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good evening and welcome to the april 19 2022 regular meeting of the ann arbor planning commission for detailed information on meeting procedures please review the full printed meeting agenda which is available online mr leonard will you please call call the rule i knew exactly what you meant commissioner mills here commissioner gibb randall here commissioner sovay here commissioner abrams here commissioner hammerschmidt here commissioner dish here commissioner lee here commissioner clark here commissioner wage here full house great next up is an agenda can i have a commissioner move the agenda moved by commission or lease upgraded by commissioner abrams any discussion of the agenda all in favor of the motion please raise a hand or say yes that's all of the hands um item number four are the minutes of the previous meeting we have the minutes from the april 5th 2022 meeting can i have a commissioner move those moved by commissioner sovay seconded by commissioner dish any discussion or corrections all in favor please raise a hand that is all of the hands next up are the reports from city administration city council planning manager planning commission officers and committees commissioner dish do you have any report for us yes last night council approved the annexation of the wilson berry property or not annexation excuse me the uh the rezoning of the wilson berry prop property which was a next you're looking puzzled shannon 614 riverview drive um and uh i really don't think that there was anything else we we talked about the budget but i don't think it's of interest in in any specific way oh there's seven hundred dollars seven hundred thousand dollars seven hundred dollars for the master plan uh yeah so there's seven hundred thousand for the comprehensive landis plan very good in the budget mr leonard anything to add um i do have a couple things um i had the pleasure of joining dr stultz and executive director jennifer hall at the last session of the housing and human services advisory board sear webinar series on affordable housing if you now that i've already given my presentation my nerves are quashed so if you have didn't get a chance to see that it is available on their website it is about the intersection of zoning and affordable housing and sustainability i also want to revisit an issue that's been coming up with of all of your meetings lately the the parking amendments i uh presented at the working session that i think that not i think i created some confusion and during the discussion where the parking amendments were adopted additionally i know a smaller piece of that is i mentioned that there might be some other udc references that also need to be adjusted as part of that upon analysis those are more extensive than i originally thought so i will be representing the parking amendments to this board on may 17th with all of those additional amendments i've if you any other questions arise about the interplay between our form-based standards and the maximum i'm happy to uh address that and provide additional information but the other sections that rely upon the parking section as i said we're a little bit i don't think they're significant but they're more extensive than i originally thought and thus a certainly worthwhile for the planning commission to review before they proceed so that'll be may 17th and that's all i have thank you very much are there any commissioner officers committee liaisons that have anything to report all right then we can move on to item six this is the first opportunity for public comment persons may speak for up to three minutes about an issue that's not listed as a public hearing on this agenda so we'll have dedicated public hearings on 212 miller 2600 pontiac trail and those are the only ones we'll have public hearings tonight that sound right okay for any other issue though uh please if you're joining us virtually you can use the raised hand feature on zoom you can press star 9 if you are listening in by phone or you can call in now at 877-853-5247 6634-1226 mr leonard will select callers who have raised their hand by again pressing star 9 or the raised hand button please move to a quiet area and mute any background sound so that we can hear you clearly but before turning it over to those who have joined us remotely if there's anyone in the chambers here that would like to provide public comment now you can go ahead and approach the podium mr leonard are there any online they're not all right then we will move on to item seven which is the public hearings that are scheduled for the next business meeting we have one new public hearing scheduled for the may 4th meeting this is comprehensive plan review the ann arbor city planning commission and planning and development services unit review the city's comprehensive plan on a regular basis the comprehensive plan consists of several plans or elements that work together to describe a vision for the city's future and guide decisions about its land use transportation infrastructure environment housing and public facilities the adopted plan elements can be found on the city's website at a2gov.org comp plan that's comp plan one word and as part of an annual review the planning commission is seeking comments about the city's comprehensive plan including elements that should be studied for possible change or new elements that should be added to the plan all right very good um next we'll move on to the regular business for tonight's meeting so we're on 8 a and first up is 212 miller avenue um we'll start with a project presentation and then the staff report before opening up the public hearing just give me a moment to get folks promoted here miss kenneth anybody else from your project team that you're expecting to see on zoom um not on zoom i think you have everyone one that was joining by zoom in carl can you unmute yourself if you're muted it doesn't look like she's muted and i can very vaguely hear her so okay give me a minute i'll see if we get the volume turned up there we might have to do an audio check with you in just a minute once mr leonard moves towards the controls yes help has arrived do we think it's just from those videos screens hey jeff can you see a little something for us um do you want to say that again no can you hear me now we hear you like at the end of a very long long tunnel oh okay uh can you hear me now yeah we'll work on it this is when we need commissioner lee's piano either the jeopardy theme i know mr khan can you try talking again yeah are you able to hear me now no um chatting sorry it's enough to like between ripley like lip reading and hearing it down the hall we can hear you but we're working on it bye we are okay ctn and mr leonard right kathy can you hear me i can hear you find you oh wow okay well that's well maybe we can have a conversation okay so it must be something related to the council chambers yep i wish i could mute my face but brett said no i have i have to show my face we are here yeah they can hear each other so i think it's just us sure that sounds great i don't know if you just heard that we're going to take a 10 minute ish break to try to figure this out and then we'll be back tom when is the um when do you anticipate the project we would lose um there we go all right so we are back to item 8a that we never really started uh so we'll start with a petitioner presentation and then the staff report in the public hearing so where we lost you miss kyneth we were saying is there anyone else that should be on the zoom i i think we're good there's myself and thompson simmons and i believe carl is in the um chambers with you in person yes all right so i'm camping i'm kathy keines with maycon engineering we prepare the site plan let tom talk about his vision for the project and explain it to you a little bit okay can you hear me okay we can go ahead okay um so i believe our architect is actually there carl um is that the case he is he's waving his hand in the corner okay so maybe i'll let him go first and um essentially give you an overview of the the project the i know he's got some sample boards a material wants to describe what we're doing there and then if there's any questions i i'm happy to to answer those or fill in any any blanks but please carl take it away all right he's coming up to the podium he was born in this town in the middle of the last century um 212 miller is a modest scale project it's it's not built out fully built up to the to the site limits um it's a it has hopefully looked at it um it has it's shorter night it has this 20 foot courtyard down the side here giving us 20 feet of room this west side is curved and it faces over a parking lot right now mr hueter speak as close you can to that microphone at the podium so folks watching on zoom can hear you as well thank you um we we've tried to develop the front of the building with more green space i hope you notice that we have a green fence that goes across the front of the building here there's a landscape area between the building and the sidewalk we have trees down through the courtyard area i don't know what else it's a seven or eight unit building depending on the final configuration the parking is down below you go down and under and each garage is is two cars deep uh each garage will have its own ev outlet in it for at least one electric vehicle and then the tenants drive into the garage and they access their units from an elevator that goes from the garage level up to the the first second and third floors and also by going in the unit entries on the east side you can also come in the front door and access the same elevator that'll take you up up to your unit and there's also a stairway that goes up to the units um i can't it's a it's a it's a standard platted lot in the city of ann arbor being that it's 66 feet wide and 132 feet deep the the project is doing a street improvement where they're improving the water main down the front of the street i still believe that's true correct tom yes yeah okay all right i'm here to answer any of the questions uh the the building is going to be lighter in tone uh the major surface of the building is rougher textured white stone and then the nietzsche raw panels the gray on the west side the garage is the graphite color i'm away from the microphone there's white on the east side this gray turn colored metal is going to be on the base and the upper roof mezzanine area thank you anything else from the petitioner i didn't there's some time yet left yep um not at this time but if i'm not sure if you want me to share my screen i have elevations the color out renderings that carl had prepared if you'd like to see those that would be great all right can you see that we can yeah so this is the south elevation which would be the front of the building facing miller you can see the green that carl was talking about this is the 309 building this is the east elevation so this would be what the elevation facing the 309 building would look like the courtyard and the entrances to the units oops i think i skipped one this is the north elevation so this would be the north side and then the west elevation of the building i think with that we'll turn it over to jeff for the the staff report if that's okay very good thank you thank you um this this project did go to the design review board which provided some some comments uh the the project um is consistent with the scale and character of other projects in the d2 um we also feel that the project is consistent with city goals for increasing density downtown this is a tight little site with an existing home from the latter part of the 19th century there and and they were able to get eight dwelling units so staff did did support the proposed site plan i'd like to read that recommendation staff recommends approval of the site plan because it complies with all applicable local state and federal ordinances standards and regulations and will not cause a public or private nuisance all right very good um then i think we are ready to open the public hearing this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the proposed uh the 212 miller avenue site plan for planning commission approval we'll first call on individuals who are present here in council chambers and then remote participants to speak during this public hearing remote if you've joined us remotely press the raised hand button on your zoom screen if you are have already dialed in you can press star 9 to raise your hand and if you would like to dial in now the number is 877-853-5247 our meeting id is 977-6630 12 26 mr leonard will select callers that have raised their hand calling on you by the last three digits of your telephone number or your zoom name when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any background sound so that we can hear you clearly and for either method of participation please state your name and address for the record is there anyone here in council chambers who'd like to speak at this time go ahead mr garber apparently i need no introduction um ken garber 28 hammer hill court nice to see everyone multi-family residential is a good use for this site it's too bad a functional building has to be demolished but overall a positive addition my comments as usual are about building hvac and greenhouse gas emissions this is a small building but everything matters the a20 climate action plan strategy two action one assumes no natural gas and new construction at all in our climate emergency the forced air gas furnace is a technology that no longer has any role in new residential buildings the best alternative is some version of a heat pump air source or ground source let's review the basics heat can be extracted from a cold outdoor air based on the second law of thermodynamics which states that among other things any temperature difference can be made to do work heat pumps use electricity to power a compressor and an expansion valve compressing a gas raises its temperature warming a cold building space the cost of installing a heat pump in new construction is about the same as for a traditional boiler or furnace ducted system possibly cheaper because of the dual heating cooling roll and the lack of duct work new refrigerants make heat pumps practical in cold climates like ours resident utility costs may be higher or lower depending on the relative cost of electricity and natural gas at any point in time for an eight unit building like this you can go either with a mini split where separately controlled indoor units connect to a single outdoor condenser slash evaporator or with vrf which sends refrigerant from the outdoor unit through individual compressors and a heat recovery box and is more adjustable and efficient but the main thing is that a heat pump produces no direct greenhouse gas emissions at all while burning natural gas is almost as destructive to our climate as coal when you take upstream methane methane emissions into account this building will produce roughly 104 metric tons co2 equivalent emissions a year from gas combustion of course it may reduce commuter miles lowering gasoline emissions i've done those calculations too and the savings while important only offset about 1 6 the emission costs of using a gas hvac system i think many people in the community care about this a fully electrified building could provide a marketing advantage in ann arbor but that is incidental it's just the right thing to do thanks thank you mr leonard are there any uh folks who've indicated that they're interested in participating in the public hearing remotely no chair mills all right very good i'll close the public hearing then and read the motion and i need to go back to that the motion reads the ann arbor city planning commission hereby approves the 212 miller site plan for planning commission as it complies with all applicable local state and federal ordinances standards and regulations and it will not cause a public or private nuisance moved by commissioner sovay seconded by commissioner weich want to start kick off the questions or discussion no one wants to kick us off any questions at all go ahead commissioner survey um i have maybe one clarifying question about the architecture and the elevators and accessibility i see stairs going up to the front entry town homes to then access elevators and currently no doors to access the elevators so is there a zero stair threshold to access an elevator up to the units the units are accessible from the elevators so the residents knowing if someone is coming to visit them will allow that person access to their elevator at the garage entry point and then they go up and down into their units is there clearance for that with the double stacked cars i don't see significant clearance for they'll have to they'll have to prepare for someone coming to visit all right and then so relocate their car to the to the diagonally adjacent uh parking garage and so is there room for uh uh an ada unit that somebody could unload from their car in their garage and access their elevator i guess my main concern is in all of these we're making concessions for someone with no mobility issues to be able to utilize this to get out of their car and access the elevator or an exchange of moving the car to access the elevator and stairs so the residents have can park in their garage and use their elevator they're all type b type units and if a guest is coming then they can make preparation for that guest by moving their vehicle over to ann ashley parking structure and then their guests can come in and access their elevator but i guess if if a resident is wheelchair bound how do they access their elevator if say they took a stroll around the neighborhood and their cars are in their garage and they can't go through the stairs to the front door to access the elevator well that would be that's an interesting scenario i um i i don't have an answer for you okay that would be my main concern and significantly it's about you know the stacking and the access to those elevators without stairs like there's no excess direct accessible route without moving vehicles to have that wheelchair accessible route which increases carbon emissions and requires like full operation of garage doors instead of having a person door to be able to move through into the garage area to access the elevator so if i try to draw a line of a wheelchair bound person living in this unit i don't see a way without continuously moving cars around increasing carbon emissions to access their own unit i understand what you say so i guess my concern then too is how does this mute building requirements about accessible units if no units here are accessible the the units are accessible and there's some question right at the moment if they need to be type b or not and those are all issues that we're working through okay my biggest cons like i guess i'll say looking at the plans and in terms of access points like we're really asking anybody with mobility restrictions to use the driveway to access because they they have to meet whoever they're visiting at the garage door they have to negotiate with vehicles to access that elevator and so we're putting vulnerable people within vehicular traffic patterns to be able to access units um and physicians other projects in town that have very similar situations is this uh and this building sort of modeled that for them so i i like i said it's it's something that needs to be looked at well for me to respond go ahead hi hi this is tom simmons i'm the developer so we're currently designing this building as all type v units which is the building code requires us to do that so everything is accessible ready uh your code also requires a certain amount of parking we uh have that met with one parking space per garage their double depth tandem so someone could this is all user choice they could park two cars there they could park one car there they could park bikes they have storage the whole goal here is to give people a large private space storage space that they don't get in regular style condominiums we've done projects like this at four and four north main at 121 kingsley west um i know the mark was developed the same way on liberty and so this argument that there's no way to get a wheelchair in here i mean that's really up to the owner if they're if they're in a wheelchair it's up to their guests there's ways we're enabling with technology that the owner could be overseas and using their cell phone can open their garage door and open their elevator door and get up into the unit so the idea that it's completely blocked and cars have to be moved is simply not true i'll disagree and i have concerns about the only access to a zero threshold is through a garage door that we don't have a person door to access and we're putting people in vehicle transit risk and our evaluation of the site is about safety and we're really asking vulnerable movement uh in vehicular area so that's my main concern right now with the project and we understand that and we are designing this project to meet all buildings and zoning codes thank you thank you any other questions or comments from planning commissioners go ahead commissioner g randall um your model indicated that you said you were planting trees in the patio zone but i'm just not seeing them on the plan and so i'm wondering what what's the story with that the trees are gonna be in planters and they're not part of this of the required landscaping for the site they're in addition to that okay so you're just you're telling us about them but they're not part of your kind of base scope in terms of um they're not a part of the site plan or approval process process they're part of one of the amenities that's going to be in the courtyard yeah we typically use three by three or four by four planters to plant trees again we've done that at 414 north main where we designed a similar building with two buildings with a courtyard between them and also 121 kingsley west i mean that'll really get worked out when we do the structural design we have to take into account some extremely heavy loads um but again thankfully the way this building is designed with the individual garages blow and essentially a number of structural walls down below at 14 feet on center we're able to plant quite a few trees on there uh which would be a very nice amenity i mean we we the one of the over hiding goals when we when we first acquired this site was how it's going to interact with the building that we're building right next door right we didn't want to build them wool the wall um and so by building us a bit of a smaller structure we did a number of sun sun and shade studies here uh to the west uh and also leaving that 20 yard courtyard between which is very similar we've gone past uh we think it's going to be a really nice feature for residents of both buildings what that planting plan will be in that courtyard and then have you all considered doing any like any kind of electrification for the building in terms of you know um stoves or ovens or you know going also thinking about hvac and things like that is that something you all would consider uh yeah you bet so right now um what we're using is high efficiency heat pump condensing units so it's sort of a hybrid system where it's uh air-to-air heat exchanger so it's all electric and and most of the shoulder seasons in the summer uh it relies on a backup natural gas in the dead of winter so that's your essentially backup heat source versus all electric where you're relying on electric resistance heating so we've had very good luck with these we're installing them all throughout 309 north ashley next door uh we'll also be prepping for solar we'll be bringing a big fat pipe up from our electric meter room up to the roof so that it'll be easy if the residents this will be we're planning on being a condo project we'll sell out it'll be easy if the residents want to vote and put any solar up there in the future also because your standards recently changed and required like a certain number of electric car charging it doesn't really work for kind of building so we're essentially in our marketing offering electric actual electric car chargers for every single garage so we'll not only prep for them but well when people purchase the units we'll we'll supply them a charger they just need to let us know what type of electrical charger they want whether it's a tesla or something else so we think we have a pretty pretty good plan would you all consider doing stuff like induction stoves or things like that we'll be looking at everything as we get farther into the project um so we have looked at induction stove we've looked at everything from wolf which is a high-end brand that um is really the only high-end brand making that type of plants right now all the way down to like ge appliances which have uh that really that technology is catching up with everybody whether it be appliance manufacturers lighting's done a good job we do all led everywhere uh heating and cooling is is is pretty good it's a little difficult in this climate but we think we have a good plan there and again we'll prep for solar well i'm i'm heartened to hear that you're considering that i know that these are decisions that you may make later in the process as you figure things out but i'm glad that you all are considering that and we would just encourage you even though we don't have any teeth with us it's something that we care a lot about so i'm glad that you all are thinking about it and um and considering uh we're doing as much as possible we're we're actually um i'm involved in another project downtown which is going to be a lead gold project so we've had to do a lot of preliminary work on energy efficiency and we found that our current building standards our windows building envelope hvac systems that we're using um even for this project which we won't be going for a specific standard meet that lead goal so we feel pretty good about what we're able to offer our customers these days all right thank you thank you any other questions or comments i have just a a very small question since you mentioned lead gold which i know you're not going for at this building but as mr garber mentioned you are tearing down a functional building have you thought about what you're going to do with the the demolition debris and have you thought about salvaging any of the parts of that building that might be salvageable always um we've we've been building in ann arbor now for 31 years i know you have a demolition process that is different than many other areas demolition checklist we contact salvage companies we have people come through [Music] and salvage wherever we can realistically old buildings have a lot of bad materials in them too but we'll certainly uh be contacting our normal vendors we've worked with everyone in the past i can't even uh think now who we've worked with groups out of detroit in ann arbor that can uh salvage and recycle materials but it that kind of is codified unless things have changed that we've been doing that uh for every building that we've ever had to take down in the city of ann arbor thank you you're welcome other petitions or not petitioners commissioners have questions or comments go ahead commissioner sovay i'll ask the petitioner if they would be willing to work with staff to change the stair entry to the courtyard to a ramp engineered into a ramp to create accessible paths to the front doors then access the elevators through a safe person door instead of the car door at the garage sure i'm not quite sure how that works i mean we looked at the ramp and had a hard hard time making a ramp work up to that courtyard level i know i think one of the biggest issues is your engineering department and wouldn't allow us to essentially bring a ramp landing off of the sidewalk because of um the slope of miller uh they'd say that that's not edx accessible and you can't even start with that so that was one of our biggest issues uh when we started talking to them about it so it's really hard to figure out how to even get a ramp up to that level i'm certainly willing to engage with staff on both planning and engineering i mean once we're hopefully done uh and receive approval uh usually kathy starts working with engineering provider you know prepares all the plans as carl mentioned we do have to bring a new water main up from um 1st street to service this and so when she's working on engineering plans sure we we have no problem looking at the ramp there okay we did once but we just ran the problems with engineering staff kathy please jump in here found something that's not correct but that's my recollection of this process now um as you know miller is a fairly steep street and the grade of miller exceeds what's allowed by ada so there becomes a problem when you start modifying the sidewalk that you can't make the situation any worse than what it already is and to install a ramp we would have to put you know a level landing pad in that sidewalk which then results in all of the other sidewalk being at a steeper grade than it's already at so we did look extensively at putting a ramp in here we looked at different ways to put more than one ramp we just really could not find a way to make a ramp work we even looked at putting a ramp you know that went deeper into the courtyard but then that impacts you know the garages and what space is available in the garage and we just it just we couldn't get the ramp to work and maintain you know the ada compliance for the sidewalk on the street as well i think similar like off-site landings is a big thing you know like if you can't maintain it on the sidewalk once you get onto your site you can start to average out some of those slopes and things you can give more space to give a pedestrian path and designing person doors to the garage storage areas but i can't support it in its current design configuration it's just a high risk uh travel routes for vulnerable people accessing the site and so i either need to see [Music] working with staff to be able to access at the lower storage level with a person door um and a dedicated path uh delineated so that their the vehicle path and the person path are separated and identified or that additional engineering happens at the courtyard on site instead of on the city part of the parcel to average out and create a ramp and maybe that's sacrificing some of the amenity of a courtyard space but it's creating safer space for more accessible populations to be able to access housing and i think in this demographic we're going to see aging populations that it's really important that they have safe access other commissioners go ahead commissioner wedge uh i'd like to hear from staff either mr khan or mr leonard on commissioner sovay's concern that she's raised around the safety because this would be under our purview to deny this petitioner's request because it does pose a risk to safety but the staff report says it does not and so before sort of moving forward if if there could be some clarity presented either from mr connor or mr leonard and maybe even some guidance because if we could table the conversation or delay it to give staff and the petitioner an opportunity to make these changes so whatever i'm i'm looking at the site i'm listening to commissioner silvay i'm convinced and i'd like to figure out what the best path forward is we would be happy to put together a meeting with engineering and the petitioners agents to re revisit that issue i i can't speak to the engineering standards that that engineering um worked with the petitioner on but uh we can certainly facilitate that that conversation let's see if um planning manager or leonard has any comments yeah and typically we don't get into i would just add we don't as part of the site plan we um it does require compliance with all regulations um not to create any uh nuisances so i think the the conversation around those standards is appropriate as it relates to the type b units in those configuration neither mr connor i have the expertise to speak to the adequacy of that or not but that's something we could solicit that feedback from our building department um if that would be beneficial to the commission how would we approach this as opposed to just a straight vote here at the table is there an opportunity to amend the motion to include this review since you all can't answer these questions at the table so i'm just trying to figure out how we can get to a decision because right now absent the information that you say that you cannot provide i feel ill-equipped to vote if there is a way for us to achieve the concerns that commissioner sovay has articulated at the site not at the sidewalk level because as she um explains some of the concerns i i was like oh okay now now i see what you mean and and this is a problem and the petitioner has said well it's really sort of up to the owner to try to figure this solution out and we've created this space for them but it does negat neglect neglect the the the notion that someone coming into the space is now harmed which you know when we were looking at the driveways and that blocked the back bike paths we voted down that site because it was going to create a harm to the community and this feels like it's in that stream but i'm i'm uncertain uh to use a midwest western approach here and so some guidance would be helpful sure uh if you are if there's information first of all it's it's always appropriate to i would always advise you not if you don't have the information you need to make a decision you shouldn't be making that decision of course so in that starting with your preface of you'd like to have those issues explored before you're comfortable making that findings as related to that my recommendation would be either to table or postpone the item to provide and and then provide mr khan with the direction of that information that would be helpful and necessary for the commission to do so um and then that would be a conversation about the timing that it would take to do that um as i said probably the initial thoughts would be is as mr khan said some space to to revisit the notion of the ramp um with engineering requirements we would bring the city's engineers in that process and we could provide feedback from the building department about ada accessibility which would um i think speak to what requirements exist and whether this is meeting those minimum requirements or not with the chair's permission can i ask a question to commissioner sovay with commissioner silva's permission carl you might not commit so would you entertain a amendment here would you want to table it here like what do you feel like is helpful for our conversation because i want to defer to your expertise yeah i mean and that's where um i've stated my concerns i think the petitioner understands my strong concerns and staff has to hurt them as well and it is really a um an amendment to you know have this reviewed um when proceeding that i feel comfortable with but you know having a second look with staff and meeting with the building department to coordinate so i trust staff to kind of follow through instead of revisit and and bring this back to us but i do want to heighten the attention to that as it proceeds forward for staff i know it kind of it ends here like this isn't kind of a checkpoint right anymore in terms of moving forward but i do i do have concerns um i i think we have a well-equipped staff to answer many of those and kind of address them with the petitioner at this point but i also want to state it for the public record that this is something that we should be more responsibly looking at uh when projects come to the table um because this well it might meet the basic standards and several kind of tiers it's this convergence point between planning and building code and this kind of access point of when planning meets the property line and when building code meets the building edge and how people transition from one to the other that feels like a life safety condition that we should be having a bigger discussion around so um with that i guess i mean i can i just have one more question for it and this one's to the chair so chair mills is uh is there a mechanism available to us in your judgment that will either allow us to amend the approval pending the outcome of the engineering review or do you recommend that we put an amendment in place to postpone pending that information so hopefully that was clear okay yeah and and actually i appreciate that and i am going to respond with a question to staff um because i do see i heard two different things right i heard a motion to postpone which is infinitely doable and that's what we would typically do if we need more information what i also heard and correct me if i'm wrong is a an approval contingent upon staff reviewing which in my estimation again this is and the reason that i have the question is whether staff's comfortable with that under what if the answer is no like it doesn't seem feasible reasonable like because this is typically we had we've done that in the past when it would go on to city council so this is why i want to pose i'm i'm looking behind me to mr leonard but also would per ask mr khan would that second option [Music] how how do you as staff feel about that because i i can see i have mixed feelings about that yeah i'll start i typically when you add a condition like that it's to seek an outcome and so if if the desire was to amend the motion to say this is approved with the following modifications of the establishment of a clear ada accessible path to the garage doors and the establishment of a ramp to the patio to provide or one or the other that's a clear measurable i am also i want to be clear i'm happy if it is approved subject to working with staff to consider these options with that i want to be clear though that without a requirement that that just remains discretionary so if if it's educational that your desire is i i would suggest that that's been accomplished by this dialogue if your intention is that one of these solutions has to be integrated in order for it to meet those standards you could do it with that condition i'd be less excited about approving it subject to investigating whether or not these things are possible i would rather work with a petitioner to answer those questions definitively bring it back to the commission for consideration um and it just has a historical perspective and i see your hand commissioner clark so i'll come to you but uh that's following up on this this idea of having conditions if we approve it only with those conditions and and this is typically historically where we would turn to the petitioner and say do you want us to vote on that with these conditions or would you like us to postpone this just is that my is my recollection of that correct okay i'm hearing uh in case you can't see there are nods on this side so um commissioner weich before turning it over to commissioner clark does that answer your questions okay awesome so i think that those are our those are the two in my mind the two reasonable things approve with conditions or postpone and i think opening it if i were in your shoes opening it back up and asking kind of uh of the petitioner might be helpful commissioner clark um i agree with the question or somebody's uh concerns and i would prefer to i don't feel like we have enough information to maybe vote and prefer to postpone um i'm just a curiosity for my own knowledge um this is uh i think the existing structure is a 1900s like brick house is this required to go under any like um historic review commission or any other body or is it just us i don't know who that would be directed too i'm going to direct that to staff i'm i'm happy to answer that the um the the house on this site is not in a historic district thank you so so therefore it's not protected um by our historic preservation ordinance thank you and then just one other question am i understanding right that each one of the garages will back out onto miller or is it is there a single curb crab just looking at the pictures and trying to understand the design a little better or is it underground i think that could be either for staff or for the petitioner and this i would i had that same question the site plan shows it maybe if one of you are able to share the site plan well well kathy's um going to pull that image up i can attempt to answer that if you're in a vehicle and drive onto the site you're going to be be driving to the west of the building and pulling into one of the garages that are located on the ground level and uh it looks like kathy has has brought up the image so um kathy would you mind um continuing that discussion so this is there's one driveway off of miller that's located right here where my cursor is these are each individual garages so you would pull in and then pull into your garage if you're backing out you would back out into this area and then come out the driveway you would not be backing out into miller avenue you would be backing out into this space here and then going forward out onto miller okay kathy would you mind pulling up the garage level and the architectural since that obviously is a big part of this ongoing discussion thank you there thanks not sure if that helps anybody understand what the current uh issue are on planning commissioners or not showing the ability to park two cars in there or park one car in there these garages are wider than uh we typically do one car garage it's 14 feet um point point of order chair mills i i would i'm i don't understand what he's doing right now because we haven't asked him a question and the the uh kathy uh previously answered the other question so can we come back uh to the table do you go ahead more kind of a follow up on that too is when you mentioned the slope um wasn't possible because of the