of the actions in a20 and right now the only way to do any kind of community solar program is with our utility we got agreement in the vgp or section 61 filing for this project with the city being the anchor tenant meaning we'll be the off taker and that's how we got community solar to move forward through through the project and we've been working on designing that uh kind of in lockstep with what's also really neat is that we can connect to dt's distribution lines so you heard some callers mention that yeah we did pay for some of the initial studies every development pays for those studies we however because we thought we might have some room on the dt distribution lines not the transmission lines we were able to do an assessment and the answer was we did there is room on those lines with some updates which are built into the project costs but that means a lot of things one it means we are not in a long wait line the itc to get on to the micro market and the transmission lines that is a really long list we're talking years um and not one or two many many years because lots and lots of projects are coming on so you have to go back to the end of the queue it costs a lot more money the studies are very that you have to do additional studies in this process so we knew if the dt distribution system wasn't capable of taking this we were going to have to go and get in the queue if we wanted this process to move forward and because it's in the distribution network the energy we're producing is likely to be used locally right it's not likely to go somewhere else in the big transmission system and then another reason is we care about scalability transferability and being a leader in the space this allows us to demonstrate what's possible through multi-institutional collaboration and that's not just with the city of dt pittsfield township has been beside us in this project you know this land that we're talking about was uh and is in a pud with pittsfield and so we've been working with them on design doing public engagement uh within the community in pittsfield township and pittsfield township is excited to be one of the off takers of the project itself and so there's lots of collaborations that are coming forward and i would be unequivocally remiss if i didn't know that in the section 61 agreement which is that third bullet point the vgp we also designed this program and got approval to make a low-income solar offering an option what this means is we can in fact buy down the cost of a number of subscriptions so that people don't have to pay the premium they get the credit on their bill and they can subscribe low income eligible qualified people can subscribe so we've been working on two mechanisms to make that manifest although we're open to lots and lots of other ideas and folks have them one is uh dt is working on a low income solar program broadly right now where people can contribute funds to a low income this pool of money and then projects get financed and the credits for those projects go to different low-income residents in their distribution network or in their service territory the other is we've been exploring at the city buying down if i got uh hypothetically two million dollars in funding somewhere if i get a grant can i put it down towards that project and reserve two million dollars worth of output for residents and so we're working on all of those structures uh in collaboration with dt but that's part of what excites me about this project too so kind of big picture bullet points we don't have to stand up new infrastructure by doing this which is a long time and if speed is a criteria which we all said it was when we adopted the energy principles and criteria this allows us to move fast to get renewable energy on the grid it is additional this does not count to dte's credit for their renewable energy uh portfolio in terms of like their requirement to meet this is in a separate section a separate filing so this is new this would not be built if we did not bring this project forward because it is not my can can share more about that but it's not at the scale the dt is looking at it's a complicated site so why would you start at this site uh and so it is fundamentally additional to what would move forward and it's the only way we can get community solar so we're excited about the project despite all of its complications most of the time i'm excited about this sometimes i cry a little bit myself but mike do you want to take over now i'm going to go and mute for a dog park great thank you thank you missy and i i do not enjoy following missy because she has so much energy to bring the table and is so enthusiastic about this project but i will try my best to keep that going dt is extremely excited to be a partner on this and missy talked a bit about the section 61 and renewable energy plan settlement which ann arbor was a part of that was a really important step to this process i know a lot of you have read news articles and mlive articles and et cetera around kind of this process along the way from 2019 and so we partnered before we we actually had approval from the mdsu to move forward on this we started partnering early to really drive down to the details and understand is this feasible what can we put there how much would it cost um can it tie into the grid and so a lot of that leg work was was taken on by both dta on the on the call side but also in arbor as a partnership in the beginning and so coming out of that settlement we were able to really have the approval to move forward on a framework and so that framework laid out how we were going to go out and bid this and it was going to be an open rfp we brought in a lot of requirements from the city to make sure that we were aligned with how the city would like to uh conduct rfps and and those uh those aligned well with us so there really wasn't any complications there we did issue an epc which is engineer procurement construction uh rfp in october 2021 and what that really is is we had a tabletop design that's what a lot of people saw numbers were put out you saw some drawings that tabletop design needs to be taken into a full final design we need to go through and do finalized permitting uh finalize the electrical interconnection and etc to make this into reality and then obviously procure and construct it and so we issued that rfp in october 2021 it was originally a four week rfp we extended a fifth week as we saw more folks coming into the mix and they were asking for a quick week extension so we were able to give that week extension and we received a great amount of bids 10 bids from very qualified ebc contractors um we were extremely happy from the gt side to see the the names and the the size of companies that wanted to come in and compete on this and i think a lot of them were just excited about the project it's it's a large um large local project it's not the largest of projects that you'll see in solar a lot of a lot of the universal scale projects are 100 megawatts 200 megawatts but this is really unique high publicity and really cool aspect with the landfill uh we did go through and and typical to rrp which aligns with um npsc approved processes we did review those and went down to a round two where we brought those select uh four bids into conversations and really dialed into their bids currently we are down to one single apc contractor that's going to provide the best value for this project and uh we're currently in the middle of negotiating with them to finalize that agreement which would ultimately decide the pricing and uh give us enough information for us to work with the city to understand whether or not we can move forward on this and at what price point so looking at the project and let me minimize what i can see here so i can see the slides as well um so looking at the project you can see uh four arrays here and i'll talk through kind of the specifics around those arrays um this is a 20 megawatt project i know there are some questions around it used to be 24 we heard um it was a touch larger we did end up um you'll see there's not any solar arrays on the floating around the reservoir there's no more floating on solar missy i think can speak a touch more to that as ann arbor was pretty well involved on that portion as well but it seemed like we were not going to get the approvals needed from our regulatory bodies in the environmental side of the house um to have that go forward and so it's a it would have been a fascinating thing from an engineering perspective and sustainable perspective but um the decision was made to drop that portion of it so what we're left with is 20 megawatts and 20 megawatts is jammed really tight in there this is about 70 acres and on 70 acres uh 20 megawatts is no small fee as you can see with the row spacing if you're familiar with solar it is tightly packed um which is great for the city uh it's great for that dual use land i'm really excited about that piece as you're really getting as much value as you can out of that that portion of land um some other uh discussion points i want to just touch on here financing the project dt will finance this project this will be a utility capital project just like any other generation project we have so there is no capital output from the city from pittsfield township or any subscribers and so we have the ability to to finance this and offer it at a subscription rate and that subscription rate is that levelized cost of energy that you'll hear in the new here in some of the news articles and missy and myself have talked about and that's really it's a it's a cost recovery mechanism that we put into a tariff just like we would with a migraine power project if you're familiar with our volunteer renewable energy portfolio we do expect to qualify for 26 itc uh investment tax credit that is and that is being baked into the pricing as as we're currently working through it right now so i know there are some questions around whether or not we qualify and whether or not that would be passed on to the city and to the subscribers it will be and then additionality i won't touch too much on that i think missy did a great job in talking about that the the approved megawatts that came out of the renewable energy plan settlement those megawatts are for customer domain those are for our voluntary renewable energy program the city of ann arbor happens to be one of those customers demanding negligence and so those are incremental they're additional they're not going to be built otherwise without customer admin and uh just talking a brief you know brief more about the slide here so construction is expected to to start in early 2023.

and then looking at the the picture on the right you'll see the the four arrays a b and c are arrays that are sitting on greenfield development so those will be your traditional um post mounted uh solar arrays uh ray d is on the capitol landfill so what you'll see with the ray d is there will be no ground penetration there those will be ballast mounted um basically sitting on concrete blocks that would be on top of the cap of the of the landfill so no penetration of that and just quickly i want to add a few questions that i saw come in to how come we're not more on the landfill regulation um basically what ends up happening and we designed separately then we found a nesting bird so we had to downsize so we're really maximizing every i mean every it feels like foot that we have any viable solar potential on site making sure we're not interfering with other uses especially natural system uses that are on site there was also a question about pollinator habitat and we are working really hard with dnr to make sure we can have that now you can imagine the cap landfill is really regulated there are a lot of things we cannot do on that landfill there are put more potential in the greenfield sites but even in that space because of permitting issues we're i mean we're committed to doing as much pollinator habitat as we can i just can't tell you today what that looks like because we're still working with dnr to figure out specifically what species would be allowed and uh when we're gonna be able to plant kind of broadly and then mike teed up no floating solar once again here was another one we learned this water is considered waters of the state because of how big it is which means it's regulated by the state which means the only way we would be able to put floating solar on it is by demonstrating there was nowhere within i believe it was a five mile radius in the city that solar could go and it had to be this spot we can't right because there are lots of places solar could go so instead of fighting that fight we decided we were gonna take that off of the project and we're working instead with the eagle to try to change those rules because that's prohibitive for a lot of potentially good use cases going forward so it doesn't mean we can't eventually add floating solar it just means for the sake of speed and that fight that that was a fight that we were going to take in a different direction for another day so just wanted to share why that fell mike you want to take subscriptions yeah yeah we'll do um so what this will look like to to everyone including the city pittsfield township and subscribers um so this is going to be a subscription model like migrant power as i mentioned before dt will finance the entire project so there is no capital outlay so what will happen is um we'll mold this into a levelized cost energy subscription model and the way that works if you're not subscribed to migraine power is you have a subscription price that's based on the levelized cost energy basically the cost of the project um drives that and that's a it'll be a dollar cent per kilowatt hour and you'll also receive the financial benefits of the project so that's the community solar aspect right you subscribe into it you're paying for a portion of the project but in return you get the benefits from it the benefits come in terms of our market value of the capacity credit and the energy and so that's uh that's what we've been doing with migraine power it's an approved method and so that's the piece where inside the settlement the mpsc our michigan public service commission uh was very generous in improving this as well uh it's it's already there it's a it's a defined method that's that's put out there for these types of projects so we don't have any regulatory risk in getting this move through them or we have low regulatory risk in that nature um as we've talked about before gt is going to be solely responsible for the operations and the maintenance of the site and what's what's neat about this is because it is a subscription model on a cent per kilowatt hour or a dollar per megawatt hour if it doesn't produce we don't recover cost and so the onus is on us to keep this thing up and running to keep this thing pushing out as many green electrons as possible and that's really a cool aspect from the customer side is dt is on the hook to keep it running thanks mike so new development because this work is never easy um some of you may know and i think actually chuck you could probably talk about this more than the rest of us that the federal government recently opened an investigation into potential tariff penalties pretty significant uh penalties for the solar market and there is a lot that we do not know it is moving very fast what we do know is that um this is a potential reflection moment some are calling it an existential crisis for the solar industry and for those of us trying to move renewable energy forward this is you know like days in the development so we're all waiting to figure out what this is going to mean for all kinds of projects broadly we are seeing industry-wide cancellations costs are escalating on projects because of this uncertainty and this potential 200 percent plus tariff you know that's a that's a really big deal and we don't have a sense on if it's fully grandfathered if it's going forward what's in what's out it's quite a complex landscape so we're sharing that uh what we've taken the stance on is we're committed to this project we are going to continue getting as much information literally we're getting i mean last week we were getting calls by the hour trying to figure out what's happening within the market we're committed to moving the project forward we are waiting on a little bit more clarity about what's included in this investigation what the tariffs are likely to be and we are obviously looking for as any panels sitting on a shelf somewhere that happened to be made in the u.s because that's great but the us is a very small manufacturer of solar panels and so this is painful reality that we're sort of in at the moment but i want to reiterate that all of us we've had multiple calls between all the project partners and we are we're committed to this project we just have to see we just have to learn more about this investigation mike is there anything you want to add no miss i i think he covered it it's a it's a very dynamic marketplace and there's a lot of supply demand shortages and risk in terms of this tariff so a lot of uncertainty out there yeah yeah absolutely so just to kind of close out uh for next steps we brought the project forward to you i know we brought the resolution because our initial attempt uh our initial intent was to be a council on may 5th and we had already pref we prepped council members we prepped the michigan public service commission that we were coming shortly thereafter and uh we have a little bit more time as we're seeing the impacts of that last slide in this investigation that's taking place but we wanted to bring this project to you hear your thoughts uh should this be something you're supportive of that's great we can we can move you know forward as soon as we get clarity on what's happening with the investigation uh but just so you know what comes after we will go to city council for consideration of the project uh i don't have a date certain again because of the last slide but we will come as soon as we can come and feel really confident with the pricing mechanisms we will have a public information session for folks to kind of listen learn more share feedback we then file with the michigan public service commission for formal approval uh we've already briefed them and prepped them we've answered questions we we hope and i think our soft expectation is that was pretty quickly because they're really supportive of the project and then we break ground and uh while we're doing that we're recruiting people uh to sign up into the program or just letting them know that it's even an option to sign up into the program and then we produce and we reduce emissions so that's the that's the timeline kind of broadly and i'm sorry i can't give you certain dates i wish i could i could have two weeks ago but the world is changing so with that i'm gonna stop and see what other questions you have so questions and there have to be some or or maybe um i might ask uh mike and missy uh you received um two emails um hopefully you have those emails in front of you or can pull them up um i did my best to sort of look through them to see that you have addressed most of them but i'm wondering if you can look at those and rather than us going through the formalities of calling on people and everything like that um if you can see if there's anything that stands out to you that maybe wasn't covered that members of the community or members of the commission already submitted in advance that just might be more efficient yeah you're gonna see us reading them i think because we tried we tried to integrate them so i ask one question um it sounds like the dte is responsible for operations and maintenance does that mean dte is also assuming liability or what liabilities are resting with the city and which if any are lying with dte that was one thing important to us um and also in terms of advising city council that we thought was important how's that being handled the split of liability make you want to take that i'm getting the next one ready sure um so john thank you for the question so we have we are in final negotiations as well with a special contract which would govern this agreement um what it's so i can't speak exactly to how it's going then but um dt has been the developer we would take on the risk for the development on top of the cap landfill the duration and longevity of that risk is obviously going to be something that's in the contract but as you can imagine the developer would be responsible for what happens online as we're constructing the solar array i see another question that uh there's two i'm sorry john i can't see you because i'm looking at the questions better you look at the questions than me no no no no if i cut you off just please tell me no no that wasn't intentional um there was kind of a two-part question one about the cost and the truth is i can't answer that right because the market is topsy-turvy at the moment so i can't i know people want to know i just can't give you that answer um the other was does the city reserve the right before you leave that topic um i assume that at some point there might be an out that the city that's where i was going to take as well as dte and say this this project is no longer viable or we cannot provide um the cost that makes a project like this make sense and at that point there would be an exit ramp and um there would be you know no no further cost to the city or the dte that's right yeah thank you for taking that's where i was going to go the second part of one of the questions was that like what if the price is too high so you heard um mike also say that they were still in final negotiations with the epc the contractor so like final pricing is like being negotiated and then the market adds that uncertainty so that's random but we reserve the right in all the contracts to walk away if the pricing was too high where we were two weeks ago was it wasn't i mean it was reasonable here we are now we've had lots of conversations about what too high means and like what does it act like 200 of a cost of an asset like we're out like we all know that like dt can't justify spending that much money on an asset we can't justify spending that much money on an asset but is that the truth you know so uh we to the essence of your in the core of your question yes both parties have the right to walk away if the pricing gets unreasonable and we have agreed to kind of eat our own costs you know we've all put in a lot of time and effort that have not been reimbursed paid for up front we've agreed if if in good faith we walk away okay i don't want to walk away john don't make me walk away like just fix the markets please i'll just ask a couple of questions at the top of my head i'm trying to turn it off but i think this is pretty clear um dte owns the asset right so it's not the city is not owning the asset we don't we continue on the land obviously yeah but the dde right okay um let's see and what what how is the power generated going to be shared between the various entities i think originally part of the energy generator was going to be um going to be uh essentially offsetting or going to pittsfield township for their municipal operations is that still the the part of the three-way contract yes it's not the contract each contract is individual with dte but what we've negotiated in the special contract that goes before the public service commission is pittsfield township gets the first megawatt of production so they would well roughly they would subscribe i know i see mike's face because it's more nuanced than that but generally speaking they get the right in the first kind of rite of refusal within that system and then others subscribe and ann arbor is effectively the the cleanup we come in whatever as a city is not subscribed and we off take which is why there's i mean hence how it sort of works for community subscriptions mike what do you want to fix no no not fix anything i i'll add a library just to touch on the subscription so it is uh it's going to be set up as a percentage based subscription for everyone except for ann arbor and arbor as mrs said will be uh the remaining amount of megalod hours not subscribed to but pittsfield township has a section and a right to subscribe to 85 of their load which would plus the 15 percent of renewable portfolio standard would take them to 100 percent right [Music] so that that makes sense i mean basically once the project is go ahead and we can lock in the contracts and that includes also for the panels and everything you know what prices there's essentially no risk that um the pro the uh the energy generators is not going to be used i mean that you have clear off takers in every single case where ann arbor sweeps up anything that may not be taken okay good that's clear um i i'm i'm gonna recognize anybody else that has a question um if you want to raise your hand um missy and mike is there anything else to see i'm looking yeah i'm looking i mean i think we hit most of them but people might want to go in more depth um i do want to add we might talk about the financing that dt is financing and there's a lot of benefits to that one also being we're not taking on more debt that frees up municipal debt that we can apply towards other projects whether that's portal housing uh infrastructure projects etc so that's another thing that we haven't touched on yet uh wanna drive home we're not stopping with community solar and i know i mentioned that uh community solar legislation at the state everyone at dt knows this we talk about it all the time uh that is something we care a lot about but it's not legal now and think what else i i had someone from the community emailed me today had looked at the presentation and um they had a question about the power generated i think it was 35 million megawatt hours per year and the question was um that seemed high to this individual and i'm just curious is there tracking or are these bifacial or what kind of things are we doing to get that high level of generation good question let's go for it mike sure so so it's 35 000 megawatt hours oh sorry is expected in the first year of generation and they are they are likely going to be bifacial uh panels they will not be tracking and the reason they won't be tracking is the the size the land constraint we have your best bet of about getting value out of it is to jam pack as many fixed tilt solar panels in there as possible very good the tracking just takes a lot more lane do people that know a lot more than this than i do with their hands up so i'm going to uh let them pose some questions commissioner hook up i i could go into a lot of questions but it is typical i will not i will be kind tonight and just stick to a one or two um i was going to ask kind of about john's question but maybe to carry it a step further is there a pv sys model or some model of the infrastructure that might be available would you mind asking again we got some feedback so i just want to make sure we heard that yeah i got real bad feedback here um i assume that dte modeled this in a couple different ways it's not single axis track but it's fixed tilt but there's a whole lot of other modeling parameters that we look into and things like density pitch you know two portrait two landscape all kinds of ways to stack these to create the density that you're doing um how much exercise was undertaken to fit that it sounds like a lot mike can just kind of give us a feedback on is this p50 p70 p90 what kind of outfit conditions are you looking at yeah thank you um so so the part of the short list uh work that we did with the four epc vendors that made it through the first round was we did refine where how they were designing it and uh and asked them to run pvsys models and provide those to us uh based on uh two criteria one being um optimize and levelize cost energy but the second one being output and so really looking to maximize the output on that on that portion of land with the lowest cost of energy possible uh i don't recall what the probability um confidence interval is and i would i would guess once we once we strike the deal and we move forward the pvsys models can could be made available upon request thank you commissioner kerber with all the bluebirds in the background actually they're swallows tree swallows anyway as far as the community solar offering is it going to be i mean you already have my green power that you offer as as an alternative is this only going to be made available to residents of the city and pittsfield township people in the county what what is the area that it's going to be offered in yeah yeah it was like a race to mute uh the way that we have talked about this is it's offered to anyone in dt service territory now from our standpoint like the city's standpoint we're going to be working really closely with pittsfield to make sure our residents know about it and have the the chance to subscribe kind of first in line but anyone in the service territory will have the opportunity to sign up for so it'll have to compete with my green power yeah i mean you could think of it that way could it cannibalize my green power i i don't think i understand how that would even happen like supplant demand for migraine power you mean yeah i mean if i'm on my green power and i'd rather be on this and does that mean that my green power gets reduced and this goes up there you have glitching like theoretically it could but i think demand is high for renewables such that that is unlikely to be the outcome i think what's more likely is more renewables get built because it demonstrates people have a high desire for local renewable energy systems but i guess theoretically mike do you i completely agree with you missy it's it it could technically cannibalize some of the migrant power customers that are and we have a a good portion that are living in the city of ann arbor but i i don't see that as being a concern we are our program's expanding every day um and we're running out of capacity so adding more capacity for customers you know to subscribe this is a complimentary offer so i view this as a really good addition to the program and it's it's local all of our projects are mission based um but this is a little closer than some other ones o'shea was really close to folks in detroit and right off of 96 but yeah i think it's just another complimentary offering that helps us increase our consumption across thank you i guess one question i think for members of the community that might still be open is an explanation missy from you possibly of when this project was started there was not even the idea of an seu oh i see that we have questions from um edie and ember but i'll go ahead since i'm halfway through there was not even the idea of an seo now there's this idea of an seu it's not a reality it hasn't been approved by city council for that matter it's not funded you know there's lots of steps with that um but at least there's this dangling idea of an scu out there and people are i think projecting that idea onto this project and thinking well why wouldn't we take this as an asset and i think you've addressed this um but maybe i'll let you address it one more time so it's clear to everybody why why not associate this with the scu um and you talked about speed and things like that but i'm wondering if if there's anything else that you've thought of in the meantime that really addresses that question yeah so there are many ways about that when we don't have an seo right so we while that is something we are actively you will hear in staff updates starting to get feedback on very exciting that is not that's not an instrument that we have second is speed third even if we do have an scu we don't project community solar until much later in the process and the point is to do distributed systems rooftop solar and storage systems first very limited pools and wires you know because the goal is not distribution the goal is generation and so this would not come quick in that process so the speed plays itself in multiple ways like speed of seu speed of emissions reduction speed of renewables on the grid and then the last thing you know we've i've been really open mike knows this um we talk about it with them that if the community moves in the direction this is an asset that that could be an asset that the seo acquires you know that's just real i won't pretend that that's loved by everyone but you know it's an asset that exists that doesn't that would exist that doesn't today and so in my mind i don't understand why we would wait if the objective is to get as much renewables as we can on the grid and this is a way to do that and i think the other thing is is that we don't really have a load that we could connect to i mean people have mentioned well we could do vehicle charging we could do bus charging we could do the city doesn't have buses you know we don't have a bus facility there we don't have a university michigan bus system there so this is not really as i understand it and i'm i'm asking you and others to challenge this um but it seems to me there isn't a practical load that we can transmit to and you know even if we had an scu they're going to be people scattered all around the city and i don't know how we would we'd uh essentially transfer that power to all of these distributed uh demand points you'd have to set up a really intense uh distribution system to do that and it is true like we have looked at how to maximize on-site and we've thought about we're getting our two first electric refuse trucks can we set up a charging station there but it operationally doesn't make sense given how the trucks come and go and so that doesn't quite work wheeler is one of the sites for the roof the solar projects that council funded through arbor funding and we have at a 97 offset you know like it we just we don't have usage on the site that makes sense and that's really close by it's kind of the push in the pull of the most viable land that we have for something like this just isn't next to our heavy users mr juno thank you um i just wanted to clarify i mean i in the fact sheet on the landfill solar and in a lot of the coverage it looks like they are referring to this as something within the migraine power program so is that not the case and are we just kind of or it is a separate entity yeah uh mike you wanna do you wanna take that one yeah i can take it over and feel free to chime in if you if you have a different take on it um so the migraine power program is our umbrella brand over our volunteer renewable energy program which is normally referred to as section 61 which is just a legislation that enables it so to dt this looks and feels the exact same as any of our other migrant power projects except for it is a project that's priced specifically based on one location as opposed to our migraine power portfolio is cost average together and as we bring new projects online we bring that pricing down as as projects are cheaper and if they're not cheaper than we will probably build another pricing portfolio that starts off with a different price point but the goal of migraine power portfolio is really just cost averaging and keep everyone's uh rates as cost-effective as possible mccoy sorry just really quickly adding on to that last piece is that the that is right like from how dt is thinking about it from our perspective yes and is how i would respond to that community solar if you look at nrl's definition is not there isn't one flavor of community solar there are multiple different manifestations and it works in different regulatory contexts right minneapolis is a different construct and a different ability to be able to move than we have here which is different than what's happening in massachusetts but they're all sort of framed broadly for us this is about the community being able to make some decisions about how and where and and the systems that it's constructing to be able to power its operations or its life so that's that's a really important kind of piece to us is that that co-design and being at the table actually figuring out what systems look like and getting the benefit of those systems but also bearing the cost of those systems right like that's that's part of the equation of the project thank you uh commissioner mccoy yeah thank you um i have two questions i guess i'll ask the first one um this one first because it relates to edie and larry's comments about mind green power i'm just curious mike if you could talk about like the current demand for my green power relative to its capacity um so i'm curious how like adding this project to that um you know may influence that like if it's likely that a lot of people outside of ann arbor in our marketing will want to take it up for example um i'll start there and i'll second one after that sure yeah the the demand is unprecedented for migraine power we uh as shown in the section 61 and settlement that we talked about we we asked for another 300 400 plus megawatts to support demand um we're currently oversubscribed in terms of large commercial customers um which is great and that's really the way the program was set up was uh to to pull the subscriptions in or the contracts in first and then go out and ask for google and build those projects to come um because the the mechanism is there to just completely fulfill demand as it comes in we do have some opening in our smaller non-contracted non-contracted program which is what residential and small commercial would subscribe to that is quickly filling up um we in the settlement we had a small update to the program that allowed us to blend all of our projects together so that small customers residential customers and large customers all buy into that same portfolio which is really great deal for our small customers and residential customers and it's uh it's driving the the price point down and it's really bringing a lot of demand and so um this project will continue to push that i think i think what we're seeing here is there's more to it than just price price is a big driver for a lot of folks but there's some folks that really like that locality and the in the solar aspect of being being able to see it feeling and know the electrons are being pushed to your distribution okay that's helpful thanks and now i have a follow-up question so i actually have three questions um so nathan you had mentioned that like you know the city will do a lot of advertising to try to you know make sure that local residents know about this new opportunity so i'm curious like are are we going to be able to access this like exclusively first or is it just that we'll be able to get ahead in marketing you know before other people have the opportunity to fill it up or will it be open to everyone and we're just hoping our marketing means that residents will get to it first yeah good question we we know about it before everyone else knows about it so the way we thought about kind of the initial subscriptions is once the public service commission approves it it won't be available for other people to subscribe to yet because it won't be listed anywhere right it's not producing but we can start forming the waitlist by doing the outrage and the engagement through the city and in tandem with pittsfield township so that's the way we thought about it although now i'm intrigued about thinking about exclusive rights i think our lawyers will kill me if i come back with another edit to our contract but i'm going to hold that thought so thank you for it okay thanks um and then my other unrelated question was just that um you know because dte did the request for proposals i know you walked through the elements that were a part of um that from dte's perspective but i'm just curious um if you could speak to i guess this is a question for missy how that compares to the new request for proposals pro process that we just enacted i know like the timing is so that you know this i don't think this would have fallen under the new law anyways had i never done it but i'm just curious um how they compare to our new policy for that full alignment um in fact gta is more aggressive than what the city has because we can't they can have requirements that we can't have as a private entity so if you think about like the responsible contractor uh work yeah it all made its way uh all that language made its way through the the contracting process and then they took our non-discrimination clauses they basically took everything else that we have too and that was part of the language in the contract everyone had to prove every better that they were in adherence with those policies okay great thank you other questions so mike i want to thank you and the dte team for partnering with us and i'm sure missy put you through the ringer and we did a little bit of that tonight both you and missy missy again thanks for your comments um i think unless i see any other hands raised that we can move on to the resolution and what i would like to point out is uh i we attempted to go through uh all the questions that were proposed both by commissioners as well as in the email um from a2p2 and we may have missed the one or the other act question but this is not the only hurdle and we saw that there are several next steps and this will also have to go eventually to council and so if there's something really important that's been missed i would just say to members of the community as well as to members of the commission that we have an opportunity to weigh in with our questions and concerns before this finally goes through so this is not the one and last opportunity for us to to pose questions and make sure that we're doing the right thing in the interests of the city as well as um voters and uh property owners here in ann arbor so thanks very much for tonight's presentation you see do you want to move on then to the next agenda point which is the resolution of support yeah absolutely and i want to emphasize too that we put this together assuming we were on the timeline to go to council at an upcoming meeting um i think realistically we could view this like normal resolutions that this is just the first time kind of considering and getting general feedback and we can bring it back if that's fine with you chair um because we don't i i don't think i'm going to be standing in front of councilmember briggs and rodina on the fifth with a project and the markets have sorted themselves out but if i'm wrong i apologize in advance and i'm so excited uh but yeah so maybe i'll leave that to the conversation i mean this this is apparently may not have the sense of urgency on the other hand if there's not a lot of concerns um then we can talk about that and maybe we go ahead and take a vote tonight so we'll leave that open um but why don't you bring that up i think everybody's had a chance to look at it it's been posted since late last week it's relatively straightforward missy i'll let you run through [Music] the document i don't know if we need to go through the whole thing um hopefully people have had a chance to look at it sure i'll just share um we i know at energy commission meetings we don't often have this memo this memorandum is background it is something that we give to council so we just decided to go ahead and draft it especially because this project has had a life and some of that life was earlier than some of the commissioners so this is just background uh to be fair and then the resolution itself looks pretty similar to the presentation uh acknowledging that we've got our carbon neutrality goal strategy one 100 renewables two of those actions under strategy one as we talked about our community solar and the landfill solar project that we've been working on this for a while to design it and we intervened in the rate case i'm sorry not the rate case uh the vgp section 61 and got the settlement that we got acknowledging that the community solar if we want to move it forward is really it is only possible through collaboration with our industrial utility dte and then uh goes to i mean punch points that we just talked about but the final result is just a support and asking council to move it forward in a timeline that gets to the fastest ground breaking possible if possible in 2022 that's my goal but yeah thank you for that quick overview i'd like to ask for a motion to consider the resolution and a second if there is indeed a second and then we'll open it up for discussion a move mr chair and a second uh commissioner juno seconds so commissioner george and then commissioner juno uh comments questions uh comments of concern comments of support how do people feel about this it's not that late everybody i love it john so i i'll i'll talk for a second not very long i've i've been on commission now for several years um and like missy said this goes back now several years um i was one of several current and past commissioners that attended a public forum um out in uh pittsfield township um presenting this and oh and no i'll get to you in just a second um and um i i think um as with any major project like this um these are not black and white projects where you know it's either all bad or all good um and i think what we've seen here is that um while there are some concerns and maybe there are some things we would have liked to have done differently um my personal opinion is is that we need to do everything we can to accelerate uh greenhouse gas emissions reductions um this is one way of doing it some people might argue that we could just steer people to my green power but i think actually we're going to get a lot of additional subscript subscribers by having our own program and going this way um i'm i'm supportive of the project um commissioner levine uh yeah i just wanted to also go ahead and say that i am also supportive of this project i i do also understand some of the concerns that have been raised most by the public and people on the commission and particularly when with respect to the additive properties of this project and how it will you know whether or not we're just moving electrons closer to ann arbor and stuff like that and i i do think the way misty described it really makes it clear that a project on the landfill is complicated um it probably won't be happening at all right now or at least for you know three or four years however long it takes if we weren't going to do it this way so you know i do really think that it is important to get projects going and you know from what like john kind of said you know every avenue that we can to get more renewables i think is a valuable way um it doesn't totally i don't think it you know prevents us in the future from doing something else within scu or other other ideas that we might want to do and you know it it's it's just going to be a lot faster and then waiting and i i do support going this avenue at this time others uh there's people on the commission that um i imagine have a viewpoint and have a lot of experience and or or maybe no experience but still a viewpoint does anybody else want to weigh in uh commissioner peck thanks you know i gotta support it too um probably like everybody it feels like a darn poison pill or something what dte is doing to on one hand partner with folks all smiling and doing their solar and then at the same time are really doing grave danger or damage to the state of michigan with their political activities and the way they spend our money against our best interests it really upsets me but i think we do need to go forward we got to say you know one way or the other we're going to do this climate action can't wait for the bad actors all to get on board so let's do it and i am a my green power guy you know that's that's uh i spent a lot of my extra money on that and i will want to switch over to the ann arbor one um but i'm happy to get my green power either place and it's obviously pretty darn symbolic but we just need more we need more solar panels in the state of michigan thank you more solar panels and less natural gas plants right any other comments any thoughts or preferences on taking a vote this evening or postponing and having an opportunity to put this out to pasture for a month and taking a vote in may i think uh mr chair i'm in favor of taking a vote on it now i don't hear anyone opposed to that so we have a oh commissioner i would only say an opposite maybe that we didn't have a chance to read this until fairly recently you know the whole project's kind of evolving i'm i'm a little bit concerned about the subscription rate that's going to evolve from this you know if it if the subscription rate from a singular project comes out and it's it's high even if we want to be symbolic and buy that power it's going to be more costly than migraine power and to larry's point maybe earlier there will be some dissension amongst the ranks as to how this gets dealt with um it's a little bit confusing being the first one out of the block i think having an opportunity for i'll call it community solar light is good i think we all need to have access and a lot of people don't so i'm cautious i'd i wouldn't mind having a kick at the resolution once and and seeing it passed in may i don't think losing a month is a big deal just my two cents thanks for weighing in i have a question of you missy and that is and maybe this is putting you on the spot but if the costs were to come in higher than the blended typical migraine power costs would that be potentially or likely a reason to take an exit ramp on this project well i mean i don't imagine why we think they would not come in higher of course they would come in higher because it's a landfill and there are more complications it's not you know 100 greenfield hundred megawatt system so no we've already assumed they're gonna come in higher that doesn't scare me i mean what what i often hear from stakeholders is they really will prioritize a local project and maybe not everyone will but i think that i would be shocked if it comes in at the same price as everything else okay excellent sure it's also expensive right so think about location too so there's just elements there right i guess one one advantages is that dte is not paying for any sighting fees or anything like that that's one but that's probably a small small amount in the grand scheme of things yeah if we had them pay sighting fees we would just have to pay them back because it would just get built into the cost so yeah so we have um two opinions uh what i would recommend is that we take a vote and um for those who would rather wait until may uh that you vote no that's just my recommendation you may vote no for other reasons um and for those who feel comfortable enough uh voting on this now and to move this forward and comfortable enough with the process uh going forward and being able to intervene at a later point in time if we any of us think that's necessary or as a body and we could also come up with a whole new resolution that says hey um we recognize something else has gone on um then we could essentially rescind or modify what we what we act on tonight any comments on that i think that makes sense man okay great so um all those in favor of the resolution as drafted um and missy made a small revision that hopefully you all saw um please say i and raise your hands i i and all those opposed so commissioner hook um and commissioner mccoy and any abstentions oh and and uh commissioner kerber so we had three three negative votes so the uh the uh the resolution passes and miss missy oh he's i just have to get it for the notes so bear with me for a second i think we can go we can proceed though because okay good yeah so that uh is all the major um items on the agenda um missy is busy right now but she's next on the agenda so okay i have to wait for her and that is an osi report out yeah um well hi everyone it has been whirlwind as i feel like maybe is the new normal in our lives a few things to share well a lot of things to share with you all uh council last monday approved arpa spending which included a 4.5 million dollars for solar at city facilities so we have uh we've got those projects designed we did we just had a meeting today for final park sites kind of landing on those projects but what we've got is over four megawatts of system design and uh we are meeting with our contractors to understand the department of commerce investigation and how that's impacting them on thursday if it is all good to go we will be coming to council in may for final approval of those contracts meaning we'll be we'll be breaking ground on those projects and all summer long into the fall you'll see kind of ribbon cuttings for those systems which we're really excited about so that's uh that's that's really great we are uh also green rental housing was slated to come back you know we talked about that a month or so ago excited to come back next month but i wanted to share that public comment is now open on the draft standard so we'll be coming back to the commission to share what we heard from public comment but we also want your public comment so please take a look at those standards it's only open until friday end of day uh spread widely through your networks we want as much feedback as possible on that particular initiative i'm going to go back to osi but before i forget i want to acknowledge two other things happening in the city we're uh in the process of updating our multi-hazard mitigation plan of which climate is centered in that work and we actually picked a form a firm that brought on a climate scientist uh to help us because we're not that's not optional as we think about hazard impacts we just opened that up for public comment and feedback too so i'll send a note to all the commissioners i just got the url for for public comment shortly before the meeting so please uh share that too with your networks those who are interested other really exciting stuff to that's kind of going on is we soft launched the public outreach on the sustainable energy utility last week we are formally launching this week we're working on a mailer that will go to every household and business within the city we have social media kind of pushes and the whole point is to get the public's feedback on the concept of the seo and whether it's something they'd be interested in you can go to our website which is just a2gov backslash a2scu and you can see a whole bunch of materials we're working on a psa with communications right now but we have uh short faqs longer faqs we've got videos and the link to the survey is there to register feedback it's four questions really short and then it's the traditional demographic question of the city i also wanted to share last week the options analysis including the rfp uh for traditional municipalization was released so that's out for public comment i'm sorry for bidding at the moment that closes in a few weeks i don't remember the exact date but it's in may but that'll close so that's out too so both of the kind of big initiatives and then the overarching kind of energy options analysis that this body move forward uh for recommendations to counsel they're on the streets so we're getting feedback we're getting input we are uh running at those different initiatives we are also doing an electrification expo in july we're working with a bunch of partners to bring that together it'll be at the farmers market more details to come but just wanted to share in case anyone is listening we know electrification some things are sort of hidden for folks so we want to really daylight different appliances equipment and ways people can transition over i don't think i shared this with you because i think it was right after maybe i did we did submit a two million dollar proposal in partnership with the county to fund uh decarbonization efforts in the bryant neighborhood so i want to just take a moment and thank all of our collaborators community action network elevate uh the washington county office of community and economic development we had ibw 252 helping us with workforce training we had banks who are helping us think about intergenerational wealth accumulation it is a long shot but you can't wait if you don't get in the game so we submitted our proposal everything is crossed including my eyes but that manifests itself and we continue to run at that project which i i love and then i think last two things to share a20 a week uh you're going to start to see a lot about that coming out it's june 5th through june 11th begins with the dexter ann arbor uh race if anyone's running it we are helping it go zero waste this year all righty good for you we'll be at taste talking about delicious local sustainable food uh and then we're gonna do a tree event then we've got events all throughout the week and then we culminate on saturday with ann arbor summer festival uh saturday will be a 2-0 day at summer festival so uh we've got a lot of fun activities hope you can join us for some of those fun festivities and lastly i want to thank chuck hook uh chuck is uh i think we're trying to make this his last official meeting not because of anything bad but because we are likely going to hire chuck to come on board as a strategic energy advisor in the office and that would be a conflict to serve on this body and that body so i just wanted to take a moment while we had it to really thank chuck for all of the service that he does and share how excited i am to really get to dive much more deeply into his expertise and leverage it to do just transformational work so thank you chuck for your service on the commission for all these years and i'm sad to see you go from this body but i'm so excited to see you yeah kind of come a little bit closer to osa that's all sure you missy thanks chuck for all your service would this indeed be your last meeting i'm not sure you know i i guess i have to work that out with missy i don't know what the rules call for so i'm a little bit unclear on that but yeah it's been a pleasure working with all of you i've been on a long time it's um all old horses typically get led to the pasture hopefully my pasture is a little greener than some of the other pastures where horses go but i'm not too old i'm still young in the brain and in the heart that's what counts i guess so we'll keep trucking and hopefully our paths will all cross again i'm sure they will um keep up the great work on the commission i'm i won't be missed somebody else will jump in and have a lot more ambition than i do i'm a little bit stretched at times and maybe i wish i could have contributed more but i really enjoyed the time and um hope i made a little little bit of a difference thanks but chuck we're going to invite you back to make a presentation and when you're done we're going to say we're going to start with with a comment well we can ask a million questions about this but but we'll spare you okay uh we are now two updates from uh council liaisons and from commissioners we'll start with uh council members any updates i i don't think that i have any updates beyond what we've heard tonight that would be necessarily relevant to this group specifically um a city update of excitement is that our new city attorney started this week and so that is of note and so we are excited to have her on board i don't see commissioner i mean councilman briggs raising her hand so i will open it up to updates from all the commissioners is this the time where um the committees can report john go ahead yes indeed okay great thank you i'd like to uh provide a quick update the transportation electrification committee has been requested by um osi to provide an outline and an overview or inclusion in the city's standard specifications for design building and construction resources of installation of electric vehicle charging systems in the public rights voice so like the street side charging and what this will do is it will enable future um development and uh availability of street side ev charging at some point um in hopefully the near future but it uh regardless this is the beginning of what um it helps building inspectors it helps engineers it helps installers know what the requirements are for installing uh av charging stations both uh level two and uh dc fast chargers so that's the update for now thank you any news from any other commissioners i'd like to pass on one item of note that i think is important uh council members and missy correct me if i'm wrong but the pud for the ann arbor housing commission development at 350 south fifth which is the former y lot next to the blake transportation center has been approved by council and that foresees or has sustainability requirements including um just at a 30 000 foot level that it be in all electric um net zero development so i think that's i'm very positive and hopefully um as we get uh that goes out for requests for proposals uh that some of those proposals will potentially even go beyond that uh i think all of us remember that we passed a resolution encouraging um construction projects to use low embodied carbon materials um so hopefully some of the bids will reflect uh that desire and so i just wanted to mention that and i see that we have two hands up so that was the only thing i wanted to mention uh commissioner overpick quick and dirty i think the governor's substantially revised my healthy climate plan will be released on earth day so since that'll be after this and before our next meeting keep an eye out for that hopefully everybody will be smiling a little more as a result and missy i'm sorry i forgot two things that i just want to show the body knows obviously earth day uh please join us in a series of events and activities throughout the community that i can circulate what those are but also a piece of good news that i forget because i learned so late in the process as did jen hall but we got a three million dollar earmark to do solar and electrification and energy efficiency at affordable housing sites housing commission sites so that was a an iraq request we worked on together and we are super excited uh that we've we won it that is good news indeed council member briggs i think there must be more good news yeah i did think of one one uh small thing that might be of interest here um this came out of the environmental commission but um we did pass at the last council meeting that uh may will be um also known as nomo may so um if you would like to um not mow your lawn and get a little more time on your hands and do something good for the environment and help our pollinator habitat um that is something that we're promoting this this coming may joining with other cities across the nation to do this we can't cut our grass i like that you could and feel good about yourself i want to feel good by sitting you know sitting at my butt thank you i might mention i just did or had a prescribed burn done in my backyard this afternoon so just before our meeting so um i don't won't be doing any mowing back there either any any other comments from anyone i just want to give kudos to commissioner hookham for all of his work that he's done with the transportation electrification committee and uh there's no way we can be making the progress that we've been making and that we are making still without your participation and uh you're the gracious sharing of your experience and your deep deep knowledge thanks so much chuck thanks carlene you you way over blue what i'm providing you're doing a lot of the leadership i'm just kind of filling into little words and pieces so happy to do so very good oh commissioner juno yeah just real quickly um as as many of you are already aware the newest uh installment of the ipcc report came out this is focus on climate change mitigation has a lot of relevance um to the work that we do and and um to energy systems in general so um hopefully that's something we can essentially talk about at the next meeting in a little bit more detail and keck and i are planning to do a demystifying the ipcc report as well and the date for that and time has been set for may 12th 6 pm 6 pm right yeah very good it will be so great and we look forward to seeing you all in attendance right um missy i just want to reinforce one thing um i don't know if all commissioners got it i think i knew of one or two that didn't um and that is you talked about public outreach for the seo and if any commissioners are interested in doing that there were two training sessions but i think most of us are pretty well informed and you didn't miss a whole lot so someone's really interested in being a part of that public outreach as also an energy commission commissioner that would be certainly welcome i think from osi side and missy if they're interested they should email you correct okay great so that ends uh updates from commissioners unless i don't see anybody else and then we can move on to public input so this is our second opportunity for public comments for up to three minutes if you are watching on ctn please call 788-0099 or 877-853-5247 and enter 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understood thanks okay thanks for bringing that up i just want to say thanks for doing this because there is a lot of misconception in the community and i think it comes from that whatever that number 9.22 or whatever was it that school code or whatever versus the court order versus rumor and i know mr sawalish was contacted i've been contacted i don't know if other board members were because there was an assumption that after every census you had to take a look at all the sub-districts and supposedly they could all be up for re-election blah blah blah blah blah so and the blah blah blah i just can't get into so i'm glad that we're doing this and hopes that it clears it up to both all of us i mean i wasn't clear on it and i know a lot of the community wasn't so thank you for taking the time to put this out and and clarify to the best of our ability how this really works i appreciate it and i appreciate you guys making sure that we did take care of it because i think it is important i think that people then think we're going and we're doing something we shouldn't legally be doing or whatever so again i just think it's great to have this information out there and hopefully we all remember it 10 years down the road okay any other updates from board members okay under this agenda item board updates we are going to have a presentation on program changes to the multi-needs program and cara do you want to yeah i'll say a few words um this evening we wanted to share some information with the board as well as our community and our parents that we've invited here this evening regarding some of the changes for our multi-needs program which is our k-5 program which is currently housed at coretta scott school as you know from our previous meetings the teacher and staff shortage has certainly impacted our district especially at the multi-needs program and all year we have been really struggling to make sure that we could provide enough staff along with some aides to help support the classroom setting due to several of the factors we have are needing to make some decisions in the best interest of safety for our students in particular to making sure that we can run and sustain a strong program we have found based on our our predictions for staffing for next year that we are going to be running short so our team along with hr mr neil had been talking quite a bit about what are our options for our programming and the best needs of our students for safety when it comes to staffing and so forth so we have talked about this we have met with our teachers there was a parent meeting we want to present this to the board this evening so you know what is going on with the programming and what our future plans are for the program as well you know before we make any staff changes at the next board meeting next next week this evening i have invited ellen bilotti to come and she's a director of special ed program to share a little bit more in depth about the the challenges that we've been facing this year some of the decisions that we have made and what our intent is in moving forward for the future of this program ms baloti it's all yours thank you and mr neil and i may be jumping in to give our two cents here and there so please don't mind us thank you so much all right well with a very heavy heart following a process to sustain the multi-needs program we can't hear you yep there we go is that better okay to begin again with a very heavy heart we went through a process to sustain the multi-needs program the decision was made to transition the program at the end of this school year for kindergarten through fifth grade to our cooperative speed middle school and high school will remain the same i thank you for the time to explain the process that has occurred first our challenges open positions we have witnessed many concerns through covid and we have seen that we have had a loss of workers in many jobs but those affecting education have been especially challenging from teachers to paraprofessionals to food service to maintenance to everything in between our district and those around us have a diminished workforce filling positions has been an ongoing endeavor since spring and summer currently in the area of special education here we know that we have many paraprofessional positions open as well as teachers went unfilled posting for one additional certified staff in the multi-needs program this summer resulted in just two applications and neither had the necessary qualifications regarding the posting for paraprofessionals the applicants there too were limited and many of those did not have even minimal qualifications for the positions those that had were unlicensed but had some college credit day care experience or some other like position i contacted them offered support as they went through the ispy process for licensure that resulted in two more paraprofessionals of course we did advertising indeed reaches many many communities and has been renewed every 30 days since july of course there's our own district website which incidentally also goes to every single staff member and we offered full-time and part-time para professional positions we were able to add two part-time positions we hope that this would be successful and we were able to add one person to talala and one person in our multi-needs program at csk the shortages of substitute teachers and substitute paraprofessionals necessary due to the high number of staff six days has been difficult additionally in the program we had resignations and retirement where our substitutes were needed we had one retirement we had four resignations and two paraprofessionals did not return and they didn't notify us till august other step steps that were taken to sustain our program most importantly we looked at our students and many of our kindergartners had minimal school experience because in march 2020 when we moved into virtual learning they were three in march 21 we were brought back into the buildings and many many of our students especially our little students stayed virtual so in the kindergarten we added a certified special education teacher into that classroom so that the students had two certified staff as of course the prayer professionals and what occurred was co-teaching again this was due to their limited school experience that we were aware of as they came through our door during the first week of school as the elc students began a few days later our paraprofessionals from the elc kindly came over and provided temporary support as we brought them in for that first week i need to note that the principal the assistant principal and the elementary supervisor were also frequent supports throughout the year in the classroom where there were challenges and shortages of teachers and paraprofessionals we adjusted schedules and we adjusted classrooms to address the student needs in fact the teachers elementary supervisor and i created a profile of the multi-needs students in the program supports and services needed as part of our work in team meetings in this last year due to these current challenges and concerns in november an alternate plan was proposed to the teachers for the two other classrooms we discussed the possibility of suggesting that the two classrooms that did not have co-teaching combine and become one of course they would have seen an increase in our classroom size but we would have stayed at the legal limit of 13 and each of these classrooms and multi-needs would have had co-teaching or to certified staff this plan was met with vigorous dismissal by both teachers and some of our parents note the plan was again developed because of our concern for our students this takes us to the end of february and march unfortunately we have been unable to secure enough paraprofessionals the paraprofessionals we do have we know that two of them are leaving us in the fall to pursue their education and student teaching we are concerned about our teaching staff as there are many openings in the district and quite frankly it's been a tough year they may have considered moving into one of those open positions in the district the program would not be ending with a full staff this spring as it did not end last spring with a full staff there have been copious emails from the staff and also from parents regarding the challenges this year expressing their concerns which please know we shared too there was optimism as we ended last spring semester that we would find the needed supports for this program as we began the year we were optimistic that we would have that increase in staffing especially paraprofessional staffing that we needed we lost a speech path in august we were fortunate to be able to fill that position in the fall we were optimistic that was what was going to happen with our positions in the fall there was optimism last spring there was optimism in the summer and there was optimism as the year started but there isn't optimism this fall unfortunately we now know the reality is that we cannot sustain this program in the district we needed to establish a transitional location for the program we contacted speed and they were able to accept the cooperate into our cooperative building this program speed has been our cooperative for many many years we've enjoyed that partnership of course transportation will be provided just as it is now and the location will change but the students goals services supports that they see in their ieps that transitions with the students next to our transition steps with our families and our students and staff the difficult task to share the definitive plan with staff and parents occurred on thursday both sharing this change before sharing this change it was important that the actual plan was developed and the reason the inability to sustain the program due to staffing was provided an invitation was sent out for the virtual meeting on thursday and 11 of our parents were able to attend another invitation was sent last friday to attend this board meeting where the transition of the program would again be shared the parents have also been invited to our speed cooperative on either wednesday or thursday of this week to meet the principal and of course see the building i realized the notice was short but speed is on spring break next week and knowing some parents would want to visit as soon as possible these dates were set another date will be set for those who could not attend after speed returns from spring break iep meetings to change the location of the program will begin on april 21st and go through april 25th the invitations for those meetings began to go out yesterday as in all iep meetings we will find a mutually agreeable time between the home team and the school team to make this change we will be respectful of the parents time in these meetings as always that changes to the iep or the location the serving school as well as the instructional minutes at csk which are 1725 will change to the speed instructional minutes of 1800 remember that our students at csk eat at their own tables in the general education lunchroom and and some do eat in their classrooms too but all students will be provided transportation as i mentioned car riders this year as every other year may choose to change their mode of transportation if they wish the district to transport parents will need to register at both the district and at speed both of which are virtual communication will be sent out to explain how to register on speed's website and of course our website here and it will also the communication will include information regarding the school hours at speed as well as their calendar future planning will begin when school resumes in the fall there'll be a committee form to review programs and services district-wide we have a continuum of services here in the district from three years of age through 22 years of age both in district and with our partners out of the district within the continuum we will also review a satellite option thank you for your time would you have any questions i have a question um uh my my excuse me for my ignorance maybe i just missed this but it sounds like like have we been talking about this okay so then it sounds as if if no and then i'm not the only one then it sounds like this decision has already been made and you all are just informing us that this is going to happen or i don't i'm trying i'm kind of confused with this so so the question is how many teachers do we currently have right now it's a four or five we have three um multi-needs teachers and our co-teachers are our two resources i'm sorry no disrespect though but i need my question answered first yeah sorry no i know yeah um is this a done deal or are you all informing us or are you asking us are we is this still up for discussion that's what happens so we can probably pick you up as well and miss mr neal you can add to this as we we've had this issue all year we we know that and what comes up is when it comes to staffing as you know in february and march is staffing month where we start taking a look at our numbers for next year and we start trying to figure out if we how our programs look and in our conversations uh with mr neil as well as taking a look at our programming we were seeing that this program was going to be again deficient in staff members it has been a hard year this year and we were concerned about having another harder year next year for certainly our students making sure that they had enough aids in the classroom as well as you know the extra work with our teachers with with the stress level without having enough aids in the classroom to support that and while i don't know if you want to add to that about the staffing piece and what we've been looking at well i don't have a whole lot to add other than you know we we started trying to staff for this year back about january february of uh 21.

i left for a while went to arizona and returned home to raise my children here i have three children two of whom are in the district one of whom is in the multi-needs program at csk he is a six-year-old first grader with autism and he started his school career here at the elc the programming has been phenomenal my child is growing and developing and flourishing and we have just been thrilled the staffing issues this year have been hard the teachers have struggled but i want you to know they've made it work the programming has been fantastic my child is making progress he loves to go to school he feels pride in his school please bear with me because i'm very emotional here so the thought of that being taken away from him because of a lack of staffing when we've had a lack of staffing all year is very disheartening to speak to miss belotti and her recent decisions i received an email last monday is that when you guys all received it last monday and we got a letter home in our children's folders on tuesday requesting that we'd be at a parent meeting at 4 30 pm on thursday so we got three days notice with no warning or description of what this meeting would be about we logged on to google thinking that it was discussions about programming for next year or changes and so unfortunately your children are no longer going to be able to be educated in our district you're going to have to go to speed cooperative that is the only placement available because your children has a special need and is in the multi-news program and we cannot serve them until they come back to sixth grade obviously most of us parents were blindsided we had no preparation or warning of this even have time to think of questions and the meeting ended rather quickly with us being told that meetings would be arranged for us to meet with speed as soon as next week and that iep meetings would be happening in the next two weeks to change placement i also wish to share with you i'm not a expert in special education law or procedures but i've had to learn a lot in my child's short life because unfortunately when you have a child with special needs everything is a fight um taking an entire group of children because they have a disability and placing them out of district is for sure against the law they have ieps which are individual education plans which means that each child's needs their social needs their psychosocial needs their emotional needs their academic needs are addressed based on them so to take an entire group of children and move them out of district to another program just because they have a disability is not only against the law it's segregation i'm sorry bear with me i know you had questions there are three classrooms three multi-needs classrooms at csk the children there have lunch with the general education application my son in particular loves to take walks and so he's with neurotypical children all the time at school if he goes to speed there is no exposure to neurotypical children from my research they serve children from preschool up to age 22.

not are there any other nominations for secretary saying none will hand out ballots please thank zelda not just come terry i'm gonna stuff the box i got too i love you man uh that was a short back to where i started next to miss cooper i'll take that any i think i have one in here a lot of things happen tonight yes oh [Music] like i never left guys so more good news from rogers park middle school i would like to start there as part of the superintendent update this two weeks ago now we had an amazing as typical of the rogers park administrative team and great teaching staff over that building there's always great things going on in that school and two weeks ago no different the leadership there forged a partnership with the nearby school district had an amazing day titled harbor me rogers park study and student exchange program and we have asked christie's elita and dana perez and staff to come down and walk us through the excitement that took place a couple weeks ago [Music] thank you so much for having us here this evening we have a little presentation so you can get some visuals in july this past july tim salem jamberry native and principal at shelter rock middle school in ridgefield reached out to myself and dana to ask if we were interested in pairing with his school to do a book study so of course the way that we roll is that we'll pretty much try anything we love to collaborate and talk to other people and learn from other people so he said of course they met with them and their his media specialists and our media specialists came together and talked about doing a book club we have very different makeups in our schools obviously and we thought it'd be important where we have students come together and see that while it may be different in many different ways we're all still human they're all still crazy bubbles of course and anybody that has a middle school or who has had middle school it doesn't matter where you live we're all a little crazy but we still love them and we you know use this time in middle school to help them set themselves on the right trajectory make good habits and learn from each other so with that we moved into picking a book and harborview was a wonderful book that was chosen by the media specialist that really looks at students from a diverse group of diverse backgrounds but they're in a school that the students are placed in in a room it sounds crazy once a week with no adult and it's just like what are you gonna do so they forged this friendship and they learned that although they have all these crazy backgrounds they all still have something in common which is that they at the end pledge to harbor each other knowing that harvard is a place of refuge in rough seas and when things are uncertain and so they come together and they end up hiring one another and it's interesting in reading the book so the assumptions that you make when you start speaking because they don't tell you which kid has which ethnic background or which kid has is from a more affluent part of town and your your own biases which we all have kind of come to play and then you're oh man but it was such a great read for kids i highly recommend it to anybody no matter no matter your age but so what happened is we got together and then as a school we used our social justice club we're really proud of our after-school programming that we have we offer many different things for students to get involved in and so we thought that the social justice club would be the best move to vote so we had about 25 or there's like 50 kids in the group we brought them all together and it ended up being about 25 kids that really wanted to get into reading the book talking about the book and then they talked about them you know you're actually going to get a field trip too which is really cool because no one's been anywhere for two years so each month we start in november and the kids would read you know chapters one through eight and then we'd meet the library media specialist mr duff and miss foley they did an amazing job they did really the hard work we just took attendance and got the kids there made sure we had coverage where it needed to be but they really did the hard work of getting kids to talk to share and this is kids across sixth seventh and eighth grade so they aren't just a group of kids that came from in an english class this is a wide diverse group of students that came together and really started to to uncover things about themselves and each other and so we would meet in person and then we would meet with um scott's ridge scottish middle school online so we met with them twice so if you can go to the next slide and thank you so i kind of talked about that already so this is the cover of the book by jacqueline woodson so this was our first digital meeting so we were lucky to work with cass of the connecticut association of schools and tim and his team had presented previously around book study and so the lady in the corner rosie is the cast person who helps facilities facilitate this and help us and i'll talk about the later slide how to move forward so we met this was the first one in november you could go to that side and we would meet and we would talk and then we'd come together again with richfield and then the students we went through specific questions about the chapter groups and then our first meeting was in person at statridge and that was back in march so you see us coming in that was the top left when we were first when we were all you know you come in and grow like you could tell who was who because we all had to stay together they stayed together and then the team at scottridge put together a couple different activities of the human scavenger hunt find out who has the same birthday month as you and that kind of like easy ice breaker stuff so the kids started to say oh look okay you have a september birthday too and then we did an assumptions activity which was fun of course pizza brings everybody together so after our tour of the school we had some pizza together and then we ended it with another group of another part of our book study so the kids by the end were like oh i can't wait to you know to see you again i want to go to school with you all day it was really awesome to see how they kind of came together as a group and kind of broke down any barriers that might have existed before just because you didn't know anybody so you could go and so our second meeting was in april that was uh mr walson said two weeks ago when they got off the bus this time there were hugs and they were like they were so excited to see each other so our students are in the blue t-shirts and then um scotch ridge is right there in the front and they had brought we had we all signed that will you harbor me we all signed it as we left and they brought it back to us actually stopped in my office and then we had nato welcome it's hard to see welcome to rogers park from to the staff sergeant so you go the next one so our day we started with an acrostic problem and we put a twist on it so where as you're usually going like kkk is really hard once my first initial let's go with d d for dancing dancing game so instead of going like d a and a we would try to find what are the things that are common between us and so the kids would pair up with roger sparks students and statues students and then what are the things that are the same in the top right hand corner and that was one of my favorites the way that they all it all shook out they were all epic so they all had an e in their names and so it was really cool to see the kids connect and we were in our new learning commons at our second floor of our media center and so kids were working on that then we moved into our story walk so similar to um what is a privilege walk it's we didn't do it in such a like you know i mean like as heavy a topic but it was like have you ever felt you know alone and then take a step back or have you ever felt like someone supported you at school take a step forward and so at the end of it you couldn't tell which kids came from your school because at the end of the day we're all having things that help us move forward and things that pull us back and we ended it with a circle so we circled up and kind of shared it out and we take away from them we facilitated them the kids were talking they'd share a lot and bring it back but then at the end of the day they walked away knowing that while you may feel alone when you look across at all the other kids they're going through things too and so you know this theme of like having empathy for one another and understanding that like they said you're not alone okay so we came back we also did a tour it was fun mr salem had his first student teacher was in there mr andreoni and one of his former students is in there and mr navarre so it was like a big reunion from salem and the kids really loved it of course if there's got any food we like to represent with those gringos and they provided us with delicious the chicken that went quick the rice was amazing and eben we barely got one which was awesome because the kids really enjoyed food and then we ended it again with a book study wrap up and then the kids our kids had our writer's parks and they had all the kids like signing their shirts so it was really cool by the end of it that they really connected and shared handles instead whatever those things are all social media stuff those were good this time so we were really excited and um moving forward we're actually presenting a poster we're doing a poster presentation at the cen conference in may around our collaboration with ridgefield and we're working with rosie and tim to do a cast webinar to try to kind of spread this out to other schools to say hey partner up with a local school and see you know how you can bridge some more gaps so thank you so much for letting us present we're really excited about it and you're all welcome anytime [Applause] big thank you to your media specialists and teachers at the school thank you so much [Applause] voice for change update for the board of education and school community a couple weeks ago we had was that the black box we had miss heather lorenz the civics teacher at danbury high school and a number of students a couple of students present out on the projects that they were submitting on behalf of danbury high school to the state of connecticut the commissioner's initiatives a voice for change in which schools would receive in which winners would receive twenty thousand dollars for uh presented projects and friday the state made an announcement of the winners and so there were two winners for the state one that was chosen by the commissioner the commissioner's office and then another winner that was chosen amongst the peers so of those two winners and sorry i just have to grab again danbury high school had more applicants than any school in the state of connecticut and lorenz thank you again for your amazing leadership in this two winners both by the way danbury high school the first winner of the student election the student election is the project is called water fountains water fountains which was led by the state's 20 000 grand 20 000 grant will be enough to help buy and install 11 new water fountain refill stations within our school there are currently four active water fountain stations refill stations serving a school of over 3 300 students this grant will help take out the old porcelain water fountains and replace them with the safe and effective water fountains which also have a bottle refill station creating this project will allow numerous students within the school ready and quick access to awarded instead of needing to travel between buildings this will create a more healthy and happy school in addition to enriching the learning of students as as there will be less class time spent looking for water furthermore refilling bottles will have a small but noticeable impact on the use of disposable plastic water bottles as many students will start refilling those while bringing in stronger material water bottles uh congratulations to the sioux students and the winner of the commissioner award i can't help myself um damn very high school again uh furniture for the faculty nancy sarmiento matt newton and liam wong the commissioner stated she specifically chose this project because of the out of hundreds of projects submitted to the state this was the only project that focused on the mental and physical health of the teachers the state's twenty thousand dollar grant will help to provide an efficient and refreshing environment for the danbury high school staff in the teachers lounge as the school has grown the number of students who need to work in a teacher's work room is to eat lunch there has grown too the grant will help to replace the current furniture with your tables and electric outlets chairs and furniture teachers can choose to relax on thus providing a restful environment for faculty another addition would be to provide portable chargers if the grant money allows new equipment for heating lunches now new refrigerators and possibly a sink to clean dishes which be additional upgrades and then we have a list of all of the students who participated in voice for change from the ap government and politics and peer leadership class and i'm going to i have a lot of names here so i'm going to read first names sarah sophia lyanna jessica jillian leticia kayla reagan faith marianna pamela hannah paz paz matthew dunn aaliyah tyler saifully nancy chris christopher junior chiara pj chapel sydney ava liam kanika camillo jaylee justin viviana and scott wait a minute there's a few more william lisbeth caitlyn haley matthew nicole lewis natalie taylor jackson kayla florence ian olivia marcus olivia chloe gregory chloe and alexandra heather lorenz thank you so much for your leadership and dan donovan thank you for your leadership congratulations [Applause] all those two students city council update um ad hoc committee was last night and if you and grace want to come up you're going to be nice last night was our ad hoc committee i recognize all the board members can't make all the meetings and the ones who are able to make last night's meeting i really appreciate the support we had a number of folks from the council who not only had our committee but were there were also very interested in the outcome of last night's meeting several board members a couple of people from the community and of course many members of my team as well were able to make it john and i representing the district in the budget and proposed budget again we reiterated our need rationale behind 152 million dollar request last night despite our case last night's recommendation to the council from that our committee will be a recommended budget city the mayor's budget 145 million the team and i i know the outcome ultimately will be tomorrow night but the team and i certainly we will roll our sleeves up get to work and determine what this means for the district so our position has not changed just in terms of the expiring um grants that we are facing and the cliff that we've talked about for that's been well chronicled for the last couple of years the team and i will provide an update for the board i'll be in the next couple of court meetings but this means for us to move forward but you know i remain optimistic that the partnership we try to afford for the city will help realize some better outcomes moving forward and for right now we will deal with the hand that we've been dealt and dig deeper and figure out other steps so we will get back to you and speaking of updates a little more positive in this regard and that is updates regarding goal 2 for the superintendent's update go to family school and community partnerships andy grace from this department provided a brief update about community relations committee and i have asked ann and grace to come to give an update to the full board i believe you're going to need us to move in a minute again because you have some presentations to make the board might recall our investments in family engagement through the through the positions we've hired called family liaisons so ian is going to speak about that this evening but as part of the goals this year we've also talked about developing parent leadership programs we were recipient of a grant this year and through that grant leadership of and in grace they've been able to mobilize a lot of parents in this community so they can speak to some of those great things going into the community and that will get out the way so that you can provide those examples thank you good evening everyone you settled for a minute i'm going to stand for this all right so welcome back to ralph and good evening everyone this is a great opportunity to share all the work that comes out of the office of family and school community partnerships so right now as you know we're located at our 17th cottage street while the renovations are being uh are taking place at um our home at 49 osborne street so we're excited i go there about every three weeks and take some pictures of them the alterations and everything that's going on and then share with the whole staff so they know what they're going back to um and are getting very very excited about that we hope to be able to return both the people in august towards the end of august and then we will move our central registration families probably our staff probably back closer to the end of october when registration has slowed down so that conversion and that move is still in the works so go ahead so i want to just give you a little bit of foundational knowledge on what we do and why we do it the philosophy behind it our goal is to engage empower and educate our families our parents and when we say families we try to stay away from the word parents to a certain point because it's really families our we know that our students come to school that they live with grandparents um they live with foster parents um you know not every child is raised by their biological parent and so we want everyone to feel welcome so we use that more inclusive term family when speaking about it so the goals of our office is to place trust and teamwork at the center of the homeschool relationship and that's really what all of this is built on is how do you build relationships between school and family and so i think as you'll see through this presentation that mantra is in everything that we do you'll be able to pull pieces of these three key parts out the second one is that we anchor high impact family strategies in student learning and well-being our focus is what can we do to help families support their student learning so that students are more successful in school and then the last one is we look at looking at building systems and structures that enables this work in an efficient high impact way and so i can share more documents after this i've shared one document that i'll walk you through a little bit but i can share the connecticut framework with you which even gives you more of that why and how common why we have this bad impact or why we use these high impact strategies so we ground our work in what's called the dual capacity framework i'll show it to you in a second this was written by karen mack who was one of the three gurus in the united states are international around family school partnerships she had a rendition that she did for the federal government that came out in 2018 and through a lot of revisions and a lot of work with everyone throughout the united states about what is a good partnership what is dual capacity she was able to change that and you'll see the new model in just a second but what we do maintain throughout everything that we do is that we consciously link student learning and improving their outcomes to everything that we have here great so this is a little bit hard to read and i will make sure that you all get copies of it but it talks on the left hand side what are the challenges what are the challenges in a educational system and then what is what are the challenges in a family system you know families being able to access materials access training and then for the teachers you know being comfortable in um working with our families you know when we first started that pandemic when we first shut down i got a lot of calls from teachers saying how can i talk to my family this is brand new to me i've had english i had math or i'm a math teacher whatever but i didn't have a course in what is effective family school partnerships can you help and then we go through process conditions other conditions that have to be in place because you can't see it i'm going to skip right to the end where we really want to or actually that green section where we want to help build the cognition appearance the ability to be able to support their children we want to build the relationships that they have with their children and with their schools and we want them to become really strong in advocating for themselves and other children in the district and so i'll share this so you can see it on the better so out of this whole philosophical piece we have written a um plan for the district of what we will do and it is aligned with mr wallston's goals and so no idea it's not a misprint family school engagement is goal number two out of the four goals that kevin has so this one is develop strategies to promote a high level of communication collaboration and interaction within our community to build trust confidence and credibility and i want to talk to that for just a second because i very strategically have built the team in which i have it's really really important that you have key people on the ground i don't speak another language i don't speak another language so people say how are you the director of this when you don't speak that language because i'm very careful in how we coordinate our staff how we use our community partners which you'll see later in the presentation and how we strategically place staff so that when a family comes to the center they're met in a language that they um need and so my assistant director is grace molina and she has come in with a whole my raised skills right on the technology piece and so we've been able to jump in to many ways to raise that sense of communication that our families have or the ability to be able to communicate so we are in the process right now of launching the new danbury website it's a slow process because you go through many steps from you know development of the wild wire frames to what it starts to look like in color and content so you'll see more of that is that on rolls over the summer and we are in almost the final stages of parent square this past newsletter that we had last week went out through parent square and as i look at the data we're doing pretty good our families are reading it i can tell from the back side of the program how many open it how many read it how many seconds and minutes they're actually in the program so i can tell do they just do a nice letter from you know that guy or look at all this stuff going on in this lab and so that's really really important so we can share those stats down the road with you too next phase in that schools we'll start to use it right now we're just using it from the district office side we continue to do as i said that newsletter um that goes out through the parent square to educate our folks educate our communities share resources and things that are coming up events that are important for families i already talked a little bit about that welcoming center it does have registration it has extended learning program it has early childhood resources in it it has a welcome packet so when families first come to the district they get this nice welcoming packet once all the registration paperwork is good to go it has the calendar in it we'll be very happy tomorrow to start the package for next year put the new calendar in thank you for voting not today i can't tell you how many people have come looking for next year's calendar already has a letter from mr walston in it has all kinds of community resources many of these families are new to the community maybe sharing space with other families they need heating assistance they need to know find out where to um get medical insurance and food all of those different types of things so that welcoming packet is just has great stuff it it also is jam-packed with the importance of food school attendance and so that's in many different languages in that packet that says you know we expect your child at school every day unless your child's sick we are in the middle right now of a district-wide welcoming school initiative we have 77 people trained in this initiative this is a curriculum or a protocol that's written by the capital region education council so all of our family liaisons went through the training and then we had representation from every school and we tomorrow is our first walk through rogers park so a a welcoming school specialist from craft will come down we'll meet with the team that has been put together at rogers park to do this walk through they're going to look at physical environment they're going to look at when they walk down the hallway to somebody just walk the opposite direction or do they say hi how are you can i help you they're going to look at how they're treated when they arrive at the school the signing is you know can they find the front door they know where to park um they're going to look at written materials is everything just in english or does it count multiple languages to the family there'll be a couple of debriefing after they do the walkthrough and in this walkthrough it's teachers social worker nurse the principals decided on their teams and all of them have pulled in families so from that school so we're really excited about that um some pto members are on there some of you may have gotten calls we actually lisa and i went for a walk through at um west side today okay great so it did start today okay right right i did look at the schedule to see exactly what was up because it's they're doing it now right good so that's good news what will happen after that visit the people from the capitol regional education council or prep will come back and generate reports of improvements at school they'll put a small budget line into it and then we'll work with our sites and facilities and our budgeting department john and superintendent wallston to make sure that we can you know fund these small things that need to be done in these schools otherwise it's just a report that sits on the shelf and part of the work in this will also the recommendations will go into the school improvement plans as well so this is all part of a bigger picture as i spoke last week at the community meeting we had a great showing of 99 of all of our kindergarten teachers did virtual phone calls home visits at the start of last year we knew that we couldn't bring all our kindergarten students into the schools because i was just too much and we're still trying to be coded safe so what we did is we had the teachers call home make an appointment to meet with that family they could do google they could do a zoom they could just do a telephone call and the teachers asked one question what are your hopes and dreams for your children and that just opened up the door for a flood of conversation between the teacher and their family about that child again focused on that child and from that the principles really got to the principals and teachers that did the kindergarten teachers really got to understand where the families were coming from and what makes them tick and what was special about their children so the very first day of school it wasn't like all these new children walked in the teachers already had an idea of what the children liked and what they did like so again creating that bridge between involved in school the second to last is our open communication our monthly chats with kevin i think there's one coming up right after vacation on that tuesday night um they have been well attended uh pretty deep conversations with the families and a couple of community folks that join these conversations and i don't know if you'd like to add something to this about them they're great conversations they're very informal their questions are difficult enough okay and lastly in this goal we have or my office has convened what i'm calling the menu improvements so we engaged sodexa who's our food service provider we've gone through a couple renditions of the meaning our first one which is a general meeting how are we going to structure this what are the needs of this group what are the needs of the district what are we hearing from parents and how do we move forward our second meeting we brought in students from moore street and boy those little fourth and fifth graders are really really honest about food let me tell you and they not only told us what they didn't like they told us what they liked and how to improve it and so immediately i hope as you looked at the menus you saw a change in those february march menus yeah january was the february venues uh leah who is our dietitian is always open to new ideas of different food within the usda guidelines that were given what they can do and then in individual kitchens they make sure that you know if they know so in my building in cottage street or our building cottage street the preschoolers don't like stuff together they like chicken they like sauce they like the beans and here's the burrito and so amanda who is our food person she serves it just like that and then the kids put it together the minute you mix that all together don't like it so and we're you know aware of you know sensory issues with our children and not liking different textures mixed and so amanda does a great job okay they also put in place um sodexo put in place a feedback sheet that all of the lunch staff could give her so she's getting monthly feedback from the staff to feed the kids what they like what they didn't like and how to make improvements our last month we met with the students at rogers park so we've been meeting pretty much every other month for these changes in the menu so hopefully you're seeing better menus your students are coming home from school for those of you that have students and saying i like lunch a lot better okay you know that that's the goal of this we will continue to meet with them every other month to improve these venues we've had a lot of policy questions about could children receive a second fruit or a second vegetable we try to clear up all of that and just recently we have taken their menu change text and added a spanish portuguese version to it so that parents can sign up ahead of time you can get a text in the morning that you know you're thinking it was going to be chicken burritos and now it's changed to a corn dog your child knows i mean not eating that corn dog so as a parent you can provide a multiple childhood so we're really really happy with the changes that we've been able to make there so that's an ongoing process all right so now we go to goal 2b which is really our family education opportunities our opportunities that we have using our community partners to be able to pull in funds to run the actual office itself because my office also works under many federal and state grants most of those grants have a five percent set aside that all have to go towards family engagement so like our 21st century learning grants we have four of those in the district right now they have a five percent set aside so we take some of those funds you'll see who some of our other funders are with some of our partners and this is how we're able to bring all this education to you so grace has her earpiece in here somewhere she took it off but we have parents see on tuesday night so right now right now there are here that's what it was 22 people taking this course this is of course that was designed by the center for school change in hartford we have patrice nelson and felicia bears out of manchester who are actually facilitating the 12-week course save the date of may 3rd at 6 o'clock place to be determined you will all get invitations for the graduation this is the eighth time that we've been able to run this class since i've been here in the district in 2008.