slope on miller making it worse um but then i think kind of a brief mention was made that there might be some concession on the way that the garage was configured if the slope was different could you just elaborate on what kind of concessions would have to be made um or if that was the case or if i misunderstanding about what would have to change about the design let me get back to the site plan here for you so what we were talking about is originally we had considered putting a ramp here this is the existing sidewalk on miller it already exceeds ada but it matches the street slope so it's allowed to be that way if we were to put a ramp here we'd have to create a level landing area out in here and when you do that that makes a flat spot so when you do that then it makes the slope of the sidewalk even worse than it already is so we had looked at that we had also looked at trying to get a ramp along here in fact we looked at a couple of different configurations to try to get a ramp along there but when you do that you cut into the garage space and you can no longer have the space that you have in the garage because it's the ramp would start here here as opposed and it would have to go through the garage and then come up and as you're coming up you'd get to patio level but it would impact the garage for sure anything else commissioner clark i think that helps to understand that the concession would be just the garage would have slightly less space for tenants was helpful thank you i uh really appreciate that question uh sorry if i'm jumping in if anybody else i really appreciate that question and that helped me understand kind of what the trade-offs too are from my perspective i hadn't thought about the safety so thank you for bringing that up um i this is a place where parking is not required um and uh and so that eight spaces actually 16 spaces because the garages are are designed to double up um are provided i agree that there's some flexibility um that that offers i would you know for storage or other things but actually the solution that cuts into the garage space and makes some of those not be full double depth is not concerning at all to me and that seems like a far preferable solution in my mind um and so i am certainly in support of either the postponement of this to allow for a design that would accommodate that approval of conditions that would force that or um kind of what uh you know another option is providing you know dedicated pedestrian access on the back side um this to me seems like a reasonable solution not redrawing it here but just hearing what kind of the trade-offs are that's that's a trade-off that i think is really um uh reasonable overall though i want to say like i think that this this issue needs ought to be solved but i'm excited with the idea that this uh property in our downtown area can now house eight families rather than the you know i don't know how many units are currently in the blue building or were in the blue building prior to construction but i it was office okay so i was gonna say i can't imagine that it's more than two um and so that's exciting to me this is the right place for this i appreciate the way that it is designed in conjunction with its neighbor and providing an amenity you know betw like i i think that this it's distinct architecturally it's distinct which i think is nice it's not just the same thing so i'm really i'm excited about this building um and so i while i recognize um the embodied energy in the existing structure a two-story structure built in the 19th century is definitely not ada compliant i've got to believe um and so i mean i see that this is this is a huge benefit but to the same point like we got a lot of that kind of structure in our city and we do want to make sure that what we're building allows people to age in place um i one of the points that i think got kind of tied up in here is this idea or that i that i hadn't heard and i'm still not sure about is if you have a vehicle if you are disabled and have a vehicle like do you have space to get out of that because i'm not i don't know all the dimensions i ultim this is a place where you could live without a car you should live without a car ultimately hopefully i don't like i mean you could totally live without a car and so making sure that you can safely get into your unit without a car is really important here so um i'm super i'm very supportive of this i hope that one way or the other we can get to the solution on the um on making it accessible through the front door effectively um i rather than pushing it off on another i think i will directly ask the uh the petitioner would you like us to postpone this would you prefer a condition that it that it would be designed to allow for um a ramp uh uh oh yeah i'll put it on you which which do you prefer may i ask a question ask a question of you okay well i would like to ask the question of the planning commission all right you can ask me yeah go ahead are you asking us to do something above and beyond what's required by building code i am [Music] what i'm looking at is the safety concerns associated with this from a planning perspective um so i i am not sure how to answer that mr leonard can you help help to answer that i mean i think this would be uh uh on the standard of not creating a nuisance so um it is conceivable that it would be above and beyond the minimum required by the building code for that purpose thank you can i ask your question uh yes kathy yes if we cut out part of 101 in 201's garages can we get a ramp on that site by putting a landing pad at the entrance so from what i'm understanding they're requesting that the landing pad would have to be on your property that's that's something that you know we'd have to go back and look at it may cut into 101 201 and 301st garages yeah all right so because the commissioner asked us a direct question how we'd like to proceed um you know again we looked at this issue um i guess we're certainly open [Music] and i'm going to respond here with it with a yes but a question you know we're certainly open to having you approve this project on the condition that we are able to put a ramp up to the first floor um landing if that you know if we get shot down in engineering says absolutely no way or whatever what does that mean does that mean we can come back with the same project does that mean that we're toast and have to start over because i i mean we want to been building and developing arbor for 31 years we want to do what's right here um and so i'm happy to to have you prove it with that condition i think we can get it to work again we looked at it but what happens if we can i guess is my question can we come back and and look at other options for the garage is it planning commission three months from now if it doesn't work out or what that's my question that's a great question that i am going to direct to staff what happens if we do it with a with a prescriptive so if the condition is added as a prescriptive uh requirement that would have to be satisfied in order for the project to proceed so if it was determined at some future point that that was not feasible they would have to submit a new site plan that amended made the proposed amendments that could be realized and then that would be considered under whatever requirements depending on that change to the plan or prescribed by the ordinance so in short if it couldn't be realized they would have to submit a new site plan that could be realized and they would go through the normal review process based on potentially a modification or amendment to the existing plan or if it were something drastically different might come fully back to planning commission but it would set the expectation that that had to be achieved to proceed okay if sorry go ahead and if i may respect if i may i respectfully request that you postpone this because it seems to make more sense that we try and work it out with staff and engineering now and just come back to you at the next meeting or the next scene after that then agree to some may not be achievable and have to resubmit and go through review by everybody which doesn't make any sense to me okay um also i want to say your architect has been politely holding uh raising in hand so if you want to contribute to this conversation go ahead so everyone realizes that someone in a wheelchair cannot approach this site because the grades are too steep along miller so to invite them to try and approach the site coming down miller you're putting them in danger so our discussion was with someone a guest coming to this building could drive in and have access to the elevator and get up and down versus trying to have them park at ann ashley come across the street and then endanger themselves on a steep grade on the public right-of-way what you're asking for is we have a site that you can't approach but you want the site when we develop it to be compliant even though no one can get to the site from the public right-of-way thank you i and i would suggest that this in my mind solidifies why further discussion and postponement so further discussion with staff to get at that i one of the in that discussion what i'm hoping would happen is that there's discussion of if you arrive in a van that has a lift if that's what it's called off to the side where actually you would park that if these garages are actually wide enough for that like i that's what i'm hoping that you guys can have i i can see i can i can i see all of the complexities here but i would really like staff's professional recommendation with lots of you know lots of consideration in that i'm not gonna make the motion to postpone i'm gonna wait for somebody else to make that because there's lots of hands up too oh goodness this has raised a lot of things um is it's directly on this commissioner clark no i just wanted to kind of kindly point out too that we're not necessarily only talking about people in wheelchairs there's other kinds of reasons that people may not be able to drive um they're made you know and you know it's ann arbor there's a whole number of people there one car no car households so the wheelchair point seems a little bit of a tan tangentially i mean like yes the grade is important for wheelchairs but there's also people that may have visually impaired or maybe elderly any number of reasons that they may not be in a wheelchair so but still need access without a vehicle um commissioner give randall okay and then commissioner hammerschmidt so to have a van accessible and aisle you need 13 feet so you could get something it depends on where you're parking within that system to be able to make that happen the thing is is that the elevators kind of come into that space too so the um it's the fact that the elevator is kind of in the middle of it that make it a little tricky um because you can slide the car by you know but i mean i i think it's i think this is going to be tricky i think there is a chance with this because of the existing grades out there at the sidewalk that the engineering may say you can't do this because the level landing should actually be at the turning spot not once you've already turned in terms of how you design it so this is the thing that it's just a really tricky site it's a really tricky site so this is the thing that's tough about this is that um we may have to have kind of the the lesser of two evils and and so i'm not saying that it's not worth exploring but this is a really tricky site this is this is not a straightforward solution here at all in terms of the letter of the law of how you're supposed to do this so i think we need to kind of think about like what happens it's a very real possibility that engineering will say no you can't make that sidewalk any steeper you can't put your level landing out there so what does that mean for us so i just want us to be really aware of that in terms of how we're shunting this through the system and whether um you know whether there's like one of the units at the end is has more space or something like that so that the the that can you know they can access it more easily or something maybe there's a way to kind of make i know that's true of many places in town where they have like a couple of accessible units i mean these are like mostly accessible really i mean there really are but maybe there's one that everybody sacrifices a little bit six inches or something you know who knows so that there's some way to be able to have one that is more clear because i don't know that we can make this all work given the site constraints that are there and so um if in terms of making it tricky for you know people pulling in because i agree with what the architect said it's like it's really steep on miller it's like way beyond what what you would have to have a rail going up both sides um to be able to make that code compliant in terms of it it being a ramp so could i imagine one thing um not right now thank you okay so anyway i just want to as somebody who designs these things that's some of the the complications that i just want us to be if we go that route it's it's not a slam dunk it's not so i mean i'm not saying we can design it all here right now but it further solidifies just before i pass it over in my mind like pushing pause letting having more discussion on this at the staff level to sort out what it is that engineering requires commissioner hammerschmidt thanks um this is an interesting discussion thank you for pointing that out about the grade of miller and that what is a what is a ramp going to achieve so i'm wondering to the petitioners you know i'm looking at this site plan you've got eight different garages eight different elevators for units that are not multi-story did you consider a floor plan option that was maybe not garages but just open parking underneath and like a central elevator or an elevator in the corner that goes up in internal doorways to access the units rather than having these external doorways was there ever any sort of plan like that [Music] that you thought about or is that something that could be thought about sure that would be a completely different project that would be a true condominium these are modified townhouses but what i was trying to get to earlier is i want to make the point that the entire driveway servicing these garages is covered the building sits over it so it's not like people the the thought process here this this you know concern that cars are going to block the elevator it's our thought process at the best spot for someone to get out is to pull into this flat driveway open their garage door and go up their elevator if they're in a wheelchair and it's completely covered i think that's very easily and doable based on the size of these garages or storage areas whatever you want them to call whether they have zero cars or one car and two cars to do that and and that essentially is what our engineer kathy keinath and at working with city engineering staff determined was the best way to get into this building thank you but if you're in a wheelchair i think commissioner randall just pointed out it's not wide enough to actually pull into the garage and get out with your right it's not wide enough for you to be in a wheelchair and be able to exit your vehicle and have that clearance it's correct it's what i was pointing out is it's very wide underneath the building the entire higher driveway 120 some odd foot driveway is completely covered by the building so when you pull in you don't necessarily have to pull in your garage you don't access your elevator if that's the variety of concern about safety or having room are there are there spaces though to park outside of there no right so if you were in a wheelchair you could never park in your garage is what i'm hearing no no yes you can put two cars in your garage you can park in the garage it's wide enough to get out it's if you're looking at the you're looking at the plan yeah there it is 13 feet there's 14 feet but the elevator kind of kicks into it for just a a a moment in the middle and so you could pull something all the way forward and get out and go around that thing that's tricky about it is the way the doors are accessed on the side that's what's kind of tricky about it if they were but i don't know how else to do it right exactly right so it depends on how big your car is essentially is what it comes down to yeah because you're supposed to be 18 feet long and so they you know whatever they have a little bit extra and this is again in this sort of due diligence of kind of figuring this out but i also see that it's not it's not a you you yeah it's not an easy one anything else commissioner hammerschmidt i don't think so i'm still confused but if we're postponing it anyway then commissioner lee thank you um i'm going to back up just a bit and talk about the development a little generally i think overall the intent of the d2 zoning is met the building massing to me seems appropriate relative to 309 i actually like the materiality i think it looks good i think it's going to create a lot of visual diversity as you walk up um and i guess i've walked this particular path every day for two years between 2014 and 2016.
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yes of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands with liberty and justice for all uh okay um this is a part of the cast of beauty and the beast we're missing some students who were either busy or had other obligations so um it's a fun song it's be our guest and you'll have double parts going because we did have two casts and um yeah you notice we have the beast in back our two bells we have cogsworth and our two lumieres and our two mrs potts and our chip so we just invite you to sit back enjoy and be our guest [Applause] [Music] is [Music] don't believe me is [Music] gathering [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so yes [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] yes [Music] [Applause] [Music] she's our guest [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] hello [Music] time [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] uh i d and mr bloom train can you kind of come up here i want to make sure we recognize we had a lot of community members first of all kids that was awesome beautiful give yourself another big granola because that was awesome thank you very much you represented our school and community so well uh i saw it on that i don't know what night it was but i know you were the luminaire and rick was the he was the uh right there he was a beast so whatever cast that was wonderful and i heard the same about every show and we're so proud of you can you make sure all of our community members that participated are recognized so we had brian bloomstrand who did all our sound [Applause] which there was no feedback whatsoever way to go um becky evans who was my stage director [Applause] alicia did much of the dance along with some of the students [Applause] and i and i have to call him this dave the builder he did our steps [Applause] deborah jensen all the beautiful things you saw on stage she was in charge of all our props mrs horn was an everyday supporter of everything and we had two that were not able to come [Music] so shanny walin would help backstage and with um costumes and who was my other one oh christy alder helped with the soloists who'd i forget oh and jensen where's jensen our beastly makeup artist [Applause] but had it not been for all these people and all the kids the show would not have happened not like it did so thank you for inviting us [Applause] good job kids thank you board what do you think you know i thought i was beyond crying when i watched that performance the first time it brought tears to my eyes because so proud so proud to be a part of that thank you you did an awesome job for everybody that was involved any member of the board like to say anything i thank them for coming thank you for coming tonight and bringing it all back that memory is wonderful thank you so much great great example [Applause] [Music] okay next item on the agenda is recognition of our april br star award recipient dr wright alicia you're busy tonight come on up lauren alicia the cruz is our br star come on up alicia [Applause] so not only is she talented in the fine arts department but she's also talented up in the front office anything that we need done she's jumping all over making sure i stay on track and the rest of the office stays on track so alicia does a great job so we want to recognize her for that thank you [Applause] okay next item on the agenda is our consent agenda and board is there any item that you would like to take from the consent agenda and vote on independently after reviewing your packet yeah do we have any personnel here that have been hired that we'd like to to meet maybe not too many no all right so can we have a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented motion from chuck have second from margaret all in favor be unanimous mary okay business section of the meeting recommend num 3.1 recommendation to approve the hire of new employees for the 2021-22 school year dr wright you want to go through these positions yes sir do we have any of uh jb do you have any of the maintenance folks is daniel here tonight no daniel's not here tonight and stephen porter just returned he left for a couple weeks and didn't didn't like the job that he went to and he's back with us he's a great employee daniel estrella is also an excellent employee but he's not here tonight okay thank you and don's not here for the best way of the new replacement all right we have a motion to accept these new hires emotion from jennifer ii from chuck all in favor unanimous okay item 3.2 recommendation to approve the teacher retention stipend dr dr wright this is a hundred and i mean a thousand seven fifty dollars can you explain what that is and yes sir is it a continuation of things or will it be just a one time yes sir thank you this is a one-time stipend that is paid to all teachers that will be here um i believe the pet is october the 1st of october 2022 the way that uh the 1750 figure was arrived at that's roughly three percent of the average salary which is 58 000 there's still a lot of uncertainty around school funding the striker bill that had been introduced that still places a considerable amount of money at risk we're really unsure frankly what it's going to how it'll all shake out but we do have the capacity to provide this the 1750 stipend we recognize that there are inflationary elements that are you know the three percent doesn't make up to seven percent inflation that we're having statewide and maybe closer to eight percent nationwide we recognize that but we felt we feel compelled to do something for our hard-working teachers and so that the recommendation of the board is that we approve very you approve rather our request is seventeen hundred and fifty dollars per teacher those are certified teachers pre-k through twelve and those that are employed in here october first twenty twenty two would qualify qualify any questions from the board i i wonder how this compares to last year and what we were able to do uh last year the retention bonus part was is half last this is half of what we did we did 3 500.
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i'd like to call to order a regular meeting of the board of education april 2022 um cathy could you please call the roll at seven o'clock p.m sorry 20. here yes present here meadows here here all right mr meadows would you lead us in the pledge absolutely i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right dr hitchens are there any items to be removed from or added to the agenda tonight there are not all right our first item on our agenda is our public comments we wanted to remind everyone we thank you for coming tonight that tonight the board will not be um engaging conversation it's your chance to speak and our chance to listen i'm going to pass it over to holly dietzman as she explains our policy for addressing the board welcome to our meeting this evening will be called up and order a form submission the first form received is the first person invited to speak when your name is called please come to the podium so that you can be heard your comments will be limited to three minutes and we will display a timer on the screen so that you can see where you're at in your time the three minute time will start once you are settled at the podium at any time during this meeting written comments may be submitted to our recording secretary kathy scaffidi at my right speakers should conduct themselves with civility and respect towards everyone in this room our first speaker is amber gersa nikki woodruff and jen erickson my bad all right my name is amber gersa and i'm an english teacher at batavia high school and a batavia parent of three in recent board meetings we've heard from students begging our administration to do something about the racist transphobic and homophobic issues that plague our district our motto this year is you belong here but we have students entering our doors each day that are being terrorized and traumatized due to their race gender identity sexual orientation and or disabilities they must endure repulsive insulting slurs and hatred while they are in our buildings and under our watch we have created somewhat of an equity plan but this plan focuses on long-term goals and completely forgets about the students that need help right now the district tells us that when we have concerns we should use the chain of command over the past 11 months i've contacted administration to express my concerns and offer solution solutions for these students that are telling us they are traumatized and do not feel like they belong i've documented my interactions with administration where other teachers and i are begging them to do something about our students who need help now i've submitted copies of my notes in the board notes and i have copies available tonight if anyone would like to see them here's some key points that i've documented over the past 11 months regarding efforts to support students that are suffering i've had 30 points of documented contact with administration i've had over 46 emails to administration i've had more than nine face-to-face meetings with administration eight times i never received a response to my question or email in february we had 50 teachers email senior leadership and our board questions related to equity we never received a response i even asked at one point if i could have a meeting with an administrator and a board member so we could discuss and get on the same page for our students i was denied i was told that our board and administration believe in the processes we have in place how can we believe or trust in a process when it forces students to suffer i was told to use this process but i'm here because these effective structures have failed i've done what you've asked and it's not working i've attempted to use the system but i'm deflected to other committees or completely ignored other teachers and students have also reached out to administration many times this falls on deaf ears or we're told the committee is working on it or we're told the committee is working on it and after that committee there'll be another committee created to come up with an action plan once we gather the data hopefully you can see the problem in the system we're relying on a faulty system to help fix problems the faulty system has created and students are suffering how much pain will we put these kids through before we do something to help them feel a sense of belonging in our schools i encourage others that are frustrated with our lack of short-term plans to ask administrators and senior leadership what they are doing to ensure all students belong now you have told our students they belong now it's time to prove it [Applause] our next speaker is jacob wyatt jennifer erickson nicole woodruff shannon hemis and julie thule all right good evening i'm speaking on behalf of our staff a representative group of our staff we're coming to the board of education tonight to share some celebrations as well as to raise your awareness about student learning needs in our building although we are here tonight to address the challenges in our school we'd like you to keep in mind that these challenges exist across all the buildings and we don't want it to become normalized we need to accept that the students sitting in our classrooms today are not the same as the students we had pre-pandemic we've consistently met with our building administrator throughout the school year and our staff also met with dr newkirk and mr pierce recently to share some of the challenges our students face and request that they rethink how we support students post pandemic we celebrate the success of our second grade cohort of students the teachers on this team have shared that having four small classes greatly enhanced their ability to individually support the students academically and socially their map scores showed significant student growth and we are hopeful that smt and the board will consider these factors that led to their success when planning for the future kindergarten through fifth grade in our school has experienced very high social emotional as well as academic needs this school year despite support from classroom teachers special educators paraprofessionals our school social worker and other resource personnel it has been difficult to provide consistent instruction due to the severe nature of the sel and behavioral needs we're experiencing for kindergarten especially we're grateful that the district administration has already decided to add a third section to first grade for the upcoming school year we feel this will significantly improve the outcomes for the students next year while we're celebrating this success of second grade unfortunately our collaborative structures have been taxed this year and haven't been able to resolve many of the same issues our students have faced since august we encourage you to question why these systems have failed to completely support our students this school year our crisis response team and support staff have been heavily strained and as mentioned earlier the students sitting in our classrooms today are not the same as the students pre-pandemic their social emotional and academic needs are significantly different in the past it was uncommon to have multiple students in crisis now on a typical day there are multiple students in crisis simultaneously support staff has been unavailable and ill-equipped since our system just isn't designed to support this level of need renowned organizational psychologists teach us that systems are designed to get the results that they get this year this system did not work for all of our students so please rethink how we service students with a sense of urgency so we can see students feeling confident safe and successful in the upcoming school year thank you for your time [Applause] next week good evening everyone i'm matt holm i teach history at potavia high school and coachupatev high school last year at this time we got together with a group of teachers at the high school and we read and discussed a book called so you want to talk about race at the same time i had the good fortune of doing training with the chicago bears on equity training as the nfl was going through it in this group called rise up reaching out to coaches in the area after that experience was able to grab a group of teachers and work through the summer amber molly and multiple others and go to our administration in august with a list of concerns of ours they included excuse the old man glasses student voice and a a club or a union specifically for our students of color and lgbtq community amber was able to get that going we talked about the need for professional development and equity as well as diversity in hiring we also talked about the need for support in our classrooms for difficult topics eventually we were able to come up with a public and equity commitment to our own students and of course the students gave us response to that as dr king would say it's one thing to have thin paper it's another thing to have thick action so for the last couple of months we've been working with small groups and trying to get teachers to look at their practices their climate their environment of their classrooms so that they can address the students in all of this time and all the literature and all the things that i've read two things have stuck out to me one the first thing that has to happen is it has to be a personal self-evaluation you have to look at yourself your own practices your biases your privileges all of the things that make you see the world the way you see it before you can see it the way somebody else sees it that's the first thing that stands out the second thing that stands out and most recently has hit me is that this is urgent we began on thursday a new committee with the district i'm very happy to be on that committee but i want to stress as i go into that those two things we need a deep self evaluation of our district of our staff we need the training that goes with that and while we're doing that we need to realize that there are students who feel like they don't belong they don't have support they feel like maybe they don't have an equal opportunity with other students in the building or in general they just feel like they are not part of batavia public schools and with that in mind this work has to be urgent i know it is the end of april and we're moving into may and the end of the school year is nigh this work has to be very important and it has to be urgent thank you [Applause] good evening in case you don't know me already my name is killian mullen and i'm a transgender and queer senior at bhs the last time i spoke in front of the board i mentioned issues in regards to the transgender community that needed to be resolved and tonight i will shift from that point on to actions that have been taken by students and staff alike from that moment forward and don't worry i got the message last time i won't be using language you feel the need to censor tonight just in case you were wondering i think what tore me apart the most about the last meeting you all had that i spoke at was not the fact that the language i chose to use at night was censored but the fact that the administration at my school immediately jumped on that yet didn't immediately jump when a black woman stood where i'm standing right now and told you that the students at her school threatened her with violence to the point of lynching it seriously took a white student getting up on this podium and saying a queer slur for bhs to begin moving ever so slightly faster i want you to sit with that for a moment while i talk about what else has been done the weeks after the address i made to you on march 22nd have been extremely active within the community at bhs during this time i moved forward the administration on plans to make a focus group for transgender students called the butterfly committee that would be a direct line of communication from adam to transgender students and will be represented by four transgender students at the school one from each grade level along with this a protest was organized and done outside the school on the morning of april 5th and students came to show their support for the message that bhs needs to do a much better job of acting on their supposed commitment to equity these are two positives that were drawn from that moment but i want to highlight that these actions were taken by students and not enacted by administration which goes to show yet again that students and teachers committed to fixing this must constantly take the burden of trying to fix problems that the district continually refuses to dig into and truly resolve we see the outlines of planned equity in action on your website and we don't see any action taken we see the posters in the hallways that promote people like ourselves and my peers of color to the masses walking through them every day but we don't see you promoting a more diverse administration to represent those frankly performative moves we see you stating time and time again that school is always learning and always growing yet you stick to the same classrooms with blatantly racist and queerphobic teachers who only strive to teach a one-sided historical or literary world from a soul-white perspective with all this being said i want to make it clear that i'm telling you that not enough has been done and that most of what has been done has been at the hands of students and teachers who are desperately trying to make change in the little free time they have outside of school and other commitments we aren't the ones being paid to build an education system committed to equity for every student yet here we are putting in the work and taking the real action i don't want to glorify it either a lot of us are extremely tired and we are just about ready to give up and let the cards fold and frankly by this point it would make a lot of sense if we did yet we haven't yet because many of us can't i do not want another transgender student at the school to go through what i did and the thought of that that may happen to any minority student for that matter because of your laziness when it comes to taking tangible action makes me genuinely want to scream i don't get what you don't understand about needing action now especially after all we've seen over the past hundred years in this country but i will keep telling you until it gets through to you that there is no other way to abolish the systematic racism and discrimination within our school besides taking action it shouldn't be hard to understand and it shouldn't have taken a white queer student to come up here and say slur to feel like a fire was lit under the high school to do something about it stop making promises to pretend you own up to the violence that occurred in this district to do the lack of action in the face of discrimination thank you [Applause] next we have molly jackson schultz please be good um hi my name is molly jackson schultz and i'm here again today to speak on behold no on behalf of students and add my voice as an advocate one of the units for our class is the voice unit where we talk about the power that an individual's voice has during this unit we teach students various ways to use their voices and encourage them to speak about what matters to them we want students to realize that their voice matters we want them to feel heard i would feel like i failed them in that purpose if i didn't continue to speak up now and use my voice i didn't get selected for the district equity team and i feel like my voice hasn't been heard enough through our existing structures so i'm going to use my voice here to continue to advocate for students i've opened statements before to the board about what you've got this kid about why this work is so important but i've always run out of time so tonight i just want to focus on action steps a student spoke in december requesting resources for trans students on our website while the website has been updated with a large equity plan for the district it has not yet been updated with the information that they requested i did some research for examples and i would be happy to share some if that would help the student has spoken three times now at the board meeting and has had a meeting with administrators and they still feel like their request for resources on the website hasn't been addressed it's been months we've made other website updates why not this one teachers have requested training to be better for students with regards to dei since october we've not received much with the exception of our new ken williams work in preparation for his institute in the fall the first module largely focuses on defining the terms equity and selectivity it's three videos and a couple of refresh reflection questions this is important baseline for our discussion overall but this doesn't help teachers in the short term help students feel more included or valued or safe the second module is more centered on professional learning communities aka the teaching teams that we work on and essential learnings these are things that many of us have heard in teaching school and again and again it institutes these videos center more on that concept than the concept of equity during the training williams says that we need to figure out how to get all students there but then doesn't offer any solutions or ideas i hope that solutions and ideas are present in the conversation later this fall regardless that still isn't helping teachers course correct for this school year last year we received articles for hot tip tuesday or tips on becoming more effective educators with remote learning why have we not received articles or webinars or advice on these things providing these on a weekly or bi-weekly or monthly basis would show that the district values these ideas and would also help teachers access some of the training that we have requested again in an effort to be solution focused i have some websites and free webinars and articles that i'd be happy to share if that helps oh no scroll down students have also requested and asked for affinity spaces um they seem to just want to be heard is there any way that we can implement listening sessions in affinity spaces before the end of the school year to show seniors that they're valued and we care about them there have been mixed answers from leadership about whether they can run or not and why i'm going to skip down to my conclusion i'm excited by the district statement that we are a district of action and we are committed to equity i however share concerns that were brought up in the january board meeting about pacing the school year is