um what we're looking at is it's a commercial operation date of end of 2023 and that would mean that we would expect generation in early 2024 um as we finalize a contract with the engineering procurement construction firm that will solidify that schedule a little more but the the expectation is to finalize the the construction end of 2023 and have generation ready for 2024.

hello can you hear me yes thank you uh my name is once again greg uh woodring uh i'm the president of banner for public power calling in just at the end uh to say first of all thank you for the fantastic presentation i think that was very informative and answered um at least the vast majority of the questions that were raised so really appreciate that um just wanted to chime in with the perspective that i got after this presentation i think this is shared by a decent amount of the members of a2p2 is that essentially uh the argument is that we are going to pay more for this project in exchange for speed that seems like a reasonable trade-off in many ways though i think that the devil kind of lies in the details there i think that to really evaluate how much more we are paying in exchange for the speed you'd have to take into account for one the city could definitely borrow this money cheaper than dte is capable of doing i understand that there's an argument that that debt would not be on the books for the city however that debt would be offset by an asset right not only an asset but a revenue generating asset and the future value of that revenues should be evaluated with the extra cost that we were paying for this speed um i wonder exactly what the speed gain is as well how long would that myso connection really be and would we be able to stand up infrastructure that would allow us to consume that power right presumably the water utility could use most if not all of this power what would the cost really be to stand up that infrastructure to be able to supply the water utility with this power it seems like it would probably be considerably less than the value of the future revenue stream that such a project could bring in as well as the benefits from the cheaper borrowing power of the city in my opinion uh the city would still be far better off owning this asset on its own um so i understand that this is certainly not a completely black or white situation and i appreciate all the hard work that staff has done to bring this forward but i really think that the community should evaluate whether with the new plans with the seo and the potential of a full muni coming on board whether this might be much more valuable for the city to own on its own so thank you for your time and thanks for calling in and thanks for contributing to the conversation and uh yes missy anybody else that's all here okay so we will move on to the last point which is items for the next agenda and we um already missy carlene and i um have uh set up a few things and i believe missy we're still planning on a presentation regarding energy concierge services at least that was at least the target i mean we'll verify that but that's sort of on the docket is there anything else i can't recall off the top of my head yeah so we had green rental housing coming back to the public feedback and then we did tentatively talk about doing an ipcc uh discussion with concierge as well yes right so um does anybody have any other items for consideration for the agenda okay seeing none that concludes our meeting it is 8 20 and i appreciate everybody's uh service and contribution to the meeting tonight uh it was a good meeting and i hope you enjoyed it as well and i wish you all a pleasant rest of your evening thanks everybody the meeting is adjourned you

and we as as ellen pointed out we were optimistic that we would be able to fill all positions prior to the start of the school year over the course of this year we have suffered a shortage of between probably about 20 and 35 teacher assistance district-wide which is a very significant shortage of people we have pulled teacher assistance from other programs including shutting down some general education programs to staff this program to make sure it was covered so we have been discussing this all year it has been uh to kind of address dr hall's question a little bit um it has been in the fyi a couple of times throughout the year i believe once was in november and then again i can't remember the second time there was more information in last week's fyi as well spelling out the problems and explaining that we had significant shortage in staffing in this program and while we were trying to meet the needs of this one as well as all other special education programs throughout the district we were just becoming very concerned about our ability to fully staff this program as we went forward right now special education positions i believe we had four or five that went unfilled this year teaching positions yes so we're already short not just in multi-needs but in other programs so we we are looking district-wide at all programs to try to correct as much of this as possible and and and get ourselves turned around so we can get the staffing problem corrected so i guess my question is has this decision has has this decision been made or are you all informing us because as you know i work at a school and we had a hard time staffing our our building as well so should we send the kids to crete that's kind of frustrating well the the problems that we run this time of year if we wanted to play this out is it's it's april we may be looking at more than a couple positions to replace in that program and if we're going into june we don't have we have to reserve our spot with speed or we lose it like we did last year so that that was some of our concerns you know i just you know there's no saying that desperate times take desperate measures to solve these problems and it sounds like we just gave up and you know and and again this this is you know i read some of the parents letters very very detailed very labor intense a lot of fervor uh was involved with doing research with this and and it just seemed like we just taken again i'm not the pro at this but it seems like we just taken for lack of a better phrase the easy way out and you're saying we posted for these positions nobody bought into it did we take measures like possibly putting a bonus or a stipend or anything like that you know anything like that to draw a candidate in it doesn't wow that's what i i don't know i don't i don't know i'm just asking the question that's the issue we can't do because of the cma well that's what i said i'm just asking a question that's all i'm just asking a question trying to get the minds you know we got to do more than just think out the box here it's thinking way out here so i'm saying did we take every measure we could up to this point because it sounds like as dr hall alluded to that this is a done deal and lio you you stated a couple times that it was an fyi fyi for the board but nothing to the extent that our director said putting things in chronological order did it ever come to the board in such a magnitude so i'm just appalled i'm i'm somewhat disappointed how this has played out and as far as i'm just one board member here i will not stop and again thinking outside the box and even further i don't know again about this program and how how speed interact and all of that other than what i just heard our directors say those teachers at speed that teach this program are they only going to teach our students here that we're sending over there or they are their other students because it's it's amazing how we took mec it seemed like overnight we got a new program for them new building and bam here we are so which is a good thing and i commend dr cosman at least for driving that process and why can we not have that same rigor to take this home and give our students what they need and how how come we could provide a bonus where is it written in the contract that you could that we couldn't provide a bonus for a hard to fill position or something to that effect or even talk to the you i mean because the union to say hey maybe i mean i've seen other districts do it so it's not impossible to do i i don't know i don't i don't yeah when you said you tried everything like you tried the norm of what you typically do if you can't feel a position that's what it sounds like to me i didn't hear anything different i didn't hear anything creative to garnish and harness the staff that we need to teach this program or why can't we keep people that's the that's the bigger question to me as well because as you know people don't necessarily quit jobs they quit leaders so there's something about that that makes them quit what's going on because we're saying that this person left and that person left and this per then that's telling me that there's something going on to where they don't again i say it again they don't quit jobs they quit leaders i'm not saying you per se or whatever but who whatever or whoever that they're involved with directly so and i would just like to add we're talking about from what i hear what i see the letters that i've received and the board members have received from parents and even talking to our superintendent this is a highly successful program highly successful and taught at a highly successful school and i mean we should go out on a limb and and bring to the board here are the options these are all the things that we are looking to do to keep this program where it is keep it going not reasons to move forward and put it somewhere else lyle just is there i mean setting kind of contract limitations aside i mean is there a market that you could offer for these positions that would fill them or are there other dynamics in the marketplace that just there's a limitation on the number of of these type teachers with these types of credentials and paraprofessionals as far as teachers the the there has been an increasing difficulty finding special education teachers in recent years and part of that is changes in federal law and how teachers are certified that we can no longer use emergency licensed staff they have to be fully licensed in order for us to use them in a special ed program that's funded by federal funds so that has reduced some of the opportunities we've had to be creative with licensing and getting teachers on board the other issue is you know just simply having the license isn't always enough because different programs have different needs so you have to be able to have the training that goes into being successful in that program so as we have we were able to have three teachers in the program out of four which we were able to manage with our numbers the bigger issue has been the teacher assistant numbers and that is that is a system-wide issue i don't have a dollar amount but the districts that i talked to were having to go in the 20 to 25 an hour range which is almost double what we are paying according to our contract right now now the contract is in negotiation depending on how that comes out that may help alleviate some of that problem but just having the teachers isn't enough in a program such as this i believe we had 12 teacher aid positions and four teacher positions and throughout the year we had five teacher aides who were in that program we lost two during the years so we're down to three at the end out of twelve and we've moved other aids from other parts of the district but we are short 30 plus everybody every program was short so again can we can we offer bonuses absolutely if we can negotiate them with unions we can offer them um there's a there's a process for that uh we can uh you know we can do whatever we want we want to negotiate with the union we can we have advertised far and wide we have reached out nationwide for teachers teacher candidates it is just a very hard market right now i'm not saying it's impossible but i'm saying it's very hard and we were able to keep the program staffed this year we do have some staff members who are looking at other positions in the district i don't want to say any more publicly and that will leave it even more positions to fill for next year and and that's what we had to reach out and ask if there was an option for the co-op to help us out for a year or two as we try to rebuild the staff for the program it is our intent to bring this program back into the district as soon as possible but we can't wait till the last minute to decide we need the co-op we have to tell them ahead of time so they can be prepared so i want to ask the question can the teachers from speed come here uh no if speed would choose to satellite the classes on on our in our campus that would be absolutely fine we can do that that's just one option in my opinion and i i did instruct uh i did instruct ellen to to speak with the co-op and let them know we're prepared to satellite their programs here yes until we can again these are desperate times these are abnormal times everybody know that everybody has challenges and again i commend the district for being able to do the things that they have done to get us to this point with all the other issues that you have discussed so here we're talking about this moment right here when's the last time we had this many parents or teachers or staff here at a board meeting so this is telling me this is very important this is very important so it's very important to all of our public right there and possibly some staff members as well and it's very important to the board and it's very important to this district that we keep this program going so once we have um held a spot with speed can we can we back out of that well that's i was going to ask ellen uh what is the grace period that we have to hold that in case comes august we have no teachers we really need to move forward with what we are doing with speed because they have to plan and have planned just like we have to plan every year for our program do they give us a deadline though i mean are we looking at june july oh goodness no because they have to staff the program so what because i was just wondering if we could continue you know our search and maybe offer the bonus or something and try to fill those positions you know what i can contact steve to speak tomorrow and i'm happy to do that but they are a school district they are school district also and so they need to do their planning just as we did our planning and and that's the challenge that all school districts are having well that's that's what makes us warriors we're different so then i guess i would suggest if we can then um talk to speed i'll call them tomorrow and see if we can continue to fill those spots but have that as a backup obviously um i mean i get it number one is safety of our kids so we do have to have the proper staffing but clearly it is a very important you know topic here so i think it is something we have to give 110 so please know that this decision was not made quickly it was made very slowly we took steps during this year to try and increase staffing to try and remediate through co-teaching etc our teachers got tired as did our paraprofessionals it was a rough year we can't i don't think i don't think anybody is questioning that and i commend the rigor and the hard work that our staff has put forth thus far we're saying here's our problem and what can we do to fix it we're saying that the answer that you gave in my opinion is not good enough so my question is can we understand you have to make a commitment to speed to reserve space but can we accelerate and see if we could accelerate i mean can we pull back out of speed if in august first we figure out a way to have the program my concern is is you know they are staffing for our students well and that may be there there may be some financial penalty to the district to doing that but i think we should explore that and i think as a board i think as a board not only you our director i think we need some more muscles i think we need to put a directive towards our superintendent to be your backup or be the for the front runner here i guess i have a question though i have other questions too but you just made me think of one immediately they're staffing for our children why can't we staff for our children i mean where are they getting the people from am i i'm sorry it just dawned on me i don't mean to be a smart aleck but when you're saying they're staffing for our children how are they getting people and we're not is it because they're they're paying them a different what is how are they getting the people we ca we went to speed and said can you provide this at every right around now every end of february beginning of march we provide to speed the number of our students that are returning the existing students that are returning from all the feeder schools and they had to look at their numbers to see if they could take in our new students and they were they are able to and i'm sorry you just said that we couldn't back up because they're going to be staffing for our students which means they're they're making sure they have enough for our kids and these kids and these kids and these kids i don't know where they all come from that that's that's not here or there but if they're upping their staff somehow they're getting staffed because they must be we're giving them high i don't know that they're hiring staff they told us that they could take in our students i think we need to look at those guys so what i think what we've decided here of what we've heard here is uh ms bellotti is going to contact speed tomorrow yes she's going to find out what's the latest deadline and even so what's the penalty for us to pull out in august september if uh if we find that um you know we meanwhile can we up the antenna the other questions the other questions with mr brown your muscles need to be involved up front doctor cognitive yeah i mean let's at this point look the other thing i want to build on mr brown i haven't done yet a little bit is one of the things that you brought up was one of the questions is still could they can they teach here what's the difference i mean now the program and the kids are i said can they come here i mean we're missing that i understand can we hire people but why can't they come here but the other part is mr brown is right and i mean i'm and i'm telling you right now i'm sorry to say this but a couple months ago parents were here right they were frustrated and unfortunately thursday they had a parent meeting with someone they're frustrated with why hasn't i crime up the ladder to to address that i mean i i mean look at this i mean there's you're right i mean dr hall brought it up mr brown this is cannot be a done deal in this moment i understand timing everybody understands the respect level of telling a parent august first i'm sorry i have nowhere to go or telling them now but you can do that one if you've done all your homework like we've discussed but two i'm going to tell you now that the relationship that these parents have with the district is not good i mean the communication part of it is terrible and i'm i'm and i'm telling you the word communication in this district is awful it's all the way around like top to bottom and now we have parents here and the communication here is is again two three months ago we had parents here complaining you know about what's going on with the director and now here we're in the same spot and that person's letting all the what all the parents thought i mean come on the seven of us are sitting here going you know what do we do you know and now we're caught in in the middle of this and and here we are mr brown asked it what do we do dr hall asked it what do we do like did we do we exhaust everything um have we even talked about any of these of bringing them in and we talked about anything about adding the stipends or whatever if we can i mean miss roop is in a negotiation right now for uh acme has she been approached you no i am i'm sorry miss gilbert has anybody been brought up in in that meeting that that's what we're talking about that's the thing we haven't gotten sorry i can't really disclose anything but we're not to that we've only had like two meetings and the first was to tell us what we were doing so i mean again my question here is what are they doing to get teachers that we aren't doing number two when were these parents informed that it was ending have there been talks all along that this was a possibility okay unfortunately i can't let you um if if somebody else decides but i don't have that authority well i was i was going to ask could we go a little bit outside of our regular procedure now that we've had a discussion to let parents say something or i think we need to hear what what they've gone through i mean and what are we going to do if if they end up having to go to speed what are we going to do to integrate these children who only know this environment are we just going to show up the first day and throw them in a classroom i sure as hope not because that will be extremely traumatic i mean what is our plan if we have to go to speed how are we going to bring these children along that they're going to a different location i'm so i mean those i have more questions but those are my major ones and i really really really want to know how they're getting teachers and we're not yeah well i see my i guess my confusion is you just said that you continuously uh stated that they needed to prepare to staff and then when asked the question how are they getting teachers and where not you say well you don't know if they're getting teachers so you don't know if they need to staff or do they need the staff what i guess they assured us that they could welcome our students and so that would imply that they had the staff available so they don't need to get any other staff so that means that they can we can talk to them and you said you're gonna call i get that so you're gonna call to see about making sure that we can wait because is it a matter of if another district comes along with more kids or that they have to go out and hire because they have to go out and hire then we need to do the same thing so well go back to your original question yes this is the first time we're discussing this right true that's that's one thing i wanted to say i didn't want to throw anybody under the bus but my disappointment was that we get emails saying we're informed that the board knows and we didn't i saw it on facebook friday night i was going to email but i know that sometimes i do miss stuff so i wanted to make sure i went back to reread everything to see that i didn't miss it i know we have we have talked we had parents here like bill said and problems were because we were short staffed so i mean we we were aware that we are short staffed so i do understand that but we it never was stated that we would most likely have to eliminate the whole program and so i felt a little blindsided and i and and that's why i didn't answer any emails because i i just wasn't prepared to say anything yet because we hadn't had the discussion maybe we were going to invite everybody here tonight but i asked that we did that for the parents and um thank you for coming out i'm glad to see this many parents but um yeah so i'm just a little disappointed in the process but nelson if we could go a little bit outside of procedures i think we could either have a second public comment now or we could do one after all of the administrative updates i think that the parents got some answers or some feelings and some of the things that we've all brought up and i would like to be able to hear those no no i'm saying is the public comments should probably put in if well i think that we've made them sit here this far let's so do board members have any other questions for ellen or or or lyle or for dr dr cara on the presentation no no no if not then um any parents who would like to speak we have our kind of oh well we need we do need have we do have a procedure we do have a procedure we do have a procedure for public comments so let's still follow that but you need to just fill this out take one and then and then hand it back to me and so we have your name okay just just put your name down so and maybe they also want to tell them about repetitive questions you may want to tell them about repetitive questions yeah repetitive of course they may be asking i think one person is going to speak for all right and who's speaking okay okay and she is jillian going to speak for everyone is that that you want to speak to okay can you guys hear me okay no no can you hear me yes okay please bear with me i was not prepared to speak tonight and i'm very emotional about this matter so please bear with me while i get my thoughts together here i want to start off by saying that my name is jillian summers i was born and raised in crete i went graduated from crete money school district in 2002.

i don't know how you feel but would you want your six-year-old in school with a 22 year old who has behavioral problems i am very concerned that our amazing district who thus far has served my children phenomenally wants to move them out of district just because he has autism so i plead with you the board who i was told on friday with a call to miss belotti that you were aware of this and had approved of this i plead with you to please find a different solution my child deserves to be educated in his neighborhood with his neighbors with neurotypical children so that he can learn and grow and prosper as he's been doing speed serves children with very low incidence disabilities i'm a nurse so i feel confident sharing some of this with you schizophrenia for one children with behavioral problems cerebral palsy so my my child who is incredibly smart and gifted but non-verbal is going to go to school with these children and learn from these children and those will be his peers and his role models instead of the the neurotypical children he's attending school with now i know most of you are parents so i i hope you put yourself in my shoes for a minute and try to understand the difficulty that we're facing a lot of our parents here feel just the same as i do because just because our child needs a little bit of extra help they don't belong in the district anymore and please tell me why they can take three classrooms full of children at speed but we can't get one more teacher here or a few more aides here i don't understand um i have been told that most of the teachers at speed work on contracts i don't know like for a year or you know i'm not educated on on that particular issue but i just don't understand if it's a lack of staffing why can't we work harder to fix that so an entire group of children is not segregated from their home district if my child was appropriate for speed that would be indicated on his iep and given the fact that we just had an iep meeting a month ago and our team of professionals teachers therapists and my son's parents agreed that that replacement is far too restrictive for his learning so now all of a sudden i'm expected we are expected to line up like ducks and sign off on this and send our children out of district because miss blotti says so also i did request information about this in writing for miss blotti both verbally and via email and was told to come here and this is where i would get my answers so do any of you have any questions for me well i just want to thank you you said that school year you graduated i think you might be a classmate of my daughter kimberly brown i don't know if you know her okay and she's a special uh she's a teacher with a special ed endorsements and she have talked to me over many years in numerous cases and and the heart and passion she has for kids so i hear your passion and i really i'm empathetic sympathetic the whole nine yards thank you and again i want to reiterate we should not find reasons not to do something we should find reason to do it exactly and it feels as though our kids have just spent i mean to be honest our children and multi-needs are the most vulnerable in the district and so i don't understand why of all of the changes that could happen because of a lack of staffing it's our children that suffer first i moved to crete from beecher because they wanted to send my child out of district to school and when i came to crete and interviewed with miss testa at the elc i was told crete educates our own your child will have a place here so please imagine how i'm feeling that all of a sudden i'm being told my child no longer has a place here please consider other options i will continue to advocate for my child's rights determining placement for the next four years when it should be done annually and based on a child's individual needs is not okay and i'll keep fighting so i hope that you as as our board members are elected officials use your powers to please change this and make sure that my child can stay all of our children can stay in their district well we here again if i'm sure all of the board members again i don't want to speak for them but what i've heard from our my colleagues here your child is as well as the rest of the kids that's in this program has a position here thank you thank you very much jillian thank you very much for your time for sharing your heart you can give it to me hello can you hear me my name is lasham graham and i have two children in the district i've had three so i recognized one of the principles for balmoral my curtis graham went there and he graduated from the middle school and he's over at marion he's a sophomore there and i have two children that are still in the district and one is bust out to speed right now for behavioral issues not ashamed of it at all he is adhd and the district made the decision that they could no longer deal with his behavioral issues when he was in kindergarten and i didn't know enough when i was dealing with him and so i allowed those things to happen and what i do know as a parent of a sixth grader that's been dealing with speed since he was in kindergarten is that they do not and i can say this with assurance they do not have the staffing at speed to accommodate our kids my child is in sixth grade he's had five teachers this school year at speed i am very familiar with both programs independents as well as elc i have members that are teachers in the elc that's a part of my fraternity sorority and they often speak to me about the challenges that go on at elc i can absolutely tell you that when i speak to the vice principal at speed she talks to me about the challenges now i have my ieps at speed and i have a mediator from this district that meets me over there and one of the challenges that i often speak about is getting him back to his home school because fee cannot accommodate his safety christian's been beat up on the bus twice this school year i filed a complaint about his safety on the bus coming from 527 regent road in university park and going over there miss belotti and i are very familiar with each other as well as the social workers that are involved from this district that travel to that district to deal with my child my daughter is layla graham layla is eight layla is non-verbal layla is different from my christian because my christian can tell you what's going on with him he can speak for itself he can fight for herself she cannot she has a rare genetic condition called ring 18.

and then looking at the the picture on the right you'll see the the four arrays a b and c are arrays that are sitting on greenfield development so those will be your traditional um post mounted uh solar arrays uh ray d is on the capitol landfill so what you'll see with the ray d is there will be no ground penetration there those will be ballast mounted um basically sitting on concrete blocks that would be on top of the cap of the of the landfill so no penetration of that and just quickly i want to add a few questions that i saw come in to how come we're not more on the landfill regulation um basically what ends up happening and we designed separately then we found a nesting bird so we had to downsize so we're really maximizing every i mean every it feels like foot that we have any viable solar potential on site making sure we're not interfering with other uses especially natural system uses that are on site there was also a question about pollinator habitat and we are working really hard with dnr to make sure we can have that now you can imagine the cap landfill is really regulated there are a lot of things we cannot do on that landfill there are put more potential in the greenfield sites but even in that space because of permitting issues we're i mean we're committed to doing as much pollinator habitat as we can i just can't tell you today what that looks like because we're still working with dnr to figure out specifically what species would be allowed and uh when we're gonna be able to plant kind of broadly and then mike teed up no floating solar once again here was another one we learned this water is considered waters of the state because of how big it is which means it's regulated by the state which means the only way we would be able to put floating solar on it is by demonstrating there was nowhere within i believe it was a five mile radius in the city that solar could go and it had to be this spot we can't right because there are lots of places solar could go so instead of fighting that fight we decided we were gonna take that off of the project and we're working instead with the eagle to try to change those rules because that's prohibitive for a lot of potentially good use cases going forward so it doesn't mean we can't eventually add floating solar it just means for the sake of speed and that fight that that was a fight that we were going to take in a different direction for another day so just wanted to share why that fell mike you want to take subscriptions yeah yeah we'll do um so what this will look like to to everyone including the city pittsfield township and subscribers um so this is going to be a subscription model like migrant power as i mentioned before dt will finance the entire project so there is no capital outlay so what will happen is um we'll mold this into a levelized cost energy subscription model and the way that works if you're not subscribed to migraine power is you have a subscription price that's based on the levelized cost energy basically the cost of the project um drives that and that's a it'll be a dollar cent per kilowatt hour and you'll also receive the financial benefits of the project so that's the community solar aspect right you subscribe into it you're paying for a portion of the project but in return you get the benefits from it the benefits come in terms of our market value of the capacity credit and the energy and so that's uh that's what we've been doing with migraine power it's an approved method and so that's the piece where inside the settlement the mpsc our michigan public service commission uh was very generous in improving this as well uh it's it's already there it's a it's a defined method that's that's put out there for these types of projects so we don't have any regulatory risk in getting this move through them or we have low regulatory risk in that nature um as we've talked about before gt is going to be solely responsible for the operations and the maintenance of the site and what's what's neat about this is because it is a subscription model on a cent per kilowatt hour or a dollar per megawatt hour if it doesn't produce we don't recover cost and so the onus is on us to keep this thing up and running to keep this thing pushing out as many green electrons as possible and that's really a cool aspect from the customer side is dt is on the hook to keep it running thanks mike so new development because this work is never easy um some of you may know and i think actually chuck you could probably talk about this more than the rest of us that the federal government recently opened an investigation into potential tariff penalties pretty significant uh penalties for the solar market and there is a lot that we do not know it is moving very fast what we do know is that um this is a potential reflection moment some are calling it an existential crisis for the solar industry and for those of us trying to move renewable energy forward this is you know like days in the development so we're all waiting to figure out what this is going to mean for all kinds of projects broadly we are seeing industry-wide cancellations costs are escalating on projects because of this uncertainty and this potential 200 percent plus tariff you know that's a that's a really big deal and we don't have a sense on if it's fully grandfathered if it's going forward what's in what's out it's quite a complex landscape so we're sharing that uh what we've taken the stance on is we're committed to this project we are going to continue getting as much information literally we're getting i mean last week we were getting calls by the hour trying to figure out what's happening within the market we're committed to moving the project forward we are waiting on a little bit more clarity about what's included in this investigation what the tariffs are likely to be and we are obviously looking for as any panels sitting on a shelf somewhere that happened to be made in the u.s because that's great but the us is a very small manufacturer of solar panels and so this is painful reality that we're sort of in at the moment but i want to reiterate that all of us we've had multiple calls between all the project partners and we are we're committed to this project we just have to see we just have to learn more about this investigation mike is there anything you want to add no miss i i think he covered it it's a it's a very dynamic marketplace and there's a lot of supply demand shortages and risk in terms of this tariff so a lot of uncertainty out there yeah yeah absolutely so just to kind of close out uh for next steps we brought the project forward to you i know we brought the resolution because our initial attempt uh our initial intent was to be a council on may 5th and we had already pref we prepped council members we prepped the michigan public service commission that we were coming shortly thereafter and uh we have a little bit more time as we're seeing the impacts of that last slide in this investigation that's taking place but we wanted to bring this project to you hear your thoughts uh should this be something you're supportive of that's great we can we can move you know forward as soon as we get clarity on what's happening with the investigation uh but just so you know what comes after we will go to city council for consideration of the project uh i don't have a date certain again because of the last slide but we will come as soon as we can come and feel really confident with the pricing mechanisms we will have a public information session for folks to kind of listen learn more share feedback we then file with the michigan public service commission for formal approval uh we've already briefed them and prepped them we've answered questions we we hope and i think our soft expectation is that was pretty quickly because they're really supportive of the project and then we break ground and uh while we're doing that we're recruiting people uh to sign up into the program or just letting them know that it's even an option to sign up into the program and then we produce and we reduce emissions so that's the that's the timeline kind of broadly and i'm sorry i can't give you certain dates i wish i could i could have two weeks ago but the world is changing so with that i'm gonna stop and see what other questions you have so questions and there have to be some or or maybe um i might ask uh mike and missy uh you received um two emails um hopefully you have those emails in front of you or can pull them up um i did my best to sort of look through them to see that you have addressed most of them but i'm wondering if you can look at those and rather than us going through the formalities of calling on people and everything like that um if you can see if there's anything that stands out to you that maybe wasn't covered that members of the community or members of the commission already submitted in advance that just might be more efficient yeah you're gonna see us reading them i think because we tried we tried to integrate them so i ask one question um it sounds like the dte is responsible for operations and maintenance does that mean dte is also assuming liability or what liabilities are resting with the city and which if any are lying with dte that was one thing important to us um and also in terms of advising city council that we thought was important how's that being handled the split of liability make you want to take that i'm getting the next one ready sure um so john thank you for the question so we have we are in final negotiations as well with a special contract which would govern this agreement um what it's so i can't speak exactly to how it's going then but um dt has been the developer we would take on the risk for the development on top of the cap landfill the duration and longevity of that risk is obviously going to be something that's in the contract but as you can imagine the developer would be responsible for what happens online as we're constructing the solar array i see another question that uh there's two i'm sorry john i can't see you because i'm looking at the questions better you look at the questions than me no no no no if i cut you off just please tell me no no that wasn't intentional um there was kind of a two-part question one about the cost and the truth is i can't answer that right because the market is topsy-turvy at the moment so i can't i know people want to know i just can't give you that answer um the other was does the city reserve the right before you leave that topic um i assume that at some point there might be an out that the city that's where i was going to take as well as dte and say this this project is no longer viable or we cannot provide um the cost that makes a project like this make sense and at that point there would be an exit ramp and um there would be you know no no further cost to the city or the dte that's right yeah thank you for taking that's where i was going to go the second part of one of the questions was that like what if the price is too high so you heard um mike also say that they were still in final negotiations with the epc the contractor so like final pricing is like being negotiated and then the market adds that uncertainty so that's random but we reserve the right in all the contracts to walk away if the pricing was too high where we were two weeks ago was it wasn't i mean it was reasonable here we are now we've had lots of conversations about what too high means and like what does it act like 200 of a cost of an asset like we're out like we all know that like dt can't justify spending that much money on an asset we can't justify spending that much money on an asset but is that the truth you know so uh we to the essence of your in the core of your question yes both parties have the right to walk away if the pricing gets unreasonable and we have agreed to kind of eat our own costs you know we've all put in a lot of time and effort that have not been reimbursed paid for up front we've agreed if if in good faith we walk away okay i don't want to walk away john don't make me walk away like just fix the markets please i'll just ask a couple of questions at the top of my head i'm trying to turn it off but i think this is pretty clear um dte owns the asset right so it's not the city is not owning the asset we don't we continue on the land obviously yeah but the dde right okay um let's see and what what how is the power generated going to be shared between the various entities i think originally part of the energy generator was going to be um going to be uh essentially offsetting or going to pittsfield township for their municipal operations is that still the the part of the three-way contract yes it's not the contract each contract is individual with dte but what we've negotiated in the special contract that goes before the public service commission is pittsfield township gets the first megawatt of production so they would well roughly they would subscribe i know i see mike's face because it's more nuanced than that but generally speaking they get the right in the first kind of rite of refusal within that system and then others subscribe and ann arbor is effectively the the cleanup we come in whatever as a city is not subscribed and we off take which is why there's i mean hence how it sort of works for community subscriptions mike what do you want to fix no no not fix anything i i'll add a library just to touch on the subscription so it is uh it's going to be set up as a percentage based subscription for everyone except for ann arbor and arbor as mrs said will be uh the remaining amount of megalod hours not subscribed to but pittsfield township has a section and a right to subscribe to 85 of their load which would plus the 15 percent of renewable portfolio standard would take them to 100 percent right [Music] so that that makes sense i mean basically once the project is go ahead and we can lock in the contracts and that includes also for the panels and everything you know what prices there's essentially no risk that um the pro the uh the energy generators is not going to be used i mean that you have clear off takers in every single case where ann arbor sweeps up anything that may not be taken okay good that's clear um i i'm i'm gonna recognize anybody else that has a question um if you want to raise your hand um missy and mike is there anything else to see i'm looking yeah i'm looking i mean i think we hit most of them but people might want to go in more depth um i do want to add we might talk about the financing that dt is financing and there's a lot of benefits to that one also being we're not taking on more debt that frees up municipal debt that we can apply towards other projects whether that's portal housing uh infrastructure projects etc so that's another thing that we haven't touched on yet uh wanna drive home we're not stopping with community solar and i know i mentioned that uh community solar legislation at the state everyone at dt knows this we talk about it all the time uh that is something we care a lot about but it's not legal now and think what else i i had someone from the community emailed me today had looked at the presentation and um they had a question about the power generated i think it was 35 million megawatt hours per year and the question was um that seemed high to this individual and i'm just curious is there tracking or are these bifacial or what kind of things are we doing to get that high level of generation good question let's go for it mike sure so so it's 35 000 megawatt hours oh sorry is expected in the first year of generation and they are they are likely going to be bifacial uh panels they will not be tracking and the reason they won't be tracking is the the size the land constraint we have your best bet of about getting value out of it is to jam pack as many fixed tilt solar panels in there as possible very good the tracking just takes a lot more lane do people that know a lot more than this than i do with their hands up so i'm going to uh let them pose some questions commissioner hook up i i could go into a lot of questions but it is typical i will not i will be kind tonight and just stick to a one or two um i was going to ask kind of about john's question but maybe to carry it a step further is there a pv sys model or some model of the infrastructure that might be available would you mind asking again we got some feedback so i just want to make sure we heard that yeah i got real bad feedback here um i assume that dte modeled this in a couple different ways it's not single axis track but it's fixed tilt but there's a whole lot of other modeling parameters that we look into and things like density pitch you know two portrait two landscape all kinds of ways to stack these to create the density that you're doing um how much exercise was undertaken to fit that it sounds like a lot mike can just kind of give us a feedback on is this p50 p70 p90 what kind of outfit conditions are you looking at yeah thank you um so so the part of the short list uh work that we did with the four epc vendors that made it through the first round was we did refine where how they were designing it and uh and asked them to run pvsys models and provide those to us uh based on uh two criteria one being um optimize and levelize cost energy but the second one being output and so really looking to maximize the output on that on that portion of land with the lowest cost of energy possible uh i don't recall what the probability um confidence interval is and i would i would guess once we once we strike the deal and we move forward the pvsys models can could be made available upon request thank you commissioner kerber with all the bluebirds in the background actually they're swallows tree swallows anyway as far as the community solar offering is it going to be i mean you already have my green power that you offer as as an alternative is this only going to be made available to residents of the city and pittsfield township people in the county what what is the area that it's going to be offered in yeah yeah it was like a race to mute uh the way that we have talked about this is it's offered to anyone in dt service territory now from our standpoint like the city's standpoint we're going to be working really closely with pittsfield to make sure our residents know about it and have the the chance to subscribe kind of first in line but anyone in the service territory will have the opportunity to sign up for so it'll have to compete with my green power yeah i mean you could think of it that way could it cannibalize my green power i i don't think i understand how that would even happen like supplant demand for migraine power you mean yeah i mean if i'm on my green power and i'd rather be on this and does that mean that my green power gets reduced and this goes up there you have glitching like theoretically it could but i think demand is high for renewables such that that is unlikely to be the outcome i think what's more likely is more renewables get built because it demonstrates people have a high desire for local renewable energy systems but i guess theoretically mike do you i completely agree with you missy it's it it could technically cannibalize some of the migrant power customers that are and we have a a good portion that are living in the city of ann arbor but i i don't see that as being a concern we are our program's expanding every day um and we're running out of capacity so adding more capacity for customers you know to subscribe this is a complimentary offer so i view this as a really good addition to the program and it's it's local all of our projects are mission based um but this is a little closer than some other ones o'shea was really close to folks in detroit and right off of 96 but yeah i think it's just another complimentary offering that helps us increase our consumption across thank you i guess one question i think for members of the community that might still be open is an explanation missy from you possibly of when this project was started there was not even the idea of an seu oh i see that we have questions from um edie and ember but i'll go ahead since i'm halfway through there was not even the idea of an seo now there's this idea of an seu it's not a reality it hasn't been approved by city council for that matter it's not funded you know there's lots of steps with that um but at least there's this dangling idea of an scu out there and people are i think projecting that idea onto this project and thinking well why wouldn't we take this as an asset and i think you've addressed this um but maybe i'll let you address it one more time so it's clear to everybody why why not associate this with the scu um and you talked about speed and things like that but i'm wondering if if there's anything else that you've thought of in the meantime that really addresses that question yeah so there are many ways about that when we don't have an seo right so we while that is something we are actively you will hear in staff updates starting to get feedback on very exciting that is not that's not an instrument that we have second is speed third even if we do have an scu we don't project community solar until much later in the process and the point is to do distributed systems rooftop solar and storage systems first very limited pools and wires you know because the goal is not distribution the goal is generation and so this would not come quick in that process so the speed plays itself in multiple ways like speed of seu speed of emissions reduction speed of renewables on the grid and then the last thing you know we've i've been really open mike knows this um we talk about it with them that if the community moves in the direction this is an asset that that could be an asset that the seo acquires you know that's just real i won't pretend that that's loved by everyone but you know it's an asset that exists that doesn't that would exist that doesn't today and so in my mind i don't understand why we would wait if the objective is to get as much renewables as we can on the grid and this is a way to do that and i think the other thing is is that we don't really have a load that we could connect to i mean people have mentioned well we could do vehicle charging we could do bus charging we could do the city doesn't have buses you know we don't have a bus facility there we don't have a university michigan bus system there so this is not really as i understand it and i'm i'm asking you and others to challenge this um but it seems to me there isn't a practical load that we can transmit to and you know even if we had an scu they're going to be people scattered all around the city and i don't know how we would we'd uh essentially transfer that power to all of these distributed uh demand points you'd have to set up a really intense uh distribution system to do that and it is true like we have looked at how to maximize on-site and we've thought about we're getting our two first electric refuse trucks can we set up a charging station there but it operationally doesn't make sense given how the trucks come and go and so that doesn't quite work wheeler is one of the sites for the roof the solar projects that council funded through arbor funding and we have at a 97 offset you know like it we just we don't have usage on the site that makes sense and that's really close by it's kind of the push in the pull of the most viable land that we have for something like this just isn't next to our heavy users mr juno thank you um i just wanted to clarify i mean i in the fact sheet on the landfill solar and in a lot of the coverage it looks like they are referring to this as something within the migraine power program so is that not the case and are we just kind of or it is a separate entity yeah uh mike you wanna do you wanna take that one yeah i can take it over and feel free to chime in if you if you have a different take on it um so the migraine power program is our umbrella brand over our volunteer renewable energy program which is normally referred to as section 61 which is just a legislation that enables it so to dt this looks and feels the exact same as any of our other migrant power projects except for it is a project that's priced specifically based on one location as opposed to our migraine power portfolio is cost average together and as we bring new projects online we bring that pricing down as as projects are cheaper and if they're not cheaper than we will probably build another pricing portfolio that starts off with a different price point but the goal of migraine power portfolio is really just cost averaging and keep everyone's uh rates as cost-effective as possible mccoy sorry just really quickly adding on to that last piece is that the that is right like from how dt is thinking about it from our perspective yes and is how i would respond to that community solar if you look at nrl's definition is not there isn't one flavor of community solar there are multiple different manifestations and it works in different regulatory contexts right minneapolis is a different construct and a different ability to be able to move than we have here which is different than what's happening in massachusetts but they're all sort of framed broadly for us this is about the community being able to make some decisions about how and where and and the systems that it's constructing to be able to power its operations or its life so that's that's a really important kind of piece to us is that that co-design and being at the table actually figuring out what systems look like and getting the benefit of those systems but also bearing the cost of those systems right like that's that's part of the equation of the project thank you uh commissioner mccoy yeah thank you um i have two questions i guess i'll ask the first one um this one first because it relates to edie and larry's comments about mind green power i'm just curious mike if you could talk about like the current demand for my green power relative to its capacity um so i'm curious how like adding this project to that um you know may influence that like if it's likely that a lot of people outside of ann arbor in our marketing will want to take it up for example um i'll start there and i'll second one after that sure yeah the the demand is unprecedented for migraine power we uh as shown in the section 61 and settlement that we talked about we we asked for another 300 400 plus megawatts to support demand um we're currently oversubscribed in terms of large commercial customers um which is great and that's really the way the program was set up was uh to to pull the subscriptions in or the contracts in first and then go out and ask for google and build those projects to come um because the the mechanism is there to just completely fulfill demand as it comes in we do have some opening in our smaller non-contracted non-contracted program which is what residential and small commercial would subscribe to that is quickly filling up um we in the settlement we had a small update to the program that allowed us to blend all of our projects together so that small customers residential customers and large customers all buy into that same portfolio which is really great deal for our small customers and residential customers and it's uh it's driving the the price point down and it's really bringing a lot of demand and so um this project will continue to push that i think i think what we're seeing here is there's more to it than just price price is a big driver for a lot of folks but there's some folks that really like that locality and the in the solar aspect of being being able to see it feeling and know the electrons are being pushed to your distribution okay that's helpful thanks and now i have a follow-up question so i actually have three questions um so nathan you had mentioned that like you know the city will do a lot of advertising to try to you know make sure that local residents know about this new opportunity so i'm curious like are are we going to be able to access this like exclusively first or is it just that we'll be able to get ahead in marketing you know before other people have the opportunity to fill it up or will it be open to everyone and we're just hoping our marketing means that residents will get to it first yeah good question we we know about it before everyone else knows about it so the way we thought about kind of the initial subscriptions is once the public service commission approves it it won't be available for other people to subscribe to yet because it won't be listed anywhere right it's not producing but we can start forming the waitlist by doing the outrage and the engagement through the city and in tandem with pittsfield township so that's the way we thought about it although now i'm intrigued about thinking about exclusive rights i think our lawyers will kill me if i come back with another edit to our contract but i'm going to hold that thought so thank you for it okay thanks um and then my other unrelated question was just that um you know because dte did the request for proposals i know you walked through the elements that were a part of um that from dte's perspective but i'm just curious um if you could speak to i guess this is a question for missy how that compares to the new request for proposals pro process that we just enacted i know like the timing is so that you know this i don't think this would have fallen under the new law anyways had i never done it but i'm just curious um how they compare to our new policy for that full alignment um in fact gta is more aggressive than what the city has because we can't they can have requirements that we can't have as a private entity so if you think about like the responsible contractor uh work yeah it all made its way uh all that language made its way through the the contracting process and then they took our non-discrimination clauses they basically took everything else that we have too and that was part of the language in the contract everyone had to prove every better that they were in adherence with those policies okay great thank you other questions so mike i want to thank you and the dte team for partnering with us and i'm sure missy put you through the ringer and we did a little bit of that tonight both you and missy missy again thanks for your comments um i think unless i see any other hands raised that we can move on to the resolution and what i would like to point out is uh i we attempted to go through uh all the questions that were proposed both by commissioners as well as in the email um from a2p2 and we may have missed the one or the other act question but this is not the only hurdle and we saw that there are several next steps and this will also have to go eventually to council and so if there's something really important that's been missed i would just say to members of the community as well as to members of the commission that we have an opportunity to weigh in with our questions and concerns before this finally goes through so this is not the one and last opportunity for us to to pose questions and make sure that we're doing the right thing in the interests of the city as well as um voters and uh property owners here in ann arbor so thanks very much for tonight's presentation you see do you want to move on then to the next agenda point which is the resolution of support yeah absolutely and i want to emphasize too that we put this together assuming we were on the timeline to go to council at an upcoming meeting um i think realistically we could view this like normal resolutions that this is just the first time kind of considering and getting general feedback and we can bring it back if that's fine with you chair um because we don't i i don't think i'm going to be standing in front of councilmember briggs and rodina on the fifth with a project and the markets have sorted themselves out but if i'm wrong i apologize in advance and i'm so excited uh but yeah so maybe i'll leave that to the conversation i mean this this is apparently may not have the sense of urgency on the other hand if there's not a lot of concerns um then we can talk about that and maybe we go ahead and take a vote tonight so we'll leave that open um but why don't you bring that up i think everybody's had a chance to look at it it's been posted since late last week it's relatively straightforward missy i'll let you run through [Music] the document i don't know if we need to go through the whole thing um hopefully people have had a chance to look at it sure i'll just share um we i know at energy commission meetings we don't often have this memo this memorandum is background it is something that we give to council so we just decided to go ahead and draft it especially because this project has had a life and some of that life was earlier than some of the commissioners so this is just background uh to be fair and then the resolution itself looks pretty similar to the presentation uh acknowledging that we've got our carbon neutrality goal strategy one 100 renewables two of those actions under strategy one as we talked about our community solar and the landfill solar project that we've been working on this for a while to design it and we intervened in the rate case i'm sorry not the rate case uh the vgp section 61 and got the settlement that we got acknowledging that the community solar if we want to move it forward is really it is only possible through collaboration with our industrial utility dte and then uh goes to i mean punch points that we just talked about but the final result is just a support and asking council to move it forward in a timeline that gets to the fastest ground breaking possible if possible in 2022 that's my goal but yeah thank you for that quick overview i'd like to ask for a motion to consider the resolution and a second if there is indeed a second and then we'll open it up for discussion a move mr chair and a second uh commissioner juno seconds so commissioner george and then commissioner juno uh comments questions uh comments of concern comments of support how do people feel about this it's not that late everybody i love it john so i i'll i'll talk for a second not very long i've i've been on commission now for several years um and like missy said this goes back now several years um i was one of several current and past commissioners that attended a public forum um out in uh pittsfield township um presenting this and oh and no i'll get to you in just a second um and um i i think um as with any major project like this um these are not black and white projects where you know it's either all bad or all good um and i think what we've seen here is that um while there are some concerns and maybe there are some things we would have liked to have done differently um my personal opinion is is that we need to do everything we can to accelerate uh greenhouse gas emissions reductions um this is one way of doing it some people might argue that we could just steer people to my green power but i think actually we're going to get a lot of additional subscript subscribers by having our own program and going this way um i'm i'm supportive of the project um commissioner levine uh yeah i just wanted to also go ahead and say that i am also supportive of this project i i do also understand some of the concerns that have been raised most by the public and people on the commission and particularly when with respect to the additive properties of this project and how it will you know whether or not we're just moving electrons closer to ann arbor and stuff like that and i i do think the way misty described it really makes it clear that a project on the landfill is complicated um it probably won't be happening at all right now or at least for you know three or four years however long it takes if we weren't going to do it this way so you know i do really think that it is important to get projects going and you know from what like john kind of said you know every avenue that we can to get more renewables i think is a valuable way um it doesn't totally i don't think it you know prevents us in the future from doing something else within scu or other other ideas that we might want to do and you know it it's it's just going to be a lot faster and then waiting and i i do support going this avenue at this time others uh there's people on the commission that um i imagine have a viewpoint and have a lot of experience and or or maybe no experience but still a viewpoint does anybody else want to weigh in uh commissioner peck thanks you know i gotta support it too um probably like everybody it feels like a darn poison pill or something what dte is doing to on one hand partner with folks all smiling and doing their solar and then at the same time are really doing grave danger or damage to the state of michigan with their political activities and the way they spend our money against our best interests it really upsets me but i think we do need to go forward we got to say you know one way or the other we're going to do this climate action can't wait for the bad actors all to get on board so let's do it and i am a my green power guy you know that's that's uh i spent a lot of my extra money on that and i will want to switch over to the ann arbor one um but i'm happy to get my green power either place and it's obviously pretty darn symbolic but we just need more we need more solar panels in the state of michigan thank you more solar panels and less natural gas plants right any other comments any thoughts or preferences on taking a vote this evening or postponing and having an opportunity to put this out to pasture for a month and taking a vote in may i think uh mr chair i'm in favor of taking a vote on it now i don't hear anyone opposed to that so we have a oh commissioner i would only say an opposite maybe that we didn't have a chance to read this until fairly recently you know the whole project's kind of evolving i'm i'm a little bit concerned about the subscription rate that's going to evolve from this you know if it if the subscription rate from a singular project comes out and it's it's high even if we want to be symbolic and buy that power it's going to be more costly than migraine power and to larry's point maybe earlier there will be some dissension amongst the ranks as to how this gets dealt with um it's a little bit confusing being the first one out of the block i think having an opportunity for i'll call it community solar light is good i think we all need to have access and a lot of people don't so i'm cautious i'd i wouldn't mind having a kick at the resolution once and and seeing it passed in may i don't think losing a month is a big deal just my two cents thanks for weighing in i have a question of you missy and that is and maybe this is putting you on the spot but if the costs were to come in higher than the blended typical migraine power costs would that be potentially or likely a reason to take an exit ramp on this project well i mean i don't imagine why we think they would not come in higher of course they would come in higher because it's a landfill and there are more complications it's not you know 100 greenfield hundred megawatt system so no we've already assumed they're gonna come in higher that doesn't scare me i mean what what i often hear from stakeholders is they really will prioritize a local project and maybe not everyone will but i think that i would be shocked if it comes in at the same price as everything else okay excellent sure it's also expensive right so think about location too so there's just elements there right i guess one one advantages is that dte is not paying for any sighting fees or anything like that that's one but that's probably a small small amount in the grand scheme of things yeah if we had them pay sighting fees we would just have to pay them back because it would just get built into the cost so yeah so we have um two opinions uh what i would recommend is that we take a vote and um for those who would rather wait until may uh that you vote no that's just my recommendation you may vote no for other reasons um and for those who feel comfortable enough uh voting on this now and to move this forward and comfortable enough with the process uh going forward and being able to intervene at a later point in time if we any of us think that's necessary or as a body and we could also come up with a whole new resolution that says hey um we recognize something else has gone on um then we could essentially rescind or modify what we what we act on tonight any comments on that i think that makes sense man okay great so um all those in favor of the resolution as drafted um and missy made a small revision that hopefully you all saw um please say i and raise your hands i i and all those opposed so commissioner hook um and commissioner mccoy and any abstentions oh and and uh commissioner kerber so we had three three negative votes so the uh the uh the resolution passes and miss missy oh he's i just have to get it for the notes so bear with me for a second i think we can go we can proceed though because okay good yeah so that uh is all the major um items on the agenda um missy is busy right now but she's next on the agenda so okay i have to wait for her and that is an osi report out yeah um well hi everyone it has been whirlwind as i feel like maybe is the new normal in our lives a few things to share well a lot of things to share with you all uh council last monday approved arpa spending which included a 4.5 million dollars for solar at city facilities so we have uh we've got those projects designed we did we just had a meeting today for final park sites kind of landing on those projects but what we've got is over four megawatts of system design and uh we are meeting with our contractors to understand the department of commerce investigation and how that's impacting them on thursday if it is all good to go we will be coming to council in may for final approval of those contracts meaning we'll be we'll be breaking ground on those projects and all summer long into the fall you'll see kind of ribbon cuttings for those systems which we're really excited about so that's uh that's that's really great we are uh also green rental housing was slated to come back you know we talked about that a month or so ago excited to come back next month but i wanted to share that public comment is now open on the draft standard so we'll be coming back to the commission to share what we heard from public comment but we also want your public comment so please take a look at those standards it's only open until friday end of day uh spread widely through your networks we want as much feedback as possible on that particular initiative i'm going to go back to osi but before i forget i want to acknowledge two other things happening in the city we're uh in the process of updating our multi-hazard mitigation plan of which climate is centered in that work and we actually picked a form a firm that brought on a climate scientist uh to help us because we're not that's not optional as we think about hazard impacts we just opened that up for public comment and feedback too so i'll send a note to all the commissioners i just got the url for for public comment shortly before the meeting so please uh share that too with your networks those who are interested other really exciting stuff to that's kind of going on is we soft launched the public outreach on the sustainable energy utility last week we are formally launching this week we're working on a mailer that will go to every household and business within the city we have social media kind of pushes and the whole point is to get the public's feedback on the concept of the seo and whether it's something they'd be interested in you can go to our website which is just a2gov backslash a2scu and you can see a whole bunch of materials we're working on a psa with communications right now but we have uh short faqs longer faqs we've got videos and the link to the survey is there to register feedback it's four questions really short and then it's the traditional demographic question of the city i also wanted to share last week the options analysis including the rfp uh for traditional municipalization was released so that's out for public comment i'm sorry for bidding at the moment that closes in a few weeks i don't remember the exact date but it's in may but that'll close so that's out too so both of the kind of big initiatives and then the overarching kind of energy options analysis that this body move forward uh for recommendations to counsel they're on the streets so we're getting feedback we're getting input we are uh running at those different initiatives we are also doing an electrification expo in july we're working with a bunch of partners to bring that together it'll be at the farmers market more details to come but just wanted to share in case anyone is listening we know electrification some things are sort of hidden for folks so we want to really daylight different appliances equipment and ways people can transition over i don't think i shared this with you because i think it was right after maybe i did we did submit a two million dollar proposal in partnership with the county to fund uh decarbonization efforts in the bryant neighborhood so i want to just take a moment and thank all of our collaborators community action network elevate uh the washington county office of community and economic development we had ibw 252 helping us with workforce training we had banks who are helping us think about intergenerational wealth accumulation it is a long shot but you can't wait if you don't get in the game so we submitted our proposal everything is crossed including my eyes but that manifests itself and we continue to run at that project which i i love and then i think last two things to share a20 a week uh you're going to start to see a lot about that coming out it's june 5th through june 11th begins with the dexter ann arbor uh race if anyone's running it we are helping it go zero waste this year all righty good for you we'll be at taste talking about delicious local sustainable food uh and then we're gonna do a tree event then we've got events all throughout the week and then we culminate on saturday with ann arbor summer festival uh saturday will be a 2-0 day at summer festival so uh we've got a lot of fun activities hope you can join us for some of those fun festivities and lastly i want to thank chuck hook uh chuck is uh i think we're trying to make this his last official meeting not because of anything bad but because we are likely going to hire chuck to come on board as a strategic energy advisor in the office and that would be a conflict to serve on this body and that body so i just wanted to take a moment while we had it to really thank chuck for all of the service that he does and share how excited i am to really get to dive much more deeply into his expertise and leverage it to do just transformational work so thank you chuck for your service on the commission for all these years and i'm sad to see you go from this body but i'm so excited to see you yeah kind of come a little bit closer to osa that's all sure you missy thanks chuck for all your service would this indeed be your last meeting i'm not sure you know i i guess i have to work that out with missy i don't know what the rules call for so i'm a little bit unclear on that but yeah it's been a pleasure working with all of you i've been on a long time it's um all old horses typically get led to the pasture hopefully my pasture is a little greener than some of the other pastures where horses go but i'm not too old i'm still young in the brain and in the heart that's what counts i guess so we'll keep trucking and hopefully our paths will all cross again i'm sure they will um keep up the great work on the commission i'm i won't be missed somebody else will jump in and have a lot more ambition than i do i'm a little bit stretched at times and maybe i wish i could have contributed more but i really enjoyed the time and um hope i made a little little bit of a difference thanks but chuck we're going to invite you back to make a presentation and when you're done we're going to say we're going to start with with a comment well we can ask a million questions about this but but we'll spare you okay uh we are now two updates from uh council liaisons and from commissioners we'll start with uh council members any updates i i don't think that i have any updates beyond what we've heard tonight that would be necessarily relevant to this group specifically um a city update of excitement is that our new city attorney started this week and so that is of note and so we are excited to have her on board i don't see commissioner i mean councilman briggs raising her hand so i will open it up to updates from all the commissioners is this the time where um the committees can report john go ahead yes indeed okay great thank you i'd like to uh provide a quick update the transportation electrification committee has been requested by um osi to provide an outline and an overview or inclusion in the city's standard specifications for design building and construction resources of installation of electric vehicle charging systems in the public rights voice so like the street side charging and what this will do is it will enable future um development and uh availability of street side ev charging at some point um in hopefully the near future but it uh regardless this is the beginning of what um it helps building inspectors it helps engineers it helps installers know what the requirements are for installing uh av charging stations both uh level two and uh dc fast chargers so that's the update for now thank you any news from any other commissioners i'd like to pass on one item of note that i think is important uh council members and missy correct me if i'm wrong but the pud for the ann arbor housing commission development at 350 south fifth which is the former y lot next to the blake transportation center has been approved by council and that foresees or has sustainability requirements including um just at a 30 000 foot level that it be in all electric um net zero development so i think that's i'm very positive and hopefully um as we get uh that goes out for requests for proposals uh that some of those proposals will potentially even go beyond that uh i think all of us remember that we passed a resolution encouraging um construction projects to use low embodied carbon materials um so hopefully some of the bids will reflect uh that desire and so i just wanted to mention that and i see that we have two hands up so that was the only thing i wanted to mention uh commissioner overpick quick and dirty i think the governor's substantially revised my healthy climate plan will be released on earth day so since that'll be after this and before our next meeting keep an eye out for that hopefully everybody will be smiling a little more as a result and missy i'm sorry i forgot two things that i just want to show the body knows obviously earth day uh please join us in a series of events and activities throughout the community that i can circulate what those are but also a piece of good news that i forget because i learned so late in the process as did jen hall but we got a three million dollar earmark to do solar and electrification and energy efficiency at affordable housing sites housing commission sites so that was a an iraq request we worked on together and we are super excited uh that we've we won it that is good news indeed council member briggs i think there must be more good news yeah i did think of one one uh small thing that might be of interest here um this came out of the environmental commission but um we did pass at the last council meeting that uh may will be um also known as nomo may so um if you would like to um not mow your lawn and get a little more time on your hands and do something good for the environment and help our pollinator habitat um that is something that we're promoting this this coming may joining with other cities across the nation to do this we can't cut our grass i like that you could and feel good about yourself i want to feel good by sitting you know sitting at my butt thank you i might mention i just did or had a prescribed burn done in my backyard this afternoon so just before our meeting so um i don't won't be doing any mowing back there either any any other comments from anyone i just want to give kudos to commissioner hookham for all of his work that he's done with the transportation electrification committee and uh there's no way we can be making the progress that we've been making and that we are making still without your participation and uh you're the gracious sharing of your experience and your deep deep knowledge thanks so much chuck thanks carlene you you way over blue what i'm providing you're doing a lot of the leadership i'm just kind of filling into little words and pieces so happy to do so very good oh commissioner juno yeah just real quickly um as as many of you are already aware the newest uh installment of the ipcc report came out this is focus on climate change mitigation has a lot of relevance um to the work that we do and and um to energy systems in general so um hopefully that's something we can essentially talk about at the next meeting in a little bit more detail and keck and i are planning to do a demystifying the ipcc report as well and the date for that and time has been set for may 12th 6 pm 6 pm right yeah very good it will be so great and we look forward to seeing you all in attendance right um missy i just want to reinforce one thing um i don't know if all commissioners got it i think i knew of one or two that didn't um and that is you talked about public outreach for the seo and if any commissioners are interested in doing that there were two training sessions but i think most of us are pretty well informed and you didn't miss a whole lot so someone's really interested in being a part of that public outreach as also an energy commission commissioner that would be certainly welcome i think from osi side and missy if they're interested they should email you correct okay great so that ends uh updates from commissioners unless i don't see anybody else and then we can move on to public input so this is our second opportunity for public comments for up to three minutes if you are watching on ctn please call 788-0099 or 877-853-5247 and enter 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i left for a while went to arizona and returned home to raise my children here i have three children two of whom are in the district one of whom is in the multi-needs program at csk he is a six-year-old first grader with autism and he started his school career here at the elc the programming has been phenomenal my child is growing and developing and flourishing and we have just been thrilled the staffing issues this year have been hard the teachers have struggled but i want you to know they've made it work the programming has been fantastic my child is making progress he loves to go to school he feels pride in his school please bear with me because i'm very emotional here so the thought of that being taken away from him because of a lack of staffing when we've had a lack of staffing all year is very disheartening to speak to miss belotti and her recent decisions i received an email last monday is that when you guys all received it last monday and we got a letter home in our children's folders on tuesday requesting that we'd be at a parent meeting at 4 30 pm on thursday so we got three days notice with no warning or description of what this meeting would be about we logged on to google thinking that it was discussions about programming for next year or changes and so unfortunately your children are no longer going to be able to be educated in our district you're going to have to go to speed cooperative that is the only placement available because your children has a special need and is in the multi-news program and we cannot serve them until they come back to sixth grade obviously most of us parents were blindsided we had no preparation or warning of this even have time to think of questions and the meeting ended rather quickly with us being told that meetings would be arranged for us to meet with speed as soon as next week and that iep meetings would be happening in the next two weeks to change placement i also wish to share with you i'm not a expert in special education law or procedures but i've had to learn a lot in my child's short life because unfortunately when you have a child with special needs everything is a fight um taking an entire group of children because they have a disability and placing them out of district is for sure against the law they have ieps which are individual education plans which means that each child's needs their social needs their psychosocial needs their emotional needs their academic needs are addressed based on them so to take an entire group of children and move them out of district to another program just because they have a disability is not only against the law it's segregation i'm sorry bear with me i know you had questions there are three classrooms three multi-needs classrooms at csk the children there have lunch with the general education application my son in particular loves to take walks and so he's with neurotypical children all the time at school if he goes to speed there is no exposure to neurotypical children from my research they serve children from preschool up to age 22.