ending soon what we've done for students and staff now how are we going to rise above the structures of structures that created these problems in the first place and how are we going to make it clear that voices have been heard how will we make it so that all students feel like they belong here oh good evening i've been up here before my name is martin byrne i'm a sophomore at bhs over the last few months parents students and teachers have stood right here and bravely described horrible experiences of racism queer phobia and other bigotry that they've experienced in batavia schools students have described rampant bullying hateful language being used against them by other students being called slurs at school including the n word and even death threats they've received from other students because of their race or gender identity and keep in mind these are just the people who had the access and the willingness to share this publicly what about the kids and parents who were understandably too scared to do so or didn't have the access to do so kids in our schools are suffering kids in our schools are unsafe at school this is an emergency and the time for telling these students to continue to wait for telling them the change will come in a few months or by next school year is over the time for action is now you may remember me from the strategic plan check-in committee report that i helped deliver at the february meeting i'm grateful for the opportunity i had to be a part of that important work but as has been laid out in these meetings that presentation was one simply of data and conclusions it's now in the board's hands as to what to do with them and how to take action i am very pleased to hear that an equity action team is being assembled to propose long-term changes for equity i understand that staff have been invited to apply to serve on this committee but if nadia had heard of opportunities for student involvement students bring invaluable perspective on the very issues we are trying to to prevent and address and need to be involved in discussing solutions it's good that the district turned to students to give feedback on our experiences during the data gathering phase of this process but we could not stop there there with student voice in recent months it's been the students who have done the most challenging work of this process coming up here to describe the traumas born of racism agriphobia that they've experienced now that we are at this point in the equity process it would be counterintuitive and wrong to exclude student student voices from official discussions of action on equity the district has set good things in place for long-term change to happen with the ongoing formation of that equity action committee and established commitments to equity this long-term strategy is needed but so is immediate action look as discouraging as it is to continue to hear of these incidents happening in our schools and i think we might even hear some more tonight i am optimistic i'm optimistic because so many people care about this and are showing up for it and are committed to it and members of the board i know that you care deeply about this too and i'm very grateful for that through i work with the strategic planning planning check-in committee my perspective as a student my participation in clubs like the bhs equity and justice committee the bhs pride alliance through my following of these meetings i know that we all want to get to a place where every student feels safe at school and getting there won't be easy but make no mistake we absolutely can get there and lastly to everyone especially my fellow students who have come up here to share your experiences or in any way fought for a safer and more equitable bps i want to say thank you may this not be a fruitless fight thank you next we invite jenna mcknight good evening i'm jenna thank you for listening to us for thank you for listening to us tonight but not really listening truly hearing us i'm here tonight to speak on a different aspect of dei i recently went back to school to obtain an lbs one certificate which is a sped certificate in doing so my eyes have been opened wide to how different amazing and life-changing our schools can be schools where everyone feels they belong that is our motto this year as we've heard i was subbing in one of our essentials classrooms this month and overheard a student say i don't know why i have to do any of this i'm in the stupid class anyway it broke my heart but i know that this student is not alone and feeling this way we have students who refuse accommodations refuse pull-out all because those things make them different or not normal which is interesting because the definition of normal wasn't supposed to be used on humans in the first place it was made for math i don't have the time to get into the history of it although i would love to so call me but i can recommend a book called normal sucks this book is mind-blowing eye-opening and life-changing a read that any parent or person in education must read we live in an ableist world that demands those who have a disability to conform to the normal this needs to be changed during the pandemic i thought many times that this would be the change the the change for education i thought it would blow it up to be honest but we went back to status quo and i completely understand why everyone was stressed and needed some sense of normal but that opportunity hasn't passed we still can grab hold and change school for the better i must say i am fired up with excitement and passion for what the future can hold excited for change even though at times it is scary if we really want everyone to feel like they belong then let's change what we do don't misunderstand me there are times when we need to pull students out and when we need to give them what they need in a different way but how can we do that in order for everyone to feel like they aren't different or singled out how can we normalize different how can we change the face of education here in batavia we love to say we are innovators and change makers so let's do that let's not wait for the surrounding cities to make the way let's be waymakers here and now put our actions where our mouths are let's make sure that everyone feels that they belong this doesn't need fancy things or lots of money it needs innovation and outside of the box thinking it needs a ground up renovation in the end i don't care who you are who you love your background color ethnicity or ability because that is what makes you you and you have the right to feel loved and a true sense of belonging the time is now to take the steps forward to truly creating a sense of belonging for all i have a chapter i'm going to hand out to you called from behaving to belonging that i would like to share and i really want you to take the time to read it and reflect on it so that we and batavia can make a difference so that students feel like they belong please ignore all the markings on it and lastly i would love to sit and talk more about this so let's connect thank you [Applause] thank you everyone thank you to the board thank you to our community our teachers for just having this opportunity to enter in this dialogue today i actually wrote something but i have no desire to actually read it so i'm just going to wing it with you all because i'm so inspired by the teachers who spoke the students who've spoken and shared this evening before i begin i would like to say ramadan mubarak it is ramadan and to all those who are celebrating this holy time and blessings to you and your family um i've lived in batavia for almost 16 years almost 17 years and i'm a lifelong educator and in that process as a young person moving here with my family i was really looking for a place where we could belong and you look at things as an individual and in those experiences that i've had i would go to the school and and wouldn't see my children reflected there and would try to make corrections so i would say okay i can help create a presentation here i'll pay for a speaker storyteller to come that those things haven't changed and so now that i'm older i'm like why are these not a part of our community of these celebrations there are two black teachers in this room please stand up and come here miss majersky this woman changed my child's life she saw my son and helped him and he wrote about how she helped him to be good in school this one here you made a place for my child to to see himself and to teach him two that's it that one over there never has had a teacher his whole academic career that looks like him never not a one not a one that is not okay that is not okay for the last 10 years our teaching population has been 95 plus white our administrative team is 97 percent white two and a half percent asian there's no administrators that reflect the diversity of our community that is not okay we have to do better batavia we have to do better our white children are not seeing people in leadership who look different than them our children of color are not learning from people that look like them we have to do better we have to do better so i don't have a lot of time left but i want you to say i'm in it to win it people up here i've said i would help i'm not asking for anything but to serve our community to we have to do better we cannot sit and have teachers it's not my job to be texting teachers resources that's what i do because they ask because we're not giving it to them we're not giving our teachers what they need right now it's not that hard our children need to know how to go to the bathroom they need to know how to where they can pee right now we shouldn't be talking about this if it was your child would you be okay with that that they can't pee no that's not right kids need to have a group where they can go an affinity space i'm a grown-up i'm an educator i'm old i have them why because doing this is exhausting it's exhausting and when i get home i get on a phone and have to talk to educators because we're tired please help our teachers please help our children now thank you for your time and our final speaker is alexis porter [Music] hi so uh last time i came up here i talked about how a student that i've known for a long time told me he wanted to lynch me now i'm going to talk about how the school has gotten even worse from that um how i get cat catcalled from outside of classes or how i get sprayed with water guns on my way to home or how i get yelled at from cars that i hope you get ran over or how i have to beg teachers to teach real stuff that actually happen in history not one side all sides it is so sad how children have to come up here and beg y'all full grown adults to teach a real history or tell them or tell like really like oh my god i can't even speak right now how disappointed i am in full grown adults your quote for the school year is oh you belong do i really belong do i i am in pain walking into school suffering with anxiety worried if somebody's gonna ask me if my lips are real or my hair is real asking if they can touch me as if i'm a pet in a petting zoo you want me to belong teach it shouldn't be that hard you call this a school teach your teachers right teach i'm begging y'all because i cannot go through this no more i really can't i'm suffering i'm really suffering y'all i'm scared to go into school i'm really am i belong that's a question i ask myself every day not only in the real world i don't belong because of my skin color but after going to school and y'all tell me force me to believe that i belong and i really don't teach tell them the real stuff please cause i'm tired i am tired that's all i got [Applause] next item on our agenda is our bps partners i'd like to invite todd swanson to the podium i don't have to steal matt's old man glasses i brought my own so good evening i'd like to begin tonight by sharing an outcome that came from the recent illinois education association representative assembly that i attended along with four other bea members at the beginning of the month iea is launching a campaign called respect which focuses attention on our invaluable education support professionals throughout the state support staff are typically the first to arrive at school as they unlock the doors and turn on the lights each day they are some of the first people to greet students as they arrive at school in the morning who give students the academic support they need to become successful learners who carefully assist with students health safety and nutritional needs and are the last people who see students safely home at the end of the day the value of their work is priceless we want to continually recognize education support professionals and their ongoing and vital contributions to educating the students of batavia public schools the respect campaign is a statewide effort with the support of iea the letters of the word respect form a slogan for this campaign respect stands for raising education support professionals by elevating careers together as the pool of candidates for education related jobs continues to dwindle across the state and the nation the iea is supporting efforts to improve working conditions for our education support professionals and therefore aid in recruitment and retention of these vital and necessary professionals the campaign focuses on five main areas that includes wages health insurance pensions retention and recruitment and job duties tonight i simply wanted to make you aware of the respect campaign briefly convey what it is and ask you to join with the batavia education association and the batavia education support professionals association in helping to ensure the education support professionals of batavia public schools know their worth and have the respect that they deserve another outcome that came from the ra that focus on education support professionals is the desire to abolish using the acronym esp when it comes to speaking about our colleagues we don't shorten teacher to tchr or board member to bm so why then would we do this to our education support professionals going forward please join me and the batavia education association and the illinois education association in refraining from referring to the education support professionals of batavia public schools as esps and further helping show respect for them by calling them by their full and rightful name education support professionals the second focus of my time with you tonight comes as a result of our district moving forward with using the lens of diversity equity and inclusion this year has been spent seeking feedback from staff students parents and community members throughout our internal equity audit that feedback has been analyzed presented to the board had action plans developed and next steps were put into place this has happened over the length of the entire school year and has culminated with the creation of a district-wide collaboratively selected equity team that i am thrilled to announce will begin their important work together next week and from there the team will have the ownership to determine what their future looks like as a team and what the scope of their work will entail this has been a very lengthy process to get to this point but it is a celebration to know that we now have a team working together to help move our district forward with equity diversity and inclusivity the part that remains the proverbial bone of contention is that we have spent so much time playing the long game the needs of the here and now are what still we are left to struggle with as a district we have had staff and students alike share their personal stories of things that are currently happening in our buildings who have done their due diligence to follow the right paths laid out before them in seeking help a resolution and still find that there has not been much if any forward progress in resolving their issues gaining support or feeling like we are making positive gains one of the things that i have learned just recently through our interactive and flexible institute day which is centered around equity and led by our future in district presenter ken williams is the definition of equity that he is grounding our entire district in this is the exact common language and understanding that we are all using to associate with the term equity equity is providing students what they need when they need it and with urgency the eye opening part of that statement to me is those last two words with urgency i believe that those who have come to speak written letters organized or taken action this past year as dei has taken a front seat in the awareness of our district are not seeing that peace with urgency come to that same forefront i'm not saying that solutions have not been offered or avenues have not been pro provided to pursue what has been apparent is if we are to believe what ken williams is telling us is that urgency is as critical as to giving what is needed and when it is needed it is that sense of urgency and providing support in the here and now where as a district we now find the largest gap of where we are and where we should be and it is here that we all must do better how do things improve on this issue i don't have a magic formula but it seems clear to me that a logical answer lies in listening listening to understand and not simply to reply is a fundamental key to effective communication and problem solving and is a skill that every single person sitting in this room tonight or joining us virtually or who will be watching this tape version in the future can always be reminded about pay attention to those that are speaking notice their eye contact and their body language as well as the tone with which they are speaking listen with your body turn to the person that is speaking lean in make eye contact with them make them feel like they are being listened to don't interrupt listen fully and wait until they are done before asking questions or adding your own responses repeat what they said don't just say what you are planning to say repeat back what you heard before adding your own comments respond to what they said be honest and respectful in your responses and always talk and listen in the exact same ways that you would want to be talked to and listen to and the last part here is the hardest for me for sure and i assume for many of you as well yet it is one that causes more needless problems and issues don't jump to conclusions or be judgmental when we bargain our contract with the board one of the keys that always grounds both of our teams is not to run up the ladder of inference this ladder is a loop that may enable a person to make a wrong or inaccurate conclusion based off past experiences biases or perceived truths what can i do to help avoid climbing up that ladder of inference it can really be summed up in three simple parts reflection advocacy and inquiry be aware of your own thinking and reasoning and ask yourself if you are making any false assumptions that's the reflection part make sure others understand your thinking and the reasoning behind it it's easy to assume that everyone understands where each other's coming from and that simply isn't true we cannot assume that someone who has no experience with what we are dealing with completely understands our feelings and our thinking that is called advocacy finally ask questions of others as to what they are thinking and use those answers to test your own assumptions this is the basis of inquiry to wrap up i issue each and every one of us a challenge as we continue to move forward and grow as a district do all within your power to become a better listener i found two pretty profound statements about listening that i'd like to close with the exact same letters in the word listen make up the word silent and most people do not listen with the intent to understand they listen with the intent to reply please be a listener who seeks understanding and i am confident as a district we can live up to our motto of always learning and always growing thank you [Applause] next item on our agenda is our committee updates chris we can start with you um i gave my committee update in writing to all of you so you have that all right um i did not make it to insurance committee because i locked myself out of my house so tony will give us that update the insurance committee is looking at some other opportunities to both improve healthcare offerings and perhaps do them a little cheaper than the way we do them now so more in the coming months okay i was able to make it to um iraq this last week or so um we had our uh building our future update which was good to hear some of the things that are kind of occurring there uh began our discussions on um the budget which is our kind of beginning of the process as it were um and then understood a little bit more so um long and short of it is we also then reviewed new features of the elementary kind of budget process okay i had no committee meetings this past month okay erin um i was unable to make plaque but i did connect with steve and we discussed how we the committee has continued to roll out our educational equity modules to the staff and we're looking forward to continuing our work for professional development and to support on the staff and the important work that you all do thanks erin and i failed to notice that one of our student ambassadors is here at least one i'm not sure if they both are so oh no wonder i didn't see you back there uh so we'd love to invite you up to share with what's going on oh right in front of me okay so um a little bit about teacher appreciation rece recently teachers within the district have overcome so many obstacles throughout the past two years and continue to make student learning the best experience possible our teachers not only teach the students within the district but also build relationships and try to make students feel at home when they are in the building teachers teach us to be kind to others respect our peers and teach us to be overall good human beings bps students are so grateful for what teachers have done over the course of our education and hope other students continue to gain those memorable lessons something very important going on in the district is also mentoring at grade schools many students within our high school have also been mentoring over the past few months at the grade schools the mentoring program allows the high schoolers to build relationships with the little kids and help them through day-to-day issues and allow them to have a buddy to look up to the program is coming to an end for the year but it allowed high school high schoolers to gain experience and provided the kids with a trusting friend who they can look up to sure um some things for next year students are looking forward to the end of the school year to have a break and be refreshed for the new beginnings that come in august over the past few weeks it has been discussed among the student body that we are excited to learn and get to know our teachers on a personal level we believe building personal relationships with our teachers can help benefit our learning and make us feel more comfortable within the building and then some exciting news this month is bps101 was uh sorry bps101 honored for was honored for music education for the eighth time um bhs student athlete tony roberts received nff award and um bhs coach honored was honored by illinois conservation foundation with outdoor hall of fame induction so that's it for this month all right thanks ladies [Applause] the next item on our agenda is our consent agenda which is an opportunity for the board to approve a number of routine business items all of which are laid out in the board book so mr pierce if you would walk us through the consent agenda for sure 4.1 is the approval of the march 21st special meeting minutes for the facilitate facilitating team 4.2 is the approval of the march 21st 22nd 22.
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all right i don't know where did i all right here we go can you hear piano playing no okay we are live yes okay then um i will uh call this uh meeting of the policy board of education policy subcommittee to order on let's say april we'll check anybody april 20th there we go okay i can't even see without moving my glasses around at the 6 34 p.m and um i've forgotten the order of things miss jacinsky please call the roll you are muted [Music] nope still muted unless are we all muted no no okay can you hear me now yep yep yes can you hear me now i'm mr here ms rosenberg here mr white here mr chairman you have a quorum great um i'll stand for the pledge or jeff do you have a screen for the pledge i do something or you have a flag in your background even that'll work let's do that yeah okay 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 okay reframe okay good evening everyone um [Music] dr solon is there any uh public comment for this evening not related to the policy committee uh more reserved for tomorrow evening yeah there was a [Music] note on standardized testing for tomorrow night's meeting oh yes yeah i think we all got that okay very good um then i guess we will move to the uh first our third item on the agenda i'll hand it over to you jeff great um i'm just going to present the screen here can everybody see the uh agenda yep yes so um the policies that we have for this evening are uh the discussion and and review the the non-discrimination policy uh this is a policy when i click on the link can you see the policy being opened or just the agenda we see it okay um this is something that we've discussed in the past uh the discriminatory discriminatory practices around the employees age date of birth etc uh that we're not allowed to ask questions that would pinpoint the applicant's age uh we've had a conversation around this before um so i'm not trying to look here as to carol do you recall why this is just under a draft yeah you know jeff that's the wrong agenda that one oh oh yeah i say this does not look like because we're on march 8th my apologies yeah i was just texting you to tell you that yeah okay then i'll stop sharing my screen for a second um this is what you get from rolling out of one meeting into the next okay my apologies this should look uh much more familiar well this is one of the last times we get to do this anyway right and we're not we're not exactly putting on a first-class show tonight if not i make so i apologize for that um so this is a second reading um as i was saying before this is a policy that we reviewed before uh it really illustrates you know the change in law highlighting that we can't ask candidates about their age um and anything that would lead to the potential for discrimination based on age so dates of attendance and graduation from educational institutions for example it's honestly pretty straightforward it's a change to be legally compliant we've been doing this anyway but it's just a matter of updating the policy are there any questions on that policy i'm just trying to recall if there were any comments from the board meeting from last time but i don't think it was on this one i think there were just questions actually but points of clarification but sam did you have a question i'm just you know this is our second read i just don't see any edits you didn't add any other edits we didn't change anything aside from the you know the the standard language that was in there right and then the level of i guess reporting or grievance of discrimination so i'll pull it up again here so that doesn't change if there is whether it's um related to age discrimination or other forms of discrimination there is a path to uh file a complaint on our website right on our home page and we would pursue that path ultimately you know the connecticut community commission on human rights you could file a complaint with them or some other body if you're not satisfied with our complaint process but um you can file the the complaint like i said right on our website and that would go to uh robin and carey to process so this would be a title nine uh you know in essence if there's for this sort of issue the title four but the the um this change really is exclusive to the the issue about the the stuff in the gray here this age related change okay thank you sure any other questions on that one um seeing no questions um i will entertain a motion to see this would be to move move to a second rating correct third i think it's third reading i'll move to a third reading okay uh yes right no this one's going for a second reading oh it is okay yeah yeah yeah right because yeah a second reading for the public right right correct okay um move that the policy number 411.11 personnel non-discrimination be moved uh for a second reading do i have a second what was the policy number adam um i said did i read it wrong four one one four one one eight dot one one there you go yeah there we go what did i say did i have too many i had no eights and too many ones i think is what what happened is that what happened all right um so uh tim can i get a second again on the revised motion thank you second um all in favor aye passes unanimously thank you okay jeff you're up again well that was so smooth i'm happy to move on into a community relations parent involvement this would be for a third reading we made some changes here to i mean this original was from 1997.
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[Music] hello [Music] no [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] my [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] good evening everyone my name is cynthia felix laura student ambassador and i will be leading you in the pledge of allegiance please stand place your right hand over your heart ready 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 you may remain stated good evening everyone and welcome to this wonderful event my name is autumn brown and one year ago i left the classroom after teaching for 25 years at brooker's junior high school i was the drama teacher and i'm thrilled to be back tonight to guide you through tonight's event the soapbox speech finals are being brought to you this evening in partnership with the auhsd and mikvah challenge under the guidance of our superintendent michael matsuda auhsd is a recognized leader both and in the state and nationally for its innovative work in the areas of civic engagement youth voice and promoting 21st century skills for its students to tell us a little bit more and welcome you officially please give a round of applause to our superintendent michael matsuda [Applause] good evening everybody it's really an honor to uh to be here and to listen to our student voices i'd like to uh first of all put a shout out to our our students let's put a round of applause for them and a round of applause to our our parents to really appreciate you supporting us and you know to develop and cultivate student voices and student leadership we need teacher leadership so i want to acknowledge all the teachers and their hard work to help you get to today's semi-final event so i'm here with a colleague dr barnett berry from the university of south carolina he just came he just came in from vancouver he's been doing a study of many leading districts in developing student voice but also developing teacher leadership and he shared with me a a quote from some of the uh the teacher and admin leaders up in vancouver surrey unified school district so i thought i'd share this with you it's really a wonderful quote by richard wagners we are story all of us what comes to matter then is the creation of the best possible story while we are here you me us together we change the world one story at a time congratulations to all of you thank you so much i'd like to introduce a few special guests tonight as people from the board of trustees first our trustee president anna piercy also from the board of trustees anne-marie randall trejo and brian o'neill so the name of this event is the soapbox speech and you might wonder well what does that mean exactly when someone's on their soapbox it means that they're talking passionately about something that they really believe in and the term goes back to back in the day soap was delivered in wooden boxes not in those plastic tubs we get at the supermarket now and if someone had something they wanted to talk about they got one of those wooden soap boxes went to the park stood up on it and extolled their thoughts about whatever the issue was of the day so today we are going to hear some of the wonderful things that are on the minds of our students i do not envy our judges to try to determine who is the most effective speaker tonight let me let you in on a little secret what they will be looking for our speakers will be judged on content is the issue clearly explained and is there evidence to support it structure and style is it organized does it capture our attention and lastly the delivery body language vocal variety and articulation let's take a moment to meet our judges if you would please stand up say your name and an issue that is important to you just a phrase or a word mr switzer we'll start with you good evening everybody thank you for being here my name is mike switzer i'm the district's english language arts curriculum specialist and something that is close to my heart is equity in education good evening everyone my name is rita ray i'm director of human resources with our district and um an issue that is of concern for me right now is global warming [Applause] good evening everyone my name is tolteca quoting here with make of a challenge and i'm actually here's a proxy for our president renee green who is flying out from chicago for this event and we'll be joining shortly as a judge an issue i care about is youth voice and advocacy and youth voice and decision making which isn't included enough and that's what this is about tonight as well so thank you so much good evening everybody my name is manuel colon and i'm the chief academic officer for the anaheim union high school district so proud to be here and my uh issue today is sustainable fashion i think many times we don't think about the impact that what we wear has on the environment wow and actually perfect timing vernee green just arrived from chicago y'all uh just your name and one issue [Applause] hi everyone i do apologize uh vernet green ceo of mikva challenge i am not just arriving from chicago today but navigating your city is an experience for me even though i do appreciate the weather thank you so much for saving it and the sunshine for me the issue that is most pressing for me is equitable education making sure that students have opportunities terrific thank you so much i'm going to give you a little bit of background before we get to our main event our action civics partner is mikvah challenge an educational organization dedicated to establishing a more inclusive democracy based on three principles youth voice matters our youth are experts on issues that affect them and that our communities are stronger when youth leaders are involved in all aspects of civic life as part of their work mikvah conducts soapbox speech showcases all over the country and we're very excited that they're here in anaheim tonight and now it is our opportunity to hear what issues are on the minds of our students in anaheim union high school district what you are about to see and hear are the best student public speakers representing every high school and every junior high school in auhsd each of these students has crafted a two to three minute soapbox speech regarding an issue that is important to them we'll be hearing from eight junior highs and 11 high school speakers so the moment we've all been waiting for let's get started and hear from our first speaker from walker junior high eva martin please come up ava [Applause] uh every day teenagers wake up to their phone whether it's to check the time or to turn their alarm off ninety percent of teens which is a good some of us here are checking our phones in the morning most likely to check social media in our generation social media is like a drug we are hooked onto a simple app with pictures or videos of other people now raise your hand if you have a social media account keeping your hand up if a social media app like instagram tick tock or snapchat is something you check every day now keep your hands up if social media has affected the way you look at yourself keeping your hands up look at your peers everyone that has their hands up around you has been faced with the unrealistic beauty standards of social media today now put your hands down instagram to tick-tock growing hormonal teenagers are slammed with these impossible standards on these apps there are many ways to make each other feel insecure from telling people they should have perfectly clear faces to having a perfect body shape when i look at myself in the mirror my mind always goes back to analyzing myself and comparing myself to these perfectly fit posed and worked out bodies i feel as if i could hide myself behind makeup change myself to become prettier but for what for who because i know it's not all for myself it's for others and it's to show others that i'm living up to that standard we are given today statistics from harvard business schools show that 97 of teams have access to social media without supervision two in every three of those teams follow beauty influencers and models every day we are faced with perfectly beautiful people and we might feel as if we're not in par being constantly online will often permanently damage the way you see yourself an example of this is that the heat of most eating disorders today start from social media the way eating disorders affect our body it's not allowing us to receive enough nutrients to be living those healthy lifestyles because people want to have that perfect body look the way you your health could be affected as well as the way you function in important areas of life from not eating alone the way social media has affected our society today it's telling everybody that they should look like taylor swift or ariana grande that they should have a perfect jawline a perfect side profile a perfect body but that perfect is impossible us as a community need to take into consideration that as much as we change ourselves we won't be living up to that unrealistic standard we are given today to stop the spread of this toxic belief we can manage our time on social media apps also the toxic people that are perpetuating these standards can stop this by showing their harmless imperfections and to stop heavily editing their photos to then say it is a hundred percent natural it is us who are keeping the toxic standards of today and we need to start training our minds to reverse these thoughts we need to change and we want to change we want to show everybody that you don't need to change yourself to look like someone else to feel pretty or to feel handsome we need to learn there is no perfect and we need to stop thinking there is [Applause] thank you so much ava every student is number one at their school and each will be receiving a trophy to take home as well as the third second and first at the end of our evening [Applause] if you'll take a look at your programs those of you that are speaking and you know that you're coming up next maybe while the person is before you is on stage you can make your way down to the foot of the stairs so we'll be ready to go anyway next on our list we're very happy to hear from south junior high andrea nario [Applause] now before i start imagine this in your head you're walking down the street trying to get to your destination going down the crosswalk passing by the bus stop and there you see in the distance right there hiding in the shade from the cruel weather is a somebody wearing ragged clothing and harsh conditions pleading for someone to let them spare change startled by the sun expression you freeze in the spotlight what would you do in the moment most people will look away cowering in fear by the somebody's miserable appearance not even sparing them a glance a small percentage helping with open arms that somebody just encountered in your mind is just the one percent of the skyrocketing total of 580 466 people who are experiencing homelessness in the united states on any given day according to the statistica my name is andrea nario and i will be talking to you about home assist in the united states of america homelessness has become a crisis in the high rise doubling up in our home state and yet the government is swatting away this national problem like it was nothing based upon the information on britannica the number of homeless citizens alone had a shocking number of 3 million people in the 1980s according to united states intricacy council on homelessness did you know there is a total of 8 000 30 family households struggling to fend for themselves mothers anguish for their children's well-beings fathers scraping loose change just to feed their families at night their children unable to get a proper education there are many reasons why these families are struggling on the streets but it's answer many lies in poverty and housing according to britannica see i had this incident that happened in my local community my mom along with others are part of a local facebook group that talk about current problems and events to have it around our local neighborhood one day my mom receives his notification on her phone about a woman seeking advice about her troubles in her post she states that a single mother and her kids sleep every night inside her patio the mother being a portable heater during those cold rainy nights people in our communities started the judge from before but from the woman's own personal source she was afraid of taking her and her kids to a safe haven afraid that something or someone would harm them luckily the police got