she has developmental delays as well as global delays she started at ulc when i brought her to elc i was nervous i was crying every day because she was coming from a daycare that loved her that picked her up hugged her all the time and for the first time she was a big girl she was coming to the big school and she was coming for two and a half hours and it was tough to make the decision to allow her to even come to elc as a parent that works every day because i needed to figure out where she was going to be for the rest of the day right but i made it work because i knew that this was the best opportunity for her and so when she originally was getting ready to go to kindergarten she was supposed to start her kindergarten days at balmoral and that was the year that they moved the program to csk so layla's been a part of it since they transitioned that first year and from miss kolash to ms vilas this year they have loved on my daughter my daughter is non-verbal but she will tell you what she wants i had an iep on one day on wednesday and then on thursday they told me the program was being eliminated from the district now my surprise came because i've been asking all year long about assistive devices for her she's non-verbal but she can pick up your phone navigate it no matter what brand it is she can turn on damn tiger no matter what tv is online she can find peppa pig no matter what computer is on and i'm amazed at it because she's smart she's smart and what i've been asking from the district is not something hard i've been asking for her to be considered for assistive devices and what i was told in my iep meeting was the speed could accommodate but speed had a waiting list and they were full that was a wednesday keep this in mind and so mrs graham we're going to explore other options for layla layla will have her pick of schools to go to that can accommodate her being evaluated for an assisted device now keep in mind an assistive device is something that a technology department will evaluate your child for to see if that device can speak for you programs for you so you can communicate right i was told that speed was full on a wednesday and that she would have many options to choose from now what most districts don't know is when you are sending your child out of district it costs money and so some districts when you're sending them out is 60 000 per child to send them out bust them make sure they are lunt have lunch breakfast the money that we would spend as a district to send out kindergarten through fifth grade and make sure that their bus to and from school surely we can accommodate keeping our kids here even if it's to the point where we may have to bring the kids to this building put our children and our teachers emerge classrooms but figure something out because like i said on a wednesday i was told that the program was completely full and then on the thursday we all got notified hey it's not full for our students because we've already negotiated their room impossible because i know and i don't want you guys to be confused i know that that district does not have the staff available to accommodate all of our kids they would be putting out ads just as well as we would to accommodate these kids just speak to any of the principals over there and they will tell you about the challenges they've had for 2020 2021 as well as 2022 and speak to one of your district children who is christian graham who is 12 who has had five teachers this school year alone and he's 12 and he is a member and a student of this district that's bust out to that school district and don't forget about the safety issues that i have expressed that have not been addressed when it comes to busing our children from that school district to back over here it is a problem and they will tell you they will put security on the buses because you'll have flossmoor homewood markham chicago heights because they have oh my gosh i want to say eight to ten filtering districts they go into that co-op so please keep that in mind thank you thank you wilshire thank you very much got it thank you hi my name is sarah chapman and i have two special needs kids one is over at balmoral he's a fourth grader who has multiple issues uh to the point where if the classroom he currently isn't it well the currently he's in if he acted up he would have to go to the multi-needs program because he is that bad and then i have my daughter lillian who is a seven-year-old in miss kolash's class currently she has failing sight from a genetic disorder called captain five it's a rare one she is a medium functioning autism and she has adhd amongst other problems including a speech delay both these kids without the option of having the multi-needs program would possibly then be having to go to speed which i am uncomfortable with especially given my son's aggression issues he's a he's got dmdd which is a mood disruptive disorder he's got odd he's got a conduct disorder he's got severe adhd and he has a high functioning autism that being said this meeting is more about my daughter's current class with i have noticed a huge improvement she absolutely loves the structure of the school she loves the fact that she has a particular uniform she has to wear to go to school it's part of her set schedule and without that she thinks it's a regular day and then you have other problems because and she's like uncooperative my question here is have we talked to the local colleges that have graduate programs for special education and seen if any of those students would be interested in internship for the paralegal or paraprofessional positions because that would not only give us the staffing but it would also give them the experience they need very obviously for these kids i really don't know what else to say because i'm a little frustrated i have talked to multiple people about this i have talked to miss pilate before i don't know if i brought up the internship thing or not but i don't know if that would be a solution because i don't i don't really know what they need to have to do you know the pera but i figured that might be a place to look at least for that um so more of a suggestion i really don't have too much more to say so thank you thank you very much sarah i'm well thank you all for asking my name is devlin bowman can you all hear me yes my name is devlin boatman and my son is also he has he's come through the um elc program and now he's uh he had miss coalition now he also has miss bailless um my son is a very very happy young man okay just like his father he the stories that he comes home with every day telling me about the teachers the kids in the classroom it's just ecstatic as a parent to hear that your kid is having fun and also learning in the classroom okay um the reason that i'm standing here today is because fortunately i had the opportunity i did 10 years at school district 163 which is next door park forest in chicago heights and i also had the privilege of working for speed okay and i know the ins and outs okay i'm not going to sit here in bad speed but i'm also going to say speed is not a safe place for the young ladies and young men that are in this in a program that's here at crete okay and i am very i'm nervous and i'm very upset at the same time because i know how the system works when it comes to special ed okay if there's a classroom right now that's available at speed this was something that was done months ago months ago because right now i know for a fact that the list for speed just for one kid is absolutely full so from that being said i feel like the head of the direct the head of the special ed gave up on our children very very early and the fact that we found out about those days and you give the the answer of coming to a meeting that's how you give the communication that is very very bad for business and our job as parents and we put our kids in the hands of the teachers because we trust them when our kids are at school the teachers are the parents and when we trust our kids to come here and we put our kids hands and our trust in our feelings with the teachers and the administrators here and we trust for you all to have communication with us about certain things when it comes down to the curriculum and what's going on we expect answers we don't expect for you to just blow us off like you know these are these are our kids our job is to protect them and make sure that they're coming to school to learn and getting the proper material and that's why i'm sorry you all i'm a little nervous but i'm very very at the same time i'm very upset you understand i'm very upset because just like these other parents that are over here we have our faith and our trust and administration here and when we're not getting the truth from the administration who can we trust who can we honestly trust thank you all thank you thanks bill good evening to all the board members and all the parents here um i just want to say um the multi-needs program has been wonderful um i have two boys um they both have autism and my oldest i was gonna read this but i think i'm just gonna my oldest has been in the multi-needs for four years and he has done wonderful his younger brother started kindergarten this year he's doing very well he's very happy to go to school every day and i was hoping he would follow his brother's footsteps and stay in the program for the next four years for him as well again i just want to say the multi-needs is an exceptional program with dedicated teachers the teachers have done wonderful this year they've done the best that they can for our children and i'm trying to think what else i wanted to say it's just been a difficult year for for both of my boys returning to school after the pandemic wearing the mask adjusting to the routines and so forth but overall they were very happy and i really hope that this program can continue not only for my youngest son my oldest is going into middle school but for all the other students that would benefit from this program that's all thank you thank you anyone else well thank you all very much for coming tonight about my daughter graduating in 2002 it wasn't kimberly it was kyla so i apologize i don't want nobody coming back and say hey okay it was kyla i know i had a daughter graduating around there but that's awesome i think kyla better be getting a text message i know so so thank you all for coming out and giving us your feedback so it's very important to us so let me just say one thing first of all i wanted to say thank you for sharing your stories with us these are individual stories that about your children that we all hold dear we will go back to the drawing board and uh we're going to go back to speed to see how long they can extend that offer it's a reservation so to speak it'll give us some time to find out if we can do a satellite program to see if they can offer something here in our district uh to see if they have staff available to help us with that we are in the middle of negotiations with our um our non-certified staff we're working to get the wages up so that we can attract more people because that is a problem we cannot find them and they are going to places that can uh can pay them more money we're we're we're losing them to amazon actually and that's where some of these people are going so we we do recognize this and the board recognizes the board that's on my negotiating team does recognize us so we are at the table beginning to come or hopefully to come to an end before the school year to finish that contract negotiation once we have that we have some leverage to play with to going out and attract some people so if we can use this time to buy ourselves a little bit more wheel groom so we can go back explore these other options before we you know go in that last direction we're going to do that we want to work with our families so but you know i also want to say it has been frustrating for our staff as well as us and i know you as well um so we are in this together we haven't given up and uh we will continue to work into the last minute until um we have to make a final decision so give us forward yes like some of this because you know like other people when their time's up well you know what it's interesting that you say that uh the district is on top of that we are having uh we're going to be working with the principal next year we are going to be having a special position for recruiting of staff because that is a problem for us and we're being proactive to go out there and look for that right now we we've got a process that does af post covid things look different what people want is different people want more flexibility we're having to go back and figure out how are we going to track the new employee of today and and how we're going to keep them so we are looking at this uh you know really in depth as far as this and it is a systemic problem so we are aware of it and we we do take this very seriously it's tricky but we are devoting a staff member to specifically look at that for us next think i speak year everybody here i want to thank the board member for stepping up because if it wasn't for you guys on the board right now this decision was done it was made i just want you to know that now that we know we we all make notes so that we remember to ask her i'll send her an email and say hey can you make sure this is on the internet that was my question who's responsible for having informed you of just besides this usually comes through me for my from my fyis through this this was a process that we went through who's responsible for keeping you informed you know as a board member i don't want at this point you know we have some internal things to talk about to make the process better by the way yes and i can tell you we have a dynamic superintendent and we have some gaps i assure you that but let's deal with what's on the plate right now is to keep our kids two thank you thank you thank you for coming you know we're not hiding it we're definitely not hiding one more thing the one thing that terrifies me now is that they were renting in nature they committed to a huge investment to me in this town and sent our grandchildren to the school district keep it take pride in that because i thank you very much folks uh okay uh next up is administrative updates and with that i'll turn it over to ken mr cerma thanks good evening board good evening dr karen to the public too um there are three items that i'm going to discuss that'll be part of the business uh for next week the first one is acceptance and approval of first students for provide special education transportation services at the district's discretion for 22 23 23 24 and 24 25 our contract with american school bus cook illinois was up so we went through a process an rfp process what well that's all right okay i'll take cream and sugar though uh but we went through a process and there were two bids submitted one was safely transportation the other one was first student and so uh first student was after comparing apples to apples oranges oranges a little bit of discussion with each company first student was the low bid so you will see that uh in the information that i provided you it was for a three-year contract so you'll see the rates there it is an increase however what i have talked to the bus companies about is that i want them to raise the driver rates in those uh for their drivers up to 26 an hour uh from their normal rate of about 21 an hour so that they can attract drivers and so that we can have our routes covered because they're having the same issues for staffing as all of us are i was going to say that's the next step of this it is it really is is bus drivers we're not going to talk about that well between quite frankly as as we all know we all drive and you know the price of gas right so between that and and also uh the the wages uh so that's why you'll see the increase now the good news is we get reimbursed approximately 81 percent of that amount through the claim and all of that uh the governor has continued to fund that i just saw the latest come out of their budget so that looks good so this will be coming to the board uh next week so this would be on the special ed side first student already does the regular ed side so that is continuing i will tell you i've been very pleased with first student i know we did have some issues years ago with them however they have changed their entire management staff there and so our work with them has gone really really well and they have responded really well they are having shortage of drivers i know that that will continue i think i think it's going to continue for another year but i think this will help in raising the rates also who's doing our special education it is cook illinois which is american school bus they did not submit a bid at all we also supplement that with hopewell transportation they have the small vans so you know a lot of our elc elc kids are on the small bands and that hopewell is actually if we remember this the world was acquired by a first student right hopeful was acquired by first students so uh but they still operate as a separate entity uh but just are under you know the guys of first students so we will continue with hopewell also too so hopa will continue because they do do some regular ed too and they also do some of our homeless families they transport some of those also so we'll continue to work with them and their contract will continue that's not up yet but for uh you know so first student will be replacing um american school bus so it wasn't because there are any issues or anything they just did not come back with a bid do it on the small one they didn't come back right but we didn't really yeah okay okay bye now yeah they didn't come back with a bid so that's that's okay all right um if if you don't mind i'm gonna i'm gonna come back to insurance rate because that's going to be a little bit more complicated if i can let me go just to the certificate of payment number two that you'll see there well i just have a question oh i'm sorry no worries no no worries at all if i can find it in the document but it was a question on the increase with the kindergartens it was it was a like a 47 increase from from this year to the next year i think they gave us three years or so yeah i did put in there three years of rates i mean right and i was just wondering what drove that increase all the other grades were you know three and four five percent which is reasonable but that kindergarten was a 47 increase from one year to the next and then it leveled off and three four percent increase year on end after that yeah it's the pre-kindergarten because that's only a a two-tier rate uh a two-tier route um and so the other ones are kind of a three-tier so you can charge a little bit less for the other one so why did it go i think it was like from 202 to 297 yeah 297 yeah because it's just a double rate and then you know you have to guarantee six hours and so that's that's part of the contract is you guarantee six hours so by doing the am pm you're not guaranteeing the six hours so you got to charge a little bit more but on the other three you're able to bundle those together and get the six hours in so that's how you get to that number but was the last contract drafted up like that as well it was such a big increase i'm still still confused i don't know i'd have to look at the other contract to see mr brown i i do so i can get that information i mean it kind of stood out to me as a it really stood out to me it does it does it stands out to me too you know on that but but again i think it's when you when you started bundling these things and everything uh but i you know it doesn't it is a pretty big increase on the pre-k side um but again i'll you don't have to answer now if you can bring back to the board the regular board meeting just kind of a little clarification and go back and look at history yeah well we'll have it next week too but i'll put it in the fyi also okay i can do that appreciate it yep thanks sure um the uh certificate of payment that you'll see is just is for forty eight thousand one hundred fifty dollars that's the rl soho for renovation work that's being done at talala and elc so as you can see and have probably heard tonight uh we have some of the contractors coming in in the evening and on weekends to get ahead of everything so that is taking place in that so this is just uh their payment uh small payment right now we are holding back 10 percent uh as retainage um to make sure for substantial completion before we release that okay so this is the beginning of the summer work this is beginning of the summer work yes yes i was all confused it was 48 billion and i was trying to six times to go back yeah to go back and figure out like oh these eyes again i will tell you the work has so far has gone well uh if you don't know this we did abate uh the east wing of creed elementary over spring break so that went very well uh that's that that level that you know the two levels that are over at crete over there um so that was all abated it is not being used now um so the contractor is able to get in there on nights and weekends to start doing all the mechanical because that's where the mechanical room is going to be and then we're redesigning that we're putting in an elevator over there all those things so they're getting an early start on that which is good we have closed off that section um you know so we put kind of plywood up so it's closed off so we don't have to worry about the kids getting in there and all that stuff so that's been done and then again at talalan and you'll see you'll see them starting to do the prep work on the air conditioning and that too okay i just had one other question our architect when they came to the contractor signing off on a mechanical lien and our architect said well this is kind of the best secret almost like he just have to take his word for it because of the nature of the law something to that effect there was a mechanical link he signed off i think the contractor signed off on it or something like that so if you go back and look at that i will yeah to see exactly what our architect was saying okay he said this is i'm basically take it for face value okay and this is about as far as i can go because of the law i'm just going to take his word off he's going to sign off that he's not going to was that on last year's work mr brown do you know i believe it was okay i believe it was but it was it was in here okay i have a meeting on thursdays yeah i think it was the mcat they signed off you know basically we got paid we signed off no liens issued against the district and it's almost like our architect said okay we take his word for it but it's not really a document i can solidify okay and keep in our files that say they can never come back at us okay and that's the intent of signing off on a mechanical league that they actually cannot come back we paid them yeah and that's it okay deal is over but he had the architect has some verbiage in there that says that because of the nature of the law this is we have to take this document as face value i'll find out again i'm meeting with them thursday so i can find out what that's all about okay okay thank you all right insurance rates here we go this one and i i apologize for this because i we just came out of a meeting at four o'clock today uh it ended about 10 to six so uh janine and cheryl came came scooting down here so [Music] i'm going to try and summarize this a little bit and please as i go if you have questions ask this so as you all know we change brokers uh for our medical insurance uh to work with us and to go out to the market that that broker now is alliance um so they went out to the market blue cross blue shield came back originally or came back with an increase of 20.13 all right so it was a 20 increase in that um so uh and a lot of that what you have to keep in mind is that we did not take an increase last year and the recommendation was to have a 7.5 increase last year so that 20.13 it also includes the seven and a half percent that we had so in essence you know netted out it should have been about 12.5 percent okay so that's the thing to understand also our program we are a self-insured program so we collect all the money and um you know it comes pulled together and then we pay the claims it's administered by blue cross blue shield they send us a monthly bill and then we pay out the claims and all of that stuff so we kind of collect the money and all that we have a reserve account and that and then again because we didn't take an increase last year we dipped into our reserve in order to pay for that lack of taking it taking the increase we also found that our claims escalated last year too and so that's part of the reason for a large increase too because they do an estimate based on previous claims in that and we had a bunch of large claims that came through now we do have stop loss insurance and all that stuff but still blue cross blue shield pays out the money even though we have a stop loss policy but blue cross isn't in the business of giving away money so somehow they're going to get that money back one way or the other and you know it has to do with increases so we presented that to the committee and and i had alliance work up some options for us in order to lessen that increase and that increases not only to the employee it's also to the district because the district does provide single hmo insurance to all our officer to all eligible employees and we foot that bill so again if that increase is there the district pays that increase also so again it's additional expense one of the things i shared with the committee and we talked about is moving to a fully insured program and away from a self-insured program my belief is the district is in better position in the future if they were fully insured versus self-insured because self-insured your premiums are determined by just your claims and that so if claims goes up i need to get more money to pay those claims and i got to raise premiums or i have to raise premiums if i'm fully insured i'm in essence in a pool with all other districts that blue cross blue shield has in um pulling that money together so they can offset some of our big increased kind of other districts and that and you have more wiggle room and more negotiation i again my opinion is from a financial standpoint is that is going to be a better way to go for the district in the long run so i share that at the committee we discussed that did you actually have some factual numbers to compare to yeah they did and that's some of the documents that i have here i didn't i don't have that with the board but i'll be getting that to the board that i that i have that and that okay initially uh the increase if we went to a fully insured program is about 22 percent however we are able to bundle a lot of our other insurance with them and get a reduction of about a 4.5 percent from them if we bundle our other things so things like we have right now imed for our vision insurance blue cross blue shield has their own and so if we bundle that they will give us a one percent discount on our medical rates you know and so there's other packages that we have and so we shared that with the committee and so by doing that we're able to get the increase down to 17.45 so it comes down pretty quick in that then we shared with the committee and talked about plan and design changes of the plans and also to also reduce the increase yes yes on the self-insured the increase would have been 20.13 percent and now so if we no no design changes nothing else 20.13 if we went with the fully insured the increase is 22.6.06 however if we were able to bundle everything with the fully insured we're not able to do that with self-insured we're able to do that with fully insured and it brings it down to 17.45 so with these high percentages yes that is not indicative of our employees or staff paying those increases so we i've never seen our staff or employees pay such a high increase we usually absorb those as a district right you know from our reserves and we may impose maybe five percent i'm just using it or yeah but what you have to keep in mind mr brown is that last year they pushed off a 7.5 percent increase that we should have taken which we advise them to if you remember that okay and the committee recommended when we came to the board you know you know i we said we all talked about you know we should be doing it but i'm representing the committee and so i'm coming with the committee's recommendation for a zero percent increase so we tapped into reserves exactly that's what i'm saying that's what i'm saying maybe i miss oh no you're right phrase that yeah so we as a district absorb that increase yes and since i've been on the board for the most part i think we as a district have never passed that charge over to our employees it seemed like we just been going into our reserve to well we talked about the reserve right now yeah the reserve is sitting right now uh brian looked it up when we were there so we have an investment account that has 1.1 million dollars in it and then we have also like which is like our savings account for our health insurance yeah and then we have an additional account that's kind of our working checking account sure that probably has another three or four hundred thousand dollars in it so it's about 1.5 million dollars is our result do we try to keep a minimum there well originally we had about 2 million and again we've tapped into that because we didn't take the increase last year so our goal my goal originally was to you know on a self-funded self-insured plan is to keep about two million dollars in there but can i think real quick how do we fund that working cash how do we fund that that's fun through the uh deductions that we take from the employees and also the costs from that the board pays on hmo so what we do every month then is that so when we deduct when we take deductions from salaries for you know ppo family that they have to pay that goes into the account and then we also fund the hmo single that everybody has from uh just our general fund which is just the education fund not working cash but just education fund that goes in there and then when uh blue cross blue shield sends us a bill then we take the money out and that so it's kind and then there may be some left over in there and so that's what builds the results okay that's why i want to be sure that we're clear that the the reserve fund is a segregated account which has been funded by those premiums paid in by employees over time that's not the district's money it is partially the district yes because for that right right because what the district does the district pays in hmo single so that may be six hundred dollars a percent it's still they pay in there but it's still relative to the insurance prem the insurance rates that we've charged people over the years it's not like we're taking out of a general fund to beef up that reserve no all right no all right exactly so so on a self-funded uh plan you your goal is to keep two million in there but now on a fully funded plan what is the goal to have in there at all you don't have to okay but here so so here's here's the whole deal so of course the question comes up who gets the million dollars that's the big question well what you have to do is you have to let your claims run out that you now have under your self-insured plan and those are going to take a while those may take six months to run out it's yeah or or more depending if they're long-term issues so once those run out then then the board is going to have the board the committee whoever is going to have to make decision what do we do with that money can that money be applied to a future so let's just say it takes a year and we're coming up on next year let's say the fun runs out you said there's approximately 1.5 million in there we burned through 1.1 million so you have 400 000.

i don't know how you feel but would you want your six-year-old in school with a 22 year old who has behavioral problems i am very concerned that our amazing district who thus far has served my children phenomenally wants to move them out of district just because he has autism so i plead with you the board who i was told on friday with a call to miss belotti that you were aware of this and had approved of this i plead with you to please find a different solution my child deserves to be educated in his neighborhood with his neighbors with neurotypical children so that he can learn and grow and prosper as he's been doing speed serves children with very low incidence disabilities i'm a nurse so i feel confident sharing some of this with you schizophrenia for one children with behavioral problems cerebral palsy so my my child who is incredibly smart and gifted but non-verbal is going to go to school with these children and learn from these children and those will be his peers and his role models instead of the the neurotypical children he's attending school with now i know most of you are parents so i i hope you put yourself in my shoes for a minute and try to understand the difficulty that we're facing a lot of our parents here feel just the same as i do because just because our child needs a little bit of extra help they don't belong in the district anymore and please tell me why they can take three classrooms full of children at speed but we can't get one more teacher here or a few more aides here i don't understand um i have been told that most of the teachers at speed work on contracts i don't know like for a year or you know i'm not educated on on that particular issue but i just don't understand if it's a lack of staffing why can't we work harder to fix that so an entire group of children is not segregated from their home district if my child was appropriate for speed that would be indicated on his iep and given the fact that we just had an iep meeting a month ago and our team of professionals teachers therapists and my son's parents agreed that that replacement is far too restrictive for his learning so now all of a sudden i'm expected we are expected to line up like ducks and sign off on this and send our children out of district because miss blotti says so also i did request information about this in writing for miss blotti both verbally and via email and was told to come here and this is where i would get my answers so do any of you have any questions for me well i just want to thank you you said that school year you graduated i think you might be a classmate of my daughter kimberly brown i don't know if you know her okay and she's a special uh she's a teacher with a special ed endorsements and she have talked to me over many years in numerous cases and and the heart and passion she has for kids so i hear your passion and i really i'm empathetic sympathetic the whole nine yards thank you and again i want to reiterate we should not find reasons not to do something we should find reason to do it exactly and it feels as though our kids have just spent i mean to be honest our children and multi-needs are the most vulnerable in the district and so i don't understand why of all of the changes that could happen because of a lack of staffing it's our children that suffer first i moved to crete from beecher because they wanted to send my child out of district to school and when i came to crete and interviewed with miss testa at the elc i was told crete educates our own your child will have a place here so please imagine how i'm feeling that all of a sudden i'm being told my child no longer has a place here please consider other options i will continue to advocate for my child's rights determining placement for the next four years when it should be done annually and based on a child's individual needs is not okay and i'll keep fighting so i hope that you as as our board members are elected officials use your powers to please change this and make sure that my child can stay all of our children can stay in their district well we here again if i'm sure all of the board members again i don't want to speak for them but what i've heard from our my colleagues here your child is as well as the rest of the kids that's in this program has a position here thank you thank you very much jillian thank you very much for your time for sharing your heart you can give it to me hello can you hear me my name is lasham graham and i have two children in the district i've had three so i recognized one of the principles for balmoral my curtis graham went there and he graduated from the middle school and he's over at marion he's a sophomore there and i have two children that are still in the district and one is bust out to speed right now for behavioral issues not ashamed of it at all he is adhd and the district made the decision that they could no longer deal with his behavioral issues when he was in kindergarten and i didn't know enough when i was dealing with him and so i allowed those things to happen and what i do know as a parent of a sixth grader that's been dealing with speed since he was in kindergarten is that they do not and i can say this with assurance they do not have the staffing at speed to accommodate our kids my child is in sixth grade he's had five teachers this school year at speed i am very familiar with both programs independents as well as elc i have members that are teachers in the elc that's a part of my fraternity sorority and they often speak to me about the challenges that go on at elc i can absolutely tell you that when i speak to the vice principal at speed she talks to me about the challenges now i have my ieps at speed and i have a mediator from this district that meets me over there and one of the challenges that i often speak about is getting him back to his home school because fee cannot accommodate his safety christian's been beat up on the bus twice this school year i filed a complaint about his safety on the bus coming from 527 regent road in university park and going over there miss belotti and i are very familiar with each other as well as the social workers that are involved from this district that travel to that district to deal with my child my daughter is layla graham layla is eight layla is non-verbal layla is different from my christian because my christian can tell you what's going on with him he can speak for itself he can fight for herself she cannot she has a rare genetic condition called ring 18.

sure can that money be applied to next year's premiums it can be applied to that so that there's the increase is less so if you make sure it was uh eight percent yeah at the 400 like you know what i'm saying yeah one of the things we talked about is trying to start some type of wellness program also and you know the possibility of funding a wellness program with that there's a lot of things you can do with wellness programs from a preventative standpoint you know blood tests you know you know all that all those type of things so there are some things we do and so one of the one of my goals with the committee is starting in the fall and september to begin meeting with them and start working on a wellness program that we can implement and then you know we'll be able to see if there's any funds available now again you know that that money's at again i'm just going to say this way it's at the board's discretion so again if i tap into that or or would recommend it happen i would come to the board first and say this is what my my thought would be so in some sense the 1.5 million is is is hostage to the situation and stays there yes until we run our thing out so at this point if you go fully funded the hit's 17.45 right now however however so let me let me continue on then sorry in that the committee has decided to make some plan changes also in that because if you make some plan changes you're also able to reduce the percentage so on and i'll just give you general terms here so on the ppo side they decided to make plain plan changes that would save another 4.24 so that's now now you're down to about okay and then on the hmo side they looked at making other plan changes that will save another i think it's 2.2 percent on the hmo side all right now your premiums are less on the hmo side also on that so again it will reduce that you know that percentage increase that is uh both to the district and also um to the uh to the employee also you know those plan changes through higher out higher out of pocket higher deductibles yeah there's some co-insurance or some um i'm just looking at it here nelson yeah some out-of-pocket office cove like like if you go on your office visit copay we go from fifteen dollars thirty dollars to twenty forty so it's a five dollar increase you save point four five percent you know so so they broke it down and in fact i've got a chart and i can share this i'll share this with the board when when we get the final one but that's all that's all broken down in that so we had discussion and um it was nice because we were able to have discussion not only with representatives from acme but also from cmea you know and they were able to give their views on all of that so uh so that is what the recommendation is going to be so in essence i think the net is going to be about on the ppo side about a 13 increase and then on the hmo side probably about a 14 to 15 percent increase but again keep in mind that part of that is the 7.5 increase that we didn't take last year so because you got to make it up somehow going and and this would be on a fully funded this would be then fully insured so yes so if you go fully funded you don't need the stop loss i don't believe so no anymore because the insurance company is assuming that risk yes so that's that gets you that's a little bit of why you'd have a difference at the top end yeah who who who pays the premium right now for the stop-loss policy does that come out of the reserve no that comes out it's all incorporated into the rates that we have also and that so that that's all in the administrative rates okay plus yes so that's all in there too okay so i'll have to i'll have to look at that too nelson just to see how that's not calculated in to make sure and all that stuff too yeah okay so can at some point the district has a history here that at one point they probably was fully insured so to speak right traditionally i think originally they were fully insured my understanding is there was some issue with the carrier or something and they went to self-funded and now so now we're looking to go down a path to go the big route here the traditional way okay and if memory serves me right the workman comp we are in a pool we are in some type of co-op right with the workmen comp i know that's the kind of the workings comp is completely separate that's under our property and liability okay i thought we was in a pool illinois community risk management yes we are in a co-op right with other districts right to mitigate costs and all yeah illinois uh and i forget they're the acronym that they have but yes they represent a number of districts okay kind of in the pool so when we brought to the table the committee and all of that are we looking at other districts to benchmark or did we just look internally to fill these gaps we looked internally there is um i will tell you the forecast five which is the uh program that we use for our financials you know that you know we share all that stuff they actually do an insurance study statewide the difficult part of that is you don't get into particulars and that's what's hard about comparing um rates from one district to another i'll give you example i remember having this discussion with the insurance committee one time you know they said well you know people over at home at home at fostermore don't pay as much as we do in premiums and i said what are the particulars of their plan that's what i need to see and that's what's difficult you know what what's the deductible what's your out-of-pocket that's where you need to compare apples to apples on this thing and that's what's difficult to do and so we're trying to pull some of that data but it's just very difficult because as a potential employee comes to our district obviously for the most part that in potential employees going to look at wages first and then you know benefits so we as a district have really ramped it up for wages to be out there paying market rate and now the other component is benefits so i i don't hear you know in comparison where our benefits compare to other districts we know where market rates is and we've been told just a couple months ago that we are up there really up there or or above slightly when it comes to rates so yeah i'm just curious where sure we are with insurance you don't have to answer that now but i'm just curious just to see because we're talking about big dollars here as well and a benefit this is a benefit package to employees and potential employees and things yeah and you know this may sound a little cold but i am i'm going to say it in are you directing that to me no no no no no i'm directing that to everybody and the public but i do want to say this the district provides health insurance for every employee if they want it think of that we the district says you can have health insurance if you want it so my question is and this is something i've wrestled with philosophically i i will say this is it the district's responsibility to take also care of the full family because or is the district's responsibility to take care of its employees i believe we are taking care of our employees and and the board is responsible because we are providing health insurance for every employee that wants it that is eligible for it and can i add something to that it's just a different i have to put on my cook okay you know and that doesn't mean that we try and lessen the impact of other rates i i am all for that but it's important that i know all of our employees understand that we do have a concern for our employees and that concern also is with medical insurance and we're providing that for them because a lot of districts do not do that they give you an amount of money to use towards a plan i just want to add one thing when you said did we look around this when we first started he did look at other companies and immediately they were not anywhere near competitive to blue cross but part of our issue is as ken made a comment about we had quite a few large claims and they rank you on that and they also look at what the claim was does it look like it's going to be something that carries on was it a one-time shot so some of that was based on our large claims and there were quite a few unfortunately so maybe next year we we only get a small i mean if we don't have a ton of large claims and it does he explained make sure i'm saying this right you know he's out there for all of these customers so we are in a pool when it comes to that type of thing but you're still responsible for what's going on in your policy per se so that money that blue cross blue shield is having to pay out goes across the board of everyone in that group but you're still taking a hit because they came from your unit so you're still taking a bigger hit than maybe next door and i'm not saying it's a ton but it's not like you're penalized because it is spread out but if another district had tons of high claims we're going to take but part of that also does that make sense did i do that right right so unfortunately it's been a couple bad years for insurance claims and there are some very very high claims across the board across everywhere so i think that's where the program like a wellness could mitigate some of those things and catch things before they get worse to prevent right yeah right it catch it catches up yes and again i mean i will tell you personal experience i mean you know getting that annual checkup and getting those tests annually are really important as you said mr brown from a preventative standpoint yeah you know okay so our process is i'll just real quick i'll let you know what our process is so we are uh alliance is putting all together the final numbers um we are having a virtual meeting thursday night um to just go over everything one or thursday afternoon i should say uh to go over um all the rates and everything to make sure the community is in agreement and then i will get that information onto the board agenda uh for tuesday what time are we doing now 4 15.