involved with the situation and it was handled professionally but the incident just stuck with me society these days doesn't cove doesn't judge the cover of someone's appearance not digging down was truly behind their story so why am i telling you this people similar to the single mother and her kids deserve a second chance life no matter what bring awareness to the problem is the best solution petitions safe protests letters to the government donating to your local homeless shelter and or organization all these paths lead to a brighter future for both sides so please be that someone to not only help somebody but everyone thank you [Applause] thank you andrea uh just a note to our speakers you do not have to put pick up the microphone if you prefer to just use the stand that's absolutely fine as well and if you need to adjust it just yes yes go ahead if you need to sure very excited for our next speaker are judges ready i don't want to rush you thank you from oxford academy nathan pereira [Applause] when we hear the words indigenous and native many people picture an image of someone barely clothed with colors streaked on their skin and feathers attached to their heads an image created by false and harmful stereotypes that have been inflicted upon native people for centuries we tell ourselves that these people are just a myth and treat them as if they are non-existent in modern society when in reality these people still thrive and live among us today unfortunately many people are unaware that native women faced murder rates that are 10 times the national average and due to a variety of reasons these cases rarely receive any justice when we ignore their stories and let their humanity become just another statistic we ultimately send the message that their lives are irrelevant according to the coalition to stop violence against native women four of five native women have experienced violence in their lifetime in addition 710 cases of missing indigenous people were reported from 2011 to 2020 and of these 87 percent were juvenile and 54 percent were female these numbers are way more than just statistics they represent how native lives are constantly dehumanized hyper-sexualized and face racism not to mention other layers of oppression based on sexual and gender identity this issue is ultimately a consequence of our country's history of colonization during which native people were dehumanized labeled as savages forced to alter their gender norms and were deprived of land and rights so what can we do about this we can first address the violence enacted towards the native community and we should enforce and support laws made to assist the community we can start by educating ourselves and following the works of organizations such as the coalition to stop violence against native women indigenous voices must be heard we can do this by engaging with our friends and adults as well as using social media to amplify native voices hope is ultimately not out of reach we as a future generation must come together so we make sure that indigenous lives are heard the indigenous community have experienced the scars of intergenerational trauma for centuries and to journey towards healing our society must come together and spread awareness thank you [Applause] some very powerful and very sensitive topics will be discussed tonight and we appreciate your attention next up from lexington junior high josh marinas [Applause] can we all agree that every second in our lives matter from choosing the clothes you wear every day an answer to a homework question or even a trigger from a gun no matter how mundane each second is it is important to treasure it because only one second can change your life forever hi my name is josh marines and as a 40 year old kid it is very hard to speak from experience but i know for a fact that a teen takes his or her life every two hours i know for a fact that nearly 20 percent of those teens experience low self-esteem this means the people you're sitting right next to have a chance that they have low self-esteem and unless they share it you will never know about their mental suffering notice how a second ago i said mental suffering and not mental illness this is because society has labeled it a disorder a disability something they are unfortunately going through yes illnesses can be cured but how many of you are willing to share personal details with a doctor that you don't even know according to walden university only 30 percent of those with low self-esteem receive treatment that's because low self-esteem is intimate personal and private we are so scared of hiding our feelings from others and afraid of being judged and embarrassed but when others finally dare to speak up what do we do we we ask our question why why do they feel like this it's because we're uncomfortable feeling helpless and not understanding a friend i had an acquaintance of mine who wanted to kill himself because of his low self-esteem and i'm so grateful that he told our circle of friends but i felt so helpless because i could not understand him he said i don't know how to control this you don't know how much i have to go through please everyone close your eyes and open your hands now imagine what you can place in those hands an apple maybe your phone now open your eyes what about life because his life was in my hands every second that passed was a life and death situation whatever i said could impact mine and his life forever thankfully my friend is still alive for me to hang out with today but how about all the other teens who are suffering the ones with the illness or disease the ones who won't allow treatment for their low self-esteem one way to help those with low self-esteem is to understand what it is low self-esteem is about appreciation for yourself and most teenagers are affected by low self-esteem because of you guys what you say and think affect teenagers our society is so toxic it is so easy to say something without thinking everyone says that our generation is responsible for the end of global warming racial discrimination and violence how are we supposed to help our world if we keep polluting each other's minds and souls our technology was created for our purpose to better the lives of others so use it correctly encourage others with your cheerfulness and smile when they frown knowing that someone is there during rough times can truly help them we have reached a generation where kindness could either be evolved or extinct so i ask you to lead by example because one day life may be in your hands and only a second can change it thank you [Applause] next up from orangeview junior high nicole martinez [Applause] my name is nicole martinez and i will be talking about the issues with animal testing and the solutions now i'm sure some of you have pets at home including dogs cats guinea pigs and bunnies to us they are loving companions but to some people they are merely seen as testing objects most of us have noticed cruelty free labels on products in the store but have you ever seen the horrible things done to these innocent beings in labs imagine being locked in a lab with no food or water having people inject a needle into your eye experiencing unbearable pain this is the sad reality of many animals out there this is a problem in our society because it is unethical firstly not all animal testing harms animals but in many cases there are cruel things done to animals for instance animals are burned shocked poisoned isolated starved addicted to drugs and brain damage some even suffer having holes drilled into their skulls and many more these types of animal testing should be banned testing can be done with numerous other methods one is in vitro testing which is done with samples from the human body testing human cells in silicon models and human patient simulators are more alternatives this is important because it's hurting innocent animals not only that but the inaccuracy of these tests can have a negative impact on us as humans according to the peta association 95 of all drugs that are shown to be safe and effective in animal tests fail in human trials because they don't work or are dangerous some argue that these alternatives don't work but in fact they are cheaper quicker and more effective in addition most diseases that affect humans do not affect animals making these practices unnecessary many products primarily makeup products are tested on animals something you could do to help is to avoid buying buying products that are animal tested you can check that they aren't animal tested by looking the cruelty by looking for the cruelty-free label on the product another way you could help is to educate others on the topic that way more and more people will be encouraged to jump into action you could speak up about companies that practice in humane animal testing as well [Applause] from ball junior high someone who's ready to come up grant gallagher [Applause] hello so you all probably know what the death penalty is it's a punishment given to people who have committed a serious crime and will result in the person being executed however what you may not know is how flawed the process of getting somebody onto the death slow is so if you haven't so i'm grant gallagher and if you haven't guessed already i'm here to talk about the death penalty and specifically why we should stop it with starters it's getting innocent people killed according to the national academy of sciences around four percent of people on deso are likely innocent this would mean that uh this is it i cannot do this does it mean that this this government approved policy is getting innocent people killed this along with this the death penalty is a violation against human rights when thinking about the topic of human rights many things may come to mind however the thing that stands out here is the right to life and i do not think you can find a more clear violation than a death sentence along with this removing the death penalty would increase funding in other projects the death penalty is a fairly expensive process in fact so expensive it output it beats the life sentence as as an article has stated from hg.org the death sentence costs around 10 times more than a life sentence this would mean that if we were to replace the death sentence with something like the life sentence we would have more funding to better for better punishments and ways to stop people from committing crimes that would get them on dust so in the first place sadly it's uh not it's not the easiest to stop the death penalty it's a government it's a government controlled thing and and there are not too many ways to to fight against it however we can still help against it for starters we restart our polls as of right now california is one of these three states who have not decided whether to stop or keep it if anything came up for if any poll were to come come up for it there is a pretty obvious choice on um there's a pretty there is a pretty obvious choice you could also raise awareness small talk conversations anything that would help more people know know the problem with the death penalty so if you and the person sitting next to you and everybody else in this room would help out we can stop the death penalty [Applause] and now from dale junior high ella sidi muhammad [Applause] in our society each one of us lives wherever we want to without the threat of war or the fear of being displaced this may be a reality for you but for the countless number of refugees worldwide that's only something they can hope for what is a refugee a refugee is someone who has fled their home due to some form of violence or war wars began due to the insane greed our leaders have for power and with that in mind they have no sympathy no humanity and they make no exceptions in order to get what they want this of course creates refugees and the problem just keeps getting worse for example according to the u.n there are about 82 million refugees worldwide that's equivalent to a quarter of the us's population and that figure doesn't even take into account the 4.7 million new refugees coming from ukraine speaking of ukraine check out this headline i read a few days ago that reads ukrainian mother writes her contact information on her toddler's back as the war rages we usually memorize our parents phone numbers in case we get separated but have you ever thought of a war tim excuse me tearing you apart from your loved ones maybe forever i understand a situation like that must be pretty hard for you to imagine so let me put it this way what if you were a deer you live day-to-day in your ecosystem roaming about with your herd when suddenly a tiger pounces on you viciously praying on you and your group and you're thinking what is this animal doing here this is not his habitat or his environment he's ruining it all that's exactly how a refugee feels why are these soldiers killing my people why are these tanks roaming through my neighborhoods why am i running away from my home the only home i've ever known those innocent men women and children that have those thoughts racing through their heads on a daily basis we'll never feel truly at home again now for a problem as big as that of course there are some solutions for one thing governments really need to cut back on military spending so we won't have that much resources for war and for another humanitarian agencies such as the u.n could work together in order to host and protect our refugees the most effective solution is for each and every single one of us to make a personal commitment to helping these troubled people so advocate for them support them open your doors to them and if your leaders don't let you tell them to stop making refugees if they're not willing to host any why should millions suffer in a situation they didn't create nor choose don't be afraid to talk about things like this because in the words of malala yousafzai and i'd like you to take this to heart there's a moment where you have to choose whether to be quiet or to stand up i'm allah muhammad and i choose to stand up i'm asking you to stand with me thank you [Applause] and now our final junior high speaker from brookhurst junior high miriam elkellis [Applause] stuck in a toxic cycle the lack of self-discipline chipped away at me disappointment threaded through my veins crying at night was normal and i can't count how many broken promises i've made to myself unfortunately this cycle is common for most teenagers hello my name is mariam alkaresh i will be discussing the impact of cultivating self-discipline the national library of medicine explains that practicing self-discipline is directly linked to an increase of feelings of contentment and satisfaction the american psychological association defines self-discipline as the control of one's impulses and desires foregoing immediate satisfaction in favor of long-term goals self-discipline is a significant skill because it builds on self-control willpower consistency and ultimately helps make our dreams a reality a recent article in american scientists concludes that childhood self-discipline strongly predicts adulthood success the national institute of health found that youth who failed to learn self-discipline were 43 percent more likely to become involved in drugs crime obesity related diseases and financial instability whoa however a lack of self-discipline cannot solely be blamed on our youth other factors are at play such as brain development and economic status frontiers in psychiatry found that the prefrontal cortex that governs self-discipline is not fully developed until age 24.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
well good evening everyone the time is now seven o'clock and i will call this meeting to order uh for this regularly scheduled uber meeting open session of the azusa unified school district and we will go ahead and begin with 4.1 flag salute let's stand next we move to our roll call 4.2 board member rodriguez pena president board member beau here board member cruz gonzalez here board member adianas will be she's here she'll be joining us i will move on then to item 4.3 which is approval of the agenda make a motion to approve 4.3 i second any discussion then we will go ahead and vote hope are we able to move that to an abstention or an absence okay uh we'll do a hand vote uh board member rodriguez pena president uh sorry this is a vote for approval of the agenda oh yes board member beau yes board member cruz gonzalez yes and i am also a yes and so uh we'll move that to four yes it approved it it's moved forward and is approved for yes to one absent uh item 5.0 report action of closed session matters there are none uh nothing to report and so we will move to item 6.0 recognition and awards and specifically 6.1 recognition of the azusa unified school district classrooms that participated in the fuel year school award dr mitch good evening on march 17th three of our azusa unified school district classrooms participated in the super bowl champion los angeles rams fuel up to play 60 fuel your school innovation challenge mr hartman's class from paramount miss brown coulter's classroom powell and mrs trujillo's classroom lee were invited to join the la rams and the greater la foundation for a project-based learning opportunity each class had an opportunity to develop an idea to improve access to healthy eating and physical activity at their school projects included a sustainability component and a budget and during a two-hour virtual event each classroom team had an opportunity to refine their idea with expert mentors pitch their idea to a panel of expert judges and they had a chance to receive grant funding for their project to take back to their entire school the winners were announced live on twitter on march 17th by the los angeles rams and i'm super super happy to announce that team powell won a grant of five hundred dollars [Music] and team lee won a grant of thirty five hundred dollars and team paramount was the touchdown grand prize winner of 4 500 and so [Applause] super excited during the event the students had an opportunity to hear from mentors in two different industries one uh an engineer from hollywood park presented examples of how they are using sustainability in different ways and how they're reducing their carbon emissions and lessening carbon footprint uh they learned about waste management and recycling and sustainable transportation and they learned about how the the stadiums divert uh waste materials from landfills and they're able to convert waste into sustainable biofuel they also learned from a the owner of a dairy located in merced california and they learned about the sustainable operations of the dairy industry and their economic sustainability and all kinds of different things about how they use renewable energy and it was a very interesting opportunity for our students to be able to uh learn about a couple of different industries so we're super proud of our students and our teachers for uh their participation in this innovative real-world project-based learning opportunity and very appreciative of all of the industry experts and the la foundation who took the opportunity to mentor our students and connect them with college and career explorations and possibilities so at this time before we invite our um our staff and our students to come uh up to the front i'd like to invite christina romero who is from the greater la education foundation and he she's here to present a check to our uh board of education so board president greer if you could come up and we will present this check to you just really uh hi my name is christina romero i'm with the greater la education foundation and on behalf of the foundation i'm thrilled to present this ten thousand dollar home your school hometown grant grant to azusa unified and on behalf of ausd and everybody here thank you it is it is an absolute honor we appreciate [Applause] i just want to say congrats to the students and the teachers that participated it was really exciting to see them present um sort of like a shark tank type of event so we're really proud of you and can't wait to see you bring your ideas to life and we would love uh to invite the schools that are present as well and so i'll i'll just share because again how how tremendously proud we are of of just just who you are and how you all shine uh we do have these certificates of recognition uh they each say for the respective classes as well as respective school sites uh for winning the respective amounts or the respective schools in the los angeles rams fuel your school innovation challenge next what do we do with it um any any other board members anything you'd like to add or say wow congratulations congratulations then we'll now move to item 6.2 which is recognition of gladstone high school student abigail sanchez miss tradomo here good evening and uh thank you very much for allowing me to come and brag about amazing abby sanchez uh and present her absolutely incredible um latest portfolio of artwork to you all here in the in the boardroom uh this year he has a lot going on um besides this um this very first solo student exhibition uh that we just had she also has um the ryman art uh program that she does every day every saturday all day long um this is her third year doing ap studio art um and she is just absolutely incredible we're so proud of her and um and thank you for giving us the opportunity to be here and uh again brag and show off her amazing amazing artwork um you can see an incredible array of um work here uh a variety of medium from charcoal to oil paint to acrylic um even digital art over here she has her hands in um we have one piece that we could not present to you because uh last year if you recall we were here recognizing her again for winning um second place in the u.s congressional art competition and unfortunately we don't have the original piece of work here to present because that happens to be in the congresswoman's um office which is part of the uh which is part of the prize it gets displayed for a whole year in in her office so we have a copy of the piece over here on the wall the um graphite drawing of the dewey there it is right there for everybody to enjoy still so um please uh help me congratulate her for her very very hard work this year um this it really is just a small sample of what um what she has and what she's doing she did she did a beautiful job you know most of these portraits i've noticed there are her family correct and of yourself so i don't know how you portray yours i don't know how you think yourself other than looking in the mirror i don't know how you do that but it's beautiful yeah and this one over here it's the 3d yes and and i want to congratulate you and i hope you um was grace sapolitano you will come first place this time i guarantee you that me huh and i want to thank mr o'brien and mr domo and all the art teachers for the beautiful job when they're working with the students like when you want to um pound and see those kids in the art and they're little kids in elementary and we have very talented students in our school district i'm just glad that we're able to highlight them the way we do today congratulations [Music] and i would go we would love if if you would uh share share a word or two we'd love love to hear from the artists directly um i just want to thank my teachers oh yeah um well because of going to like ryman and being a part of like the program at buzzstone and stuff um i was able to do a lot of like different opportunities and like um i was able to get my work into like a teen expedition at the museum contemporary art in la and recently um i have another show coming up this sunday at a gallery in pasadena through the public art company so yeah it's pretty exciting so great yeah beautiful [Applause] you know one thing i forgot to mention is that at the art gallery by her pictures she'd have a little code where you can put your phone on there and she comes on speaking about what is the portrait about right yeah and can you tell me about the one with the buffalo you traveled somewhere right yeah um um me and my parents we go traveling a lot so we go camping yeah that one i took a photo of it when i went to yellowstone so it's a photo that i took so i just decided wow yeah i heard great abigail we we celebrate you we are we are proud of you um and again just another reason this this community shines because of you and you are you are shining example of of this community and this district as though we are very proud of you and thank you thank you i i would like to say a few things abigail um your commitment to your work i i mean when did it start when did you have an interest in art well i i don't know i've kind of always been drawing and stuff and my parents have really like just really supported me like buying me supplies and like taking me especially like taking an environment every week and like taking me to go take my work to the galleries stuff so yeah i've just always kind of been um drawing and stuff and it didn't really i didn't really start taking it seriously until i want to say middle school when my middle school teacher mr gafari really pushed me to like try different things and he he was the reason why i put my work in my first thing was the key gallery the first show so i've continued putting my stuff out and that's the reason i went to gladstone because i um liked the art program the fact that they had a gallery well thank you so much just as board president said uh you make us proud and you're just your commitment to you know to your education and to your work i wish you much much much success and just remember where you come from asusa take care all right and the the fun continues uh we look at item 6.3 recognition of adam vicente and first place winner uh as first place winner and sonia gonzalez as runner-up of the 2022-2023 azusa unified school district budget book cover yes good evening everyone so the business service division enlisted the students of mr jim hegg's class as we did last year gladstone high school graphic design class to create the budget book cover for the 2022-2023 physical year this year the students were provided with theme elevating to excellence the students were tasked to design a cover based on what the theme meant to them and incorporate the district's logo both creativity and vision were left to the individual student the business service division received eight submissions and we will use the selected design for our budget reporting cycle for the 2022-23 school year this year we are deciding to honor our runner-up as well as our winner both will receive we are ausd t-shirts and the winner will also receive a starbucks gift card so i will first show the runner-up super excited am i showing there we go how beautiful is that so this is a design from miss sonya gonzalez miss soya gonzalez would you like to speak to us today uh yeah hi i'm on the i'm on the call well congratulations tell us about your piece uh well the theme was elevating to excellence so i decided i wanted to try finding photos that i think would make this school great like the great music programs and the sports and all the science fairs and all of that and how the teachers are so nice and supportive awesome thank you so much and next we will display our winner from mr adam vicente mr adam can you tell us about your piece yes uh first of all uh can you guys hear me all right yes sir okay so this piece was my idea of showing the processes of of let's say a child evolving to the excellence of their own uh school year and this process this book uh coverage shows that their evolvation of getting that excellence in that that pride to their own school awesome thank you so we want to thank all the students that participated and we want to appreciate and let the board see the artwork of the two students that were selected and also take the opportunity to thank mr hague for allowing his students to take part in this once again so thank you yeah and sonia and adam we are pleased to share with you here in the boardroom your certificates of recognition for all of your amazing work your thoughtfulness um and your consideration in participating and putting yourself out there we recognize you as artists and as scholars and we're proud to display your work so congratulations from all of us at the district can i can i just cannot i want to congratulate you students and believe it or not it makes us well makes me read the um the budget book is this thick a lot more enjoyable by looking at all the beautiful colors right you're kind of past that so thank you kids all right thank you moving on then to item 7.0 and specifically 7.1 public comment on agenda and non-agenda items 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 board on an agenda item they may fill out a blue card stand at the podium or raise their hand while in zoom attendance the board will take blue card requests first followed by an order by speakers at the podium and then those in zoom attendance and so a couple reminders that i will have for everyone is that you'll want to be sure to please keep an eye on the clock as the clock is going down because you do have a three-minute limit and so if you do if you surpass that three minutes i will interrupt you and i don't want to and i apologize in advance uh but we'll ask uh that you also keep an eye on that so that i don't have to interrupt you if you if you surpass the three minutes and i'll also uh want it to to be known that if we surpass the 20-minute mark uh the board will take a vote uh as to whether or not we will continue to uh to receive the rest of the comments uh but at that time even if we do vote to complete the rest of the comments we will not accept any new comments after that point and so i'll make a reminder of that when we're about halfway through with that we'll go ahead and begin with our first commenter which is julianne miranda good evening i do apologize i'm a little under the weather but i tested negative twice to covet home tested i have allergies and asthma so my speaking is i'm here to just address the changes of the um azusa high mascot i've never been to a school board meeting i've never had to come this is very important to me for two reasons one because i've lived in a zoo and my family has owned its property since 1920.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
so i know this driveway very well um i think this would be a vast improvement it was i'd park at mckinley tech center at the very bottom of the hill i walked up this way pretty much every single day so um it would be straight up dangerous i think um for somebody in a wheelchair on this particular road um it's a good workout though as you walk up that hill um all that said i think there's a lot of good points obviously i appreciate the discussion i just wanted to zoom out a little bit and say hey i think this is an improvement of the site um i think that this is actually a unique design based on the challenges architecturally and i think what's interesting to me at least is i like the foliage that's kind of on that southern end it's got that kind of vehicular area i would love to see some kind of a mirror or something that gives you a little bit more visibility of that sidewalk just just because of the but the line of sight looks good the entryway that we've been kind of focusing on about the staircases and such um to a certain extent i actually love the concept of activating like the front kind of porch area and this concept of like having this activated area for the residents i think that's very important for community efficacy for a neighbor to get to know one of their other neighbors so having successful quasi-public spaces like this i think is important and so i think from a design standpoint i actually think this is a pretty neat project um i do understand the concerns about accessibility and safety those are obviously paramount the entire policing authority of law comes from the health safety and general welfare given the context of all of this i suppose i'm of the mindset that i actually do think that this scales well to the block you have appropriate massing that masses towards downtown so it's creates legibility for the pedestrian that is traversing up this way and i can tell you just again firsthand i made this walk every day so um and right now that building is like preset back and it's it's it's not that exciting so i think it's introducing uh more options um so overall i just wanted to those are my comments i wanted to step back and just say hi i know we're hyper focused on the the ada accessibility i think the building again i'm not a building code expert so i'm just going to actually leave it at that so but overall i think with the challenges of the site materiality massing intent of the zoning have been met here so i suppose i will leave it at that and just wanted to at least interject my comments as with respect to this development so thank you any other commissioners go ahead commissioner lee thank you uh just to be unequivocal um i i have utmost respect for obviously commissioner salvi i think that that was a it's a very um astute point that you raised um i however will respectfully have to dissent on that i i if this went to a vote i would be voting in favor of it in in the current design so i just wanted to make that unequivocal uh just as we proceed here but i'm also if if it needs to be postponed for the viability of the project i'd also be on board with that as well thanks others commissioner watch were you into i was just going it sounded no i wasn't gonna make a motion i was gonna actually defer to commissioner survey for the motion uh but it sounded like the petitioner is opening is open to the defer the postponement as opposed to us amending the motion at the table and then uh having to go off and meet that amendment and so how would we can we get staff support for that is it just a straight postponement we just vote to postpone we don't need any language great you this is why you're the chair chairmill so i'll defer to you for our next step there you go well i'm going to take that as a go ahead commissioner abrams thank you um i feel a little tied to knots so i just want to try to iron them out for a moment so the logic behind the postponement is one so that the petitioner and staff in engineering and planning can address potential safety concerns about access to the site for those with limited mobility but seems like it's important for us to parse the difference between somebody in a wheelchair and just somebody who has difficulty walking up steps so it seems like what we have heard is that if you are in a wheelchair you cannot approach this i i'm not saying this is fact i kind of want this i'm i'm asking for confirmation of this assumption or my understanding is it correct if you're in a wheelchair approaching this site not in a vehicle would be very difficult because coming up or down miller is already a slope that exceeds the ada slope so if you're in a wheelchair you are presumably entering this site in a vehicle and then the question is has there been enough done to address how one gets into the building from the driveway and then the other question is just is it okay to have a stair and not a ramp that connects the sidewalk to the courtyard for those with more limited mobility and maybe just with like nods is that is that others understanding of this because i think one thing i'm wondering is i do think that the petitioner thought about and looked at access to the courtyard with a ramp for those not in wheelchairs but because miller is too steep but just for those with more limited mobility um and decided for the stare so i i just yeah i maybe i'm feeling like we talked about a lot of things and it could do some clarify clarity for me and whether that changes anything in terms of just uh actually uh i guess making a motion for a postponement so that these issues can be addressed more thoroughly or we have made our points and we feel heard and the petitioner understands our concerns and we ask them in good faith to address them as to the best of their ability i guess those are the options on the table okay i didn't have a question in there so i don't know who i'm who i want to uh follow up with me maybe yeah maybe commissioner survey commissioner solvay i'll just clarify my concerns like perfect is the enemy of good and like we may not be achieving full ada and that's not the require like the requirement at the planning level but there are concerns about how we're putting a person's travel to this building in the site plan that we are reviewing we're not looking at the building code right but i am looking at this how the site is planned to access the building and we're asking people to either move in front of garage doors and access in that way or move upstairs some of the discussion about like sacrificing some garage space to create ramps on site might be possible and again to you know perfect to the enemy of good what is on miller versus what becomes more mobile friendly on-site seems possible and worthy of asking the petitioner to review and so you know i'm seeing different options of you know i'm tracing somebody maybe in a motorized wheelchair right like maybe being dropped off at the corner of the block and moving half a block like the empathy of understanding how people move and the types of people in our community can make better projects and we've reviewed projects where just certain mobilities around bikes moving through uh drive-throughs and things like that have actually improved projects that have already been by right and we've pushed a little further and i guess what i'm asking is to push this project a little further to become a little better for the rest in the community that we should have empathy for uh to include so that's really my question of the project and why you know i would move to postpone so we could see how we can improve this for those safety measures to access the building through the site plan not within the architecture because that's not within our purview and so to improve the safety of the site plan for those people so i just moved it in that discussion there was a motion and as part of that would anyone like to second it moved by or seconded by commissioner weich mr leonard so postponement would be to a date certain i would um i would suggest with the petitioner's acquiescence that we try to keep this on track and maybe postpone to our next regular meeting of may 4th to wednesday i don't my hesitancy of that date is that if there are modifications i don't know that all the drawings will be able to be modified but given that they've already spent some time investigating these aspects i'm optimistic that we could at least come with a viable concept by that point that could be then identified comfortable comfortable and considered like refined through civil work so um so i would just ask that if the motion is uh is considered that it be amended to reflect a specific date i would start with may 4th apart from that we do have a pretty busy agenda on the 17th so the next option after that would be june 7th the 4th seems friendly yes commissioner weich i am completely deferring to commissioner sovay so yes great discussion of the motion to postpone any other discussion and if you didn't agree with commissioner abrams very able like uh description of what parsing through this discussion um [Music] speak now yes could you just validate with the petitioners that they are in agreement with that time for frame as well very good yes petitioners is what a postponement to may 4th seem reasonable to expedite this so i'm going to make a comment and i don't mean it to sound disrespectful but then we need to have a commitment that staff is going to be responsive enough to give us comments back and work with us so that we can get it back to you by before that's it's only two weeks so yeah and i wanna i i think that's uh and that's sort of my comments the notion of having revised plans done by that time i think are ambitious i think that if it went back to that plan it would probably be with a shared vision that that a condition could be added because there is a plan by which those plans could be modified in the future to make that if the commission is more desirous to have detailed plans that reflect any changes i think more time would be appropriate my my instinct is let's keep it on track provide a little bit more investigation time we can bring a little bit more of the city's perspective on some of the things that the project engineer has already validated and um if at worst it could be postponed again but it keeps it on track to try and answer the question more quickly and so can i ask another question yep go i was going to go back to you to say okay so what do you think go ahead i thought i heard this but i i want to make sure that i'm clear that this is what i heard is that you're not interested in changing the architecture of the bill building or the elevators but what you want is somehow for us to get a ramp on the site so that you have access from miller is that what i heard i think that in commissioner abram's um kind of summary that that's one of the that's one of the potential ways yes that would that would be a uh exploring that would be important is that fair but it's not it doesn't have to be it's more like understanding what are the options for different mobility i appreciate the question because it'll be helpful for for us as well my understanding is that there's sort of two investigations a ramp to the front patio revisiting that conversation that the petitioners already discussed as it relates to the grade and second improving accessibility in the garage area by potentially reduction or reconfiguration of of some or all of those garages to improve accessibility for units in that space as well so both of those are to be investigated as is my understanding go ahead commissioner like the the kind of third piece is you or the assumption right like if the stairs maintain and the assumption is the accessible route is through the garage how amanda how can it be improved how that would be improved right so coming down through a driveway and somebody backing out of a garage while they're traversing to like unit four seeing that so that that's why like there's there's two entries like and there's like two entry points to elevators and two entry front doors and so it could be solved in a multitude of ways and so i just want to see that take does that help a little bit well it does and i wanted uh some his kind of question i i think it really was trying to find an improved solution we're not saying that accomplishing either is going to be a beneficial it's not both so i but i just wanted to be clear that it was a couple of potential reconfigurations to explore not just the one i is that does that answer your question it's kinda yes thank you and with that and the understanding that it is the planning commission we you could not see us all nodding our heads when staff was explaining that two weeks from now it is unlikely that we would have full site plans that have been fully vetted but understanding that we could look at based on your conversations that transpire between now and then and any which of the multiple things are explored could be potentially added as conditions to approving this site plan subject to whatever again those the solution is that transpires in the next two weeks does that um does the timing of the two weeks coming back to us seem reasonable to you all i think we can make it work as i said before as long as we can get staff to cooperate and to be responsive so that we can get some good answers for you um particularly about the sidewalk in miller and what would have to happen to that and then also with the building department i mean we can certainly try to make the two weeks happen i'm just not confident that we're going to be able to coordinate with staff including engineering and the building department to try to get that awful together but we will try our best and my understanding is if we can't get to the answers and get it resolved then it can be postponed again that is correct yep all right and i just wanted to commit to the petitioner we will do our best to achieve that time frame as well and if we have to vote on a second postponement we'll ask questions about why so um any other discussion of the postponement so just to the petitioner's comment i i wanted to be clear that we're not asking them to go back and put the ramp from the sidewalk to the side of the building it was looking at the accessibility inside the garage or the the patio space so because i got lost in that last part i think it's exploring both but it's not necessarily re-asking about putting a flat spot on the public sidewalk okay great is that that spot last part that you just said is the part i want it to be clear that's what i think you heard and that you were acted too because i was thinking the same thing okay thank you for naming it anything else any other discussion before voting on a postponement mr leonard do you want a roll call for this only if you do no i think we can vote with hands all in favor of a postponement please raise your hand i see all of the hands this is postponed we hope to see you in two weeks plus a day because of a wednesday meeting all right it is nine o'clock do we need a break before the next petition no i'm not seeing anybody all you have to do is shake your head yes okay let's move on to 8b 2600 pontiac trail annexation and zoning for city council approval this is an annexation from ann arbor township into the city the petitioner is the village of ann arbor and we heard a petition from them previously this would add to that would add 5.7 acres to that site plan i'm presuming that they are joining us online yes that's correct i'm getting them promoted here one moment okay i think mr bush will be kicking off the presentation if i recall or sharing slides that would be correct oh my goodness all right just let me know i'm ready to uh ready to go do you have do you see everyone on zoom that you're expecting from your side mr bush we also have uh darian with robertson brothers with us i don't know if you see him there to promote him otherwise good on my own all right we'll start the clock when you start sounds good let me just share my screen here all right are people seeing my screen we are yeah all right perfect so i'll keep this brief uh and then certainly i'll open the floor to uh questions towards the end there but uh just wanted to um uh thank you uh good evening commissioners and uh we're here for uh annexation proposal and rezoning proposal for uh 2600 pontiac trail another parcel that's associated with the village of ann arbor i think you remember back in december um there was a proposal for annexation that was in front of you and a recommendation for approval granted for the village of ann arbor project uh five parcels annexed from the township ann arbor township into the city and we are have another parcel under control 5.71 acres that we are proposing similarly to nx into the city and uh rezoned to the same zoning and bring it into the project r4a so um just here for you tonight for your uh for this proposal for your approval of this additional parcel and got staff reviews and staff recommendations for approval so with that i'll just open the floor to staff presentation and we'll be here to answer any questions you may have very good that was well within your 10 minutes all right mr khan thank you this is a good image to have because it shows the whole holding the petitioner is proposing a a residential project that consists of town homes as well as stacked units some of the units will be owner occupied some will be rental and this was an opportunity that popped up during the process of proposing a site plan for the five parcels that are being shown on this image so this will add to their holdings the the project is an exciting one because it brings with it a lot of additional residential units it's also a very challenged site there there is a land there's a landfill on the site there's also quite a bit of gravel fill uh throughout portions of the site so i do think that this this addition will give the petitioner a little bit more uh design flexibility um staff is wrecking recommending approval of um this 5.7 acre uh parcel um um we are going to move forward with this site plan without this project without this parcel at this time um and so you may be seeing a site plan that excludes this 5.7 acre site within the next couple of months however once the state annexes this parcel the petitioner will add it to the site plan and come back again uh with a slightly revised plan so that's that's my understanding of how the petitioner would like to go go forward continue with the main site plan as as they have submitted and then um when this petition when this annexation petition uh is approved by the state to add it to the site plan and come back again with a slightly revised plan staff recommends approval thank you all right very good uh we will now open the public hearing for this petition this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the 2600 pontiac trail annexation and zoning we'll first call on those who are here in council chambers and then remote participants if you've joined via zoom you can press the raise hand button if you have to dialed in you can press star 9 on your phone and if you are watching us right now you can call in at 877-853-5247 when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any background sounds so that we can hear you clearly either way of participating please state your name and address for the record is there anyone here who would like to speak on this petition please thank you chair mills ken garber again uh this is only a small part of a much larger parcel i'm confused though and maybe commissioner dish could address a question of mine the previous city council annexation of the larger parcel did that also include the rezoning of the parcel i guess to our foray or is that is that rezoning still pending um so it's just a question i have and if that's the case then it's only a site plan that you'll be considering down the road as the as staff and the petitioner just mentioned rather than a rezoning petition so just a question i ask it because yes this is a very desirable project but with 564 units the direct climb and climate impact of 564 furnaces will be 70 times the impact of 212 miller i hope the petitioner is thinking hard about how to comply with the building electrification elements of our 820 plan if it proceeds with gas this will be a disaster for our city's climate goals but uh but yes for tonight if it's annexation you're looking at makes total sense um yeah definitely go forward with it but um there was a really really big question here pending thank you thank you mr leonard is there anyone online who'd like to participate there is not all right then i'll close the public hearing and read the motion it's pretty short the ann arbor city planning commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approve the annexation of 2600 pontiac trail moved by commissioner weich seconded by commissioner dish anybody want to kick off other than i just realized that in reading what the title of it is it includes the zoning so to answer your question all we're really talking about is annexation yes that's i'll kick off with that question and and i'm looking back but mr khan you can address that too i i'd be happy to address that what's before you um today is um a petition for for annexation so the with us right now we have some suggested what we if it is approved by the state the annexation that'll be a second step uh what the zoning would be that the but the zoning is the second step correct i i i can i can summarize that process now if you'd like please um the city is not able to take action on a petition until uh the property has been annexed so the first wave is to request annexation that takes quite a few months because it does require um plan commission review council approval uh the count the township to release the parcel and then it gets sent off to the um the state of michigan's office of the great seal and and that that can take some time so petitioners typically like to get the annexation portion going um in in in this case um the the five parts the five original parcels that have been annexed are now able to go to planning commission and council for site plan approval and r4a zoning and so that is going to be coming to you over the next couple months so you'll be entertaining a site plan and offer a zoning recommendation that you'll be making to city council this site plan will go to city council because it includes a rezoning and so um you'll hopefully see this within a couple months and it'll then go to city council for final action on the site plan and the r4a zoning thank you for clarifying other questions on the annexation or comments uh can we just voice or can we no oh sorry sorry commissioner gabe randle i turned my head too quickly yeah yeah um i just want to um because i know this is part of a bigger picture too and um i just hope the petitioner is also paying attention to what some of the historical vegetation is in this area if you look back at some of the old um historical ariels there's like a hedgerow that moves through at the back side of this property that looks like it probably has some big old oaks in there and i know there's probably a bunch of junky stuff in there too but then there's also in some of these other areas that again are outside of what we're voting on tonight but um but look like there's some some really nice um at least from the aerials more native forest fragments and i would hope that the petitioner is really thinking about how to design with and around these things rather than just starting with your units and and just letting everything fall where they may so please take some time to think about some of our ordinances around this and right now an environmental commission there is some movement around creating a heritage tree a protection status i'm not sure when that's going to be done in comparison to when you're actually coming through the process but it it adds another layer so of of um really trying to work around the the significant and important trees that we have so i would hope that the petitioner is not only paying attention to our a20 plan from the get-go but also some of our natural features ordinances from the get-go as well this is a big site and i really am hopeful that you will be sensitive to the things that we value in this community so that we can come up with a site plan that really works for everybody other questions comments you need us to roll call yes all right i don't see any other hand so please commissioner sovay yes commissioner abrams yes commissioner hammerschmidt yes commissioner dish yes commissioner lee yes commissioner clark yes commissioner weich yes commissioner mills yes commissioner gibb randall yes motion carries very good all right uh thank you item 8c the presentation on the ann arbor sustainable energy utility you are promoting a familiar face from your last meeting mr wass smith welcome back hello good to see you all again you too thanks for sticking with us no problem i think that we go directly to i was going to say you're sharing your screen we go directly to the presentation so you've got a captive audience great uh it's coming through all right you can see this it can cool well um thank you for the chance to present tonight um uh enough time together i just want to give you a brief overview of what the seu is again my name is zach i'm a community engagement specialist in the office of sustainability and innovations so we'll take a look at the su and how it could operate in ann arbor and some of the next steps um so jumping right into it here um as i'm sure many of you know ann arbor has set an ambitious goal of achieving zero climate pollution by the year 2030 and to understand how to achieve that goal it's important to understand where our climate pollution comes from if you don't already know locally 40 of our community-wide pollution known as greenhouse gas emissions or ghgs come from building electricity use and nearly two-thirds of our ghgs come from building electricity use plus natural gas used to heat our buildings and our water given this reality we know that the solutions to reducing local climate pollution necessitates finding pathways to clean our electricity grid and support the transition away from fossil fuels like gas for heating and cooling to clean electricity um and i was on the wrong slide there let's take a look at this one so as we look at ways uh to improve the reliability and the energy mix of our energy supply it's important to understand the energy landscape in michigan ann arbor has what is known as a pre-foot act franchise and what that means is that dte has the right in perpetuity to provide power to the city however the foot act franchises are not exclusive and the michigan constitution protects the rights of cities and villages to create their own municipal utility and this can be done either via a taking or a condemnation and a buyout of an incumbent utility and their infrastructure or through the creation of a supplemental utility to date every community that has started their own municipal electric utility within michigan the last one being zealand which was originally formed in 1902 did so by starting a utility from scratch when service was not widespread perhaps you can't imagine why setting up a full set of poles and wires to directly compete with the incumbent utility is an expensive proposition as is buying out their infrastructure through condemnation which means you acquire the infrastructure that is often in poor condition but what if we created a complementary community owned energy utility that provides electricity from local solar and battery storage systems installed on homes and businesses in our community and what if that community-owned utility provided a hundred percent clean reliable locally built and affordable electricity built right here in ann arbor this utility would give residents a choice for where they procure their energy a choice that we don't have today and this parallel utility would not duplicate the traditional grid with all of its vulnerabilities but focus on general clean on generating clean reliable and affordable power now and that is what the city of ann arbor is looking to do through the creation of a sustainable energy utility or an s e u as envisioned an seu would focus first on generating local clean energy energy that would feed directly into our homes our businesses our places of worship and community centers and this clean energy would be paired with storage to help improve energy reliability and offered and would be offered in conjunction with deep energy waste reduction programs to help our residents lower their energy costs and usage all while improving comfort pretty cool right so um the concept of an seu is grounded in choice providing ann arborites another way to procure a large portion of their energy one that is coming from clean local reliable and resilient sources the seu would enable a lot more people to get the benefit of solar by directly paying for solar installation on homes and businesses on the roofs on carports on ground mounted systems and residents wouldn't own the solar system that's installed on their property the public would or more specifically the seu would um and residents would subscribe to purchase their energy at a rate that is based on costs and scu operational needs from the system on their or their neighbor's roof and if all of those residents power needs are met the excess gener generation from the solar system on their property flows into a battery system and this means that residents could still have power if the big traditional grid goes down and this is already possible today additionally the seo would not be limited by current utility restrictions that constrain solar system sizes and the amount of solar that is allowed on the grid you might have heard of this as the one percent cap and if you're not familiar with that dte currently restricts the solar capacity of the system that each of us are allowed to install on our homes to whatever our historical electrical consumption is at each of our homes and this is troublesome in part because it means generally speaking that you cannot over produce energy for your neighbors and it also doesn't uh allow for you to account for future electrification or future increased demand in your home so instead the seu would seek to maximize solar installations uh it will leverage all viable sunny roof space that's available over time individual solar systems would be connected through a series of micro grids as opposed to dte's grid the seo could also offer a series of robust energy waste reduction programs which would help people lower their energy demand and improve their comfort and these services will be available to anyone that participates in the seo kind of like the current energy waste reduction offerings that are available through our incumbent utility however we could offer a slew of additional opt-in services that individuals can use to improve comfort and reduce bills and save energy and these additional offerings can be paid for through on bill financing and through on bill financing the seo is able to pay the upfront costs of improvements like energy efficiency or electrification upgrades and then the residents simply pay back the costs through their utility bills this allows the cost of the improvements to stay with the home as opposed to the resident and it helps reduce the initial upfront costs needed to make the improvements this makes these types of investments much more accessible to all residents especially low-income individuals and renters individuals who are historically emitted from most utility programs and the seo will also provide support for beneficial electrification which ensures that we have safer more comfortable and cleaner homes and businesses and eventually we'll offer community solar programs so that individuals without viable solar access can still reap the benefits of clean energy okay so i know that's a lot to digest um but let me reiterate the core of an seu an seu is community owned it's a community utility that focuses on generating local clean reliable energy and fast it's about leveraging existing technologies and practices such as solar and storage to reduce emissions quickly while improving reliability it's about ensuring that all in arborites have access to solutions to improve comfort reduce bills and meet the benefits of the clean energy economy so the scu as i mentioned before is about generating locally owned reliable clean and affordable energy and because we are generating it locally we don't need a large and vulnerable distribution network this also means that we don't have to worry about buying a lot of poles and wires or worrying about extreme weather events that can knock out the seu whoops excuse me it could um could knock out the power supply instead we focus on generating clean reliable local energy fast and reducing climate pollution rapidly uh so to close out i would like to share just a few examples of how the seu could work and this isn't meant to be an all-inclusive list of examples but i just want to illustrate how some of the concepts i've discussed here could work in practice let's start with the example of a homeowner or a business owner who has good solar potential but doesn't have the capital or the ability to install solar on their roof by themselves in this case the individual would subscribe or enroll to the seo as a supplemental utility to dte the seo would work with that homeowner to conduct a needs assessment which is a process of identifying the potential energy waste reduction and electrification opportunities at that home or at that business and then the selected opportunities would be implemented at and the homeowner would have the option of financing those through the sdus on bill finance program su ames would always aim to create a financing package where the electric bill that that tenant or homeowner is paying is the same or ideally less than what is currently paid and and once those are paid off the resident reaps the full benefit of the improvements at the same time as identifying the maximum potential um the seo installs solar on their roof and the resident pays their energy bill as they always have paying per kilowatt hour of usage generated from the on-site solar system any additional power that they draw from dte is paid directly to dte and so in this scenario the resident would have two bills um the one for the seu bill for the energy used from the on-site solar and then to dte for the power that they draw from the grid in another example we'll look at a resident a business who is interested in energy waste reduction and beneficial electrification but they can't install solar for a number of reasons maybe they have a big beautiful tree that blocks their solar access and in this case the individual would receive that on-site assessment to identify their energy waste reduction and beneficial electrification opportunities just like in the previous example and then the individual would choose which options to move forward with and they would have the option to pay for them through the on bill financing mechanism um the individual could also register to join a micro or nano grid which means they would be sharing power with the residents that have better solar potential once a critical number of neighbors sign up for the seo this individual would receive two energy bills just like the last one one for the portion that was finance for through the on bill financing the portion of the improvements and then one for their the energy that they pull from dte a third example is a resident who already has solar on their home or business we know that with solarize it has been very successful and there are [Music] are already a lot of residents who have this and in these cases those residents could still take advantage of all of the energy waste reduction and beneficial electrification support offered through the su and they can still leverage the on-bill financing to pay for those improvements but in addition to that they could also enroll for an seu battery if they don't already have one um battery storage is a huge part of the seo in addition to the solar generation so um this resident can still enroll in the su even even though they have their own solar and then they can sell their excess power to the seu that way it can be distributed through the local micro or nano grids which just means sharing it with their neighbors and their rates for it being sold to the seu still need to be determined but an intent is to get as close to net metering as possible and so that residents who already have solar would be helping to provide the power to the seu and their neighbors okay uh just a couple more examples the fourth example is for a multi-family rental in this case the seo would work closely with landlords and property owners as well as tenants to customize solutions that meet individual needs rental units are eligible for all seo offerings so all the energy waste reduction the solar and storage installation beneficial electrification and and as well as being tied to the local microgrid so the city's work on green leases paired with the on-bill financing offered through the seu help ensure the cost of the improvements stay with the building and it allows the cost of those improvements to be spread over longer periods of time and doesn't burden a single tenant with the cost that they want to make to their rental unit which offers the opportunity for immediate health safety and comfort improvements and and access to getting those improvements at reasonable costs so the last example is of community solar so in some cases individuals won't have access to on-site renewable energy generation because they've got a big beautiful tree or something along those lines and in these cases um [Music] off-site solar will be installed in common areas like parking lots or school rooftops or parks or other shared places and so um if for individuals who can't get on-site stole solar they can subscribe to take a portion of this shared energy to help power their their lives their businesses and in this way anyone in the community can participate in an stu even if they don't own their own home or they don't have viable solar potential on their on their property and just like just like in the other cases the individuals that subscribe to the community solar offering would pay per kilowatt hour of whatever energy they use directly to the seo and then for anything they need beyond that they would pay dte for the power that they draw from that grid um and so those are just a few examples of how um the seo could work uh they're not comprehensive but just kind of gives you an idea i do invite you to learn more i know that i threw a lot at you um i went kind of quick because i know that it's late um but i invite you to to check out the website a2gov.org a2seu and if you are interested in seeing either any of the planning commission commissioners or anybody watching right now if you're interested in seeing the city move forward with an su we ask that you just take a moment to register your interest there's a short five question survey it's it's at this second bullet point but you can it's at the top of the um seu website it's easier to find it that way i think it takes most people about 60 seconds to take this survey and so we invite you to check that out you can send us any questions to sustainability at a2up.org and i want to thank you for letting me share a little bit about the seo i know that there has been a lot of murmurings about this um we did make it public recently it was something that went before council a little while back um so some people know what it is but i thank you for letting me take the time to share with you some of the details about it and i'd be happy to take any questions if you have them very good thank you um any questions for miss derwa smith uh commissioner lee thank you that's awesome i'm sorry i'm very excited to see how far this has come also did you get a haircut no it looks good uh maybe since last week yeah maybe i did yeah i think this is awesome thank you for the presentation um a few things i want us to kind of like think about um the financing of the upfront cost uh and advocacy of additional federal and state level funding do we have an understanding of how that's exactly going to be financed so it would be through city funds um okay and so that determines on or depends on what how much financing we are able to get our hands on at first and that is simply up to a council vote city council can decide how much they want to make available to this of the climate millage that's going before um the public this fall uh before the antar republic is passed there are certainly funds that could come from that um we are aggressively pursuing other financial options um and it just kind of depends on scale and how much we want to start with gotcha thank you um the other thing that i wanted to kind of think about was maintenance and repair of the panels let's say that somebody is licensing this like on a roof you don't necessarily own the solar panel but they'll have to agree to some kind of an access agreement so do we have has has thought been given to kind of the level of infrastructure that you'll need to and by infrastructure i mean like the people that you'll need to you know kind of go and repair things replacement schedules things like that i i don't know that um i don't know if that's you know been really kind of like developed i guess until the demand is kind of i guess solidified yeah that's a good question um we are actually working on a feasibility study right now uh to determine to be able to answer the questions like that uh what kind of staffing we would require um i don't know were you asking about easements and infrastructure in that sense at all yeah i guess both um prologists does a solar panel license agreement where they effectively rent their roof space for solar panels so um the the question would be really like from a a lease possession and contractual right obligations created between a landlord and so that somebody that's looking to install this relative to like how long does the program need to be if you were to go into this and i think prologus is actually uh would be a good person to look at as far as renting roof rights essentially um so i would just like my question uh my head just went immediately to what kind of contractual rights between the parties and how much who's the maintenance on like if you do end up going this direction great question um so with the uh in terms of like infrastructure easements if the seo is passed by council by a simple vote um then it becomes an official utility and therefore we would have access to all the same utility easements that are already in place when it comes to maintenance of the systems that are there um we the city would be responsible for those i'd like to add that because this the seu is not proposing any large-scale distribution so there aren't any poles and wires it means that maintenance is actually pretty minimal solar panels are generally fairly low maintenance and battery storage but the city would yes be responsible staff on hand to support any maintenance needs of those gotcha overall thank you overall i'm super excited to see how far this has come let me know how i can help i have a laundry list of questions that i won't bore everyone else with right now the thing that i ask some of the architects and design-minded folks to think about is how can you integrate solar panels to make them look beautiful on buildings and so that's something i'd love to grapple with you know how do you make it desirable right and then really kind of integrate it into the overall design so just awesome progress we'd love to see how we can help you you know develop it further i'll send you a list of questions so thank you yes please do yeah thank you other planning commissioners have questions or comments go ahead commissioner g randall can you explain more specifically what on bill financing really means yes absolutely on bill financing is a mechanism by which you can it's get funding to pay for energy efficiency improvements so let's say my house is really drafty and i know that i need some air sealing and i need some attic insulation as well i can contact the seo the seo would visit my house and they would do an assessment and verify what it is that i need um and they will front me the money to be able to pay for these um upgrades and so i get i can get to air seal and insulate my house and because these are energy efficiency improvements the seo will pay for that then what happens is that i pay that back by adding a little bit of money to my monthly energy bill so in addition to what i'm paying for my energy i'm on a little bit extra but because it's done through my energy bill and as a utility the scu would work with me to figure out what that best um that that what would make the most sense in terms of how much cost i should expect um for doing that those upgrades and then how much that would affect my bill and so we'll find that speed spot for for what i can afford and and it allows it to go out long so it's like a no interest loan got it okay thank you super exciting it's great to hear about this other questions we spent a lot of time with you last week and this only came up in passing so my is there anything with the next uh the next item on our agenda here this evening yet is to talk about our work plan for the next couple of years is there anything that you that is directly related to this that we should be considering um great question i think as we um let's see directly related to the su uh i think that the planning commission is already doing a really great job of asking the questions that help petitioners think about the way they are incorporating sustainability into their projects continuing to do that is going to be really beneficial for the seu the um the more that we can build our um new construction and retrofit projects correctly uh and and really incorporate as much energy efficiency and in the process at the get-go reduces the cost burden on both the seo and residents in the long run so i think the planning commission is really doing a good job of that um i i don't believe i would i would say my natural my instinct went to encouraging more solar but this is something that even whether or not the planning commission does that if the seo passes that's something that the su can pursue on its own um through its own means so i would just say keep up the good work and just keep encouraging as much sustainable development as possible great and uh the comment that i would give along with that is that i was going through my mind about what how i would translate this and the only thing that i could think of as additional like opportunities for solar and so front yard solar might come up in the work plane discussion um [Music] anything else go ahead commissioner survey the front your solar was gonna be one of my comments to look at i mean this really does raise kind of a lot of land use questions about uh i think we've addressed it a bit in building height uh front yard solar but i think there are a lot of conditions where we can probably improve our land use strategies to layer this in but what we don't want to do is incentivize losing trees to like reducing shade to gain solar as well so i'm not really sure like all the cursory review through our udc to make sure we're balancing that um but that there is kind of where we might be able to get variances um one of my the this balancing act of over improving building stock that might have opportunity for higher density and exactly what that sweet spot might be we understand the embodied energy and value of existing buildings being renovated but some of them are kind of beyond their years and very leaky and all of those things and so even a study of you know when we should be improving and adding to that sort of infrastructure versus when we should cite opportunities of eight-story unit units downtown as adding density with solar on top so i think for us if there's any additional insights into that sort of land use strategy planning we can do would be really really helpful the only other comment i also have is my understanding especially in kind of the single family financing is if there is private solar and it's financed separately people have been having issues refinancing so any conversations with banking around mortgage and refinance and the liabilities of being able to refinance or sell your house when something's on there i've seen those conditions before so that sort of banking issue might come up and figuring out what local banks might be more in tune to how this structure might work and be willing to work with homeowners to make sure that they don't kind of get stuck in a certain financing structure so i've understood that to happen so if that's not on your radar yet i'd recommend that to be something to look at too other questions or comments sorry my duck bill hit the microphone all right well thank you again for sticking around with us and joining us two weeks in a row um and uh while we don't expect you to come back next week um or the week after uh please like i i think regular communication between your office and what we're up to is really useful for us so thank you i agree thank you so much for having me all right next is discussion of our work plan but before we do that i need to stretch my legs or get a quick drink so like a five minute recess is that okay we'll come back at quarter to 10.
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it also had a higher payout on 301 i think there's a one-time i don't know kicker is what they called it but a one-time incentive on 301 combined the retention in 301 last year actually this school year at the end of this school year the combined will be for those that qualify sixty eight hundred dollars and generally our teachers are gonna all of them will qualify for the retention bonus if they've been here we paid part of that in the fall of last year the second part of that will be paid june 3rd along with the 301 payout that remains so that it's roughly half of what the retention was last year last year yes sir and then this 1750 will be in october yes sir okay yes sir all right any questions from the board in regard to that so where did the 1750 come from uh the average teacher salary district-wide is about 58 000 it represents three percent of that figure any other the 301 questions yeah addition to 301 and their base salary and everything else this is truly in addition to that it's a retention bonus there's no further questions we have a motion to accept item 3.2 motion from diana second second for margaret all in favor that would be unanimous also okay item 3.3 a recommendation to approve the junior high and high school course content books as they were presented to us are there any questions or comments from the ward about those content books can we go over some of the new things that we're going to be doing i know there's a couple of new classes in high school and whatever questions you have we'll be glad to have you just answered oh you're doing junior high right now yeah never mind junior high in high school junior high and high school combined so speak into that mike because right so um i was wondering if principal yes ma'am can just announce those differences so people can know do you uh lauren's going to come up from the high school i think most of them are at his level we are picking up a couple new additions on let's see page numbers going to be for you in the ap section we have we're going to pick up all of our other core classes england we've had ap sections in english math and social studies this next year we're picking up for science so we're going to have this first year we'll have ap environmental science and we were trying to get ap biology i think we that's why we included it we weren't sure if we're going to be able to get somebody that would be able to have that class in their class load so we wanted to include it in case we did get somebody that could handle that there's still a possibility that we could pick up the ap bio for sure we are doing the ap environmental science and that could be anywhere from a freshman level course all the way up to a senior level course you have to have three sciences for for your graduation requirement and some of those upper end students who want the three lab sciences to be the high end this will allow them to pick up ap environmental as a senior instead of you may be picking up earth science as a senior so this is a great addition to our course roster so we have the ap and the bio and another new one that we've that we're looking at is we have the ability to do english 101 and 102 on campus this next year so we have two individuals that need qualifications to be dual enrollment certified and so we're looking at expanding the talent program is a great program that we partner with nau or excuse me mpc we want to be able to to bring that to more of our students here on site we know kids do better when they have a teacher present in the classroom so we have a lot of kids who have opted to not take the talon english 101 102 through npc just because it's a virtual classroom so having teachers on campus this next year is going to increase i think our numbers of the kids that we have doing the english 101 and 102.