she has developmental delays as well as global delays she started at ulc when i brought her to elc i was nervous i was crying every day because she was coming from a daycare that loved her that picked her up hugged her all the time and for the first time she was a big girl she was coming to the big school and she was coming for two and a half hours and it was tough to make the decision to allow her to even come to elc as a parent that works every day because i needed to figure out where she was going to be for the rest of the day right but i made it work because i knew that this was the best opportunity for her and so when she originally was getting ready to go to kindergarten she was supposed to start her kindergarten days at balmoral and that was the year that they moved the program to csk so layla's been a part of it since they transitioned that first year and from miss kolash to ms vilas this year they have loved on my daughter my daughter is non-verbal but she will tell you what she wants i had an iep on one day on wednesday and then on thursday they told me the program was being eliminated from the district now my surprise came because i've been asking all year long about assistive devices for her she's non-verbal but she can pick up your phone navigate it no matter what brand it is she can turn on damn tiger no matter what tv is online she can find peppa pig no matter what computer is on and i'm amazed at it because she's smart she's smart and what i've been asking from the district is not something hard i've been asking for her to be considered for assistive devices and what i was told in my iep meeting was the speed could accommodate but speed had a waiting list and they were full that was a wednesday keep this in mind and so mrs graham we're going to explore other options for layla layla will have her pick of schools to go to that can accommodate her being evaluated for an assisted device now keep in mind an assistive device is something that a technology department will evaluate your child for to see if that device can speak for you programs for you so you can communicate right i was told that speed was full on a wednesday and that she would have many options to choose from now what most districts don't know is when you are sending your child out of district it costs money and so some districts when you're sending them out is 60 000 per child to send them out bust them make sure they are lunt have lunch breakfast the money that we would spend as a district to send out kindergarten through fifth grade and make sure that their bus to and from school surely we can accommodate keeping our kids here even if it's to the point where we may have to bring the kids to this building put our children and our teachers emerge classrooms but figure something out because like i said on a wednesday i was told that the program was completely full and then on the thursday we all got notified hey it's not full for our students because we've already negotiated their room impossible because i know and i don't want you guys to be confused i know that that district does not have the staff available to accommodate all of our kids they would be putting out ads just as well as we would to accommodate these kids just speak to any of the principals over there and they will tell you about the challenges they've had for 2020 2021 as well as 2022 and speak to one of your district children who is christian graham who is 12 who has had five teachers this school year alone and he's 12 and he is a member and a student of this district that's bust out to that school district and don't forget about the safety issues that i have expressed that have not been addressed when it comes to busing our children from that school district to back over here it is a problem and they will tell you they will put security on the buses because you'll have flossmoor homewood markham chicago heights because they have oh my gosh i want to say eight to ten filtering districts they go into that co-op so please keep that in mind thank you thank you wilshire thank you very much got it thank you hi my name is sarah chapman and i have two special needs kids one is over at balmoral he's a fourth grader who has multiple issues uh to the point where if the classroom he currently isn't it well the currently he's in if he acted up he would have to go to the multi-needs program because he is that bad and then i have my daughter lillian who is a seven-year-old in miss kolash's class currently she has failing sight from a genetic disorder called captain five it's a rare one she is a medium functioning autism and she has adhd amongst other problems including a speech delay both these kids without the option of having the multi-needs program would possibly then be having to go to speed which i am uncomfortable with especially given my son's aggression issues he's a he's got dmdd which is a mood disruptive disorder he's got odd he's got a conduct disorder he's got severe adhd and he has a high functioning autism that being said this meeting is more about my daughter's current class with i have noticed a huge improvement she absolutely loves the structure of the school she loves the fact that she has a particular uniform she has to wear to go to school it's part of her set schedule and without that she thinks it's a regular day and then you have other problems because and she's like uncooperative my question here is have we talked to the local colleges that have graduate programs for special education and seen if any of those students would be interested in internship for the paralegal or paraprofessional positions because that would not only give us the staffing but it would also give them the experience they need very obviously for these kids i really don't know what else to say because i'm a little frustrated i have talked to multiple people about this i have talked to miss pilate before i don't know if i brought up the internship thing or not but i don't know if that would be a solution because i don't i don't really know what they need to have to do you know the pera but i figured that might be a place to look at least for that um so more of a suggestion i really don't have too much more to say so thank you thank you very much sarah i'm well thank you all for asking my name is devlin bowman can you all hear me yes my name is devlin boatman and my son is also he has he's come through the um elc program and now he's uh he had miss coalition now he also has miss bailless um my son is a very very happy young man okay just like his father he the stories that he comes home with every day telling me about the teachers the kids in the classroom it's just ecstatic as a parent to hear that your kid is having fun and also learning in the classroom okay um the reason that i'm standing here today is because fortunately i had the opportunity i did 10 years at school district 163 which is next door park forest in chicago heights and i also had the privilege of working for speed okay and i know the ins and outs okay i'm not going to sit here in bad speed but i'm also going to say speed is not a safe place for the young ladies and young men that are in this in a program that's here at crete okay and i am very i'm nervous and i'm very upset at the same time because i know how the system works when it comes to special ed okay if there's a classroom right now that's available at speed this was something that was done months ago months ago because right now i know for a fact that the list for speed just for one kid is absolutely full so from that being said i feel like the head of the direct the head of the special ed gave up on our children very very early and the fact that we found out about those days and you give the the answer of coming to a meeting that's how you give the communication that is very very bad for business and our job as parents and we put our kids in the hands of the teachers because we trust them when our kids are at school the teachers are the parents and when we trust our kids to come here and we put our kids hands and our trust in our feelings with the teachers and the administrators here and we trust for you all to have communication with us about certain things when it comes down to the curriculum and what's going on we expect answers we don't expect for you to just blow us off like you know these are these are our kids our job is to protect them and make sure that they're coming to school to learn and getting the proper material and that's why i'm sorry you all i'm a little nervous but i'm very very at the same time i'm very upset you understand i'm very upset because just like these other parents that are over here we have our faith and our trust and administration here and when we're not getting the truth from the administration who can we trust who can we honestly trust thank you all thank you thanks bill good evening to all the board members and all the parents here um i just want to say um the multi-needs program has been wonderful um i have two boys um they both have autism and my oldest i was gonna read this but i think i'm just gonna my oldest has been in the multi-needs for four years and he has done wonderful his younger brother started kindergarten this year he's doing very well he's very happy to go to school every day and i was hoping he would follow his brother's footsteps and stay in the program for the next four years for him as well again i just want to say the multi-needs is an exceptional program with dedicated teachers the teachers have done wonderful this year they've done the best that they can for our children and i'm trying to think what else i wanted to say it's just been a difficult year for for both of my boys returning to school after the pandemic wearing the mask adjusting to the routines and so forth but overall they were very happy and i really hope that this program can continue not only for my youngest son my oldest is going into middle school but for all the other students that would benefit from this program that's all thank you thank you anyone else well thank you all very much for coming tonight about my daughter graduating in 2002 it wasn't kimberly it was kyla so i apologize i don't want nobody coming back and say hey okay it was kyla i know i had a daughter graduating around there but that's awesome i think kyla better be getting a text message i know so so thank you all for coming out and giving us your feedback so it's very important to us so let me just say one thing first of all i wanted to say thank you for sharing your stories with us these are individual stories that about your children that we all hold dear we will go back to the drawing board and uh we're going to go back to speed to see how long they can extend that offer it's a reservation so to speak it'll give us some time to find out if we can do a satellite program to see if they can offer something here in our district uh to see if they have staff available to help us with that we are in the middle of negotiations with our um our non-certified staff we're working to get the wages up so that we can attract more people because that is a problem we cannot find them and they are going to places that can uh can pay them more money we're we're we're losing them to amazon actually and that's where some of these people are going so we we do recognize this and the board recognizes the board that's on my negotiating team does recognize us so we are at the table beginning to come or hopefully to come to an end before the school year to finish that contract negotiation once we have that we have some leverage to play with to going out and attract some people so if we can use this time to buy ourselves a little bit more wheel groom so we can go back explore these other options before we you know go in that last direction we're going to do that we want to work with our families so but you know i also want to say it has been frustrating for our staff as well as us and i know you as well um so we are in this together we haven't given up and uh we will continue to work into the last minute until um we have to make a final decision so give us forward yes like some of this because you know like other people when their time's up well you know what it's interesting that you say that uh the district is on top of that we are having uh we're going to be working with the principal next year we are going to be having a special position for recruiting of staff because that is a problem for us and we're being proactive to go out there and look for that right now we we've got a process that does af post covid things look different what people want is different people want more flexibility we're having to go back and figure out how are we going to track the new employee of today and and how we're going to keep them so we are looking at this uh you know really in depth as far as this and it is a systemic problem so we are aware of it and we we do take this very seriously it's tricky but we are devoting a staff member to specifically look at that for us next think i speak year everybody here i want to thank the board member for stepping up because if it wasn't for you guys on the board right now this decision was done it was made i just want you to know that now that we know we we all make notes so that we remember to ask her i'll send her an email and say hey can you make sure this is on the internet that was my question who's responsible for having informed you of just besides this usually comes through me for my from my fyis through this this was a process that we went through who's responsible for keeping you informed you know as a board member i don't want at this point you know we have some internal things to talk about to make the process better by the way yes and i can tell you we have a dynamic superintendent and we have some gaps i assure you that but let's deal with what's on the plate right now is to keep our kids two thank you thank you thank you for coming you know we're not hiding it we're definitely not hiding one more thing the one thing that terrifies me now is that they were renting in nature they committed to a huge investment to me in this town and sent our grandchildren to the school district keep it take pride in that because i thank you very much folks uh okay uh next up is administrative updates and with that i'll turn it over to ken mr cerma thanks good evening board good evening dr karen to the public too um there are three items that i'm going to discuss that'll be part of the business uh for next week the first one is acceptance and approval of first students for provide special education transportation services at the district's discretion for 22 23 23 24 and 24 25 our contract with american school bus cook illinois was up so we went through a process an rfp process what well that's all right okay i'll take cream and sugar though uh but we went through a process and there were two bids submitted one was safely transportation the other one was first student and so uh first student was after comparing apples to apples oranges oranges a little bit of discussion with each company first student was the low bid so you will see that uh in the information that i provided you it was for a three-year contract so you'll see the rates there it is an increase however what i have talked to the bus companies about is that i want them to raise the driver rates in those uh for their drivers up to 26 an hour uh from their normal rate of about 21 an hour so that they can attract drivers and so that we can have our routes covered because they're having the same issues for staffing as all of us are i was going to say that's the next step of this it is it really is is bus drivers we're not going to talk about that well between quite frankly as as we all know we all drive and you know the price of gas right so between that and and also uh the the wages uh so that's why you'll see the increase now the good news is we get reimbursed approximately 81 percent of that amount through the claim and all of that uh the governor has continued to fund that i just saw the latest come out of their budget so that looks good so this will be coming to the board uh next week so this would be on the special ed side first student already does the regular ed side so that is continuing i will tell you i've been very pleased with first student i know we did have some issues years ago with them however they have changed their entire management staff there and so our work with them has gone really really well and they have responded really well they are having shortage of drivers i know that that will continue i think i think it's going to continue for another year but i think this will help in raising the rates also who's doing our special education it is cook illinois which is american school bus they did not submit a bid at all we also supplement that with hopewell transportation they have the small vans so you know a lot of our elc elc kids are on the small bands and that hopewell is actually if we remember this the world was acquired by a first student right hopeful was acquired by first students so uh but they still operate as a separate entity uh but just are under you know the guys of first students so we will continue with hopewell also too so hopa will continue because they do do some regular ed too and they also do some of our homeless families they transport some of those also so we'll continue to work with them and their contract will continue that's not up yet but for uh you know so first student will be replacing um american school bus so it wasn't because there are any issues or anything they just did not come back with a bid do it on the small one they didn't come back right but we didn't really yeah okay okay bye now yeah they didn't come back with a bid so that's that's okay all right um if if you don't mind i'm gonna i'm gonna come back to insurance rate because that's going to be a little bit more complicated if i can let me go just to the certificate of payment number two that you'll see there well i just have a question oh i'm sorry no worries no no worries at all if i can find it in the document but it was a question on the increase with the kindergartens it was it was a like a 47 increase from from this year to the next year i think they gave us three years or so yeah i did put in there three years of rates i mean right and i was just wondering what drove that increase all the other grades were you know three and four five percent which is reasonable but that kindergarten was a 47 increase from one year to the next and then it leveled off and three four percent increase year on end after that yeah it's the pre-kindergarten because that's only a a two-tier rate uh a two-tier route um and so the other ones are kind of a three-tier so you can charge a little bit less for the other one so why did it go i think it was like from 202 to 297 yeah 297 yeah because it's just a double rate and then you know you have to guarantee six hours and so that's that's part of the contract is you guarantee six hours so by doing the am pm you're not guaranteeing the six hours so you got to charge a little bit more but on the other three you're able to bundle those together and get the six hours in so that's how you get to that number but was the last contract drafted up like that as well it was such a big increase i'm still still confused i don't know i'd have to look at the other contract to see mr brown i i do so i can get that information i mean it kind of stood out to me as a it really stood out to me it does it does it stands out to me too you know on that but but again i think it's when you when you started bundling these things and everything uh but i you know it doesn't it is a pretty big increase on the pre-k side um but again i'll you don't have to answer now if you can bring back to the board the regular board meeting just kind of a little clarification and go back and look at history yeah well we'll have it next week too but i'll put it in the fyi also okay i can do that appreciate it yep thanks sure um the uh certificate of payment that you'll see is just is for forty eight thousand one hundred fifty dollars that's the rl soho for renovation work that's being done at talala and elc so as you can see and have probably heard tonight uh we have some of the contractors coming in in the evening and on weekends to get ahead of everything so that is taking place in that so this is just uh their payment uh small payment right now we are holding back 10 percent uh as retainage um to make sure for substantial completion before we release that okay so this is the beginning of the summer work this is beginning of the summer work yes yes i was all confused it was 48 billion and i was trying to six times to go back yeah to go back and figure out like oh these eyes again i will tell you the work has so far has gone well uh if you don't know this we did abate uh the east wing of creed elementary over spring break so that went very well uh that's that that level that you know the two levels that are over at crete over there um so that was all abated it is not being used now um so the contractor is able to get in there on nights and weekends to start doing all the mechanical because that's where the mechanical room is going to be and then we're redesigning that we're putting in an elevator over there all those things so they're getting an early start on that which is good we have closed off that section um you know so we put kind of plywood up so it's closed off so we don't have to worry about the kids getting in there and all that stuff so that's been done and then again at talalan and you'll see you'll see them starting to do the prep work on the air conditioning and that too okay i just had one other question our architect when they came to the contractor signing off on a mechanical lien and our architect said well this is kind of the best secret almost like he just have to take his word for it because of the nature of the law something to that effect there was a mechanical link he signed off i think the contractor signed off on it or something like that so if you go back and look at that i will yeah to see exactly what our architect was saying okay he said this is i'm basically take it for face value okay and this is about as far as i can go because of the law i'm just going to take his word off he's going to sign off that he's not going to was that on last year's work mr brown do you know i believe it was okay i believe it was but it was it was in here okay i have a meeting on thursdays yeah i think it was the mcat they signed off you know basically we got paid we signed off no liens issued against the district and it's almost like our architect said okay we take his word for it but it's not really a document i can solidify okay and keep in our files that say they can never come back at us okay and that's the intent of signing off on a mechanical league that they actually cannot come back we paid them yeah and that's it okay deal is over but he had the architect has some verbiage in there that says that because of the nature of the law this is we have to take this document as face value i'll find out again i'm meeting with them thursday so i can find out what that's all about okay okay thank you all right insurance rates here we go this one and i i apologize for this because i we just came out of a meeting at four o'clock today uh it ended about 10 to six so uh janine and cheryl came came scooting down here so [Music] i'm going to try and summarize this a little bit and please as i go if you have questions ask this so as you all know we change brokers uh for our medical insurance uh to work with us and to go out to the market that that broker now is alliance um so they went out to the market blue cross blue shield came back originally or came back with an increase of 20.13 all right so it was a 20 increase in that um so uh and a lot of that what you have to keep in mind is that we did not take an increase last year and the recommendation was to have a 7.5 increase last year so that 20.13 it also includes the seven and a half percent that we had so in essence you know netted out it should have been about 12.5 percent okay so that's the thing to understand also our program we are a self-insured program so we collect all the money and um you know it comes pulled together and then we pay the claims it's administered by blue cross blue shield they send us a monthly bill and then we pay out the claims and all of that stuff so we kind of collect the money and all that we have a reserve account and that and then again because we didn't take an increase last year we dipped into our reserve in order to pay for that lack of taking it taking the increase we also found that our claims escalated last year too and so that's part of the reason for a large increase too because they do an estimate based on previous claims in that and we had a bunch of large claims that came through now we do have stop loss insurance and all that stuff but still blue cross blue shield pays out the money even though we have a stop loss policy but blue cross isn't in the business of giving away money so somehow they're going to get that money back one way or the other and you know it has to do with increases so we presented that to the committee and and i had alliance work up some options for us in order to lessen that increase and that increases not only to the employee it's also to the district because the district does provide single hmo insurance to all our officer to all eligible employees and we foot that bill so again if that increase is there the district pays that increase also so again it's additional expense one of the things i shared with the committee and we talked about is moving to a fully insured program and away from a self-insured program my belief is the district is in better position in the future if they were fully insured versus self-insured because self-insured your premiums are determined by just your claims and that so if claims goes up i need to get more money to pay those claims and i got to raise premiums or i have to raise premiums if i'm fully insured i'm in essence in a pool with all other districts that blue cross blue shield has in um pulling that money together so they can offset some of our big increased kind of other districts and that and you have more wiggle room and more negotiation i again my opinion is from a financial standpoint is that is going to be a better way to go for the district in the long run so i share that at the committee we discussed that did you actually have some factual numbers to compare to yeah they did and that's some of the documents that i have here i didn't i don't have that with the board but i'll be getting that to the board that i that i have that and that okay initially uh the increase if we went to a fully insured program is about 22 percent however we are able to bundle a lot of our other insurance with them and get a reduction of about a 4.5 percent from them if we bundle our other things so things like we have right now imed for our vision insurance blue cross blue shield has their own and so if we bundle that they will give us a one percent discount on our medical rates you know and so there's other packages that we have and so we shared that with the committee and so by doing that we're able to get the increase down to 17.45 so it comes down pretty quick in that then we shared with the committee and talked about plan and design changes of the plans and also to also reduce the increase yes yes on the self-insured the increase would have been 20.13 percent and now so if we no no design changes nothing else 20.13 if we went with the fully insured the increase is 22.6.06 however if we were able to bundle everything with the fully insured we're not able to do that with self-insured we're able to do that with fully insured and it brings it down to 17.45 so with these high percentages yes that is not indicative of our employees or staff paying those increases so we i've never seen our staff or employees pay such a high increase we usually absorb those as a district right you know from our reserves and we may impose maybe five percent i'm just using it or yeah but what you have to keep in mind mr brown is that last year they pushed off a 7.5 percent increase that we should have taken which we advise them to if you remember that okay and the committee recommended when we came to the board you know you know i we said we all talked about you know we should be doing it but i'm representing the committee and so i'm coming with the committee's recommendation for a zero percent increase so we tapped into reserves exactly that's what i'm saying that's what i'm saying maybe i miss oh no you're right phrase that yeah so we as a district absorb that increase yes and since i've been on the board for the most part i think we as a district have never passed that charge over to our employees it seemed like we just been going into our reserve to well we talked about the reserve right now yeah the reserve is sitting right now uh brian looked it up when we were there so we have an investment account that has 1.1 million dollars in it and then we have also like which is like our savings account for our health insurance yeah and then we have an additional account that's kind of our working checking account sure that probably has another three or four hundred thousand dollars in it so it's about 1.5 million dollars is our result do we try to keep a minimum there well originally we had about 2 million and again we've tapped into that because we didn't take the increase last year so our goal my goal originally was to you know on a self-funded self-insured plan is to keep about two million dollars in there but can i think real quick how do we fund that working cash how do we fund that that's fun through the uh deductions that we take from the employees and also the costs from that the board pays on hmo so what we do every month then is that so when we deduct when we take deductions from salaries for you know ppo family that they have to pay that goes into the account and then we also fund the hmo single that everybody has from uh just our general fund which is just the education fund not working cash but just education fund that goes in there and then when uh blue cross blue shield sends us a bill then we take the money out and that so it's kind and then there may be some left over in there and so that's what builds the results okay that's why i want to be sure that we're clear that the the reserve fund is a segregated account which has been funded by those premiums paid in by employees over time that's not the district's money it is partially the district yes because for that right right because what the district does the district pays in hmo single so that may be six hundred dollars a percent it's still they pay in there but it's still relative to the insurance prem the insurance rates that we've charged people over the years it's not like we're taking out of a general fund to beef up that reserve no all right no all right exactly so so on a self-funded uh plan you your goal is to keep two million in there but now on a fully funded plan what is the goal to have in there at all you don't have to okay but here so so here's here's the whole deal so of course the question comes up who gets the million dollars that's the big question well what you have to do is you have to let your claims run out that you now have under your self-insured plan and those are going to take a while those may take six months to run out it's yeah or or more depending if they're long-term issues so once those run out then then the board is going to have the board the committee whoever is going to have to make decision what do we do with that money can that money be applied to a future so let's just say it takes a year and we're coming up on next year let's say the fun runs out you said there's approximately 1.5 million in there we burned through 1.1 million so you have 400 000.

so what you bring to the what you send us is the is the insurance committee in agreeance too yeah so you're meeting thursday to agree and then yeah so what what we did was we went through so what what a line and i'll just show you with all my scribble notes so what alliance did is they put together a bunch of options for us and everything so that we can see it so we went through all the information we shared with them this is what we want to do so now they're just going to put the final page together for us so that we can review it make sure it's right and all that stuff if anybody has questions on thursday and they want something changed will that be enough time yeah we can be enough time i can still get it on the agenda and we can just adjust the rates a little bit if we have to do that so that's not a problem yeah so everybody will be in agreeance then yeah yes that's what the plan is yes okay so so you are it has been other than voting on it it has been determined that we are going to go to the traditional right and i i i can refer to you know janine and cheryl on they can give their opinion that's their recommendation from the committee that's what they have and there seemed to be unanimous consent on the committee that we wanted to go to the fully insured with us and also with all the administrators yeah administrators and with both unions unanimous good job okay thank you thank you okay any old business yes i do okay so part of it's frustration i'll be honest i sent an email to dr karen i think she forwarded to all of you guys so i gotta tell you i'm i'm i'm beyond aggravated that we did something as a district that was very good for our taxpayers and i had a trustee call me um and asked me that you know the village of money is talking about some uh property tax um check you know yeah rebates and stuff like that and one of the couple with the district and i said the district doesn't work that way um the state of illinois you know were underfunded with through the state of illinois blah blah blah but by the way we did a we did an abatement of the extra levy text he had no idea had zero idea so then i asked him can you please reach out to the other guys and the people in the board member and see what they know in my village nobody knows as far as i'm aware of that i'm talking to a couple village trustees is a is a uh elected official it is important for us to do these decisions and get it out there and do something of good and no one knows about it and i sent the email out to ask everybody that's part of your district you know does the university park know does park forest know does crete known as modino i gotta tell you man i it is as much as uh mr sermon worked hard on getting that out to us and and we put that together that i i agree with you 100 communications like to that out to our to our communities it would have came out in the papers if we had an increase that's right i mean my point is if we were to win for look at the referendum and everything with the referendum and adding money and everything yeah how often have we abated tax money back i i'm telling you rare we need to do a better job and it even goes back to our our parents here i i'm i'm telling you i'm frustrated i mean i'm i'm i was pretty fired up about it and then to be quite you know when a trustee doesn't know and i tell him and they're surprised the next one i'm like thinking what like what is it what is going on like does anybody i don't know if the i know we was kind of euphoric here as board members when that was brought to us and we passed it but i think we just kind of left out this room and kind of left and left it here on the table so when i saw your email i said build a spot on he's right there i agree with him but i thought it would be somewhere posted but i really be honest with you never looked for it but yeah you're right so i don't want to go as far and say it was a communication issue i think even us as a board could have said hey doctor dr colony make sure we get a press release out on it or something like that but for us the problem is the stigma here we're working hard to change our our financial profile our financial rating i think mr brown you've been on since the moment i got on here that's been really important to you in communicating that out right and and all of this other stuff and i'm thinking that was a big moment for us because i don't know if anybody else is doing that what out of the four communities who else is doing that besides us as a texting body so i just i mean i think that was a really big step for the school district knowing that everybody complains about the school district um it you know in the tax amount that they pay in and i understand that but it just the good stuff i mean the good stuff that happens in our district whose responsibility is it well it basically always comes back to me that's who it is so you know ken and i had a conversation about you know what would have been the best vehicle for doing this and is it a press release you know how do you explain in a press release and make it simple enough for you know the lay people to understand you know is it is it a phone call to our locals to say hey just letting you know so you know we were just trying to debating which was the better way of doing that and they don't understand the the what that meant you know what i mean they just think that we're i mean if you ask anybody you could pull 10 people out of any community what's the first thing i say i paid too much in taxes to the school district for us to do that uh was a good step i mean i thought it was a good step forward to give back i mean mr brown said at that one time is like it's a good step giving back why take the extra money you know because it was a burden on them i just when i was approached and talked and asked about it and then when i said something and he didn't know anything about it yeah i could i couldn't you look like sir pardon my language but you look like a horse petunia i'm like come on horses petunia petunia he says nicely so we've you said it's your responsibility and we've been talking about communication communication getting the word out you said that you and ken talked about it right at what point did you bring in the communications person or department or whatever it's called versus you and ken talking about it well i first asked him if he had had any conversation or you know generally how would somebody find out about this because i think that was the conversation we had and i think you had said you know generally they they look uh right so the conversation we had about this is what do i release and how do i explain it because here here's the thing their taxes aren't going down no i i get that no i i understand that completely but the first thing i worry about i i try and explain that and all of a sudden they get a tax bill and says well you told me i was gonna bait this thing but they're not going down so so how many people are on the tax bill let's call it eight right partners how many are in the tax bill we'll call it eight taxing bodies about yeah eight or ten something like that right my point is it makes the district look in a positive way um unfortunately against everybody else because you know did they did they abated did the you know did the village ammonia made it did the village of crete made it did the the the uh uh village university park park forest in those sections and then go down the library district the fire the police blah blah blah go all the way down you know we did a we did something in their best interest i just thought that it would be you know he's asking me like the district should jump in on i'm giving a tax a property tax review property tax rebates i mean no and you're talking in a different world in money right now with everything going on there and their finances things are different and and i you know question that you know i told them three four years ago you couldn't do that but now you can so i know the district's in a different light but i just was like sure i thought it was such a positive thing and i'm like at this point you just questioned yourself sitting right here going okay do something positive it doesn't matter i i definitely agree it's positive but my point is is can over the communications department so okay no so once you talk to ken and ken says i don't know so then would you go who's over the communications department i don't know who is i know natalie natalie natalie is the kid so my point is communication maybe at that point then you go to natalie and say hey what's the best way to get this out because this is some good news right or maybe natalie comes to you and says hey we were sitting there board meeting do you think this is a good idea to get this information out i don't know what the working dynamics are but i just know that we have the position and i've seen her put out good stuff but i think that it's uh everybody involved should get when it comes to the good news should be talking to get the good news out because that doesn't appear to be happening i don't know what happened before i got on i just know that i've heard that some people aren't happy with the lack of good news getting out and i i just would encourage that you all come together i mean i know you just as much you talk to ken that maybe you talk to the others about i do not that you don't i'm sorry i don't i'm not trying to say you don't but i'm just saying so what we have been struggling with as you know i one of the things i was working on was the communication marketing and so forth and we just finished our focus groups i just had that information hot off the press i was just talking to nelson today about how we want to share that information and what the struggle is is figuring out again the system and what vehicle are you using we have again facebook twitter and we have news releases we've started doing a weekly news release that's going out in the newspaper we've just started doing that on a regular basis so again it's looking at our structures and then figuring out what we're putting in those structures to more systematize it so i i hear what you're saying and i guess i'm saying i agree with you and i think we're finishing kind of working on that so i i i'm sorry i i definitely like that you're thinking about it yeah but i don't get the whole systems thing because twitter facebook that's free you don't even have to worry about hey how much do we have to pay for this this is these are this is like low hanging fruit correct these are easy so it's not even a it's just which vehicle am i going to send it out through all of them twitter's free facebook i mean they're all free so why not send them out another suggestion sorry let me get everybody off another suggestion would be i know we get a township newsletter and in that the assessor she puts a little burp in there that might be a really good place i'm assuming all the different communities do that but they put out a newsletter and maybe you know we could put something in there that's a great idea actually it kind of makes the township i feel sad that's when everybody say okay the district is going to abate but we're not [Laughter] in the wow right yeah you see it you gotta hold on with because unfortunately everybody today i mean everybody thinks if everybody just walk around and think positive a little bit more but they don't they grasp respond to that negativity and they'll roll with it and that's the unfortunate part i mean that's reality you know i'm just i'm i'm really surprised that the money monitor and the crete record i believe oh that creek is dead yeah there's something called that's always that's all we have to work with all we have is so they're not doing that because they captured every meeting for the last 25 years russell publication yeah and i think that's why we we've been struggling with this and yes we've been training our channels it's free but that you have to pick up yourself somewhere or online if you subscribe to online but otherwise there are no local papers so mrs wallace your point is well taken and you know i agree with you and like i said i i am we're trying to come up with this we just finished our focus groups our survey groups to find out you know how we can do a better job so so going back to bill we had the topic of abatement so when we conclude a board meeting or doing the board meeting do we say at that point dr coghill at least we want this out there publicized at that point let the president direct this at that point coupled with the other things that she don't just so i don't miss anything yeah i think i think there's some ownership on us to at least direct okay i don't agree i don't think it's our place i mean if we really want to make sure i think it's just a checks and balance and just so just a way of saying hey doctor doctor cognize you got this i think yeah but i don't think that every little thing it doesn't and i don't think moe's saying it's incumbent upon that they're only going to spread news that the board tells them to spread right but we can emphasize things right well that's what i'm saying i could agree to emphasize that that's kind of what i've got to do okay that's kind of what i'm going to do definitely think that initiative on the leadership's part yeah to whether it's they're thinking that even if they say i don't like those board members so i'm not putting anything out but guess what you look bad then or you can say you know what regardless if i like the board members or not i'm going to put it out because i want us to look me up so it's the initiative right because there actually there's a lot of really good stuff going on in the district and you know and sometimes i don't even find out about all the good stuff that's going on so again putting together a system so we have it's not just me or it's not just people in my department but we've got a whole team that's doing their pieces because communication is everybody's responsibility right and so making sure that we've got you know i think a good plan and a good uh partnership of who's doing that um so we will work on that and i tell you you know i've been knowing our director of communication for a long time and and she has received awards for communicating and our website is just top of the food chain and i don't know where gaps are has been bill has identified some dr hall maybe some other colleagues and there's a couple issues i saw with getting some dates out on the holidays maybe i wasn't really in tune with the process and you correct me a couple times dr coghlan is but we have the tools i think we have the tools in place to keep this ball rolling in the right direction when it comes to communication we just gotta just ramp it up a little bit okay okay any other old business any new business i have one item and i've approached dr care about this but i'm bringing it to the board quite a few community members have reached out to me and employees about what we're going to do about electric cars seeing as there is one charging station that's been put in at the district i did bring it up with dr cara because more than one person has contacted me so i'm just asking you if if you've had a chance to talk to your team and i think there are people in the community they're wondering the district is paying for people to charge their cars i mean i'm hearing all kinds of things the community always goes for the worst as we know most of them so they immediately say well you're going to pay for people to charge their car what about a people who doesn't have it you know and so i'm asking you where we're standing on that one yes actually we've had some discussion and mr sermon you can jump in on this uh we have piloted one charging station and certainly where is that located that is here district office right outside or is it really yeah yeah is it before the handicap perkins no it's along that it doesn't take precedent over the handicapped no it does not okay so it is along that wall and you know the intent is we do believe that again with gas prices we believe that there's going to be more and more electric cars that will be coming uh so we were taking a look at you know putting putting one in we did have somebody here at district office that did does have an electric car so as we were kind of piloting this we were looking then i think we were going to send out a survey weren't we to find out if people had the intent to start going into electric later on to see how many that we would probably need to put in as far as for charging what we would do just like anyone else you would you put in your key card and you know you it just me metered just like it is if you're in a parking garage downtown how you're going to operate it no no so i guess they're going to see your credit card so again for the district for the district yes i paid for the charger that is out there so for the future he's saying she's saying for the future so so let me explain so here's what we're doing as part of president biden's infrastructure plan there's going to be about five to 10 billion dollars available for chargers in the very near future so our plan was and i and i will be very upfront very honest about this i have a hybrid car and so i said keith let's get one and let's see what it's going to be like because we have to look at a couple of things are they turned on 24 hours a day do we put a timer on or can we work by a prox card how do we work the collection of uh for charging them are we going to charge i don't know that's the question so i want to be prepared when this is going to happen i paid for that charger out there i reimbursed the district for it it was about 500 well let me but let me finish because i want to make that very clear to everybody and then because and so uh i am charging my car off of the electricity from the district however we are planning on trying to put some type of device on there that will charge people for it we're trying to see how to do that and if we can get one that will work with a prox card or with a credit card that's that's what i have in my job and i work for a electric company yes you do and there's no freebies with those who have electric vehicles and they come and they use their credit card and the fee is a charge to their personal credit card now how how you know the district because you still is still using electricity from that particular site in this case the district and somehow there has to be some component where the district could be compensated for that part too so i'm not sure if it's against the credit card company or what that the credit card company reimbursed the district a certain fee well and so again that's what we're looking at because there are multiple charges out there and each one has separate devices that are hooked into it we're also looking at so what we've done with the charger out there is we've actually put a timer on it right now so it is only goes on at certain times so we're protecting it that way so it's not powered all the time and then the second part of that is we're looking to see are there ways that i can use a prox card and charge let's say a staff member's account so that i can do that or i can set it up using a credit card too so we're looking at all those things because when the money comes available i'm applying for it i was going to ask that i mean he unveiled a 5 billion to 10 billion dollar plan but it's not it's not it's not there's no details yet but but here's what i will say it's the same thing when it was with esser funds our district was one of the first to put their budgets in and we got our money you know and that so i just want to make sure that we are ready to go on this thing so the other thing we're doing as dr cogan he said is i'm going to be sending out a survey to all of our staff to see you know are people going to be buying electric cars in the future because that is the wave and if you look at any of the data what they are saying is that by dealers are going to be selling 50 electric cars now again i don't know the capacity or the lows or the kva or anything like that but i think it behooves us too because we're looking to upgrade all of these buildings electrically so i don't know i hate for us to say okay we put 10 charging stations here we put if you go to for example 167th and right off i-57 country club hill the little mall there you have a tesla charging station and they got a big new transformer there to just address five or six seven spots for tesla to charge their vehicles so i'm just i'm just you know i hate it you know we're putting all this money to upgrade the electric i know this project got to move forward but it just lends itself to go back and really look at this quick before no and i will agree i just hate to say oh my god i wish we would have did that but right now we've got it put on the building so we just run the line to there if you do it at some of the schools you're going to have to put the charging stations out in the parking lot so you have to run electric underground like the high school like the high school you know and that so you have to do it that way so there are going to be additional costs doing that and there's going to be loads that are going to have to be put on there now you run it with really a 220 line because i have one in my house i put in a 220 line at my house just have you know put an extra double fuse in there double breaker you know it's all right so again but again it's going to be putting more loads on but you know that's all going to be part of the cost and i don't know if the president's bill will fund that or not that's why i want to make sure we're in line and we're ready to go what i'm saying it'll just print more money mr brown 2027 rolling blackouts in the midwest i will do that too after all i'll be retired that's it yeah is it expensive to charge the vehicle i mean is it like does it really suck a benefit i will tell you this my my electric bill at home has not gone up yeah i charge it every every night at home yes i have a hybrid so the hybrid works on gas and electric right and so my my my car will go about 25 miles on pure electric okay and then and every once in a while will kick in gas and all of that stuff so um i charge it every night at home i plug it in and then when it stops charging it just shuts off i have not seen any increase in my electric i would say i don't have a clue and and you can use a regular 120 a regular 120 outlet or two but it says sticks you can use a 120 right just take a longer time to charge so my car will take on a 220 line will take about three hours of charge on a 120 line it takes 11 hours yes how's it going to say to you the advantage you have is if you're on a long trip the gas will kick in yeah because by 2027 i'll use my truck and tow all the electric vehicles i could run out of electric or you keep a regular you know 500 watt or something like that generator in new york trunk yeah so that's what our that's what our plan is janine i'm going to tell everybody to watch this meeting so they can understand what it is that's not a problem at all any other new business this is kind of old speaking of communication are we going to let the staff know that well we're doing we're going to be doing a survey in the next week or two we're going to be doing a survey to all the staff you know on their intention of actually buying electricity because i want that to me i think that that needs to get out no i agree i agree was that good mo is that good idea yes okay thank you so much so this is kind of old old but new business i know i had brought up about the softball fields in the past being in very poor condition it has now been brought to my attention that our soccer fields are horrendous flooding not safe for the kids yeah but concerns obviously with kids playing sports on our field so it's something we still need to address look into but it's been brought to my attention so now i'm bringing it dr hall can you can you address that please answer that yeah we're going to start i just know it's been a long time and it's a drain it's in the drainage uh area and it looks pretty but it's just in a bad spot and if we had a new field it would turn around we would not even have this issue the perfect promo for a turf field yes and i went to the conference and i picked up some brochures but and until we do that with our kids are going to be playing swimming soccer so hey that's it well just concerned parents of course obviously for you know broken ankles broken ankles yeah right parents are concerned so okay thank you thank you sandy that's sorry we have insurance [Laughter] is there any other new business i rebuke what he just said quick real quick i want to thank um dr coghlanis team when i was in san diego stranded on the side of the road trying to call everyone and uh nelson i want to thank him he answered the phone ken answered the hotel they wouldn't let me check in they said that there was absolutely no way that terry sent the information and i was upset i was upset with terry i'm sorry uh i was and yeah and terry's when she woke up in the morning at like three or four whatever time she wakes up she started sending me emails and texts and i didn't see him until i woke up because i didn't get to bed until about time she was waking up but they did work hard to get it fixed um nelson helped he you know he answered he called he got he started to but i told no no right up to that point don't don't that's right but um can answer he he helped out um unfortunately they had him up all night because they wanted us to continue to believe that terry didn't send it and they said they were going to send him the form but they never sent him the phone i said finally somebody told me the next day oh no we found it oh that's what happened he still never said what was going on in san diego the national convention school board i thought we kind of kicked it well i signed up before we got yeah oh he's special mr brown i didn't ask him what was going on in san diego i just said it was like did i miss the party yeah i didn't ask nope that's right it was pretty good um i'll be i can't wait to see what the new uh organization looks like i guess it's 21 or 23 states right now and they're trying to set up a convention um yes they are they are this is the conversation starting over but you can have later yeah okay he doesn't want to get another phone call uh we have no need for closed session tonight can i have a motion to adjourn second all in favor say aye

sure can that money be applied to next year's premiums it can be applied to that so that there's the increase is less so if you make sure it was uh eight percent yeah at the 400 like you know what i'm saying yeah one of the things we talked about is trying to start some type of wellness program also and you know the possibility of funding a wellness program with that there's a lot of things you can do with wellness programs from a preventative standpoint you know blood tests you know you know all that all those type of things so there are some things we do and so one of the one of my goals with the committee is starting in the fall and september to begin meeting with them and start working on a wellness program that we can implement and then you know we'll be able to see if there's any funds available now again you know that that money's at again i'm just going to say this way it's at the board's discretion so again if i tap into that or or would recommend it happen i would come to the board first and say this is what my my thought would be so in some sense the 1.5 million is is is hostage to the situation and stays there yes until we run our thing out so at this point if you go fully funded the hit's 17.45 right now however however so let me let me continue on then sorry in that the committee has decided to make some plan changes also in that because if you make some plan changes you're also able to reduce the percentage so on and i'll just give you general terms here so on the ppo side they decided to make plain plan changes that would save another 4.24 so that's now now you're down to about okay and then on the hmo side they looked at making other plan changes that will save another i think it's 2.2 percent on the hmo side all right now your premiums are less on the hmo side also on that so again it will reduce that you know that percentage increase that is uh both to the district and also um to the uh to the employee also you know those plan changes through higher out higher out of pocket higher deductibles yeah there's some co-insurance or some um i'm just looking at it here nelson yeah some out-of-pocket office cove like like if you go on your office visit copay we go from fifteen dollars thirty dollars to twenty forty so it's a five dollar increase you save point four five percent you know so so they broke it down and in fact i've got a chart and i can share this i'll share this with the board when when we get the final one but that's all that's all broken down in that so we had discussion and um it was nice because we were able to have discussion not only with representatives from acme but also from cmea you know and they were able to give their views on all of that so uh so that is what the recommendation is going to be so in essence i think the net is going to be about on the ppo side about a 13 increase and then on the hmo side probably about a 14 to 15 percent increase but again keep in mind that part of that is the 7.5 increase that we didn't take last year so because you got to make it up somehow going and and this would be on a fully funded this would be then fully insured so yes so if you go fully funded you don't need the stop loss i don't believe so no anymore because the insurance company is assuming that risk yes so that's that gets you that's a little bit of why you'd have a difference at the top end yeah who who who pays the premium right now for the stop-loss policy does that come out of the reserve no that comes out it's all incorporated into the rates that we have also and that so that that's all in the administrative rates okay plus yes so that's all in there too okay so i'll have to i'll have to look at that too nelson just to see how that's not calculated in to make sure and all that stuff too yeah okay so can at some point the district has a history here that at one point they probably was fully insured so to speak right traditionally i think originally they were fully insured my understanding is there was some issue with the carrier or something and they went to self-funded and now so now we're looking to go down a path to go the big route here the traditional way okay and if memory serves me right the workman comp we are in a pool we are in some type of co-op right with the workmen comp i know that's the kind of the workings comp is completely separate that's under our property and liability okay i thought we was in a pool illinois community risk management yes we are in a co-op right with other districts right to mitigate costs and all yeah illinois uh and i forget they're the acronym that they have but yes they represent a number of districts okay kind of in the pool so when we brought to the table the committee and all of that are we looking at other districts to benchmark or did we just look internally to fill these gaps we looked internally there is um i will tell you the forecast five which is the uh program that we use for our financials you know that you know we share all that stuff they actually do an insurance study statewide the difficult part of that is you don't get into particulars and that's what's hard about comparing um rates from one district to another i'll give you example i remember having this discussion with the insurance committee one time you know they said well you know people over at home at home at fostermore don't pay as much as we do in premiums and i said what are the particulars of their plan that's what i need to see and that's what's difficult you know what what's the deductible what's your out-of-pocket that's where you need to compare apples to apples on this thing and that's what's difficult to do and so we're trying to pull some of that data but it's just very difficult because as a potential employee comes to our district obviously for the most part that in potential employees going to look at wages first and then you know benefits so we as a district have really ramped it up for wages to be out there paying market rate and now the other component is benefits so i i don't hear you know in comparison where our benefits compare to other districts we know where market rates is and we've been told just a couple months ago that we are up there really up there or or above slightly when it comes to rates so yeah i'm just curious where sure we are with insurance you don't have to answer that now but i'm just curious just to see because we're talking about big dollars here as well and a benefit this is a benefit package to employees and potential employees and things yeah and you know this may sound a little cold but i am i'm going to say it in are you directing that to me no no no no no i'm directing that to everybody and the public but i do want to say this the district provides health insurance for every employee if they want it think of that we the district says you can have health insurance if you want it so my question is and this is something i've wrestled with philosophically i i will say this is it the district's responsibility to take also care of the full family because or is the district's responsibility to take care of its employees i believe we are taking care of our employees and and the board is responsible because we are providing health insurance for every employee that wants it that is eligible for it and can i add something to that it's just a different i have to put on my cook okay you know and that doesn't mean that we try and lessen the impact of other rates i i am all for that but it's important that i know all of our employees understand that we do have a concern for our employees and that concern also is with medical insurance and we're providing that for them because a lot of districts do not do that they give you an amount of money to use towards a plan i just want to add one thing when you said did we look around this when we first started he did look at other companies and immediately they were not anywhere near competitive to blue cross but part of our issue is as ken made a comment about we had quite a few large claims and they rank you on that and they also look at what the claim was does it look like it's going to be something that carries on was it a one-time shot so some of that was based on our large claims and there were quite a few unfortunately so maybe next year we we only get a small i mean if we don't have a ton of large claims and it does he explained make sure i'm saying this right you know he's out there for all of these customers so we are in a pool when it comes to that type of thing but you're still responsible for what's going on in your policy per se so that money that blue cross blue shield is having to pay out goes across the board of everyone in that group but you're still taking a hit because they came from your unit so you're still taking a bigger hit than maybe next door and i'm not saying it's a ton but it's not like you're penalized because it is spread out but if another district had tons of high claims we're going to take but part of that also does that make sense did i do that right right so unfortunately it's been a couple bad years for insurance claims and there are some very very high claims across the board across everywhere so i think that's where the program like a wellness could mitigate some of those things and catch things before they get worse to prevent right yeah right it catch it catches up yes and again i mean i will tell you personal experience i mean you know getting that annual checkup and getting those tests annually are really important as you said mr brown from a preventative standpoint yeah you know okay so our process is i'll just real quick i'll let you know what our process is so we are uh alliance is putting all together the final numbers um we are having a virtual meeting thursday night um to just go over everything one or thursday afternoon i should say uh to go over um all the rates and everything to make sure the community is in agreement and then i will get that information onto the board agenda uh for tuesday what time are we doing now 4 15.

and a public notice will be posted on the legislature's website I'd like to take this time to remind our testifiers that due to time restrictions on our hearings we will be limiting testimony to one minute per testifier per bill for people participating remotely please remain muted and video disabled until shortly before it is your turn to testify when I call your name un mute yourself and your time will begin after your minute is completed staff will mute you so that we can move this hearing along in an orderly and efficient manner thank you first on our agenda is gm7 I'm sorry let me introduce my committee I have Senator Kurt favilla here to my left and I'm sure the other committee members will be joining us shortly um a lot of them are still in other meetings sorry this is on the countdown so okay so GM 784 submitting for consideration and Confirmation to the Early Learning board gubernatorial nominee Carrie rosovich for term to expire June 30th 2025 Carrie are you there I am I'm sorry I'm sorry and I see Carrie and Bob Peters um Bob Peters is signed up to testify go ahead Bob oh thank you chair kadani and um members of the committee The Early Learning board stands in strong support of the confirmation of Carrie rosovich to continue serving on the Early Learning board as a representative of the Hawaii early intervention coordinating Council Carrie brings many years of experience in the early childhood field and her particular Sensi ity and respect for the segment of the community that early intervention is important to um keeps our Focus as a board on the needs of those children and families without losing sight of our system building efforts thank you for this opportunity to offer strong support for car's um confirmation thank you Bob and we have several other RIT and testimonies all in support of Terry's nomination thank you uh Senator Drew Cana to my left thank you for joining us and Senator Donna marado Kim my chair Carrie would you like to make a statement please I would um chair kadani Vice chair Kim and Senate committee on education members mahalan Nui for the opportunity to extend my appointment to the Early Learning board for another three years representing the Hawaii early intervention coordin Council my desire to serve stems from three main seeds the first is my own experience as a mom of three and the challenges I faced when my own Kiki were young it was extremely difficult navigating The Early Childhood system I had a very hard time finding affordable and quality child care and preschool programs specialized services for my youngest child and Community Family Support programs and I'm someone who doesn't struggle meeting basic needs for the tens of thousands of families that do struggle with meeting basic needs navigating the system is almost impossible when I worked in direct service with families helping them access resources and supports I was able to experience with them the firstand challenges of filling out government forms navigating language barriers not being able to find needed information in the sheer isolation they were experiencing secondly I believe I have skill sets that can assist the E to fulfill its Mission my background is in systems building planning policy and conflict resolution in statute the eel is charged with the complex work of coordinating the Early Childhood Early Learning System I enjoy working with in complexity and untangling systemic challenges and I've really enjoyed working with my peers on the Early Learning board to strengthen eel's capacity third and finally my North Star in all of the work that I've done over the last three decades has been focused on growing peaceful and just communities the health and well-being of our Ki and our families are at the core when our families are doing well our schools our workplaces our communities and our economies do well conceptually it's a relatively simple cause and effect Hawaii ranks seventh from the bottom nationally and its investments in children which for me is contrary to how I feel we value our Ki locally yet budgets reflect values I hope to continue to work with policy makers to ensure the state invests more in our Ki particularly in our youngest Ki so that we prevent Downstream costly and ongoing Community challenges galui for your consideration and appointing me for an additional term in serving as an early learning board member thank you carer you're welcome members are there any questions not um Carrie I I have a couple questions for you there so in your um written response and thank you for sending in your response to the questions you noted that you wanted to create a goal for eel to use the Early Childhood state plan as the eoe Strategic plan moving forward um I just wanted to note that um I think the Early Childhood state plan is you know has a lot of uh components in it that are really Department of Health and Department of Human Services so I'm I'm not sure how they would uh nailed into the Early Learning uh board and um so you're um in you're evaluating a future EO director's effectiveness of their role using the Early Childhood state plan How would how would that work what did you particularly like about state plan that you wanted to mild into the Strategic plan sure so so for me the Early Childhood state plan reflects the um the statute and what in act 178 or what the executive office of early learning is supposed to be doing in terms of coordinating the Early Childhood system so it's the most comprehensive plan that eel has currently to look at that system um and so for me they really are and should be tasked with that implementation working collaboratively with the other state department so they wouldn't be doing direct implementation probably on only certain components of that state plan but coordinating with DHS and do and the charter school commission as well as um Department of Education on making sure they're implementing their pieces so it's more of a coordination role but what comes with that is significant staffing needs to do the tracking and monitoring that's required um to demonstrate progress against the plan um making sure that we have coordination support on bringing the partners together in a really meaningful way telling the stories of success um making sure that we're advocating in the ways necessary to support the plan so it's that infrastructure that's required to meaningfully implement a strategic plan is what I feel eel needs support around thank you for that um one of the things noted in last week's hearing with the other uh nominees for the Early Learning board um I mean the EO was that um they have I was it 17 members they have 17 board members which makes it difficult not just to come to conclusions and decisions um but to even have all of them at the meeting so do you think that that there needs to be a reshuffling or reorganization of the board it's a very good question um I I can't answer that clearly because I really feel that first what has to be evaluated is the scope of the executive office of early learning um so if we continue to stay with the scope and the complexity that the office has been charged with then I do believe we need a representative board um because the system is very complicated um but if we move more towards the scope of eel being early childhood education you know child care and preschool focused then I think we need to really revisit the structure that we have in place I haven't experienced personally on the board a challenge of reaching decisions um or Forum can sometimes be a problem but reaching decisions really hasn't been the issue um it is a large board I think for a chair to to try to navigate particular clear on Communications and things like that in committees but for me if the scope is going to remain as complex and Broad as it is in act 178 that we need a representative board and I would strongly suggest that we have County representation um because e is tasked with Statewide implementation and coordination and without the counties there it makes it very difficult to understand the needs of neighbor Islands in an intentional way thank you Carrie you're welcome your response you also noted that um the executive office of early learning needs significant resources to achieve its Mission he also noted that the amount needed will depend on whether or not e continues to provide Direct Services or plays more of a systems coordination role in which direction do you believe e should go I believe they should go in the direction of of more systems building and Less Direct service um the executive office of early learning has done an exceptional job in my opinion of standing up the public prek program setting the quality standards working with the principles and the complex area superintendant to get that program up and running um and I think I I I think it's just me I'd have to consult others but I do believe that the Department of Education could run that program and executive office of early learning could really focus on the bigger systems pieces that are required around integrated Data Systems quality improvement and continuing continuing Learning Systems um the coordination pieces that are required to implement the state plan you know those bigger pieces that are Beyond just program implementation so that would be my hope moving forward okay I won't comment on the Department of Education running program but I will um ask you as a current board member have you advocated for board approved budget that increases the resources provided to the E you have we have yes so there has been prior discussion on this issue there has been I I mean they ask for incremental uh increases but again it's to implement the public program I I would hope that we would get to a point where we would understand um in real concrete terms the cost of implementing The Early Childhood state plan because for me that's the cost of coordinating and implementing The Early Childhood system in a really intentional way and if we understood that cost that would give the board more clarification of what we should be promoting and supporting um for the office of early learning thank you you very much K thank you for your service welcome your willingness to continue members any questions if not thank you very much Carrie aloha aloha okay next on the agenda is GM 801 submitting for consideration and Confirmation to the Board of Education gubernatorial Nomine Damien barari for a term to expire June 30th 2025 to testify on Zoom Malia noga olera Aloha chair kidani and members of the senate committee Aloha um I'm calling in today from Kawaii and I'm representing the moku kwaii Council of Association of Hawaiian Civic clubs and um we submitted um our testimony and strong support of this confirmation for k bakari um M manoo has worked with Mr bakari in different settings that range from general education in Hawaii Hawaiian language and culture-based education and other Civic and social issues we have witnessed his leadership and commitment to promoting excellence and equity for our Ki and our community we feel that his experience with policy formulation and ongoing work on committees like the human resources and student achievement will be a value to the work ahead for the Board of Ed Mahal aloho Aloha to you too um next Susan Picola Davis also on Zoom Susan okay I was waiting to be unmuted good afternoon Cher kadani and Bard MERS I'm testifying in strong support for kaima bar barosi to have his membership on the board of uced he is an active board member his strong knowledge of the Hawaii culture lends a perspective that is true Hawaii he adds depth to discussions and poses relevant questions he actively participates at all meeting meetings thank you for providing him the opportunity to get confirmed for an extension of his continuing service thank you thank you very much Susan members questions of Susan next to testify in person Sher Nakamura he a coalition Sher please [Music] Aloha chair kidani Vice chair Kim and members of the committee my name is Shar Nakamura director of he Coalition we stand on our written testimony in strong support of the nomination of kaim barar for a second term on the board of education Kima has been a firm but fair voice at the Boe when it comes to understanding how doe will spend State and or federal funds he consistently asks for essential information such as data which should inform good planning a plan that everyone can understand and specific timelin so that everyone knows when things are supposed to be done he is also not afraid to inform the doe when they have not provided sufficient information or information in a timely manner to go back and redo things to meet the boe's expectations kima's deep knowledge of Hawaiian language and culture also keeps the Boe and doe grounded in Havi and keeps a focus on equity and education in our system we urge the committee to support his nomination thank you for this opportunity to testify thank you Sher members any questions if not um there are about another 35 uh written testimonies in support of this nomination and I'd like to invite Carman or Cary to the seat please and would you like to make an opening statement please olaaa Aloha I really do appreciate the opportunity to be considered for another term to serve our Kiki this past three years has been very eye openening for myself I had never imagined that we would end up in a pandemic and and really having an opportunity to overhaul A system that really needs it I found a lot of solace in myself when when things got a little bit of crazy and and really tried to reenter around the students School visits for me was something that was very very important to really get to hear from our Educators but more important from our kis and our families and that is why I'm here today to to continue service in any way I can and I would thank Mahal you for that opportunity thank you very much K and also thank you for your willingness to serve another term and to be engaged in those very long meetings um in your response your response to the committee you noted the need to resume discussions with Community Partners to strengthen public support and buyin to our public education system um can you um elaborate on that com yes most certainly in in the first eight months of my my initial term I was super encouraged by a lot of progress that that was made um we had a lot of reach out from our community supporters uh one particular item was um we had a meeting at our board offices with the um white executive Roundtable education committee and then a lot of of members of our business communities and they express a huge desire to be working with our schools they express the frustration that they often have to look outside of to find worthy candidates or willing candidates to fill a lot of the jobs that we have here in Hawaii they recognize and so did we that we need to start creating a bridge not just saying we're going to do it but then putting resources towards it when I talk to to teachers and and other Educators they would love to have the support of the business Community but putting that extra kolana on them at this point in time when they have so much other things to do it is really hard they're already spending a lot of dollars out of their own personal pockets of money they're already spending more time than um a lot of us realize so we started initial talks and how do we create that bridge how how do we find those and most likely from the business community that would be willing to to take on that charge now these discussions were very um preliminary where initial we were really encouraged about that and then the pandemic hit and we had to really shift to student safety to to make sure that our our students were safe that they were fed we realized that a lot of our especially disadvantaged children they get a lot of their stability at our schools so we really had to do as much as we could to shift and get into that mode of um jumping right back into business not having a gap in waiting to see what happens even though we we really had no idea what was going to happen in the meantime a lot of our business supporters continually supported through through testimony through through phone calls but they too realize that this wasn't the time now that that the the pandemic is I wouldn't say under control but we have a better grasp on on where it may be going and how we might better adjust to it I I believe now is the time for us to pick up these conversations to reach back out to our partners and a lot of them have been waiting for that and I think by doing so we can create that that bridge and the opportunities for our students you it really breaks my heart when a lot of our a lot of our Kiki leave because they don't perceive that there's something here for them and in a way they're right but how do we make something for them and how do we Empower them to create these opportunities for themselves through our education system thank you for that P so if reconfirmed what areas do you think we need to plan to focus on First and um you you talk about the need to increase opportunities to recruit and grow our own teachers and educate and Educators is that something that you think we should start first or do you have other ideas where we should I apologize I didn't hear the last part of that the need to increase opportunities to recruit and grow our own teachers is that some place where we should start or are there other areas where we should start first to focus I think we we need to continue on that area to recruit our own teachers and to recruit more teachers but something that has become really apparent especially during the pandemic is that teacher recruitment is not enough we need to combat our our our teacher loss there's been so many people that have have retired because of the pandemic or during the pandemic for for safety reasons but we're also on on a I believe a really good track with with your folks support and and the differentials for um for sped for um heart to fill and and wine immersion that signaled the value that we put in our Educators next up with that was looking at the compression issue to make sure that it's not just those in these fields what all of our teachers are valued and and have what it takes to to make a living and that they're compensated properly unfortunately again because of the um the the co issue a lot of that had to be put in the back burner and I I do believe that those are two things that we can start looking at now with your support that will make a big difference and and and position us for success in near future thank you um you know we do have bills going through the Senate right now that um uh puts quite a bit of money into the the teachers decompression the um I think it's 93 94 million or something like that um and one of the other things that you may or may not know is part of the issue I think has been is that the classifications for teachers has been in statute and they're the only public Union so when they reach the top you know there's no more movement so um um um we have in that same bill asked that the statute be removed you know with the classif classifications in it and they just negotiate like other unions and they have agreed to do that this time so hopefully that will help and we we do have other funding for the differentials for the hardto fill areas um and hope again hopefully that will help but I do agree with you that uh during the pandemic we lost a lot of great teachers we lost a lot of tenure teachers mainly because a lot of them were not comfortable with doing virtual teaching Etc and I think that was someplace where uh the department fell short and not being able to train our teachers or provide them with I mean even students in high school who could I mean my my middle school grandkids can operate my phone better than I can and when I have problems I just hand it to them and they'll fix it so you know I think those were places that we could have done a better job um so I I hear what you're saying in the questionnaire I asked about the doe strategic plan which the doe currently does not have do you believe you believe five education achievement markers that should be part of the next strategic plan or academic achievement social emotional intelligence Readiness for Next Level ability to overcome and adapt to difficult situations and contributions to the community how do you see these five achievement markers being integrated into a strategic plan so I I think really it although they're five they have to be integrated together I I think for me one of the biggest things that I I see a lack of nowadays is giving our students the opportunity to aana giving them the opportunity to take on responsibilities to contribute back to the communities thus giving relevance to the education that they have why am I learning these things what am I going to do you know oftentimes we hear that well you know you go get an advanced degree you can make a million dollars somewhere and that that's success and that is one measure of success but what about our students that maybe not making a million dollars but but they're contributing posi positively to their communities they're helping others in their communities to elevate themselves and thus Elevate our lahu our our our communities as a whole so I think in in any strategic planning it it's not just about the great parts that we put together but the integration of these different parts and I think that in itself is key um those those five areas as well as others that will be definitely brought to a strategic planning process but really making the parts work as a whole is what I think is is really necessary to accomplish that thank you and my final question is how quickly do you believe that the Board needs to engage with a new the new superintendent to build this strategic plan I would say as quickly as possible uh I I think it all a lot of it depends on who this uh new superintendent is and how they work some some people like to get a good lay of the land a good understanding you know some people have uh plans that are you know your first 100 days your first 30 days your first 60 days um I I I believe as soon as a superintendent has a good grasp of the situation and an understanding and has talked to enough has engaged enough with um with you folks with with with our legislators our communities our staff and have that understanding and ready that is when um it'd be appropriate to start this or start engaging in a strategic planning process um exactly the sooner the better is is what I would hope for it to be thank you for that members any questions Senator K hi good afternoon I'm sorry I didn't get to meet with you Ahad of time I did meet with all the others so um going to ask you the questions I probably would have asked you if we met earlier you talked to just now about the education achievement markers and about the Strategic plan and um part of that is social social intelligence emotional intelligence Readiness for the next level and um you know I don't necessarily think we have to have a strategic plan to be able to integrate that into our schools have you being on the board notice or realize that we are are students are lacking in being socially adapt and being ready for the world whether they they go to college or not that they can interview that they are um they have social skills that they can balance a checkbook that they have financial literacy um having been on the board um have you any thoughts about that and have you folks discussed that has it been something that you folks uh have been um prioritizing so I I I I do have some context and some understanding of that but not so much from um from meetings in the boardroom more so from meeting with our students in their schools meeting in in the community forums and and and listening you know listening to our principles listening to our CES listening to to our teachers and really understanding what the Readiness factor is for for the Youth for for the children um no I don't think we we need to um have a strategic plan to start that I I think it should be core to to what we do but I do believe that it should be accounted for in a strategic plan like I mentioned earlier I think all the different parts of a strategic plan need to work together and and need to be really really um considered and and understood that it's it's it's the parts that make the whole you know it's Hawaii is such an inter interdependent Place often times we hear the the ideals u in America of of being independent right but growing up here in Hawaii I understand that it's really about caring for each other about that interdependence so being able to give our students the opportunity like I mentioned before to to Al kolana to take on some of these responsibilities I think that's part of the socio emotional um learning that's really important because they start to feel value we don't need a strategic plan specific specifically to make that happen that can and and I've I've seen some great examples of it already happening um in schools you know it's I I'm a proud graduate of wak high school and I I I will admit that I wasn't probably the best uh student there um but you know I'm the oldest in my family and I had to make my way and learn going back and visiting that school they had their ambassadors that um took us around and and and shared and it was it was really beautiful but then I went walking around afterwards to observe those that weren't given that responsibility and and I I still saw a lot of a lot of promise and so um it it's super important but giving the students this this opportunity to grow into that and guide them into a social emotional well-being it is super important so what have the board done I mean have you folks mandate anything to the to the superintendent or to the schools in this area or I mean it's one thing to talk about and say how important it is but I mean we've had to we've had bills to include financial literacy in the curriculum so why do we need a law why do we need a bill if that's so important then why isn't it part of the curriculum the normal curriculum not an not an elective but part of the everyday and teaching it from a young age as they grow so are you does the board aware of some of the measures that going through where you know we really don't need a law you folks can can AFF effectuate those important areas I I agree um I I myself am not fully aware we do have a great um uh a team that that is following building the ledge that that does keep us informed um to be honest I I I don't know that we've addressed that specifically um that that specific issue around the um financial literacy and and check rating so are are you aware that it's only an elective in some schools and and some schools don't even have it are you aware of that that's my understanding so is that acceptable you know I I I I think we can definitely improve I think it needs to be improved okay so I I guess that's what I'm driving at you know you've been on the board and um you're going to be on and so I'm hoping that there's some proactivity in in these areas of of importance and not wait for strategic plan not wait for the legislature to pass a law but that you folks are going to be proactive in in making sure that this becomes part of the curriculum um so that our students are ready um and I've shared this with the with the other nominees but I sit on the witchy board and um one of the areas in which we all agree is that our students across the nation coming out of high school lacking social skills lacking skills to interview for jobs and um lacking financial literacy they cannot can't change back they can't do some basic things and one of the things we talked about was that colleges maybe should be uh providing some of these programs and these courses at the college level which really worries me because we're going to be teaching basic things that should be taught at the high school and intermediate school and yet we're going to saddle our students with student debt at the college level for these basic courses that they should have already under their belts and so I think that's an area that's really lacking and I'd love love to see that the Board of Education take a stronger role in talking and and working with the superintendent and the area superintendent into looking at how do we Implement these things now and not wait for a law and not wait for a Str plan h on the other area I notice that you're on um the human Human Resources um committee is that correct are you familiar with the overpayments um overpayment where the state overpays uh teachers because they don't have they take they get all of their all of their sick leave and all of the vacation up front and so some of them use it up before they six months and they use it up and then they go on vacation or they go on sick leave and because it's automatic payroll they get paid and they end up owing us because we overpaid them they didn't have vacation they didn't have sick leave and it's thousands of dollars in fact there's a point where if you add it all up doe is one of the largest um violators of that of millions of dollars and half of that is uncollectible because teachers either quit or leave the system and so that and every year after year we've been after doe to do a better better collection a better way of making sure that teachers who do not have sick leave or vacation left that they go on the manual system of reporting their pay so that they're not overpaid because when they're overpaid then they take a long time to pay it back the losses we can take it a percentage but the unions you know fight it and the and the people who got it fight it but if we underpaid if we underpaid anybody boy we better make sure we make that whole the very next month or the very next week but we we overpay and these are thousands and thousands of dollars some teachers or or Personnel have gotten over payments and then will pay $25 a month and take forever and then they leave the system and you can't collect it and this is money that is could be used in our classrooms it could be used for our teachers um so you're not aware of that I'm not aware of it but Mahalo for bring into my I'll make sure that our committee does take that issue up because I bring that up every year I talk about it in meetings I talk about it with doe uh talk to the governor's office I mean this is something that's been going on for for a number of years so I hope that you guys become aware of this and that more effort is done in being able to um do something about it to collect it thank you w thank you thank you chair um kind of going back off of what Senator Kim was saying and first off for uh taking the leap and continuing on hopefully uh on the board for another term and I think you know I'm a big advocate of yours and know you do good work in the community and hopefully I'll continue to do good work advocating for our kids now and into the future but going off of what Senator Kim says you know we have bills coming through the L every year um and the department always says we can do that ourselves we can do that ourselves we don't need a law but we keep on providing these laws like whether it's financial literacy or other types of things that we feel as a legislature are important uh for our kids so one of your responses not really a response to that but in terms of uh Boe has an absolute expectation to advocate for needed resources um he noted that it was readily apparent that our lawmakers need more confidence and Clarity that the resources already allocated are being utilized appropriately and effectively by the department before we can request additional resources so how do you balance you know the expectations of the legislature and in relation to the needs of the students in the schools and the Boe and the or the department you know in terms of like us requesting some our expectations and then your expectations I I I really look forward to um the new superintendent coming in and and really level setting that we have great communication between the superintendent the board and the legislature you know we we've heard over and over um how your case in point Senator Kim with with this area that I was not aware of but I should have been um that there are inefficiencies that that need to be taken into account of we will need significant resources in in the near future um especially to combat learning loss and to you know create a better system for our students but we hear you I hear you that that there's an efficiencies that we need to address first so my response was was such because I I I I understand and my hope is that we can work with the um New superintendent not my hope my expectation is that we will work with the new superintendent whoever that may be to create the systems of accountability to understand how to create efficiencies so that when we come to you folks with a request it's clear it's concise you have confidence that it's needed and that we've already looked elsewhere and we couldn't find it elsewhere that that we've come to you so that that's what I expect to happen with our next superintendent thank jar thank you and by by the way I had an opportunity to visit your Al way here last month and um I agree it was a wonderful opportunity to meet with the students and even those that were not part of the committee were very pleasant and you know s Aloha and greeted us as we walked by it's very very nice good experience so thank you Mahal without further questions our next GM 804 so submitting for consideration and Confirmation to the Board of Education gubernatorial nominee Bruce Voss for a term to expire June 30th 2025 and to testify we have Susan Bola Davis Susan please Aloha it's my pleasure to testify for Bruce and an extens I mean confirmation for a second term he is an active board member his strong knowledge of Finance added substance to the finance committee meetings in his capacity of chairman of the finance committee he adds insight into the Department's presentations on budget for the board to be accountable there needs to be a robust finance committee led by a leader with integrity and standards he openly listens he listens to testifiers when they testify or early he reads the written testimonies he challenges when necessary and adds Clarity to the confusion he actively participates in all meetings I truly believe that this is a very necessary second term that we keep Bruce because there will not be continuity and his expertise in finances brings a lot to the table whether it's in a finance committee or even at the board once the finance committee has met and then the general business meeting occurs he provides a lot of insight for those that thank you Susan your time is up also to testify live in person shering nak for he [Music] Coalition Aloha again Cher kidani Vice chair Kim and members of the committee Sher Nakamura director of he Coalition uh we stand on our written testimony in strong support of the nomination of Bruce Foss for another term on the board of education one of he's biggest priorities is equity in education and looking out for our struggling students Bruce is a strong advocate for these students and in his actions interactions with you we make sure that they are being addressed coherence transparency and accountability is the coalition's second biggest priority we have been extremely thankful to Bruce for asking the doe tough questions to get clarity on things like how the cares and Esser funds are being spent how our CIP funds are being spent and what the doe is doing to make processes and op operations more efficient so that we can get to the outcomes we desire we look forward to working with Bruce and we urge the committee to support his nomination thank you for this opportunity to testify thank you Sher there's also a written testimony in support from David miiro of Hawaii kids can Bruce please go ahead and make an open statement Al chair kidani and members of the committee thank you very much for taking the time this afternoon when the governor asked me to consider um what would be actually my third term I thought back to the words of my father who was a math teacher at kylo intermediate for almost three decades and uh my father was a great teacher but he was a Taskmaster and my father would always say to his kids us and to his students a job half done is a job not done at all and at the board of education and the Department of Education the job is not done the pandemic has caused Great harm to our students particularly our English Learners and our financially disadvantaged students both in their learning and their social emotional well-being there's a lot of work to be done a lot of work and if confirmed by the Senate I would like to support the new superintendent whoever that is and her or his team to do the work necessary to get our students back to where they should be where they must be thank you chair thank you Bruce members questions before I start online because I'm sorry I'm gonna ask to leave for another meeting but um and I know we met and I asked you a lot of questions already okay ask away Senator no I was just reading your response and you talked about the CIP prioritizations one of the things that you push you and that you're you're part of doing and um I commend you for that every year however it seems as though the legislators of the area have CIP requests for their schools which seems to be uh not on the priority list or very low ranked on the list of cips that the doe decides they want to do and so how do we reconcile that and um you know I know are some of the older schools like parenton High School which we are both alumni I mean that campus is very old um both um Senator kadani and myself their buildings there that was there when we were there and um their master plan is really it's it's taken a long long time and a lot of the students across the island from other areas and if Senator faella was here probably would jump in and they're very envious of all the new schools and all the latest Technologies at the schools and you know the wonderful facilities and some of the old schools are are you know really bad uh luckily for Faron we fought really hard to get the field and the new stadium area you can see it from the freeway and everybody's very envious of Fon but they don't see the empty pool that's been deteriorating they don't see the gym that's terrible I mean there's all the stuff that's going on the campus so how do how do the board help to reconcile some of these no it's it's a great question senator and if I may briefly you know we're all shaped by our personal background so briefly I want to tell you how I came to this um I I I graduated from Kaho high school and I was six years there I was there in the 70s when it transitioned from an intermediate school to a high school and if you may recall if you around at the time that area of kyoo was represented by people who were unfortunately not influential in the legislature and so in this actually happened in the late 1970s when it came time to paint Kaho High School um the only thing we had they took all the leftover paint from the elementary schools the purple paint the green paint the red paint and that's how they painted Kaho high school and we laughed about it we joked about it but it it really did make all of us feel kind of like second class citizens this is paint didn't hurt anything but that always stuck with me you know and then I look at places like um and I don't mean to put anyone on the spot um ferrington is one of them nanakuli kuki High School King Intermediate School some the neighbor Islands you know WEA on the big island Kaho some of those places in my view it's just not fair I I don't want any kid to ever feel second class in a learning environment so to answer your question it has to be a balance as long as I have been paying attention to legislators uh legislators will advocate for their districts and they should and we have gotten some terrific schools as a result of that and some money um that you wouldn't already have gotten my wife teaches at mono High School I'm grateful to the legislature for um all they've done for that but we cannot let the schools that have fallen into disrepair like kamuki high school go the way they're going because it's a self-fulfilling prophecy Senator if we don't improve those schools the senator the parents don't want to send their kids and it it grindle down to nothing so the department has to work with the legislators on their priorities incorporate those into the the policy which uh commands um you know socioeconomic um equity and come up with a list that is public that's part of the conversation so that when the legislators go to fund uh the CIP projects during the session they have a list they can talk to the people at the department and facilities and that's going to be a key part of the superintendent team and try to find that balance so that they can advocate for their districts but that these students don't get left behind in second class so that's you know I often talk about balance but this is an area where balance is definitely needed well let me just share you a story about the field at farington and so while we put in the money they did up the contracts because they ran out of money or the bids came in a certain amount they cut out the lights for the field okay so we're going to have a football field with no lights and so the principal came to see me and the counselors came to see me the coaches came to see me and they said we're not going to be able to play games at night we we don't have the lights and then I was told and I said okay well you know we'll put the money in the budget and they said the contract says if you don't do it by the time the contract begins you cannot add the lights and if you go back in later and dig up the field you're GNA have what happened at at at Castle and some and some of the bad things that went on and so we we pushed for that I ended up talking with the chair of the Board of Education he found money in an account that Doe has um for when they have extra monies from a contract additional monies I guess it's a f found the money we put it in but if we didn't get involved we would have a field today at farington with no lights and then the same thing happened again when they were finishing up the field they didn't have they didn't have money for the visiting bleachers and a bathroom and we had to go and find the money again and same thing I think it came out of that fund right Senator yeah um but again I mean how how do we get so oh I'm sorry I didn't mean interrup there's there's sort of two two parts to that question uh the answer is um first is on the project management because that what you're describing at least in part is a project management failure and we just learned this I had the facilities people come and it's not not their fault but I don't know if you know this there are almost a hundred positions vacant now within facilities development and Facilities Management and they have ideas Mr Tanaka in terms of of mentorship and bringing people in but it's a huge gap there we need to get that department fully staffed with experienced people and frankly if we need to pay Market rates for that we need to do that we need to get those people second you know whether it is um you know lights at Fairington um or any of the other many issues you know I would encourage whether it's lawmakers or whatever to to communicate to the board you know I was telling this to Senator kadani when I met with her people call me all the time and a lot of times they're yelling at me you know about things that the department doesn't does it not doing and people yell at you all the time but you know what that's how I learn things you know and I particularly love it when parents call and yell at me because I learned stuff about what's happening in the schools and so that's the kind of relationship that I hope the board and the department can have the legislature going forward I mean you know what you folks have done are hopefully about to do with the um the teacher differentials and the compression issue that's a wonderful message and I hope I hope that's the beginning of kind of a little bit of a new relationship where we can talk openly and if where the department or the board screws up which we will on stuff like the lights at Fairington you know we can do what's necessary to fix it and fix it now I appreciate your response and like we I said we did go to uh don Herer who was the chair of the board at the time and he did find the money so we did I did have that relationship with him that we were able to do that so this is my last statement I'm going to make before I go um the keii school being done on Maui and I know that the doe may have had resistance to it but my understanding is that school's going to costs us in excess of $300 million to build a school which to me is is crazy because we have so many schools that could use some of that money to be upgraded and yet we're spending that money because of the rock because they were told that this is not a good area to build a school but we went ahead and built it it anyway and it's costing more and more uh as the days go by and um it's it's such a waste that we do stuff like that because again the money could be used at other schools absolutely and I know it's expensive I haven't heard the $300 million number but but it wouldn't surprise me given the the site uh constraints there in Maui the traffic as you know the land use commission had its own you know view view on that um and no doubt we need to we need to do a better job the Board needs to do a better job the department needs to do a better job of spending that money sufficiently to to their credit and I do want to defend the department here you know um some of the procedures they've put in place particularly for the repair and maintenance project and there's been some Innovative projects that's better and those are being done more efficiently and one of the things that we need to do is scale those processes up take those ideas for the larger CIP projects now remember some of that's going to be taken over by the school facilities agency but they need the school facilities agency needs to hire its good people take the priority lists take the ideas and and begin to develop uh projects more efficiently and I'll admit part of that problem is the legislators get involved and we kind of mandate and say this is where we want it but I think that in some cases the board has to stand up to the legislature and say this doesn't make sense if you put it there it's going to cost us amount and it's going to take off for other schools and you know cuz we're we're not the experts we rely on you guys to be the experts to tell us and when you guys don't then we'll dream it up understand we do we'll dream it up I mean that's our role right to try to put something there I mean In fairness to the legislators and and and and I'm I am very familiar with the background of kii school you know that's a burgeoning area a school needed an active legislator and and and good for them they're doing what they're supposed to do they're representing their constituents so I I'm I'm be the last person to criticize them um but you're right cost control has to be a factor it has to be a factor great thank you appreciate thank you um on that note um the school facilities agency bill was passed almost three years ago I think and unfortunately it took a while for uh the governor to name the executive director who has been named p f is from the Big Island um but I think the problem that was just discussed can can um somewhat be resolved with the school facilities agency to give um you know us some information and and uh for the board to get involved too as to what you you guys are hearing um and agree the 300 million price tag um is because it is Blue Rock the land should never have been purchased by the state uh it was purchased um quite a number of years ago um the other issue with that now and which is going to be make it even more expensive and the board might want to weigh in on this is the community wants um an underpass under the freeway which is going to cost a lot of money and I want to weigh in by saying this noani high school was built with an underpass of Camp Highway The Underpass gave them nothing but problems for years the kids would go there and smoke after school fight whatever it was um and now the homeless were were in it they finally closed it they closed it up it's not usable so uh what the intention was was good but that's not in today's world not not how is not how it's going to be used so I think um you know the board should should look at that and maybe weigh in with the Department I I don't know where we are and something that I might want to look at further I don't know if the money was is in this budget now to do that or not um so I can understand um why the school facilities agency was was needed and again we did pass it a while ago but you know things sometimes moves too slowly here um but I look forward for the board's you know input in some of these projects and and hopefully the school facilities agency will take the lead and let us know through the department where where the the facilities are needed um and not so much the legislators weighing in and saying this is you know what we want in our district because while it's good to have it's not always should be first on the list and and that's why at least I hope in some small way the board policy that that kenura and I put put together um will help because from the Department side the priorities you know this for decades have been kind of a black box nobody knows what's on the list or where it is and how it gets shifted and that list is made public and it's part of the overall conversation including with the legislators then we can uh get not just better projects but hopefully more efficient like cost efficient projects so thank you thank you U Bruce I wanted to ask you um what the board's timeline is to name the new superintendent we've had a couple delays and the board has moved it back yes and it's uh not doing anyone any good to you know Wonder uh when this process is going to end and so that we can you know get down to business finish the strp plan um you know it would have been nice to have more uh input on the budget I don't get me wrong uh super interim superintendent Hayashi has been uh very rigorous in um spending time with us uh he's kept us here asking questions many nights but um I I do appreciate his willingness to learn but we need to make sure that we don't delay it any further so that we can um get down to business and and start agreed and you just mentioned intentions and what's the old line I'll paraphrase it the road to heck is paved with good intentions um in terms of the amount of time it's taken there was a couple factors um that the board considered um one was it wanted to get the input of you know the community advisory committees and the superintendent it wanted to H cast the broadest net uh you know for candidates so that we could see everyone who was interested in the job who's qualified and third rightly or wrongly uh the decision was made it probably wouldn't be a good idea to change in the middle of the school year um all that being said I agree with you it probably has gone on a little longer than ideally it should and so to answer your question specifically there will be a um a committee meeting um in the first week of May uh uh uh to approve essentially the um some processes and then on May I believe it's 19th the finalists that are selected by the um the committee uh the search committee which has done an enormous amount of work will be interviewed by the full board and it is the expectation that at are about that day assuming that the candidates are acceptable to the board that a new superintendent will be selected I hope so um certainly by so a month from now we a month from now and um you know and I do commend and uh interim superintendent Hayashi for his his patience you know and his commitment to the students and his commitment to keeping the schools open he was put in a difficult if not impossible situation and um you know I think the school's benefited from you know what he's done in that extremely difficult situation yeah I think it was a difficult and impossible situation myself to not have a strap plan you can't hire a fire so you have the same people that you're working with whe you know good or bad that's you know whatever right and that I mean you're 100% right on that and that that's the whoever the new superintendent is that's job one is to assemble his or her team right a team that is um you know got not just the experience but has the ability as as Miss Nakamura likes to say to develop the internal process is necessary to change change the mindset within the department that we're here to support the schools that's what we do and and is willing to accept new procedures new ideas and um it's a difficult thing it really is the very you mentioned the Strategic plan and we need to get on that but the very first thing the Board needs to do with a new superintendent is help her or him develop the kind of team that's necessary to uh drive this forward and remediate the learning loss thank you for that and I appreciate your willingness to continue to serve Bruce thank you you've been a great asset to the board appreciate it further questions I'll just do a quick one I can M chair um hello Bruce just real quick just going off of one of your statements you made you know you spoke about the the trauma you know of the kids mental health and coming back to school how that's all going to all play out and and really um you felt strongly developing better metrics to address the student's social emotional well-being um you know and you you said it's going to take time obviously to get a a a better understand understanding of what really is going on and there was a uh you know an upfront um what is it an upfront I guess um data collection at first I handle but it didn't fully Encompass what you thought which I feel exactly the same way um but how do you see the board helping the department accomplish this in in getting B better data collection not only for a lot of this types of stuff but obviously throughout a lot of the other things you spoke about in your responses better data collection to better handle how we move forward in the future so um the the data tool that was used by the department and used by by a lot of lot of school districts you know is the Panorama tool that's given to the students and um you know again I just know from talking to teacher my own wife who teacher at mono high school that um not that the students didn't take that seriously they did um as they do all testing and there but it didn't encompass everything of what they what they what they were feeling and and in particular I mean the sense of disconnectedness and disengagement that students felt you know that the um from a learning and participation you know it was almost like an out-of-body experience and and that has uh created all kinds of disruptive and unproductive Behavior so as I mentioned there are there are tools um you know that that uh the national association's board of education Advocates there's other ones that I know that are available and we you know it's a two-prong process we need to work with the Department to to find the proper tools have the students uh you know provide the data and then work with the Department with regular reporting on on programs um you know that can address this you know as as K said and I'm so happy that he's staying on the board because he's such a great asset a lot of this is peer driven right you know um peer groups and and the kinds of opportunities to participate in in peer activities that just simply haven't been there the last two years we have plenty of money we have the Esser funds the uh the complex areas are directing those the Board needs to put all that together require regular reporting by the department and the complex area superintendence and make sure that money is available even for small things at the schools high schools intermediate schools programs activities nights food for students you wouldn't believe Senator what a big deal it is just to provide snacks for students to keep them there learning all that kind of stuff we need to pay attention to and make sure is being done and so and and that the public can um learn about and offer its ideas because you know we've heard some of them today the public has great ideas and over the last couple years uh the department you know arguably hasn't listened to all those ideas and and I want I want us as the board want the department to listen to those ideas to help those students in their social emotional learning thanks Bruce thanks chair thank you thank you much appreciate it moving along GM 802 submitting for consideration and Confirmation to the Board of Education gorial nominee Nicole mclen for turn to expire 6:30 20125 to testify Susan Picola Davis please helloha Aloha thanks for hanging in there Susan it's like a board of education I mean a depart yeah board meeting It's Gonna Last all day right so Nicole Aloha and get ready for your opportunity to participate in making our public schools great public schools for all of Hawaii's kakei be prepared for long hours prior to every meeting you will need to put aside some personal time to read the minutes and all the written testimonies during the meetings you will be actively listening to oral testimonies from your constituents it is important to know that your board membership comes with high expectations from the public part of this includes holding the Department of Education accountable be ready to ask questions for clarity from all presenters on the agenda it is a very important job you are undertaking with its ups and downs thank you for accepting the nomination I noticed in your resume that you have qualities that the board would definitely benefit from thank you Susan your time is up sorry next to testify Rick eged president Wy key Improvement Association not here in Support also Ivan lwan it's Ivan here in support and a bunch of testimonies received all in support Mak thank you for joining us please make your opening statement Aloha Cher kidani Vice chair Kim and honorable members of the senate committee on education it is an honor to be here today before you seeking confirmation of my nomination to the Hawaii state board of education this is a tremendous responsibility that if confirmed I will take very seriously I have had the pleasure of connecting with each of you um and your office staff over the past weeks as well as a number of your colleagues in the Senate and I found our conversations to be insightful and productive I'd like to Mahalo you all for sharing your most precious resource with me your time as well as the colleagues and friends of mine who took the time to support me in this endeavor I'm grateful for all that this body has done and continues to do for our Ki thank you for the opportunity to be heard before you today and I humbly ask for your support in this nomination to the Board of Education mahalo Mahal Mak I hope Susan Picola Davis didn't scare you off she did but it is true the board meetings have been very lengthy but look kimana and Bruce are back so so it can't be all that bad I mean it's a tremendous responsibility to sit on the board uh as legislators and and on this committee you feel that tremendous I'm not going to call it a burden responsibility and um so we're very happy when new faces you know come up come up and and uh are willing to take up the mantle and and serve our students our community um and you know thank you for coming to to uh sit with me and talk story and I'll ask a few questions um for the general public also because I actually have gone over these things with you already but in your response you talk about needing clear metrics to determine success for the Department of Education what are some key metrics or indicators you would like the doe to use to measure and evaluate Student Success I think many of the other Akamai folk before me had a lot of man that I think is of value K's five um sort of metrics if you will but I think if I could uh chair kidani expound um I think one of the things when we think through strategic planning and metrics is really looking at the the indicators that were already set in the 2017 through 2020 plan and ensuring that um we have some accountability in those um look at areas of opportunity for growth and Improvement um because as I understand it really with the exception of two um many of them fell short in terms of success and those indicators so I would look at um doing a a deeper dive on on how we can improve that as we move forward into strategic planning for the future um for our Kiki but I think in general the indicators that have already been laid out in the plan are spot on thank you so you in your response the written response to the committee you talk about the need for targeted and Equitable programming to fill the gaps what gaps do you believe exist in the do now what proposals do you have to fill those gaps I think access is a is a a a big thing uh equity and access um when you're when you're considering Public Schools it is a deep passion of mine to ensure access it's something that we deal with in the health care sector um and I do see as I've shared with you and others lots of synergies between Healthcare and education when we're considering the well-being of families um and Ki and so um I do think looking for ways to bridge gaps in terms of access needs to be something that the Boe and the doe partner together uh hopefully with the legislature as well but uh developing programs and uh strategies around identifying those gaps and ways to develop Partnerships to address it um is a passion of mine thank you for that um I appreciated your response that you highlighted increasing Workforce Development opportunities in the the health care field for our students how do you see the board helping build these Partnerships and Workforce Pathways with the doe and private sector Partners thank you for that uh question chair I think um as again folks before me that are Akamai have shared I definitely believe that there's an appetite in the business Community uh both for-profit and nonprofit to partner with Ki uh to ensure um a better bridge between education and career Readiness um so I think again um not to double down on the point but I do think that there's opportunity for the Boe um to consider creative and innovative solutions or to um build upon the successes that many other Boe members have have begun um in terms of developing Pathways um there are lots of private schools that have begun pathway programs for KiKi um and some doe schools that have done a phenomenal job as well I for consideration I'd only be looking uh at ways to expand that opportunity uh as as appropriate um and notably I would be one to advocate for those opportunities to the underserved Kiki thank you for that I think um the legislature has been been a strong proponent of of these Pathways um even our career technical education our uh Alternative Learning Centers and you know as many of you have talked about uh students needs um we also know that not every student can sit in the classroom for six hours a day and and you know learn and so there are other ways that we are looking at to you know to make sure that um they have the education and skills they need to move forward in life I think um uh Pathways aren't excellent example of of how they can do this and there are several schools in the state that are doing we saw when we visited the Big Island um one pathway where they were teaching um the students how to be surveyors and they were so excellent I was just so amazed we have um at white paho high school they have a health Academy and I was kind of Blown Away a couple years ago when uh first lady Biden was here to push for vaccinations um Hawaii Pacific Health rolled up in their brand new bus that was suited for the vaccination purposes and every employee on the bus that was doing vaccinations were graduates of Wahu High School the year before hired by Hawaii Pacific health and making earning a a decent uh wage and the assistance on the bus were that came onto the bus were the students that were currently at White High School in the health pathway and and this is you know how it's meant to work and I think the ideas that our educators are bringing to the table with the help of the Board of Education um is significant because I think you know in the days that when we went to school we did have what what is now called Pathways we had auto shops and you know sheet Meadow Woodworks and and whatever you know for a long time they stopped but uh we know that our um local community has a hard time finding um you know um employees to fill these jobs and I've known that some of the auto body shops have to you know bring people from the mainland because they don't have um workers here who know how to do that and and so we need to find out what the community and what the businesses in our community need and to be able to help help them you know fill those needs through our student population so I appreciate your your willingness to sit on the board and yes it is um hard work but it's interesting and you will be part of guiding the lives of of future students and I think that should give you great satisfaction and I am very thankful that you're willing to serve members any questions just quick hello Mak and again uh not only to you but to the rest who have reached out and asked for meetings um prior to this hearing you know I appreciate that and it really goes a long way to know that you guys are you know willing to reach out and and have those build those relationships with each and every one of us especially on this committee to better get to know you and better see how uh you would uh be on the board and and serve on the board so I appreciate that even though I wasn't able to meet I know you've most of youve tried multiple times but um I do appreciate that you know um my whole thing is and I know K is a huge advocate I know our neighbor Island members are hu huge advocate for um the neighbor islands and uh the rural communities and I know aahu has extremely diverse uh communities as well that are represented over here and in one of your responses you said that you know we can bring a one- siiz fits-all type of approach um to supporting our kids teachers and schools we need targeted equ Equitable programming that actually fills those gaps like how do you you know see yourself being on the board working with other members from the neighbor Islands or or representing the rural communities how do you see yourself um being able to understand and comprehend the complexities involved in you know let's say the kid the the the kids being taught in C you know have very limited resources um extremely old facilities you know 1880s I think the the school was or originally built so how you see yourself like understanding those types of issues and being able to really look and say like oh yeah these are the types of things we need to look at you know the one size doesn't fit all right that Community needs something different than that Community than that Community thank you for your question Senator kuha I think I'm going to give you a simple response but I will elaborate so bear with me I think simply put it's really just about talking story and and listening is really all that it is it's uh making a commitment to lean on expertise either on the board or in those different underserved areas which again that's similar to others that currently sit on the board that's a passion project of mine um I do strongly believe in the underserved communities and making sure that no child as Bruce pointed out you know feels like a second class citizen simply because of of circumstances that they had no power in choosing right so I think we do exist to serve all Kiki um I think relationship building asking the questions having the conversation and listening allows us and affords us the ability to make good policies that um to to some degree tailor um to different areas and we all know this growing up in Hawaii a solution on aahu is is not applicable um on Havi Island and so we really do have to approach it that way it's a Statewide system of course but but um I think we do have to be mindful of all of the different nuances even on aahu Senator kuha you know it's you know an island and different than the neighbor Islands but even on aahu different areas are far different than each other so I think having that context and being mindful of when we uh create policies and and and when we affect change that we understand impacts Beyond just our own ether and that um to your point I do think that's of value to ensure that what we're creating we check those outcomes as well thank you thank you m chair thank you for the questions couple first all thanks um to come and uh share with me a little bit about yourself and I just get one question I know we talked about um for the new school superintendent and um if you was on the board of the selection um we talked this about um the process that they're doing now um and previously and of course I mean personally I don't agree in um you know we have a lot of talent here I was reaching out and saying that to you what what you would do or what you would recommend doing differently than the previous boards that been selecting our superintendent over the years that what you what you would bring to the table doing something different I I thank you for the question Senator faella I I want to commend um those that have been on the board prior to me I don't think that that is a small task by by any measure um that effectively has impact on 170,000 Ki Plus+ um so I don't envy them however yet here I am um so to answer your question I don't know what um I would have done differently in that setting because quite frankly I wasn't there but in terms of uh should I get confirmed um and have the opportunity to select I do believe and I'll say this senator faella do believe that as local people we all have a collective kulana to be a little bit better about um as a mother let me answer it this way as a mother I tell my Kiki all the time that you can do or be anything I'm constantly telling that I will admit to this body and others tuning in that I'm not the best at modeling that kind of behavior I think there is um something to be said about ensuring that when we have local that we should uh promote local and what I mean by that is um we need to be better about modeling that behavior to Kiki we need to show an example to KI that in positions of power that they can achieve that we can't tell Ki in school that they can but we're constantly pulling from elsewhere that doesn't um comport with Ki um that aside obviously qualifications is a baseline And so you're qualified or you're not qualified for the job but I think what I would say about the super intendent is that um should I have the opportunity to select I would consider looking at uh an individual's ability to to understand the nuances it goes back to Senator kana's question a one-size fit saww and how do you really operate within hav which I think we can all agree is extremely unique so I would be looking for someone who has the capacity to understand hav for who we are um because it is it is an important position and it's a complicated space that we live in a beautiful but complicated space thank you thank you chair thank you thank you very much for your appreciate it our next nominee GM 803 submitting for consideration and Confirmation to the Board of Education gubernatorial nominee Lauren Mor arti for a term to expire 6:30 2024 um you can come forward Lauren but we do have some people waiting to testify and I'm sorry that we have gone so long but your one of the testifiers Mana white Peters had to leave she was testifying in support next is Susan Picola Davis Susan please Susan's there yes I'm here Susan I'm still here I'm not gonna go through the same the same thing that I did with M because I believe that this what I've said fits for all of them and it wasn't meant to scare them off it was meant for them to understand that sometimes it's more than what you think and I'm happy that three people are here today that will be joining the board what I wanted to say and I'm going to say it for Maka I noticed that you had some great qualities Community Building internal external communication she launched the Queen's Facebook page she just developed strategic plans and implemented them and she oversaw Hospital metrics to ensure alignment with Hospital strategic goals high qualities that our Board needs Lauren she's Community oriented she's abil she has an ability to streamline thank you very much and strategic Vision again all qualities that fit right in with what your position is on the board thank you for thank you Susan sorry to cut you off again next to testify Diane Peters Newan committee members I'm Diane Peter you have my testimony I stand in strong support of the nomination of Lauren Mor yardi as to serve on the board of education I would just um maybe summarize and um focus on the fact that as the first US ambassador of native Hawaiian ancestry Lauren brings forth not only a very strong local perspective on Educational Systems but also a Global Perspective and I also just want to highlight her personal passion for education so thank you very much for this opportunity to weigh in thank you um Diane and if they look alike I believe they are sisters it doesn't take away from any part of the testimony Dian if she looks familiar happens to be the CEO of the American Red Cross Pacific Islands region also a rotary club downtown I'm Rotary Club Milani Sunrise thank you okay next to testify Mana moriarti Alani Senators F in kuha I've known the nominee for um as long as almost everybody in the room is my mom I've learned a few things from a lifetime of observing Mom Mom's a big picture thinker but she has a grasp of the the details she's willing to ask the tough questions in a respectful manner to get things done mom gives freely of her time and talent and mom makes plans and follows through mom has given Decades of her time where she volunteered to serve on the boards of Institutions providing educational and and extracurricular programs for thousands and thousands of kids this was volunteer time while she was raising two children and in an award-winning career as a manager and a diplomat in the United States Foreign Service mom makes plans and follows through when mom retired from her Foreign Service career she spent weeks in introspection reflecting on what it was she was going to do with the next phase of her life and she decided did she came to two conclusions it would involve Hawaii education and she fallen through she had a 15year plan 15 years ago and that plan involved the Board of Education of the state of Hawaii she committed and she followed through Mahalo for your consideration she's the right person for this job that's so amazing I think this is the first time I've had a child testify for their parents [Music] oh that is so awesome thank you so much for joining us Ambassador Mor Ari and thank you for your willingness to serve please go ahead and Al um I'd like first as a citizen of Hawaii to thank you Madame chair members of this committee um for what you do to support education nothing is more important than educating our next Generation Um I'm also grateful to governor eay for having nominated me to serve on the board of education I'm really excited um to that kuliana I would bring my passionate conviction about the importance of Education uh experience in meeting at strategic levels and in large organizations uh and Lessons Learned From volunteer uh teaching and from service on nonprofit boards I come from a family that long valued public service and education um my mother who came from k um gave me the Hawaiian name kah and I was called across the waters to serve for almost three decades as a US ambassador and career Diplomat and I was called home again to serve um I served on the school board in Beijing China was a dean at the Daniel kinoi Asia Pacific Center for security studies um and hold degrees from the University of Hawaii and a master of arts and teaching from shamanite when my husband and I were diplomats and residents at the East West Center our children attended Public School in Hawaii I believe strongly that every child should have the opportunity for an excellent free public school education our Public School in Hawaii should be firmly rooted in the culture history values and many strengths of our diverse people of society um at the same time success in the 21st century requires appreciation and understanding of events and Trends beyond our Shores uh if confirmed to serve on the board of education I would listen to and seek wisdom from people with knowledge and experience um it's been really exciting to listen to this testimony today both your questions your depth of knowledge and what I've learned just listening in a few minutes to those who've already served um I would weigh my decisions and actions against the standard of how will this benefit the students is this the best way to benefit the students I would work hard to serve Hawai way make I ask that you confirm me to serve as a member of the Board of Education Mahalo thank you very much for your willingness to serve Ambassador in your response to the committee you talk about how numbers themselves cannot tell the whole story while acknowledging that benchmarks are still important to assess progress can you elaborate more on what you mean by this and how you would evaluate the success of the deal so one of my practices um has always been when I have to make a decision to seek the best possible data um to help to assess costs to help to assess options um but numbers can't tell the whole story yes we can use them both to tell objective facts we can also use them to uh get an idea of perceptions but they can't tell a whole story um so one of the things I always like to know is what's behind the numbers like what was the actual survey question so we can get an idea of well did that perhaps skew in some sense the numbers we're getting um I believe though it is important to have numbers whatever data we can have because it can help us to spot Trends see outliers and then ask additional questions to try to understand what lies behind the numbers that we do have uh perhaps to seek more data or better explanations it can also help us to um look at what's happening elsewhere and understand is there's something we can learn from there or they can learn from us obviously each situation is different with respect specifically to education numbers someone the you know maybe easier to know do kids go to school I'm a student teaching at Castle 9th grade social studies and we lost kids in the ninth grade who stopped coming to school that some important statistics they're not coming to school it's telling us something but we would need to know what's behind it and why they're not coming teachers a lot of discussion here today about teachers so are teachers ready to teach can we not just can we recruit them and retrain them but are they ready to teach in the ways that we need for going forward so those are basic kinds of things some of the things I'm most interested in and have tried to do some re research on um are hard to measure things like grip perseverance ability to overcome difficulty those are hard to measure I think we're just now starting to see more research coming in from that and some of the research that'll be available as we see the results of covid um te way different jurisdictions have reacted to covid may give us insights into what worked in some places and then we can figure out whether there's anything we can learn from um what others have learned so it's a kind of long answer and I think the bottom line in terms of exactly what I would want to see in a is if I were confirmed for the Board of Education would specifically depend on the kinds of issues that the board as a whole working with the doe decides are the things that the Strategic plan needs to focus on thank you for that you also noted that the responsibility of the board of educ ation extends Beyond just the doe system to include the charter commission and the public library system if confirmed to the board how do you anticipate interacting with the charter commission and the state librarian well of course I'd be guided also by the experience of those who've come before me and would help me to understand the important issues but the first thing I'd want to do is go meet them talk to them see what's important to them what their concerned about what keeps them awake at night what opportunities they see and then I'd want to talk to the people who use what they offer or could be using what they offer to try to understand those perspective as as well uh and finally I'd want to understand um both the history here I'm sure there's good research I here we have a great research Department in the board of education but also um what have been experiences elsewhere um with similar types of um commissions I understand though of course that for example on the public charter commission our state is way ahead most of the rest of the country in how um public charter schools have really taken off and become part the integral part of our education system what a novel idea talking to people you prioritize the formation of new of a new strategic plan as something the board must take up immediately what kinds of metrics or data would you like to see to be part of that strategic plan I would prioritize that um I think that once you have a strategic plan in place it makes other decisions easier um the exact metrics that would be used though I think need to reflect what is in the Strategic plan um no point just collecting data to collect data for me to suggest something um but I would want to collect data against whatever the Strategic targets are within that plan thank you for that very good members further questions you did a good job like your answers W thank you thank you thank you very good Senator thank you madam chair Al and you know thanks for being here and um first of all I think you know all the everybody every individual here is fantastic and it's great to see the passion in each and every one of you and you know just looking at your impressive resume it's just I don't even know if I'm you know over here you know but you know I had one question I know you spoke about earlier that um you like to build upon your own expertise in formulating uh policies that recruit develop Empower and retain effective teachers as well as uh expertise in assessment um you know can you explain some of those policies you think of you you've gained and learned throughout the years to help recruit develop Empower and retain effective teachers thank you for the question uh research has has shown that one of the most important factors to Student Success is having an Effective Teacher and when I think back um as to what made a difference for me when I really wanted to learn things it was often having a teacher who was passionate and knew both how to interest me and also to teach me um so I think teachers are absolutely um critical and really really important to learning one of the things that you see I don't know if you've heard of Shany nin in India mean the teacher teaches underneath the people tree but it's one of the it's recognized as among the best schools in the world because it's the teachers and the students who are working together um so when I look around the world I see the importance of effective teachers I also see for example in a lot of other societies they pay the teachers like you pay doctors and the teachers get the kind of respect that you would give to what we think of as these type of professionals that's what I'd like to see how you get there is harder uh this isn't a prescription this is you know I got to wait till I hear what analysis has already been done and the other things that have been tried but if you were to ask me as citizen Lauren not information already what I would do pay the teachers more sorry legislators if you were going to give me back my if you going to give me back my $300 they're talking about you're thinking to give us each for our taxes go give it to the teachers already no no there's nothing more that we would rather do than pay the teachers I'd rather give it to the teacher however we're the only state in the Union where the counties do not run education and give no money to this the state so the the education budget takes up 22 to 25% of the state's budget um and you know I I wish there was a way I mean I've tried doing a lottery for Education that didn't go um I I don't know what else we could try but you guys come up with good ideas and let's let's do something so that was a f answer manager I I am I am right there with you guys you know so that was a fast answer and I also one of the things I came away with my conversations was how much support how blessed the citizens of Hawaii are in how much support in time and effort and money that our legislators really do put the attention on on education um and I also know from my listening looking as well as today there are other needs as well facilities Health um but you're asking me about teachers and I must say I think teachers is really really important thank you I think we agree further questions M only because Senator kadani part of the lottery um because of course we want to give our teachers as much as we can give them because they word every penny um for for me I I just want to come with this this idea I'm not sure we can do it here but this is something that maybe you guys can take away so one of my great friends is a principal now in one of the schools in my community but he said where he came from um like how Senator kadani said some of the cities help out with some of the schools but he came up with an idea not sure if it can be done in districting on utilities like cable order electric and um designated to Teachers Pay it's like say every month I'm going to pay a dollar more to my water bill for teachers salary I mean I don't know if they can do that I figured since she said lottery I bring it out of my head I'm not sure we can but there's a way that we if we got to put our money where our amount is if we want the best for our kids and we of the best teachers then sometimes we got to DV up I'm not saying everybody can but if you choose to up in every month they run your bill off not to a dollar let's say your bill is $198 and they run them off to $200 or whatever every month they run off your bill and the money goes into I don't like I said we can because I knew to the teachers uh fund or money to raise for that do you think that something that you guys could consider at the Board of Education something like that thank you for the idea I think there um I wouldn't give you an opinion right off the bat because I want to see what you know what the cost of implementing and what the advantages are compared to Alternatives but um thank you for the idea and I guess your idea also in responds partially to your question as well Senator k um so I gave you a general answer and in the end the answer actually is twofold it needs to be a strategic Direction choosing where the priorities are is it teachers is it facilities is it the Health well-being where are the priorities and how I think it's Kimo was saying do they fit together but in the end it's also the implementation is in the details of okay exactly what are you going to do and how's it going to work and how are you going to measure it um and so um that would be something that if I were confirmed um I would be excited and interested to try to really you can help write the bill next year great great idea I don't I have no problems with that thank you very much Ambassador enjoyed your discussion our final GM 805 last but not least is submitting for consideration and Confirmation to the Board of Education gubernatorial nominee Ken kah for a term to expire 6:30 2024 Susan T Cola Davis helloa still with us thank you Susan of course I just want to thank Ken for bringing his expertise and background from the Department of Education to the board um I know that and I'm sure that our board member Bruce boss is excited to have you if you get confirmed which you will on board with the board you have budgetary strength and experience that will help the board understand some of the nuances of Department of education's budget process you need to have the ability to discuss and clarify aspects of the Department's budget and how it relates to students teachers complexes I'm talking about the school level the budget always needs to focus on the students the board focuses on the students so that's my last word it's all about the students nothing else thank you that's a good last word thank you Susan that's the only testifier that we have we have several uh pieces of written testimony all in support can thank you for being here thank you for your willingness to serve please go ahead thank you very much chair members of the committee um first of all thank you very much for your consideration of the nomination after well on December 31st 2021 after 42 years in the Department of Education um my wife thought I was going to do all the things on the honeydew list which didn't sit to well with me but okay fine um but there are people that came forward and asked you know if I would be willing to put in you know application to be on the board of education and I'm very very happy to have been part of the education system of hoi I had good mentors people that supported me and you know it was a situation where I felt it was time to to give back and so at this time I stand on my written testimony and await any questions that you may have thank you Ken Ken in your response to the committee you talk about using annual program reviews to determine viability of programs can you elaborate more on what these reviews would look like and how they might be implemented within the de I think um within the department you know again there's various programs you know that we fund or legislature funds um special education Alternative Learning um E I mean you know we we work the budget you know I help with those things yeah so because of that I think one of the things that needs to be done is a review of the program to see the viability one of the programs and to ensure that the money being set aside supports you know what's going on within those programs and also are the Personnel sufficient to run the program are there needs that are coming up where additional bodies need to be you know brought in as well as is there additional funding that needs to be provided and then looking at programs and determining are those programs still viable programs if they're not you know what can be done to either one beef those programs up or two to ensure that those programs possibly you know be cut or redescribe and repurpose you know to meet the needs of students thank you Ken you also talked about expanding the academy and career pathway models to the elementary schools to maximize engagement expectations of students um I do note that I know the interim uh superintendent um has someone working already on this as as part of um you know more programs of for middle and and uh elementary schools and I'm really excited to hear that and and to see more of this but how can the board help other complexes expand the academic career Pathways to the middle and elementary schools I think it's a it's a mindset you know it's within complexes having you know principles understand that those kids that are in elementary school will slowly work their way to middle school and then onto the high school so I think uh in our discussion Senator we talked about how if we look at white pahu you know complex how um interm Superintendent at the time as principal of whiteo high school was able to bring together the people within the white power complex to work together to see what kinds of needs there are because they understood that students will move their way from elementary middle to high school and I think those things need need to be communicated to to principles to start working together to decide for the complex and the community what is important you know what is the focus and how are they going to do those things thank you very much for that Senator do you have any questions for actually don't have any questions um that's fine we've we've gone beyond our time um and we've lost uh we've lost our members anyway thank you all so much for being here today um I I'm just so impressed with all of you I think Bruce and and K are excited because they can see the quality of you know next new members that will come on to the board I um just am excited uh to for all of you and just cannot thank you guys enough for being willing to serve um look forward to uh letting you guys know next when are we meeting again oh sorry when do I ever listen to you okay so we will have decision making on Monday April 25th in this room at 1:30 is that the time we've given okay and I'm so sorry you guys do not have to come back we can do this on Zoom is that correct yeah be live broadcast on YouTube as well so so I'm so sorry that we can't do decision making today thank you very much this meeting is adjourned