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um regular meeting minutes 4.3 is the approval of the april 11th 2022 special meeting minutes for the facilitating team and then lastly with our approvals of meetings we have the approval of the april 12 2022 special meeting minutes for the committee of the whole 4.5 is our personnel report and you'll note we're entering the hiring season if you will and we have our first administrators uh hired for this next school year on here and you'll start to see uh probably in the next several months a lot of new teachers hired for the uh payroll and bills is 4.6 4.7 is the approval of the regular meeting dates 4.8 is the batavia high school ihs a membership renewal 4.9 is our textbook display 4.10 is our textbook approval 4.11 is the approval of disposal of surplus property property 4.12 is the approval to renew student photography contract 4.13 our curriculum contracts 4.14 is the approval of multi-year powerschool sis renewal and then lastly 4.15 is the approval of the entire consent agenda are there any items on the agenda for clarification or for removal all right then i would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented second with my meinsler second by meadows all in favor aye any opposed all right i did want to take a moment um to invite kristen stevens she's going to be our new principal at to come up uh just have a moment to introduce yourself i want to say really happy and excited to be here and to thank the ags interview committee and staff they've been super welcoming i've already gotten emails and phone calls and then also to thank the board and the district office staff so looking forward to a great year and thank you so much welcome thank you kristen can you let him know when you're starting work tomorrow tomorrow she's going to be at the 8 a.m staff meeting i'm told so good for her but she actually still has to finish her other job i do welcome glad you're here thank you thank you so much the next item on our agenda is our routine report so i'm going to hand that over to dr hitchens yeah um every month we look at all the foia requests that have come through this month we had three foia requests that came through and they were all granted we also look monthly at the treasurer's report so at this time i would entertain any questions all right we do have two items for action on our agenda tonight the first one is our copy paper and student school supplies bid is lindsay here lindsay is not here so who's going to talk to us about that uh that would be me i figured that might be you so um board members would probably recognize the copy paper bid as that as a customary bid what is relatively new and was conducted for the first time last year was a school student school supplies for the elementary level and seeing is that went well last this current school year we'd like to carry forward that again in the next school year so this bid puts the two of those uh items together um when i was looking at the spreadsheet last week i recall correctly about a little more than half of the cost of this bid is copy paper and the balance would be elementary school supplies for students we're recommending that we award the bid to three separate vendors depending on how they bid certain items going for the most cost effective and those vendors are accurate office supply pyramid school products and school specialty so i'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have that's a big difference the amounts so do we have any idea of why are we sure they can fulfill what we they're the amounts aren't different in the sense that they're the bid is being awarded based on the item price to all to three different vendors okay whichever bidder had the lowest price we're awarding that item too it's a little different than we typically do it's not it's not a winner take all bid it's broken up by pieces they sound a little ridiculous but we had like a big issue with printing paper this year where we could hardly print any there have been several issues which i'm surprised by that the need for paper is so high we haven't been able to use it is there a difference here over a year there the copy paper has gone up um a lot in the over the prior year um especially recycled paper um which we're required to by law at least put out to bid for when we're um when we're seeking to purchase it we have to seek recycled paper it's not very cost effective to do so right now unfortunately but yeah it's been a challenging year for for printing and copying because of the toner shortage and we're using more paper than we were in prior years obviously because we're in school every day and then we've had some issues with copiers too so so this is kind of unrelated but yet related um i heard a lot of good feedback about the school supply situation but what if anything impacted how we put this out to bid in terms of getting feedback from parents students teachers staff about that process because it was new and there's always going to be growing pains yeah and there have been and even in the weeks since um we put this bit out we've had some more growing pains okay we did do a survey of teachers a couple months ago and the overwhelming response at the time was very positive i think it was 95 percent supported the program as it was we've been making adaptations all year long in terms of product additions and product quality and so we're taking teacher feedback in that regard our hope is that we can continue to make that program better overall the on balance is going well and there's opportunities for improvement and we'll take advantage of those moving forward okay thank you another questions right i would entertain a motion to award the bid for copy paper and elementary student school supplies in the amount of one hundred and forty two thousand six hundred and sixty five dollars and nine cents to bidders based on item cost uh accurate office supply in the amount of dollars and nine cents pyramid school products in the amount of thirty eight thousand three hundred and thirty dollars and school specialty in the amount of ninety five thousand seven hundred and twenty eight dollars um move by my flare second by mathis all in favor hi any opposed all right next item on the agenda is uh intervention materials dr newkirk i'm sure we've had a team of people that have been looking at our mtss system that's our multi-tiered system of support which is how the system responds when students are struggling with their learning in particular we've had a group looking at reading interventions so that group is in the final stages of their work they've narrowed down their list of potential interventions these have interventions that we use with tier three students there are four different products that are listed within this that we wanted to get before the board it's not our intention to buy all four of these but once that team makes their decision we're able to move quickly and purchase those materials for our buildings they would be used by different interventionists reading specialists and special ed case managers so we don't know the total cost necessarily yet bradford that's why i put it into two separate ones because as that team makes their decisions you'll see in the back conference room there's different interventions set up for them to come see they'll go through their process and decide on which ones that we would move forward with purchase okay so we're giving you a blanket approval for whichever one you choose it's likely three of these but we're not at the stage to say exactly which three okay i was just going to ask what the timeline is for that decision they have one more day to come into to review the materials they'll have another meeting and make their decisions after that so it should be within the next couple of weeks okay so just to clarify that some combination of these here correct in an amount that is unforeseen so there's not even like a cap other than just determining which ones might be the most expensive for each of these four we looked at what our needs would be right for next year in terms of who who would need those materials right and bid them out that way okay any other questions right i would entertain a motion to approve the intervention materials that are chosen by the team so moved second move my meadow and second by my sir all in favor aye any opposed all right those are all the action items on our agenda tonight um although we do have closed session and there's a possibility of action after closed session um but that won't be determined until we come out of closed session so in the meantime dr hitchens administrative comments my comments tonight are about our um our progress our weapon our equity website has been updated with some of those things we when when the team came and presented in february we gave the list of things we've acted on this year things that we have yet to do this year and then our future steps for future years so we'll we'll be able to give you more details in may when um because the the team that is making those decisions meets start they meet this thursday they have two action items one is to deliver um a an action plan and the second would be to talk about the role of that committee moving forward so you see many staff members in this room that are on that committee we have very um we were very fortunate to have a lot of people with passion but for this one day this this planning day we did need to limit the number of staff members and then their second item on their agenda for thursday will be to talk about what that committee looks like moving forward including who's not at the who's not at the table whose voice are we not hearing so it is there that's part of their day is to figure out who else will be invited to be a part of that committee moving forward so they have a one day summit on thursday and then action steps moving forward from the comments it's very very clear that you have asked me to put together a plan about voice and being systematic and have a system for collecting voice because it shouldn't have to be this way where people um don't have a voice and feel there there are people that have urgent things that need to be heard and so we'll be putting that systemic plan together so that it doesn't people don't have to wait to be heard and they were heard right board comments chris we'll start with you well i was planning on just making it hey raw sports we have all the stuff going on like our track team beat the number one rated team this weekend so we are possibly the number one track team in the state however i've been inspired by everybody who came out into comment tonight and i want to let you know that i hear you um i can also relate to what you've gone through because that was my experience as a child growing up in the 80s and going to school in the 90s and it's still happening so i think we need to be aware of that and i think we're doing a lot of great things but like we've said a lot of them are long-term things and perhaps we need to focus more on some of the short-term things and i think the best thing we can do is go to the students who have brought us their concerns and after we've done something and say have we actually made life better for you and if we haven't we need to go back to the drawing board and keep going back until we do something right but until we can look you in the eye and say have we made your life better and you look us back and say yes our job is not done so we will keep fighting until that happens or at least i will so that's all i have to say craig um i'm gonna start with not my athletic stuff but all the other things that i tend to say um and then i'm going to end with one other thing i'll go fast through the first ones um i want to kind of say congratulations to the music program on the best community for music education as mentioned before for eight years in a row um i have a vested interest in it i'm very excited to hear that it's continuing jazz concerts i talked about last time were really well really well received and very popular um congratulations to the the win symphony for an invite to super state which is kind of like the state championships of sorts for band programs lastly on that front i want to just say to all the parents teachers kids students everybody else that was involved in the spongebob musical including one here in the audience um i'm going to point desert out a bit because he did something that i found very very inspiring my son plays in the pit in the back in every show yes riley meadows he plays he plays um trumpet in the back and he made my son feel very very special and acknowledged and for a group that plays behind the scenes or under the stage or in the black box that was a huge thing for all of them and i appreciate it even though you picked on the band director most of the time it was still awesome so and i heard you basically rift the whole thing so even more impressive so thank you something different yeah it was it's fun hearing him talk about it so um lastly i want to kind of talk about one thing that i um grew up with that my dad told me a lot and people tend to use the words hear and listen interchangeably my dad said to me all the time i know you heard me but did you listen because i hear bells ring but i don't listen to bells i listen to my parents i listen to my teachers i listen to others i want to let you know that while it is not always easy to show action on this side of the table that i know myself and i will speak that i presume that everybody else here is listening and we're trying to figure out our ways of doing the best things we can do it is not always fast but i am hearing about the need for urgency and there will be conversations about that that's all i can at least promise right now so thank you thanks craig rj um definitely want to echo what craig said i don't think there's anything i can say that would make anyone happy right now except that um i heard everything you said it does cut to my core i there's not a lot of good that that is coming out of anything that's going on with the situations obviously or no good so um it tears me apart so that's all my focus is on and i will try to show with action instead of words that's it thanks rj erin so i usually tend to keep things very short and sweet but i have a lot to say tonight which is very unusual for me when we sit up here and listen and hear what is being said it can often be frustrating to not be able to say anything back to to engage in dialogue but tonight as i was absorbing listening hearing i realized what a blessing that is honestly because it forces me and i presume other people up here to process to think to reflect and i really value that and i hope that you do too because our lack of response is not a lack of respect for what you are saying in fact it's the opposite for me personally so i just want to share that um from my heart because a lot of the things that we hear especially tonight the last meeting the meeting before that they're hard to hear but i thank you for sharing them for being honest for being truthful for not sugar coating because that's not helpful either so thank you for everyone that spoke i know it's not easy and it's appreciated um not to jump topics but i also want to compliment spongebob because i took my my family and no ris no disrespect on the change of topic but wow the talent that we have in this community from the music to the the art to the acting to the singing and i'm sure i'm missing many many things is just second to none it is inspiring and as i'm watching this and watching people's faces in the audience just in awe i i'm thinking about all of the different skill sets that come together to make that happen and each person that's involved whether it's spongebob or a day in a classroom or people who come speak at a meeting or the people that sit up here each person's talents strengths weaknesses even make those things happen and i personally just really really value that and at times i think that we don't acknowledge productions like that enough so bravo bravo i was speechless that doesn't happen a lot um and the final thing i want to say and i i recognize we have a meeting again before graduation but i know a lot of people are making some big decisions right now maybe they have been for a while but before we get to graduation i just really want to commend everyone's decision that they're making whether that's going to trade school community college going to the workforce taking a gap year going to a four-year school or any other slew of opportunities that they may choose to do because there are a host of them i just want to say congratulations because that is a big decision it's not an easy decision there's a lot of pressure to make certain decisions that may not be right for you so congratulations no matter what your path may be i'm proud of you i know your families are proud of you and i couldn't be more elated to sit on that stage with all of our graduates so congratulations early and i'll say it again next month but i really value trade schools i really value the workforce community college any decision and i i didn't mention one that is very near and dear to my heart military military thank you for those making that decision it is not an easy decision thank you to your families because they serve too that's all i have to say tonight thank you for bearing with me i had a lot to say it doesn't happen a lot but i appreciate you listening i think that um the comments from my board members are heartfelt and i think they reflect that all of us even the two people that are not here tonight are very committed to doing the best we can and it's not always easy um so we again we i think the all of you that sit up here the passion and the heart that you bring and the desire just to do better so i thank you all for coming we do have closed session and there may be action after but other than that all of the normal uh work of our meeting is over so i would entertain a motion to adjourn a closed session to discuss the appointment employment compensation discipline performance or dismissal of specific employee of the public body or legal counsel for the public body including hearing testimony on a complaint lodge against an employee of the public body or against legal counsel for the public body to determine its validity no move second move by meinsler second by meadows all in favor all right all right we are joined to close session you
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uh communications has changed substantially since that point and uh one of the things that we had talked about at the last meeting is that it would be nice to have scott conway who's one of our technology leaders in the district talk about parent square and unfortunately he's out of state today and wasn't able to join us for this meeting but we will invite him back to the may meeting and he can get an overview because you had questions about the efficacy of that communication and i was looking forward to having scott show you some um you know information that we get on the back end when we send that those postings out about how many people were contacted how many people were reached and this same sort of information we've had for many years with school messenger but it's much cleaner and allows for much better two-way parent communication with the teacher or people who send out messages so it's really got some nice enhancements that really dovetailed with this policy well um so we're gonna invite scott back for the main meeting to kind of provide that overview but you can see yeah we basically just updated everything to be more contemporary and as a note i did uh i know i was gonna say as a note i did download the app oh i did great and i became more familiar with it and it's like oh yeah this is it's a pretty powerful tool to have to chat with the uh the teacher right uh teachers in general um it looked like you can even set up chat groups for certain groups and that sort of thing too yeah i think i familiarize myself with that but and i don't know who has i'm sure only certain people have permissions to set those up but right and we use i mean there was a legal addition um to this really about if the district has to go to three weeks of remote learning and things like that that are hopefully um you know never going to happen again um but you know the legislature built that in and required it in our policy right but we used it as an opportunity to update it as well so so just to review all of the language that has been revised here is from statute um or much much of it is so 10 through is statutory um these eight and nine um excuse me nine is also statutory uh eight was language that re we updated uh because it really just wasn't contemporary okay yeah because from 1997 i don't even we barely had electronic communication right 1997.
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this development can be significantly more difficult for kids to grow up in poverty clearly self-discipline is a complex and diverse problem however one thing is apparent to lay a foundation of self-regulation discipline and control we need to begin early pbs for kids found that self-regulation begins to build between ages three to four it's easier to teach kids these skills at a young age because their minds are malleable therefore early education in america must be improved instead of day cares we need public preschool staffed by teachers with degrees in early childhood education society wins when we value a preschool education teenagers and adults can practice self-discipline with four simple steps first commit set your intention to genuinely desire self-discipline to help you persist in times of demotivation second identify your strengths and your weaknesses tackle and take down your weaknesses while using your strengths to aid you third make a plan what goal do you want to achieve and how fourth and final track your progress this is imperative because it allows you to observe and make changes to suit your self-discipline journey self-discipline acts as a foundation for our aspirations picture a productive society where everyone knows how to harness the benefits of self-discipline drug and technology addictions chronic poverty health issues all the negative things plaguing our society extinct thank you [Applause] many years ago there was a study done that asked people what they were afraid of and people submitted moving divorce heights spiders the number two fear on this list ended up being death the number one fear that people had was speaking in front of an audience people would rather die than speak in front of an audience but i think you will agree with me that what we have seen so far is a beautiful expression of intelligence creativity and strength please let's give our junior high school speakers a big round of applause and let's move on from anaheim high school esmeralda lopez academic pressure is like the tale of sisyphus for all eternity he is forced to push this heavy boulder up a mountain only for it to fall back down and have to do it all over again this is how it feels to be a student as the weekend comes we feel relieved but it goes by so fast then we have to do it over again with more tests more assignments more stress don't even mention finals we are pressured by our peers parents and teachers to have the perfect grades take honor and ap courses in order to stand out and to make it into the perfect ideal college according to the american psychological association latest stress report in 2020 it mentions that 87 percent of college students reported that their education is a significant source of stress the pressure students feel is quite real and intense when i get a portrait i feel like it's the end of the world and my self-esteem tumbles off the side of a cliff my name is esmeralda lopez and i am a high school junior who suffers from academic pressure in 2019 the pew research center found that 61 percent of teens felt a lot of pressure to get good grades according to an article published by insight higher ed a 16 year old who attended newport harbor high school sadly took his own life away due to the amounting of academic pressure success in schools we failed to see the gravity of the situation until a 16 year old takes his own life away and leaves behind only several notes the teenage boy said i couldn't go on anymore because of the academic pressure at his highly competitive high school where going to a good college is the norm and what parents and teachers expect top performance as a society we are called to take action on issues such as academic pressure we won't fully reach the point of fully fixing the issue because various factors also need fixing i propose a study hall unlike those lame ones we've seen in the past imagine a study hall where we feel we are home a safe place to chat get things done and study for tests with time ideally we would get any homework done meet with teachers and address our daily stress so by the time we get home we won't worry as much although this wouldn't fully solve the issue of academic pressure it would be a great start thank you [Applause] and from kennedy high school anthony sperry [Applause] just this year i had a conversation like this guys did you see someone's trying to threaten the school i i i saw photos online and they said that there was a gun and that someone was gonna threaten the school tomorrow and we were wondering should we even go is it safe are we safe one within the past couple of years school shootings have been publicized all over the medium from the inside we see the victims and their faces we see videos that capture the most gruesome footage and we also see people dying for change two according to the united states department of education in 2019 five percent of students ages 12 to 18 reported that they had been afraid to go to school because of things such as harm and violence three according to the department of homeland defense and security there have been over 1900 school shootings since 1970.
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my brother and i both attended azusa high school at that time we were so proud to be azusa aztec because it was always held in i was a proud it was proud to be latino and to be an aztec my dad is yaki indian he was a naturalized citizen coming on coming on a boat to japan to fight during world war ii my granddaughter um and another thing as as also is that during the 60s and early early 70s i was part of the chicano movement i believe in being latino i believe in all the good things that come about about that i'm a little bit nervous so i do apologize um that being said my granddaughter started high school in ninth grade at azusa high she took her life in ninth grade where i by no means blameless is a high nobody no by no means blame the school board in my opinion i feel that the money that's going it's going to take to change the mascot to change all that when it's when it's a proud mascot it's it's an aztec it's something that's proud to be proud of whether you're whether you're anybody it doesn't matter when i went to is a high we were i think we're about 60 caucasian and 40 latino and it's all changed now all the everything has changed but there were things and i will not speak of them here but if any of you would like to speak to me personally one on one on things that i discovered that were happening on campus i just feel that this money could be better used excuse me for updating the facilities that are there for more mental mental resources mental services for the students because with social media i do believe that there's a lot of things that should not be out there a lot of things that are happening that should be out should not be out there and they and things are happening in the school that i'm sure you are not aware of um i just feel that the money could be used better and to change the mascot because it's an aztec because it it's always it's never been a caricature it's never been made fun of all our aztec warriors were were really proud latino men so if that's the reason to change it i don't think it's a very good reason and my granddaughter should have been graduating this year he should have turned 18 this year and she's not and for easter and now for all the holidays i decorate her headstone i don't like i said i don't blame the school i don't blame that but i think there's so much more that needs to be done to help the students to help the school than to spend it on changing a math thank you thank you miss brandon next we have ken alba oh yeah you know what i i have one i have jeffrey's book though [Music] board members i appreciate the opportunity to be here and thank you regarding please use the heist and please why and here's i'd like to provide some information that may help you with your decision as to whether or not you keep that past my father thank you my father was born in a 600 square foot house at 311 north azusa avenue my last name is alva but historically my last name should be my dad's father came from the los altos region of jalisco he came here because there were other families from that los altos region that were already here in azusa now what i haven't told you is the year my grandfather came here in 1898 that means that there were other los altos jalisco residents already here populating the area of that would come to be azusa on the map that you have in front of you you'll see the area that's jalisco and then you'll see an area that's called aguascalientes that i've identified now aguascalientes may be important for you in further papers that we have the los altos region is the area that borders between aguascalientes and jalisco in that particular area and that area is square mileage-wise it's about no it's a little bit bigger than if you take los angeles county and orange county combine them and that includes all the area north the desert area of los angeles county so it's a very very wide area the reason why it's called los altos is because it's an elevated on an elevated plateau there in the state of jalisco the next the next item you'll see a the cover of a book called title dezusa from um jeffrey lawrence cornejo by the way jeffrey lawrence bonajo's family also comes from the los altos region of trying to save paper i double-sided things you'll see a book by another azusa resident roseanne gonzalez hardy the title of her book is san gabriel valley families of nueva galicia nueva galicia is the name of a few of the different states that include jalisco and aguascalientes and that whole region now the reason why i'm giving you a little bit of this information i hope i don't go over my time um is that the reason why the albus came here is because there were already several i'm sorry mr alba that's your time oh no okay let me just finish this up then and tell you that well that your your time would be expired sorry i have to interrupt you there next we have melissa fajardo hey can you hear me good evening i am here to speak about the future plans of our school my children's education and any students that will be attending lee in the future i would like to start by saying how truly grateful and relieved our lead families are to have our school remain open our teachers staff and parents are looking forward to continue to work together to give our children and any new enrolled students the best education and learning experience possible i would i would also like to address some points from the last board meeting as it was truly disappointing and frustrating hearing the back and forth between board members i hope you all understand that i am not here to offend anyone but to voice my concerns because as a parent of four children attending ausd i'm truly worried about the future plans for our azusa schools board member adeyanes although i respected your decision your tone and approach did not sit well with me or with many of our community members i felt as if your delivery was not of someone who wanted to make the situation for all of us any better we as community members were able to be in the same room and treat each other with respect as someone who's expressed how our community should be united a united community you were not one to set that example i had to express this here today because my children's education is in all five of your hands and i do not feel comfortable having someone with that type of aggression making this type of decisions and my children's future education for board member pena i also respected your vote but not the lack of accountability when being told that lee had empty space due to low enrollment you were quick to say to close it down instead of acknowledging that the district has failed to support our school and that shouldn't fall on us but on all of you because how do you expect parents to want to enroll their children in a school where you give us no programs for for our children or funds to keep our school up to date is why i am here today i would hope you will keep in mind these suggestions for future decisions as a very involved parent at lee i stand by what i say i am very proud of our school i want my children to continue their education at lee that should tell you how much trust i have in our school and our teachers because i have seen the work that they do for our children i understand that there are so many decisions and work that has to happen in order for all of our schools to thrive but i would like for all of you to remember that we all live in the same community our children should be receiving the same equal opportunities please stop leaving schools to fend for themselves i would like for any future families to know that lee is a great school with amazing teachers and we are looking forward to receive and welcome any students i will be here in every board meeting if that's what it takes until i see changes being made as i am determined to make sure that our district gives our children the long overdue support that they deserve thank you ms fajardo next we have louis pedraza good evening board members my name is louis pedrosa and i'm here to speak on keeping the aztec name as azusa high's mascot if you remember after the last meeting regarding the mascot name i send you all an email thanking the ones that voted to give the aztec name a chance to remain it shows that you're willing to listen to the azusa community as you probably have seen the vast majority are in favor of keeping the mascot the same since the schools and steps inception the zusa community is a unique one most of us haven't left this city my parents are products of azusa schools kindergarten through 12th as my sister and i are and now my children are mia a senior will be graduating this year she's second team all-league volleyball first team all-league basketball and on our way to being first team league all softball my son louis a junior head manager of the of the zoo's abandoned pageantry and a member of this year's 2a division champion my youngest son james currently a seventh grader at slauson school but no doubt a future contributor to azusa high it's more than a name we're talking about here we're already losing one nic sorry we're already losing one high school and to change the aztec name is like losing another it's also about the tradition of azusa high in this city three or four generations walking these campuses president gur you had mentioned before that it would be about 850 000 to rebrand let's use that money to update the school's facilities put lights on that new field so that the band isn't practicing in the parking lot give your cif semifinalist softball team the same luxuries as the boys baseball team and most important keep as many staff as possible who have chosen to teach our children as previous teachers coaches and aides have taught all of us thank you next we have anita figueroa butcher please unfortunately no you you could speak for an additional three minutes but it's three minutes per person changing the aztec warrior is not it's just it broke my heart because you know all of us that graduated from it means so much to the alumni it means so much to the students that you know we say once an aztec always an aspect and it's just in our heart and a lot of us have aspect blood we have aspect you know it goes way back and we're proud of that nobody is not whoever is not proud of being who you really are then i feel sorry for you because this is gonna be gonna take so much money to change and like like the other lady was saying you know the money can go on better things like azusa highs maybe their pool that has not been in operation for i don't know how many years it's that school's been overlooked a lot and just neglected the money needs to go on fixing stuff in bettering the school that's what i have to say and i just it like i said it broke my heart and not only me but on hundreds of other people and it'll be a shame if they just change the aspect i mean to me it was just like i broke my heart you know but please put the money where where it belongs and don't put it on something like frivolous as changing the name changing the aspect because you know there's pride in that and we have a lot of pride here in azusa for our aztec a lot of aztec pride like you wouldn't even know i don't know i don't know if any of you ever went to azusa high but it's it's in our hearts so please use the money wisely on something that's needed better thank you miss butcher and before uh before i invite the next speaker i do want to remind and ask everyone in the audience plea to to please not speak uh while other others are up here speaking um they have the floor um and so let's let's respect them with the three-minute time that they have uh sarah serrano luna hello hi um i am here today advocating for education i am fighting for the people of azusa to have the opportunity to grow and learn this opportunity is unfortunately on the chopping block tonight when discussing the aztec the consideration of losing the aztec feeds into council culture and the gentrification of the city of azusa it prohibits students and the community from learning to do better and educate themselves on the situation our teachers fight for students to learn we are never told we can't try to do better or to learn when we do something wrong i am all for education for learning how to celebrate the aztec and indigenous culture correctly in the past meetings the community gave personal testimony as well as evidence and examples of how the azusa aztec can live on respectfully this decision is also major because this decision is going to harm students financially in a district that is closing six schools we must consider this factor greatly money in this district should not be taken away from students in the december seventh school board meeting at one hour and fourteen minutes the number two million dollars is shown when discussing the rebranding of azusa high school that amount of money to change azusa high school i believe instead it was called reimagine i learned today it might be a different number either way i think that we should be saving as much money as we can this money could be used to educate our students on the aztec on indigenous culture and history and the truth of the matter is there's more than 5 000 signatures on petitions asking to keep the aztec board members i call on each of you to fight for education and to help your students learn give students opportunity to grow to educate themselves and to the community here tonight i want to remind you all that we vote these people into their positions we are the reasons these individuals are up here they're supposed to represent us and what we want and if you feel that they are not doing their job vote them out three school board members are up for re-election this year and in 2024 two more school board members they are quick to make changes and we have the power to do the same um with my extra time i just want to talk about i'm going into the film industry and the film industry um is really lacking representation for latinos and i think that is also what is going to happen in the city of azusa if we continue to gentrify our city we need to see more people of color we need to see more indigenous people more latinos latinas yeah we just need to add more diversity and this decision can be a great change and cut diversity in our city thank you miss luna next we have gloria romero good evening my name is gloria sanchez romero i've been here like twice through other meetings and i'm still coming to say that you guys are wrong in changing our aztec everybody loves our aztecs my whole siblings all gone to this is a high one of my daughters went through the high and i know none of these board members have been in the high they've been gladstone and um i think that you guys should make your decision uh to not change the mascot at all save that money for something else just like everybody has been saying and yes you guys are up for re-election and like i said before i'm gonna make sure that half of you guys or even all of you guys are not re-elected because we know a lot of people and like uh um some of these people said that oh yeah their family's been here since 1998.
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that sorry in case it needed to be picked up by the microphone we are back um and we are now talking about item 9a which is the 2022 and 2023 city planning commission work plan and staff work plan planning commission and staff work plan mr leonard are you leading us i am so as outlined i'll walk you through a couple of pieces of this information that was provided first of all you're going to see this quite a bit i wanted to present a this version to you well in advance as we already discussed at our next meeting we'll be holding up the annual public hearing for opportunities to consider updates to the comprehensive plan um your deliberation and that feedback could influence the work that the planning commission wants to do so i'm proposing that to just sort of keep this front and center on your agenda and as i've described here so this evening is sort of an early opportunity we've we've already started some discussion on it and i've done [Music] somewhat of a balance of trying to decipher some of the previous conversation that we had into this preliminary draft so tonight happy to take any early feedback suggestions questions not asking for any action on it but just the goal is to start moving this towards a more refined and adoptable work program the second piece is a series of resources that commissioner weich has provided um i would let him address that i think some of these were in response to my proposal to no longer pursue the race the residential zoning and equity committee many of them are related to that some are related i think to more sustainability aspects of missing middle housing and parking requirements share those resources as well then you have the last adopted work plan which uh i will just again put a plug into good work there's a lot of check marks on those items there and then the last couple pages is the proposed work program not yet incorporating the i don't know how else to describe it but the right-hand columns that the planning commission discussed that we can incorporate which one of these tends to advance sustainability goals which tends to advance affordability goals which tend to advance natural resources goals um probably some more conversation warned about what those categories are that we want to track the inter the relationship of these items to those categories the uh and then i won't uh highlight that other than i've tried to your wish list is often in big and so i've attempted to try and start breaking it into a annual work plan kind of approach to start thinking about how what sort of time horizon we program different items [Music] i will point out that um osi as we reference zach and i have some more work to do out of our conversation at the working session regarding sustainability i've put that in here as half of a place mark calling it electrification net zero buildings and half of a shot across the bow that i might start our framework around incorporating the sustainability provisions in that specific requirements so with that i'll stop again not asking for approval asking for any feedback suggestions or additional information that i can start providing so that as we near the end of next month you will feel in a position to adopt the work program you very much does anyone want to kick there's no there's not a public hearing for this so we do go directly to this anybody want to kick off reactions questions suggestions go ahead commissioner hammerschmidt if we do things faster do they get bumped up like you know if when tc1 rezoning is done can we start our first stadium can we start for washington or do we have to wait until 2023 or does that depend on what other things staff is working on yes got it so all possible but i guess this is a realistic you're trying to be realistic and timing part of this is me trying to um set some expectations of what we will be able to accomplish and what we will have to kick off like the one thing i can tell you is i can't do all we won't be able to do all this in a year and i think i i think i have at times struggled with this group and trying to find that balance of we can do five ordinances a year or we can do ten ordinances a year um i've been reluctant to set that goal because uh the ones sometimes i think that are going to be easy aren't and the ones that i sometimes think that are going to be difficult aren't but this is my starting point that my initial reaction to that would be no commissioner hammersmith if we get that done then that puts us in a good position to stand track and then to kick off the following the following year so i just know there's a lot of excitement and energy around tc1 in particular in the community so that's why i like to you know extending this all the way to 2024 might get people a little bit heartburn but i get it i think this looks good so thank you go ahead commissioner silvae sorry i'm chatty tonight um you talked about the extra columns for like sustainability are those going to highlight the comprehensive planning document elements that'd be great sustainability for example as we've talked about our plans are pretty high level in that regard but yes i i think that's possible it so i think the question is we discussed before rather than it being a sustainability column with a check mark it's a sustainability column that says the 2013 sustainability framework encourages the uh advancement of more renewable energy yeah yeah that's probably a very deep dive in part of the comprehensive plant like to do all of that work but as much as we could even call out what elements you can find some of that resourcing in i think that could do a lot to overlap those two discussions that are coming to the table in may great cool commissioner abrams go ahead um i'm i'm wondering if there's any way to get parking maximums on the 2022 agenda and or even the beginning of that and maybe what would help me understand that is just to review the things that are already on the 2022 so for instance the first line parking regulations there's we've we we have completed that one right has commissioned except for i'm bringing that back that i noticed during my report that that's coming back on the 17th you did pass the recommendations but the full set of references are a little bit more expansive and i i think it warrants full commission review there for example some of our specific use regulations still had minimum parking requirements we need to reconcile where we're saying there's no minimums anywhere but if you do a daycare center there are minimums so i think i apologize that i didn't bring those initially i think it warrants planning commission review of those before it advances so maybe optimistically we're almost done there hopefully no uh well and then [Music] yeah or maybe it just helped me to maybe hear from you a little bit about what kind of effort you think these items will require on our part like uh the rezoning the tc1 rezoning of stadium given that we've gone through that process once how much time you think that would take i think uh it was about a nine month process i think for the state eisenhower area so i'm i'm using that as sort of our our benchmark we're working on stadium now uh stadium has had one discussion at the ordinance revisions committee it will be that will be repeated this month that's in the stage i would say of refining the map we're starting with a pretty wide cast and the next step will be working with the ordinance revisions committee to suggest help us refine the area or not we're also doing the research of existing site plans you know pud districts like we did similarly so um if presuming we're going to follow that same course where we're stat staff we're going to be doing a lot of that research and legwork and sort of presenting that for validation probably a similar time frame um if there was an opportunity to pick it up um i guess we could explore the commissioners taking on some of that but um i don't know that that's always gonna be efficient because some of it's just ingrained in our systems at city hall so do you think there's any way we could get to parking maximums this year or no um so are you suggesting adding that are you suggesting sort of like swapping out one of the other priorities like premiums or sustainability uh i'm open to either obviously adding it i guess would be preferable to giving up something else but if that's unrealistic then maybe i'd be wanting to hear from others and consider swapping it yeah in short we can look at it if at the end of this discussion there are five things that we're considering adding to 22 uh it's less likely but that's the kind of feedback that's helpful is yeah that's something that really elevates so maybe that would just be yeah maybe we could be that simple that that's something that i would like to flag as being a priority thanks commissioner lee i'm looking at the future kind of at the like the list of future ones um since we're talking about tc1 i wanted to ask about pedestrian complete streets implementation what i mean other than the implementation of the cip what else can can we do because tc1 land use i think is in tandem with transportation so so how can we better i guess that's one that kind of like you know comes to my forefront of you know connected streets complete streets full pedestrian and bike infrastructure how can we help in that respect and does that fall in the priority in the next two to three years so if anybody has any ideas about how we could as a body effectuate that would be helpful so i think a couple of ways that that could happen uh making sure our ordinances are correct you know like i think somewhere on here actually is for example on private roads i don't think currently we necessarily require sidewalks on both sides of the street so making sure like when construction is happening that it is meeting requirements another example of that would be a lot of development happens in the city that aren't streets they are basically parking lots so looking at parking regulations to make sure that when a parking lot is sort of functioning as a street or an access is that providing sort of the complete streets benefits that we're looking for other pieces could be connectivity uh this came up you know i think there's some discussions this came up with the the bright dawn petition um on burton road where uh there was a connect it was approved by the planning commission with a connection at the city council table it ended up being modified with like a gate access so what are our ordinance codes not only encourage but maybe require connectivity that can be really challenging it's rel it's i don't want to say it's easy but it's more possible when you're talking about public rights of way it becomes really challenging when you are trying to find the levers to say that these neighboring private property owners maybe one's under a proposal and one's not how do you effect cross-connection between those properties and sort of cultivate the access easements that are required and the agreement between those properties so that would be another way and then i think probably a more ambitious way would um require some sort of higher level city capitalism planning where we do some sort of right-of-way planning saying that this is our long-term aspiration for a particular right of way if that includes additional right-of-way that's necessary that we are making sure that as part of our development review we're incorporating that over time into sort of incrementally providing that right of way so that we can do that that is um i would say generally that's probably more pie in the sky we to build right-of-way widths incrementally in that way unless the city was going to come in with perch purchase which is going to be much more costly such a long road to get some of those benefits i don't know as a community that we want to wait for that being the solution to those connectivities so so it could be those are some ways off the cuff but that would be part of the exploration gotcha thank you yeah i think it's just pertinent given that we're implementing tc1 so talk about transportation and connectivity so thank you other questions comments observations uh go ahead commissioner dish i hesitate to bring this up because it's gonna get us into a chicken and egg but uh at a meeting with public services staff this past week we talked about the the need to provide the need to ask new construction to provide space for composting in multi-unit dwellings and we also discussed the inability or at the very least awkwardness of requiring that when we don't yet provide that service and uh i don't know if there is and in any case i don't actually think that's us that would have to be the building code in fact um i'm not sure actually i think mr leonard thought once it would be anyway directing a question in the middle of my speech yes no no i'm just going to say i'm not sure that it would necessarily be a building issue it we do require solid waste some solid waste provisions and as part of our design standards it's conceivable because that could be there so this is this is a tough issue because we are steaming forward with tc1 and those you know we will have at least one of those proposals within the next year i'm sure and we are seeing you know even this this one proposal tonight that we saw there's probably no provision for composting i know it's only seven to eight units but that's an issue and um it's incredibly complex because there's a lot of you know you need the room and so i i just throw that out there because it's um you know we can't get the reduction that we need to get of our of our carbon footprint simply through recycling better we have to reduce the amount of stuff that goes to landfills and food food is the worst thing you can throw into a landfill so i don't think it should i i'm putting it out there not because i think we should put it on our work plan because i'm afraid it's a more aspirational and also this just the timing might not be right but maybe it should appear somewhere like maybe 2024 we're going to start trying to get at this to future proof some of these multi-family um you know dense residential development that we are welcoming adding that to the future list i think is not bad that's like what we do on the cip when we say like the very last year and the budget is way bigger than we have money for um but it makes the list i others go ahead commissioner weich i think i understand why the tc ones are staggered over multiple years because of the staff resources but i just want to confirm that for the public a number of folks have commented that we should do all of the tc ones at a time so that we would avoid the controversy of the previous one that we are picking winners and losers by how we are targeting various transit corridors so is it true so maybe that's a question to mr leonard that the reason or orc the reason why they are spread out over years is because of the significant amount of staff time that it takes to assess the transit corridor and then to prepare the zoning for it or the zoning change yeah i would i would the short answer is yes as a as an example with stadium stadium involves many more parcels than what state eisenhower did and so already at the ordinance revisions committee we talked about the corresponding need to make sure we're providing more public engagement opportunities so as it's not to say that that's an answer not to do that but i think that there is some level of yes you can scale it but it it it's not a matter of doing both of them in the same time frame by scaling them up i think you are i mean that's something we could look at it might be the difference between doing uh you know stadium in nine months or doing all of them in a year and a half so we could look at we could look at those scenarios for sure i have some specific things in terms of either missing or more detailed based on our conversation last week and just more reflection on this so under the osi like the electrification in net zero buildings i took away from our conversation last week that there's a lot of educational things that that we're hoping happen and we gave some tangible ideas but that are really out of our purview and and but knowing that it is happening would free us some space um not that it wouldn't continue to have some amount of education at the table but but i think that that would be helpful overall but i also took from that what we could do in that space is process efficiency so like by having an all-electric building being able to do a site plan light or jump to the front of the queue or that kind of thing and so like just be more explicit so that's not so vague um the other thing that relinks to that i think that came up briefly last week but really came up tonight is this i think it's very easy to resurrect our front yard solar ordnance it's it was written it was just not passed so i hope that we could add something to that list that would really like and and we would be moving towards that and facilitating more opportunity for solar so so under electrification those would be like where i would put my vote i also think that housing diversity increasing diversity of housing is important on here tangibly the thing that i kind of hang my hat on is tc1 but i don't think that's the only thing but i'm not sure what other specific thing we should include um but i just i don't think it's necessarily like explicit in any of this the other thing that's missing and this is in the moving to zero the transportation plan it's not just vision zero though because it was a two zero moving towards vision zero moving towards vision zero okay but it's not right it's safety and a two zero we've got moving towards vision zero and we've got a20 two different things but but the master the the transportation plan effectively i think took both a safety and a sustainability perspective okay to make sure one of the things that they specifically called out in addition to the pac parking maximums so i also vote to move that up and that when mr khan and you get through the next round of parking to take that up immediately so i don't think it would be done in 2022 but would hope that it would move farther up the list is um mixed use and the i the was it the 15 minute neighborhoods like and allowing for more 15 minute neighborhoods and i don't we haven't really taken on what that looks like yet i don't know in terms of like the specificity of that but i and maybe that is something for the comprehensive plan but i think we that's i don't see that i think we need to make sure that we're moving towards that since we have a comprehensive plan that suggests that those are like the specific things but then just the bigger thing linking to staff is thinking through we've been talking a lot about what's in the green but also thinking through what's in the blue and both of those require staff time and commitments and um launching the comprehensive planning process i would imagine takes a lot of resources but i also do want to not to if to bring up the fact that there were additional things in blue previously that got pulled because we just didn't have enough time and attention and um and you mentioned this in terms of what came out of your of the what is it the talk last week that you were giving so yeah so originally as part of the proposed work plan it wasn't adopted but i was proposing a committee to look at the history of race economic equity but mostly racial equity and our residential zoning district and with all this discussion of other items and the housing and human services advisory board conducting an educational series i'm continuing to continue to be interested in it i am starting to piece research together but i think in the context of other things that i'm not proposing that that committee be formed i'm not proposing that we um spend significant amount of time and resources going back i would like us to be mindful of those things as we embark on our plan to make sure our plan is more better and founded in equity and sustainability diversity of housing mixed income i think i think that's a hard it's it's hard for me i that was something i was really interested in in the context of that other conversation and i i want to be clear part of it the research i've done so far i think that i don't i don't want to profess that it's comprehensive or i can conclude it but i have not yet found the public policy dis uh discussions that were very explicitly exclusionary uh with a racial intent there were converse policy conversations that happened in the city that i think contributed to redistribution of particularly black neighborhoods particularly the kerrytown neighborhood but i've yet to find the zoning policies that get to that again i don't absolve the city of that there's a lot of conversation there's a lot of tension i don't know that the city experienced anything in a more unique manner than the country did and i i think our resources and how to do it better going forward might be best placed well and we started to meet right like it was like even if it wasn't adopted we had meeting and i think coming up with a remit of what that was and even what the type what the name of it was is one of the things that i think what what that effort showed to me was like having things with specific remits and making sure that we have staff dedicated to specific things and not over stretching make sure that we get everything done so i wanna i also just i put this in the context of like there's lim you have limited staff and when we are thinking about what's on the priority list we need to be thinking not just about the green but like not just about the yeah green but also about the blue um on here in terms of where we direct we where we help shape where we spend our time but also where staff spends their time so um if knowing also that the comprehensive plan is something that i think we all agree needs to have um a lot of time and thinking what should ought to go in that effort um and where we might be able to give on either the top half or the bottom half and i don't know i just want to bring that up that yeah that i think there's limited go ahead commissioner weich i would be remiss not to uh just comment on uh mr leonard's um assessment of the research i would not as a direct rebuttal because i haven't seen your research but just as the general climate in which housing occurred in the united states it was done in a way to be race neutral while at the same time enforcing racial segregation so i think it's important for us to step back like planning commissions were created to keep people of color from being in communities i mean it's just at the origins when you read the origin documents they they say the quiet part out loud so that it becomes a race neutral way of being able to inform a race caste system so that 20 50 70 years later we can actually sit at a table and say well we didn't do anything explicitly racist well we didn't do anything explicitly racist because the whole thing was racist from its origin so it is quite overwhelming um both as a resident and as a planning commissioner to have to um just have to say this you know it it it's just taxing and it we can look at the outcomes to see that the design did what it was intended to do we do not live in a multi-racial city um we just don't and it was designed that way and so it is it is just it's overwhelming to have to continually remind us not and i don't mean this in a condescending way because you know i'm still getting to know all of you all it's just i'm exhausted you know i have to fight for my human dignity at every stage of my life and it is um it's just exhausting and i want us to to design a city that welcomes everybody who wants to live here that removes the barriers and and now we're not talking about race we're talking about economics but that is just another proxy for race uh because of the systemic ways that people are excluded like in my neighborhood i can count on one hand the black people who live in our neighborhood and on the other hand the other people of color who live in our neighborhood and our our housing prices are going up i am the beneficiary of it my house has doubled in 10 years and it's going to continue to grow which means i can't i couldn't buy my house today with my job uh it's just it's not possible and so we can say hey there's nothing that says this was explicit but we can see that it's not possible which is why i've been advocating as i've said at the table for the missing middle because it's a way for us to preserve the neighborhood character while bringing more density into our neighborhood so that we can welcome more neighbors i have supported every housing development that we have initiated uh that's come before this table because i want more neighbors it's a better community for me and for my family for us to have more neighbors so i would just be remiss not to to say that again at the table so thanks for the time other questions observations food for thought for the planning commission or mr leonard before we see the next version the next draft of this do you feel like you got some more feedback and actually i asked that question and i looked on this side and i did not see any hands but i did not turn my head okay uh and now commissioner silva snuck her hand in on this side i think to commissioner weiss's point and our discussion on may 4th about preparing for the comprehensive plan discussion and if we're starting to think about our work program by creating some of those columns as well i think it is really helpful to again think of these things in tandem in the as much information sharing about these resources i think i i appreciate the comments and i think one of them is uh a bigger some things are bigger discussions than the policy we can kind of rapidly change i think the single family housing is a big conversation that's going to come off of that committee uh and how we might address it but it may not be a direct zoning you know condition but it is how we financed or gave financing to those types of zoning structures and so we should be addressing it and i think there is great overlap for a very near next discussion about how we kick off the comprehensive plan so maybe this is like a tandem comment to figure out ways to maybe move and make sure those agendas items show up in the comprehensive planning discussion as we kick them off that's all go ahead commissioner dish follow on both of those previous comments commissioner weich and commissioner sovays i think we want to really also keep our eyes on lot sizes because that's been a huge way that that the that we've gotten the kind of growth that we've gotten and there has always been enclaving of certainly the african-american population in ann arbor kerrytown was an enclave that was created by economics and undesirable land uses and then we created cooperative housing which is not a bad thing to have but if that is enclaving for for mostly african american and now more diverse that is a particular way of it's not total displacement but it's certainly not equity and so i think there there are aspects of our history that we have a are getting some kind of handle on and of course there's the general problem of single-family sony absolutely that's a general problem i don't think there's anything particularly interesting or unique in ann arbor about that one but so we're i think that we have learned some things about the history that we can carry into the master planning process i'm interested to continue pursuing that research but i agree that this is not i don't think that the planning department is set up with the expertise to take on writing a book about you know mystery and that is a problem right we and so uh i think this is going to be the it is an ambitious um thing to try to understand and so uh so i want this to continue but i don't necessarily think that we can do the research as much as we can learn from the research and so what we have to do is take the stuff that we have and try to find ways for people to carry it on for us in the way that mike steinberg and rob goodspeed did the racial covenants project which made such a splash so go ahead commissioner abrams um yeah i mean i just i think what commissioner white is saying is really important and i wanted to just kind of lift that up and also maybe encourage us not to feel that because it's overwhelming or because we are not maybe don't have the expertise that therefore we shouldn't try to address it i think we should basically be talking about uh issues of racial equity affordability and inclusivity uh like every single evening and i think we do try to do that but i think maybe we need to be addressing it more squarely and so um maybe it's even kind of maybe it's important to always be reminding ourselves how we understand the connection between something like looking at lot size and the history of racial exclusion in our community and drawing those lines because i think those lines are there to be drawn they're not that abstract actually i mean we can just think about the way in which people have been excluded from something like homeownership and therefore generational wealth and therefore therefore so um i think yeah i guess i just wanted to um i don't know like acknowledge acknowledge the comments from commissioner weiss and support them and um and then i want to pivot to a much more mundane thing which is can you please remind me what what about 4c zoning was on the table for consideration you just covered it uh it's a lot is it lot sizes okay i think one of the ways that the city has excluded the development of housing and particularly lower cost price point housing is that from 1963 to today we have increased the size minimum sizes for r4c we've increased the minimum square footage per dwelling unit and that has resulted in less less dense development on lots and it has also resulted in probably larger units per lot and so the the discourse of that at the time was was focused on student encroachment into residential neighborhoods but it has had an impact on equity by severe impact of the housing supply generally across the city so so that that is an issue that as a community i think we have struggled with made some poor decisions with and and it's been revisited unsuccessfully in recent history and and that condition is unique to r4c there was a specific mission established previously for r4c it met for many years put together a series of recommendations that did not result in consensus to be adopted okay so when the time comes it'll be helpful for those of us who weren't around then to revisit that and also front yard solar for those of us who weren't here at the time that sounds exciting though thanks go ahead commissioner survey i'll just like we had a recent discussion similar of the c1ar district um which was created around student housing and density mixed use and walkable 15 minutes was a lot of the purpose but with the clout of student proximity which is the same as as the r4c but the repercussions of the right sizing and right location of this being restrictive to it so i would actually kind of mention that to bundle the c1ar and the r4c as having similar kind of narratives and characteristics with them um along that same kind of what is the density and appropriateness at certain edges of downtowns to then the single-family neighborhoods because that's really the edges that we're starting to see there and so i just kind of bring it up as another kind of difficult zoning factor that we've been seeing recently and the dialogue is kind of circumventing some of the rationale maybe around where it came from and you know opportunity and kind of restrictions to it just to add on for what it's worth the r4c stuff was even before my time it was like like a couple years and there was a discussion like if we should take it back up a lot of it my understanding is um and i have notes somewhere buried in like my email box because i feel like someday we're going to come back to it was around parking and so the elimination actually of parking minimums and establishment parking maximums may help um potentially who knows um other [Music] other questions comments we're gonna see this at least two more times great do you have what you need i am so the next time you see this will be hopefully a successful integration of the comments and feedback i've heard tonight that will be presented as a resource to you the meeting the evening of the public hearing on the comprehensive plan and all things going well you will make any additional refinements suggestions either adding things to either category prioritizing the like and i'll present it at the 17th meeting for adoption thank you very much all right uh we are on to item 10 public comment this is the final opportunity to uh for persons to speak for up to three minutes about any issue um we'll again first call on folks that are here and then move to remote participants you can press the raised hand button on your zoom screen push star nine or dial in eight seven seven eight five three four two five two four seven our meeting id is nine seven seven sixty six thirty 34 12 26 please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments would you like to kick us off kick it off and also finish it off i highly doubt anyone is watching at this point um i i commend you on your stamina as always and feel free it's very late feel free to tune me out um i won't take offense um i'm gonna i just have a few comments on the seu presentation by zach smith um yeah this is a really attractive and creative approach and to decarbon starting to decarbonize the city and we should definitely move forward with it as quickly as possible [Music] you know but mr wattsmith framed it at the start of his presentation as a more attractive alternative to the condemnation route of establishing a municipal electric utility you know to the effect that buying poles and wires is going to be very expensive dte's infrastructure and it's going to be defective anyway so let's avoid that and um work on this more decentralized distributed energy kind of approach and um yeah i i don't really quite agree with the framing um you know the we should definitely take distributed energy as far as we can but it has limitations paul fenn who the boston consultant who helped conceive ann arbor's seu idea told energy commission that maybe 20 percent of buildings are optimally suited for microgrids they're limited by things like building energy use intensity and economic factors so the scu can only take um the goal the a20 goal of powering our grid with 100 renewable energy so far the rest of it we're going to have to get off the regional grid and the 820 plan envisions doing that through community choice aggregation which is collective bargaining on behalf of city residents by the city with outside providers of clean power that would be great if we can make it happen it's currently not legal and it may not be legal for a long time in part because dte and consumers are lobbying so heavily heavily against it but there is you wouldn't may not know but there is a very very strong grassroots movement towards establishing a municipal electric utility that would take over the infrastructure from dte here in ann arbor the organization is called ann arbor for public power mostly it's a bunch of idealistic kids um with a few older people i'm involved and it's not a fool's errand necessarily there have been some recent examples where this has worked winter park florida jefferson county washington boulder was a failure in their effort to mailing supplies but even they got their utility to agree to go to 80 percent renewables by 2030 if they drop their muni plan and if the utility doesn't they can resume unit municipalization so anyway that's out there maybe worth looking at thank you thank you do we have anyone who's listening who wants to provide public comment mr leonard we do adam joskevich you have three minutes to address the planning commission hi um i'll i'll be brief i just i just wanted to um you know poke a little fun at the the previous speaker you know not like other people are paying attention and watching these things so um but anyway i think the seo stuff is really cool um great presentation i i think municipal municipalization is something that's you know worth pursuing as well alongside that in parallel and you know i think that's that's something we should be looking at but i don't think it should slow down anything with the scu um and i am excited to um to jump into scu stuff once there's something available to sign up for so i think it's it's pretty cool um as far as the work plan and zoning um i do think we really need to be cognizant of the fact that any discussion of zoning in ann arbor really in america as a whole has to um has to include that discussion of the racial equity and [Music] that just pervades zoning in general so we we need to be continuing that discussion so thank you thank you any others mr leonard nope all right then we're on to item 11 commission proposed business annie all right oh oh i looked this way yeah yeah sorry i'm coming back okay i'll make it really brief i just wanted to thank commissioner weiss for sharing those comments um we're always going to have to engage with the balance of sustainability affordability economic feasibility and social justice and that last component is always going to be something that deeply that we need to you know grapple with no doubt in my mind that there's systemic racism that's resulted in geospatial concentration and we have to do everything we can to be actively anti-racist so thank you for sharing that's very brave of you too uh share those comments with us so that's all thank you thanks anyone else all right item 12 is adjournment all in favor oh moved by commissioner white seconded by commissioner clark now everybody can raise your hand if you want to go and that is all of the hands
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we have a large segment of our population that are taking cte nava classes and the english 101 102 fits better with their schedule than an ap english class so this gives those students an opportunity to do that on campus as well and we're also looking at doing english their junior year and english 102 their senior year to meet the requirements of junior year english and senior year in english we have to make sure that they are matching up with the standards for each specific class year but this will open up the door for kids to who may be restricted in their classes that they have to take to give them a another elective if they're able to do those two classes in two separate years so we're excited about the offerings that again we're bringing higher classes to our class load but it's able to be extended down to kids who may not have had a chance to take a college class before so we're super excited about it yeah it's cool yeah yes mr president may add something lauren um into the board one of the things that we have discovered is that if these kids get to high school age kids get to take a class they have some success some of them are going on in pc and they would otherwise not have done that some of them are really taking advantage of it they're graduating with an aaa and so they're two years of college in and many of those are those that are also qualifying for like the lumberjack or asu scholarship and so they're down to two years and most of that's paid so it's a great opportunity to springboard that mr webb you want to add to that another thing that we're bringing in through mpc is they're they're going to be offering a science class with which will allow those students who are doing nava classes to come away with an aaa they can they were just missing that one class and that one class is now added to our asynchronous class offerings so kids will be able to pick up that last credit to get their aaa that's cool i think this is really good because it cuts down on no driving time for these kids a waste of hours and i've seen kids way over schedule themselves just to get in an extra class because they don't think about the time it takes them to drive back and forth so they're safer here you can watch them yes also my understanding is npc now because the state is now allowing kids even their sophomore year to take dual enrollment classes is that correct and are we offering that they can yes they can take like we have students right now who are taking dual enrollment with us through cabinet making our graphic design so both rice mr rice mr peterson students can choose to take dual enrollment classes and credit with them as a freshman sophomore so they've been able to do that awesome if i could add one more thing mr president jennifer you had a question too on ap and advanced placement some of those courses we're also looking at trying to expand the asu open learning lab to provide specific courses for students that want maybe mandarin chinese they want to take a high-level language i want to assure the board the kids that want to go to tier 1 school the luminaire mr lawler he's going to stanford so the ones that want to go to tier 1 they're still able to qualify they have this through ap and the rigor is there where we need to improve and we're working on is on the curriculum side is our kids in the middle the avid program helps kids realize hey i can do this too many of these children are going to be first generation college students and that's exciting once our kids get into college they graduate at a much higher rate than the surrounding schools i mean by three times the amount it's just getting them there and helping them see that there is an opportunity i wanted to also just recognize the hard work mr webb and his staff yes gosh has uh they don't understand when you're trying to create the schedule and you're having to meet the needs of kids that are very struggling they're in ninth grade in the reading at the fifth grade level and then you have kids like and mr lawler said i could share it he's he's been reading the highest at the college level since he's been a freshman and lower we have them at all levels that's not easy so we're trying to provide those students all the students an opportunity we need to get the kids in the middle we need to move them forward and the kids at the bottom end academically that need help we need to find a more organized way of doing that the curriculum that you approved is going to achieve part of that and so i also want to commend mr webb and his staff as well as the junior high and the elementary teachers our our kids are like other kids in america a lot of these kids have have suffered from um the effects of this pandemic and the the strife the political strife and all the stresses many of them are a year to year and a half behind and we've been saying it we're not going to catch up inside of here but i think we have made up ground and we'll see the results on the 25th are still not going to be stellar but i think 20 20 23 in may when we get them the end of may of 2023 we're going to recognize some of the work that we've been doing that they have been doing these staff members and teachers and administrators and i just want to commend courtney and lauren and ryan for their contributions here because it's not going to notice scheduling we could do something much easier and less expensive and it wouldn't meet the needs of our very top students it wouldn't meet the needs of the kids at the very low end we're trying to reach them all thank you any other questions regarding junior higher high school court content lauren um if i recall when i talked to you about the course content book we discussed the computer the programming class that we were offering one an npc and now mpc is going to have it as a navit class correct that's correct so see in that one offered through npc is four seniors and so we we're taking that one out of our course offering we actually had one of our the members of the tech department ruth mcbride was teaching that class and she was you know she was working her tail off doing that and her tech duties so it just was too much for so it was perfect timing with npc picking up that course so we have quite a few students who are interested in that field so it's going to be nice that they can continue that now with the nava program yeah thank you lauren and courtney so there if there's no further questions can we have a motion to vote on item 3.3 regarding the high school and junior high course content book for 2022 and 23.