now those are districts that have seven or eight hundred thousand students that's still a high percentage uh my granddaughter is in a school district in a neighborhood in the valley where everybody think wow these are nice houses everybody's going to be young oh she was frustrated because half of her class did nothing but last quarter of 2020 so it's happening everywhere and if we could get a hub here i think perhaps it's one more set of services for students that are marching to a different drummer pardon me i think it's also a way they can have someone kind of hovering over them if they're challenged they wouldn't be in this situation if they felt successful in their life and hopefully if they had someone there that might help there's a lady who's done a lot of research on poverty and ruby pain and her primary book is understanding a framework of poverty and that book she uses a phrase i don't like the phrase but we use it a lot it calls students at risk well students at risk is one of those vessel words that hold different meanings from our people she says the research shows that if a child has a significant adult in their life that talks to him five to ten minutes a week it doubles your chances for success that's that's so simple and i think this type of thing if we add another is a way some kids could do that i know in my family tree my dad had a ninth grade education because his family he's a teenager during the depression they had other values in him getting an education so i thought when i was and i said well i'll pull the same thing i'll tell them i'm gonna quit it didn't work but people if people families that may not understand the value of education may not be able or may not understand the importance of supporting that kid in some type of educational environment so you knew about i didn't know if everybody else did not so um did they give us any sort of timeline on when they might be putting the hub in that's my recollection we have like i said i was i was very uh disappointed with the way i saw things going but it seemed um i didn't see a whole lot of the support for students that were struggling more students that weren't logging in and i had one student who came in to do her school work there in the learning center with me in the moon and she started off doing great um you know she was doing over 10 hours a week and then slowly kept cutting it back and then just stopped all together one young man was just did great with it um he never and i was there as a resource for them he never ever contacted me i contacted him to see if he had questions he never got back but i saw him graduating there passing his classes and i thought i'll stay out of his way but i do think having that hook there would make it more successful i just there were so many students that weren't succeeding and i know it was my understanding at the time of league mercy and said that if any student is if the student transfers from here to bad solutions instead of dropping out that if they later drop out it doesn't count against our correct numbers it counts against bad solutions number right um and i see the benefit for the district in that but the way i saw it running with those students i saw it was a detriment to those students and those students still live here in this community and they're still a part of it and we want them to succeed for themselves and also to be a successful part of the community as well so i'm hoping if they can do the hub that that will alleviate the issues that i was seeing it's a completely different thing when they finish that program they have a high school diploma they simply um like the young man who left halfway through his junior year they basically said oh you've got this many credits to finish your finish so he took the classes did those credits and then graduated with a full high school diploma that could be used to get into the military or college or anything else so it's it's definitely a step up from a gdp program um but for somebody who had seen it happen where they left school tenth grade or only ninth grade credits like you would say they start to realize oh i've got years of work to get done with this and then they think well ged is quicker i just have to pass these five tests but they're not in their head making the connection that it's a graduation equivalency you still need the same knowledge and it's not like dvd is a shortcut to get there it still takes most students years to complete their gpd depending on when they come in so i'm going to ask a question that may be off the subject and i may not be able to bring up right now just tell me no okay so i've just seen in the past that kids that got stuck in the in-school suspension with miss garcia just suddenly bloomed right they one kid went from a sophomore to a senior and one semester in there are we identifying kids that are having issues and putting them in there with her or maybe it's just that one kid with special or or i i lance probably knows more about the definitely knows more about this than i do but we the case you're describing is not uncommon um but they've got someone there i hate to say the word hovering but they're hungry and there's no change and the students have to be a place a certain time and go for lunch but they got to be back there and there's not a lot else to do we had a case some time ago where uh school was analyzed over christmas break i'm talking about the same incident okay kid yes that kid he did it faster than that but he was a good kid he was sharp and he just had really followed the wrong friend that time and uh he did well i don't know what he's doing now he's living in phoenix but he great ready yes he yes because it was like nothing else to do it's what worked right and i think one of the things that also they can do a lot is that for example if a student from baba kibri wants to come here they can enroll in the program as a student of awhile high school so the thing about this i asked the money question because i couldn't remember the answer honestly but we if that happened or if a child child if a student came to peel a bend or polished anywhere and they enrolled in our in the in the yahoo hub we would get the adm for that kid and then we'd pay them after the kid graduated we paid um grant solutions uh a portion of that we'd get i think at least 50 percent so it also works with expel students too right yes so the question i had right now and is if we have a kid that is way behind in his high school him or her in their high school credits is it a consideration even though they're not a disciplinary problem to put them in that computer lab with ms garcia until they recover those credits yes and a lot of times they request okay realized and but we're starting to see more and more which is frightening um i have students within the last month come in say their junior coming with guardian want to enroll here in lojo their junior and uh open up the packet three credits well you're only a junior according to the state because you're in that code or you're not a junior right or to be a freshman so if you step so if we enroll in and he stays in here maybe at 24 years old he would graduate um i doubt that would happen i mean this this program i was already 17 right so you know they're just um at least with their grad solutions whether he did it on campus or off campus it would be better paced and hopefully they're better than they were when you work with them i know not like if you read about they have things that we don't have the life coaches the academic counselors they have more support than what we can give here um you know but they would also include that they would get to keep that if we did have the hub here whether they chose to do it outside or pop in and out of the hub again it's kind of self-paced but they would have more support but we will have um three possibly it looks like four students graduate early this year and without ingenuity wouldn't happen but you know just like you know some succeeded like you know just skyrocket during the covet where others are coming in they're so far away right a couple eighth graders are you know didn't hurt me do anything again this year on campus they didn't do it off campus well at what age are they going to just figure out i can't i'm not going to hang out with these kids i'm i'm in a class i'm three years older than the students you know my peers they're not even here though yes so so any resource like this i think we can try to utilize especially when it's not coming out of our pockets i think we just give as many opportunities as possible because as you know we all learn differently and want different surroundings and sometimes just spark is better than others hopefully work though thanks i think when i agree with you i think one of the things we have done for a century at least maybe more in public education is we use the skin schenerian model on placement by replacement rewards and we've used a grade or promotion or high school graduation as an award for if you do what i tell you to do we're going to give you this reward well some kids aren't motivated by that at all they need more depth they need more personalized touch they need whatever and so i think that i think i don't have any research folks i think a high perceived kids that walk away from high school before the visions on are in that degree that feels that way and so they have some value they have some freedom they have some choice and the younger it seems like kids are getting younger and younger and say they want choice they want more control their choice than the adults did when i was 15 or 16.