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yeah i think the old policy mentioned something about smoke signals was sold okay um are there any comments or questions on this no seeing none all right um on for the next jeff oh well tim's got one go ahead tim i do this is just uh for future reference a question i could ask in the future i'd be curious if you it without spending a lot of time on it if you could tell if there's an increase in parent-teacher conferences now the video streaming is you know more readily available so if you started you know before covid to now i'm not looking for any answer tonight or anything in the near future but i'd be curious to know it seems to me like it would probably increase participation i'm just i would be curious to know that if it had it kind of dovetails with our working theory about how holding these meetings remotely is easier on people um and it's one of the things i think we've taken away from the pandemic you know for instance in the coming weeks we're going to be holding many um invitations for preschool parents of preschool-aged children to learn about school modernization you know we send stuff out to our you know pre-k-12 community but that doesn't include a lot of you know folks with child care younger families and so you know we are doing those remote at different times of the day when it might be easier for a parent with an infant or toddler to be able to access that you know remotely and what we saw when i was principal at dot and we started to really do a lot of power school communication is that the number of parent conference requests really fell off at middle in high school because parents knew in you know almost relatively real time compared to getting your report card every 10 weeks how your child was doing so there were a lot less you know conferences now you know i think it's still the the same that there's not as much demand for parent-teacher conferences at the middle and high school level but across the district we've added the remote option and a lot of people take advantage of that now yeah thank you they prefer that a lot a lot of people prefer it some prefer in person and that's okay but you know to answer that question we do see a lot of remote thank you the next item um on the agenda was graduation requirements uh it was a very simple change that graduation should not be held until 180 days and 900 hours of school work are completed and establishing the graduation date the district may establish for any school year a firm date for students in grades 12 which is no earlier than the 180th day we have to have 180 school days so for an example this year we had an issue at doolittle where we had to start the school year two days delay we have to wait if that happened at cheshire high school those days would be added to the end of the year and then when april first rolled around we could establish a graduation date that was no earlier than 180 days from the start of the year so the start of the year didn't happen until two days later they'd be added on we'd have to make sure that we cover 180 days of school so it allows it provides a little bit of direction in terms of when we can establish the graduation date it doesn't mean like some seniors may only go 174 days if after april 1st there was this you know catastrophe this is where it came from really with some of the tornadoes like hamden if you remember several years ago farmington during our graduation protocol you know in 2020 you wouldn't have to just keep adding days on after april first for seniors to be able to graduate so that families can have firm graduation dates it's really just a smart logistical um addition that was uh allowed by statute any questions on that one yeah sorry this is the third reading so i think we've answered most of the questions on these but [Music] all right so in that case we'll move on to the next item grading systems the change here was that we were required to add a component uh that the board is in favor of weighted grading we advise we have i mean going back many years in our handbook where classes are fall in terms of grade weighting so um [Music] it it's really pretty clear that an ap [Music] an ap um class is weighted higher than a a ccp class which is weighted higher than a college prep class ccp being competitive college prep and it basically encourages students to take a more rigorous course load um which depending on the college you're applying to would be necessary so it is a broad general practice across connecticut that this occurs i know we've talked about it a little bit uh tim go ahead thanks adam um yeah so i i support this i mean we i told you before i have some reservations about it but i could support it i do have one question that crossed my mind in the past month uh a student so you so your students who are there with you for four years that's pretty straightforward i presume all the waiting would be straightforward but what about a student who transfers in or do you have any situations where students take courses outside of cheshire high and it's a different grading system that they use i'm just curious in general how do you how would you address something like that you know i appreciate that as a former high school pr principal that's a pretty sophisticated question um and yes we do that so students are permitted to take courses off campus you know i you know we've we have students that take courses through stanford um stanford excuse me through uh community colleges through online programs over the summer in addition to it those courses in order to be included on your high school transcript have to be vetted so what we'll do is interested student submits that in advance to the guidance department the guidance department will review the course description with the uh department chair from that department let's say it's a science class and they'll evaluate an appropriate weighting for that class if it's if the you know student seeks to include it as part of their transcript so yeah we do have a process for that but it's a good question thank you any other questions on that all right the next agenda item the fafsa completion again these are items that we've we've discussed uh in the past this uh is required of us to include this policy as you can see this is a brand new policy for us um it's really what they're trying to do is that there are a significant number of students in their state experience who aren't really fully aware of the federal aid available to them and it may discourage them from applying and seeking uh higher education and we we certainly want for any student who wants to seek higher education to remove any impediments and this encourages districts to do that to ensure that we get our students to engage in the fafsa cheshire actually has such a fast high completion rate that we've been honored by the state for this um so we're our guidance department does a really good job of making sure that kids are aware um it's not forcing anybody to go to uh higher ed but certainly those who want to seek that option we want to make sure that they're aware of this so um i think we've like i said we've done a pretty good job with that having been honored by the state for our work with it um so i'm so after the third reading or that's our third reading this this question finally clicks into my mind after yeah it's like what's this osmosis i don't know um but so the fafsa form does that need to be filled out in order to apply to a college is that like almost like you have your credit application ready to go if you're looking for a mortgage you know kind of thing or it doesn't have to be at all um i think this is uh independent of the college application process but it allows you to determine what sort of federal aid and assistance you could be avail yourself to which obviously you know if you've seen the price of colleges i mean i knew about it i've heard about it now that my son's a junior i'm really like stunned that it could range from you know 13 000 to seventy thousand dollars or higher and you know depending on where you're going to school you know the fafsa it's good to know what sort of money might be available to you so it helps a student know what their what higher education is affordable to them outside of any um resources they may have had through savings or or something to that effect is that what you're saying right like and that's so that that allows that allows a person to know like through whatever their socioeconomic status is like what sort of pool of i guess loans are available to them before like a a university may put together like a a grant package for them or or something like that that's outside of that that's like right it could run from grant through aid um and you know it's interesting too now the is the i don't know that things are evolving in a way that colleges i heard um from i think it was dr feldman i'm trying to remember who was sharing sam you were in this meeting the other day was it dr feldman who was saying that if your family has a gross income under 75 000 and you're accepted to either cornell or colgate that it's you know it's paid for yeah there's a third percentage and you kind of did that too you can also gave you know if you're 7500 they paid for the full four years yeah so i mean there are in our guidance department um stays attuned to these always changing opportunities uh whether they be through individual scholarships that are you know more to cover books and things like the cheshire foundation offers a tremendous diversity of scholarships that great opportunities for kids and very generous 41 000 this year through the cheshire ed foundation to a number of students it's incredible um but they're also you know like we were talking about here federal packages and then school packages and we try and support families and and seeking that information that's really what this is is just encouraging families to look at this resource to determine if there's a benefit for them or not yeah i was just trying to understand because i don't know when we first mentioned this i think in the first reading there seemed to be a little bit of pushback uh from us a few of the other board members and i i was trying to understand what the controversy would be i think on that you know when we were discussing that i think the the genesis of that angst was that every student was forced to do this whether or not you're going to college and it's not that's not the case it's really yeah that's not what this is i don't think right now um we're just trying to make sure i think the state's really trying to make sure that everybody knows that it's available to them this isn't a cheshire problem but it was a statewide loss so we have to adopt the policy sure okay thank you yeah sure um any other questions on this one and i think we do an excellent job with this already um because it gets you know college gets very overwhelming for families and you know you have to educate them to to let them know what their options are out there if they choose to go that it's it's not anything that should deter them um from applying to your point adam it doesn't impact the application process um for college it's just another added bonus that if you have a school system that has the support um because it gets overwhelming and i've gone through this you know twice now third one's coming soon and it's every round just seems to be like my first time around again and so the defense department you know calms me down and lays out here's what your options are yeah we only serve that decaf for those junior parent meetings everybody's amped up already yeah no i do think this i do think this is really valuable um there are there are you know loan sharks out there i'm not sure that that's the best term but they will charge really high rates um and you can get you know lower rates and higher rates and people it's not just the debt you're taking on but if you're given really bad interest rates by somebody who's there to make a profit and not there to make a profit and help people if they're just focused entirely on profit people can end up in a huge huge problem students who who really make a good faith effort at trying to do what people always say you know get an education go to college stuff like that um and it's it's really awful for the people who are who end up in that situation and the only thing i was i was putting up a little bit of the like you know um concern about this uh simply because i i'm a believer that multiple pathways to success in life are possible and i really don't like the idea having grown up in cheshire and i i often heard sort of the mantra like where are you going to college there are certain benefits to that it's not necessarily right for everyone and i just wanted to be clear and jeff assured assured me that we're not going to 100 for this fafsa but that's really important to me too because you know electricians plumbers you go into trades you don't necessarily need to go to a standard four-year undergraduate college um and i think that's i feel it's important to repeat that in these meetings when people are listening to it you know it's uh college can be great but it's not for everyone but even if you go in that other pathway tim it this process helps to alleviate that oh yeah potential insecurity that most people have um no matter what level of you know income you're at you just you got to be educated prior to going in on the national level that's why we have such a uh you know a request for canceling student debt because i think back then we didn't inform the public well enough right so yeah no and i don't want to yeah i mean if you go to be an electrician i think it's 25 000 for one year of school they're still you may still be taking out loans for that yeah right i don't think a plumber necessarily goes to any sort of school they might i'm not sure of the trades exactly but no there's money involved um yeah anyway i i support this we could also sell bumper stickers that say my other car is a student loan and still modernization that way that's the innovation that we're gonna we'll try it try anything to pay for school modernization all right so um the last item we had was you know if you recall we just finished updating this and then changes were made and um we had to [Music] make one change and again this isn't a cheshire public schools issue given the fact that we're to my knowledge the only public school system that embeds birth to three and right into our school system but if you recall this highlighted language talked about making sure that birth to three service providers had a seat at the table when planning ppt's uh pupil personnel team meeting when planning ieps individualized education plans for children but like i said we already have birth to three is part of what cheshire public schools is knowing known for and those people are already at the table they work for us as a where in a lot of districts they don't so not a cheshire issue as i mentioned but because it's statutory we had to include it any questions or comments okay see none um well look at that um all right well uh i guess i will uh if there are no other questions or comments on any of these policies i will um go ahead and make a motion uh move that uh policy number i'll try and read correctly this time uh 1101.1 community relations pyramid parent involvement 6146 instruction graduation requirements 6146.1 instruction grading systems instruction um fafsa completion program and 6159 instruction individualized education program slash special education program program be moved to a third and final reading is there a second 10 seconds um any discussion on the motion no um all in favor uh sam oh there we go thumbs up great okay it is unanimous motion passes um we have other what is that i'm not even sure what that means on our agenda other does that mean new business i'm not even sure how to interpret that other yeah are there any other issues i mean sam just raised her hand but i do know you know i just want to affirm the idea that we are going to bring scott into next month's meeting is that okay with everything yeah that'd be great yeah okay great yeah um sam go ahead you had your hand raised i think i i emailed dr solon about this about the um gifted policy talented gifted dr solon if we need to create a draft or i don't know when the where the current one is in our files yeah i apologize if i missed anything there you were kind of breaking up just a little bit but um the we solicited uh cabe for an updated policy as it relates to uh talented and gifted we're awaiting that from them and as soon as we have that we'll share it with the group uh to be reviewed i would imagine it will be on our may agenda yeah they said with the next update the new revised version is going to be included so we should be getting that within the next couple weeks so we should have enough time between receiving it from them drafting our own going through the reads to post by july 1st then right yeah there's not i don't think the uh the policy police will come after us if it's not but we also have the alternative of uh advancing it we can't adopt the policy uh if we're comfortable without going through three readings if there's a time sensitive nature to it if we we look at it and we feel super comfortable and we take it to the board and they feel super comfortable uh i don't think that there's a reason we couldn't read it in may and then read it in june and maybe even again what we've done on some occasions is on the june 30th finance meeting and done another reading there uh to just adopt so again okay let's take a look at it and see how comfortable you are with it and we then we can accelerate it or not depending on your company are we anticipating some major changes here um not really no okay just we're required to identify um it's again it's one of those things where it really kind of the changes reflect what we're already doing so i think it will be something that you guys will look at and i just want to confirm and look at it and talk to kevin and marlene and make sure that everything is good and get their assurance and then uh we'll take a look at it but i really don't think there's gonna be anything eye-popping and i think it'd be pretty easy to adopt it's um is this a large policy like a title ix policy or is it something that's a couple of pages yeah yeah because you don't want to know we could get it in time to read through it old cape one atom is two pages but since the um legal language is now adding in talented prior to that it was really just focus on gifted so i guess we'll wait and see what really how many lines they change that sounds good all right um is there any other items to be brought to our attention right now i have nothing right now so i guess i'll uh entertain a motion to adjourn we have a second oh there we go okay all in favor it is unanimous this meeting
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yes and while that occasion is very rare it is still very apparent and in 2021 there were 249 occurrences and in 2019 4. yes those instances are rare and we hope that is something that students will never have to face five but what about the things we do face what about violence drugs fighting all of those things are common around our school campuses and they're happening more than ever six we like to say why is this happening i don't know why school school violence is happening in our campuses anymore and we have to say we aren't doing enough why am i no no why aren't we doing enough seven martin luther king once said peace is not merely a distant goal we seek but a means by which we come together and arrive eight i say let's take a stand nine let's bring educational programs for our youth across campuses let's create rehabilitation centers for students and let's create clubs and events that surround violence prevention and so that the next time a student counts to 10 it isn't because they're scared it's because they have a moment for them to breathe and say i'm safe you're safe we're safe thank you from anaheim lc cassandra almeida [Applause] a six-year-old brown skin little girl ashamed for being the darkest in her class classmates who made her feel inferior no longer a little girl but a strong 17 year old who finds humor and grown men yelling at her to go back to her country who has found beauty in her brown skin her name is cassandra almeda and she stands before you announcing that her culture is beautiful and it took her some time to appreciate it eleanor roosevelt once said that no one can make you feel inferior without your consent so i cassandra almeda will never give anyone my consent to make me feel inferior or less than for years people have used the hatred in their hearts to be little people of color finding any reason to make us feel inhuman wanting no no making us change who we are and what we believe in in the 1930s mexican repatriation patients with skin like mine were deported and no longer treated jose lopez fell victim to the mexican reputation and was deported back to michoacan when he was only five years old sadly both of his parents and one of his brothers passed away jose lopez and his remaining siblings managed to return back to the states in and later on testify against the discrimination he had endured the chicano movement made to fight this kind of discrimination made to fight for education reforms made to fight for rights for the land workers who worked on the farms made to fight for our negative stereotypes now i wish i could stand here and tell you all that it's going to be rainbows and butterflies that were all going to sit in a little circle and hold hands and sing kumbaya but i can't tell you that because it's far from reality and i'm not going to sugarcoat and tell you that i have hope that it's all going to end because it's not a simple solution would be to simply agree to keep all hateful speech in our heads and not react with hateful emotion but then again it's far more deeply rooted we need to teach the younger generation that being different is beautiful that nobody is better than anybody because of the tint of their exterior and i'm not going to sugarcoat again and tell you that it's going to end because it's not and i'm not going to expect fully grown adults to change their perspectives and fully like and fully brush away racism because they're not going to they're not going to change their perspectives but i can tell you that i have hope i have hope that it's not going to be as common i have hoped that racism won't be the topic of every news story or be in every single headline i have hope that in the future instead of racism we have the kindness of humanity being restored and everyone will at least accept each other and keep the hateful speech in their minds my name is cassandra and i thank you for your time [Applause] from cypress high school rebecca cho [Applause] whenever i'm watching a movie or a tv show i often find myself disappointed in the way the women characters are written in fiction they're seen as one-dimensional devoid of any multi-faceted identity and i soon began to realize that in our non-fictional world women are treated the same way and that got me thinking about one of the deadliest crimes facing women today femicides are violent discriminatory crimes towards women because they are women take for instance 25 year old ingrid escamilla who was found by local police brutally murdered and skinned local newspapers turned her story into a spectacle a joke by publishing photographs of her mutilated body with fun headlines such as it was cupid's fault avoiding to even name her perpetrator legally speaking femicides are not taken and treated as seriously as they should be in brazil they have among the worst registration and data systems in the world for femicides mexico's president refuses to make laws to protect women from these crimes and according to the world health organization one in three women worldwide have experienced a form of sexual harassment and that number it only gets higher when we think about queer women women of color disabled women and more there is no urgency to change and assess our femicide problem so this carelessness results in a culture that's hostile and homicidal towards women when discussing solutions everything needs a starting point so let's start femicides are bad no killing women is bad i mean it's not that hard well i don't think it is to tackle all of these injustices in the world it's important to create a beginning something that simply starts the conversation so a solution strengthening legal defenses with law it's important to create a legal framework in which femicides can be reported and prosecuted securely this means having them being recognized as their own charge women-driven crimes need to be confronted with women-driven solutions this creates a world where women are able to feel safe in the environments that they take space in a place where they can truly live their lives without having a fear looming over them because like the thousands of women trying to bring awareness to themselves i'm tired and i just want to see change the accounts of woman violence is not just the tv shows or the movies they're not fiction they're real with real people and real consequences so let's treat it as such thank you [Applause] and now from gilbert high school kyra warren [Applause] imagine you're in high school you're keeping your grades up maybe working a job on the side but you're also struggling inside your own head you constantly feel like the world is resting on your shoulders you feel hopeless worthless messed up so what do you do well obviously you'd want to confess these feelings to your parents but when you tell them this they don't listen to you no no because you're too young sound a little familiar whether you are on the giving or receiving end of this the point stands that mental health among teenagers is often overlooked my name is kiera warren and i'm here to talk to you all today about mental health in high school why is it that we ignore these kids according to the cdc one in three high schoolers experience feelings of overwhelming sadness or hopelessness that's a lot of kids to just feel a bit blue right well one in five have a diagnosable emotional behavioral or mental health disorder and half of those kids have a problem so severe that it impairs their normal functions things like waking up on time having motivation to do work making friends or paying attention the recognition of these disorders or illnesses isn't shameful it's quite the opposite with 80 percent of all students not receiving the proper care that they need it is more important than ever to bring these kids that care instead of to pretend that they're doing it for attention let me tell you all a story at my first high school i started to discover these problems about myself i didn't feel like i fit in with the rest of the kids i wasn't normal something was wrong half the time i didn't have the motivation to get out of bed in the morning my friends there they were all the same as me none of us were normal and that's okay we were coming to terms with that but after the quarantine period the school wanted to help but their help wasn't helpful they kept repeating the same stuff over and over thinking they were doing us a favor just cheer up just breathe just hold it in just don't let it show just keep those grades up just smile just ignore it just pretend that you're fine they didn't see the numerous kids who weren't okay they saw us as a letter if you didn't have perfect grades you were tossed schools tend to stigmatize these disorders and make them seem like something lesser than it truly is but this all ties back to the important question what can you do or what can i do what can any of us do most of us don't have the power to change this on a large scale but it's important to start small the main thing that we can do as a society is to normalize mental health talk to people and check in with them make sure they're doing okay your family colleagues friends anyone who you feel comfortable talking to normalizing and acknowledging that people have mental health problems is the first step to a better world a world where someone like me can come to their parents guardians teachers without the fear of reprimanding that is the key to the better world of mental health acceptance thank you [Applause] so and now from lawera high school samantha marroquin [Applause] this is a big crowd by show hands how many of you have ever gone sick or injured yeah now keep them up if you have gone to a doctor or gotten any medication that your insurance paid now look around you that's a lot of hints oh put them down what would now tell me what would happen if you didn't have medical insurance then the cost of that visit or medication would come out of your pocket one of my family members is sick but not in the way that could be resolved with cough syrup he struggles with drug addiction and mental health issues thankfully we have the insurance to cover drug rehabilitation and therapy but not everyone has this luxury according to advocate a platform promoting accessible mental health resources effective therapy can cost at least 120 per hour some places that offer low cost mental health resources are not as effective at handling mental illnesses as the ones are more costly the outcomes that determine a person's well-being are called social determinants of health which are caused by social conditions such as family income access to medical care or even access to education i am worried that the students across anaheim that are facing similar situations are unable to obtain the help they need for their loved ones or even themselves because of such high cost treatments according to orange county's 2019 report it found that one in six children are currently facing poverty and mental health hospitalization rates grew 87 in the last 10 years now this is a problem because people have different access to medical care safe housing transportation but not everyone can obtain these things a person's life expectancy and well-being should not be determined by their zip code or access to universal health care orange county has implemented changes in order to fix these issues these focus on inclusivity equity comprehensiveness collaboration and multi-dimension but we as students can do something we have a choice we can either sit idly by and continue to watch these social health determinants affect children like us or we can do something by volunteering at local organizations or even supporting an advocate actively supporting awareness of these social determinants of health which i believe that we must do thank you [Applause] so and now from oxford academy melissa rentana [Applause] for every victim of domestic violence that receives support and shelter 15 to 20 women are turned away from the shelter domestic violence is a concept that no one is a stranger to yet it is constantly overlooked in our families and it is grossly underreported in the justice system sadly one in three women and one in four men will experience some type of abuse in their relationship quarantine was a time where victims could no longer escape their abusers pre-pandemic many victims and their families would use school and work as an excuse to leave the oppressive household that they lived in but when quarantine started that was no longer an option they were now locked in with their abusers full time for 24 hours a day during quarantine in the united states intimate violence rose anywhere from six to twenty one percent domestic violence does not always leave physical marks but it always inflicts damage on a person's psyche no one should go home in fear that they will be abused at night perhaps so many women especially women of color would not go missing because they said no people deserve a place where they can live happily and safely that is the legitimate goal of a great society now how can we help stay connected and informed by sharing resources such as the national domestic violence hotline or even local resources such as laura's house and the orange county family justice center you may be able to connect a person who is struggling then use your voice to advocate advocate for those who cannot it is never easy to ask for help especially for victims who feel like they have no control within the situation so if you see something speak up and speak out for speaking up and speaking out you could save a life violence is never the answer and anger is not an excuse to abuse someone so change a life by speaking up thank you [Applause] from magnolia high school leticia alvarado franco [Applause] up at the mirror oh sorry looking up at the mirror she knew she committed the unspeakable error of a glance in swift motion she grabs her sides pitches out her thighs fits her nails into the corroding scratches on her arm so she could feel the droplets of tears flow until they crashed down onto the bedsheets coming to her mind now our current generation well we've grown up a technology in our hands exposed to a world that perhaps wasn't the best for our own sakes posts on these platforms planting seeds in the minds of elementary school-aged children in fact the center for discovery has reported that these companies spend over 17 billion dollars on marketing young audiences each year and the broadness of social media has permitted for such beauty campaigns to be pushed out into the screens of these malleable viewers feeding children the message that beauty can only be beauty if it fits the definition that social media is projecting beauty to them means six packs prominent muscles beauty to them means thin hourglass figures beauty to them means full lips with the most defined of jawlines beauty to them means everything we're not conveniently enough social media also seems to provide the fixes to all the issues they've decided we have fingertips swiping up to reveal the latest tips on how to lose fat fast a cookbook guide for only 29.99 let's not forget the promo codes now all promising us the satisfaction of having the same gorgeous figure as the one slapped on the cover of the advertisement children who mind you have limited control over their body shapes are now bred into the mindset that this standard is the only acceptable shape and nothing else research conducted by the park nicolette melrose center has determined that 78 of girls between the ages of 13 and 17 believe that their bodies are simply unfit and this 78 is either accurate risk of or have already developed eating disorders and other forms of mental illnesses further studies conducted by bradley hospital in rhode island a leader in mental health care for children has concluded that adolescents with negative body images are more prone to suffer from depression anxiety or even be driven to suicide and that same girl we heard from in the beginning well you're looking at her and to all this she's no stranger i was told you're going to overdo it it's not healthy yet it was undeniable that little surge of hope pleasure even and hearing i looked sick it took the intervention of doctors to take back control of my life for i'd lost sight of the fact that my health and the health of those around me wasn't worth it in knowing the truth will we continue to perpetuate this standard wouldn't we like to live in a world where children are no longer ridden of their lives we can all begin to undo the messages that so many have internalized by reading from our phones and our lives the torment that these applications bring and for once begin to live our lives by our own definitions in finding our voices we stomp on the thoughts and come to find that beauty is so much more than just a standard thank you so from savannah high school halima asari [Applause] did you know that 95 of teenagers have access to a smartphone how many of those teens have social media apps like instagram tick tock and snapchat being able to message friends and stay updated with current events is useful but there are some negative downsides to having it right at your fingertips which brings up a very important question to consider how is something as innovative as social media affecting the mental health of our youth hello my name is halima asari the connection between adolescence obsession with social media and poor mental health is fully supported by the evidence in may 2018 the pew research center found that 45 of teens admitted they were constantly checking social media platforms with quarantine teenagers with quarantine teenagers are on their phones now more than ever which could affect their mood attention span and overall awareness in january 2017 the american psychiatric association reported that people using more than seven social media platforms had three times the chance of experiencing depression and anxiety than those who use less than two the amount of time a teenager spends on social media is not the only contributing factor a teenage student jada bromberg was interviewed by wusa9 news about how social media had affected her life saying that at first most of her online interactions were positive but it soon started to feel like the opposite she said i felt the negative impacts of it because i was looking at people hanging out with friends and i was not always being invited i started to feel sad when i was alone at home jada began to isolate herself which led to self-harm and depression but instead of keeping her story to herself she decided to spread awareness and used her experience to help those in similar situations people like jada who genuinely want to make a positive impact are helping to rebuild social media to a place where everyone can feel welcomed if social media were like that teenagers would feel less anxious seeing that not everything online reflects how the world really is so what's the answer parents can set a time limit and supervise their children's use of digital devices and teens can set an ideal schedule for themselves to prevent spending more time on social media more and more teenagers are getting hurt meaning we should work through this matter in a team effort thank you [Applause] so from western high school nicole batres [Applause] hi good evening um raise your hand here if you're a parent well a lot of parents um now today i was supposed to talk about food insecurities but i'm not i'm going to be talking about the injustice that i had to grow up with and many of my friends had to go through this injustice is no one listening to us not our voices our voice is not being heard now a little bit by myself i am someone who has been hospitalized twice for suicide and yeah hi um and in the hospitals there were a lot of people who who thought like me that this is all in my head what am i doing here i'm sorry i shouldn't have done this and then there's people out there saying hey it's fine it's not in your head all right it isn't your fault whatever happened to you isn't your fault now what my what my friends told me in the hospital said there are two solutions for you you either wait until the very ends of your days and for your prince charming or superhero or whatever the heck you're into to save you or you could grow up get your head on the clouds and forgive yourself for something you didn't do and go on with your life now for some of my friends that wasn't the case i had a friend who i met in the hospital he had an abusive father his mom wasn't really there because she was working and the only one who took care of him was his brother he was in there because of course suicide he was said to be a juvenile just because the way he dressed the way he acted he yeah he did some bad stuff but what could he do no one would give him a chance just because of appearance to say like hey like what's up like you look like you do bad stuff why don't you come work with me in my luxurious house yeah no people teachers he told me the teacher said you know what you're not listening you are not listening while i am trying to do my job you get out i don't want to hear it get out you don't want to grow up go be a kid outside the class that wasn't fair no one listened to his story that his dad was an alcoholic no one listened to him so when he got out it was the same nothing changed not his brother's love could save him he overdosed not on medication but on drugs his father had this happened once to me to one of my friends because no one was listening no one would give him a chance and that hurts because i was one of those people no one wanted to hear me and that is an injustice for not just kids dogs little kids ages four to six adults to 85 to 50.
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well we've been here my family's been here a long time too and like i said nobody has ever disrespected the as far as i know everybody loves the super high and to change it that's ridiculous like they said you could spend your money on other things improving the swimming pools like i remember one of the directors made holes in these pools just so they didn't have to fix it well now to fix it would cost a lot of money but yet you could use them you wouldn't have to go anywhere else the students would be able to use their tools for um physical education because that's what we did when we were in high school we did swimming and the boys did me so in order for you guys to to change our mascot you guys are wrong very wrong and i hope you guys consider not changing it because like i said communities out and there's a lot of people that would be very upset and it why you i want to change i don't understand thank you mr morrow uh so now at this point um it has been 20 minutes that has that has passed and so i do want to one invite if there's if there is anyone right now i i didn't give a ten minute warning if there's anyone right now are there any are any additional cards uh and that looks like you might be back there is there one no so there's no one else here uh then with that said we won't receive any additional commenters we do have a few more commenters that are on the docket here to speak and we will take a a vote to see if the board would like to allow these individuals to continue with their votes or if we move on to the next item board member rodriguez pena yes uh board member beau yes board member cruz gonzalez yeah board member adianas yeah and i'm also yes uh so we will move on to good evening superintendent board and cabinet i hear the call and requests of indigenous communities clearly stating that peoples or cultures and cultures are not mascots i also hear the call from students and community about representation i myself much rather have representation of my indigenous roots than those reflective of colonizers however as the board decides there is much responsibility not just in the decision of what steps next steps will be about how to educate avoid cultural appropriation and be considerate of indigenous communities so here are some thoughts we have the opportunity to honor is a tradition but most importantly honor natives and set foundational work i hope that as students move forward in the selection process we can partner with local groups native tribes to select to represent representatives that is respectful native beliefs all work done should be in partnership with experts i'm grateful that we have dr irene sanchez and representatives of tribal communities we can learn from schools that have done incredible work in this such as the anawa karmic mecca international university preparatory of north american la which has an ib primary years program and k-12 programming rooted in indigenous work if the board decides to keep the moniker is in the aztec since ultimate decision is with the board i hope instead of reference referencing the aztec as a mascot there would be a shift in language and perception of ambassador or spirit leader much would have to change individual with visual representations in action no matter what choice i hope the district can do the following we can provide credit for themselves for that for those who identify with and participate in it credit for nawaz classes land acknowledgement at all events and modeled at the beginning of every board meeting just as naturally as a flag salute training to all students during freshman or incoming orientations and throughout the years as well as staff and teachers as the uc system may have may set requirements by 2030 an aid through a through g ethnic studies course criteria to center an understanding of the indigeneity create and honor anti-colonial and liberatory movements that struggle for social justice on global and local levels cultivate communities that foster acknowledge and value relationships of indigenous and all communities of color for their survivor survival critique histories of imperialism dehumanization and genocide to expose that they are connected to present-day ideologies challenge and example how multiple oppressions and identities intersect and conceptualize and create spaces and embrace the idea that racial and ethnic groups are not monolithic and model joy knowledge agency and strength this can be a unique opportunity to move forward and model how diversity and equity look like in action finally unrelated but congrats to the recognition recognition of gladstone high school student abigail sanchez my son and i saw your solo exhibit witnessing your art was inspiring to my little artist himself thank you for your time thank you miss louisa next we have laura santos i wanted to counter my um pomona my dear pomona friends comments uh that may have persuaded the board azusa is a multicultural community but it's majority brown even one of your board members has an aztec name hello so it's not misappropriation it's our culture um you know some have said that was not the tribe that uh lived right in this area but other people think that brown people from the southernmost tip of south america to the northern tip of north america are all one it's not a pet it's not offensive millions of dollars are paid for naming rights uh as far as the the basket and the headdress not being authentic that kind of just illustrates the need for ethnic studies and you can always get authentic dancers to perform at halftime and um you know some expertise on um authentic attire so um and you know i'm i'm sorry for gladstone but um those are my comments uh you should keep the aztec thank you miss santos next we have alan french hi can you hear me yes we can hear you good evening everyone my name is alan french proud graduate of azusa high's class of 2001 and i am speaking tonight regarding the aztec and azusa high schoolers several weeks ago i addressed the board in a previous meeting detailing how students voted for the aztec back in the school's early years along with the fact that the school newspaper yearbook and colors all pay tribute to the aztec culture in addition i read today's article in the san gabriel valley tribune regarding tonight's meeting what i read was how changing the aztec if this goes through would cost between one hundred thousand and one hundred and fifty thousand dollars just in redoing the azusa high field which was renovated not that long ago i agree with previous speakers that the money can be used for better purposes based on all of this information it is clear that the aztecs should remain contrary to the beliefs of some who spoke at a prior board meeting a couple of months ago there is nothing racist about the aztec nor is it a caricature the aztec has always been held in high reverence and that continues into the present and the majority of the community wants it to stay we can find some common ground where all parties will be satisfied and that is what we should strive for and there are individuals who are of aztec descent that are honored and proud that the aztec is a part of azusa high also given that measure k was passed several years ago which was followed by two schools closing and now five more slated to shut down in the next couple of years it does not send a good message by spending money on a rebranding that is unnecessary given the frustrations of many families with the school reorganization retiring the aztec would only add to those frustrations i can assure you that families are looking to move their kids to neighboring school districts and changing the aztec is something i believe would compel more families to follow suit and it has been documented in previous meetings that enrollment is projected to decrease in the next few years even after more schools are closed the decision is ultimately yours but it is my opinion that you should retain the aztec and the colors the community is unhappy with the recent changes that are to be implemented and they don't want any more change and given how the aztec has been paid tribute throughout azusa high's existence along with the district's financial concerns it is hard to justify making this change it should not happen and again we should strive to find a solution that will satisfy everyone i agree that we should have azusa high students learn about the aztec it would be a perfect addition to the curriculum and as the saying goes once in aztec always an aztec thank you thank you mr french next we have christina castaneda hi good evening board members um my name is christina castaneda i am i have two students are actually a a ninth grader currently enrolled in azusa high school and an eighth grader who is on his way to azusa high school i'm also um the cheer coach and i just i i once again just want to plead with you board members and and ask that you just reconsidered the name of the aztecs i don't think that i need to go into depth with anything i think everyone displayed um or just spoke so clearly for the rest of us and and provided so much informative information and i'm just really grateful that there are so many community members that that care just as much as as i do um and i i think miss loy saw she said it best and i truly couldn't have said it any better alan um and i know that he's you know he's been a part of this community we went to school together he was one of my classmates and and i i think we all share the love for the aztec i too agree that we've never ever treated it as a caricature we've respected it um and if by any chance we have offended anyone i i do want to apologize on behalf of our school i don't know how we did so but if we did it is a perfect opportunity for us to learn and i do i do just ask that you you reconsider it because this does mean a lot to us and the rebranding just doesn't make any sense um i hate to go against our district or enter your decisions but i just i truly do wish that you reconsider the change and just like allen said and like how all of us say it at the end of the day once an aztec always nasty thank you miss castaneda next we have esther compost good evening board members i would like to address you tonight and first of all thank you for the opportunity to let a constituent a staff member and a very very new member to the isuzu community address you tonight i'm not here um to mention specific changes in regards to the mascot what i'm here to talk about is to first of all um point out to our community the direction that this is a unified school district has taken in regards to ethnic studies i am on the committee um that is creating coursework for ethnic studies that will hopefully be adopted by our board before the end of the year and we can begin to implement these classes at azusa high school and at gladstone high school within the coming school year so for our community members mrs louisa thank you for such an eloquent uh way of expressing our possible changes please know and please community know that those are the types of things that we plan to address in our ethnic studies courses along with our latino studies courses i feel very confident that our district is heading in the right direction in regards to ethnic studies and latino studies and pretty much addressing the concerns of colonialism and you know diversity not only for chicanos latinos latinx community but also for the lgbtq community our asian american community our african-american community all ethnic groups and having it be an inclusive inclusive courses so number one that was it number two i'd like to address to the board um concerns that i have regarding faculty restrooms at isuzai high school at paramount um i know that some of the issues are being addressed but it seems like they're not being addressed fast enough um so the other issue i want to discuss is um finances how are we spending our money effectively um for students i have to say that i have been um watching a lot of our baseball games at isuzu high school varsity and jv and i can tell you right now our jv fields is a mess we do not have a scoreboard i cannot tell you how many times we ask parents everybody is asking each other what's the score what's the score with score same thing at gladstone high school i went they have a scoreboard but they had a poor student putting up scores i just think we need to address these issues and implement the money where our students need it thank you thank you mr i do believe that exhausts all of our commenters is that correct which brings us to 8.1 comments reports and requests by the board of education uh board member arianis i have no comment tonight thank you board member cruz gonzalez um i just want to say um i know we'll have a chance to talk about the aztecs later on because that'll be on the agenda um but i do just want to say i really appreciate um seeing the students that came up right i think i i see from at the sea i see these as some of the results of some of the work that our students and our parents and our educators have done and really giving our students additional opportunities beyond just you know the arithmetic and math that sometimes people think public schools is i really want to appreciate that i especially want to acknowledge the piece the sharing of the music we saw in the pictures but then also the art right um it was really gratifying to hear the student talk about middle school right because we know those early investment in our students are what help them grow and build their skills so i'm so happy to hear that we're going to be bringing in art teachers live art teachers into elementary schools next year which i think will just help us expand the opportunities and for artwork so i just want to say thank you for that and i love seeing the fruit of what this community is producing in our school board member bo no comments tonight thank you robin rodriguez yes hello good good evening everyone um i just wanted to announce that um i went to murray elementary school for a read across america dr seuss week i had the opportunity of reading in the third grade classroom with ms short and i want to thank the students the third grade students that gave me these little thank you letters they have pretty good penmanship little kids though i haven't been into a classroom for a couple of years so it was really nice to be sitting across from them and reading a story to them i also want to say i went to azusa high school to their aztec thrift store it's such a good idea that they have the thrift store on their campus where um any donations that are given there is free to the students they have certain times by grades what time they can go and and select whatever they want they have purses they have shoes they even have lipstick and hair combs and everything so if anyone has any donations it'd be good to take them in the main office they have a box there that you just drop off your donations and they will take them to the thrift shop so i want to thank community schools community liaison leticia enriquez and educational community worker maritza martin martinez and tanya alvarez espinosa chieftain the community school specialist and anyone that is involved because i think it's a great idea that the students have the opportunity of um picking up something that they need you know so um i also want to congratulate ozune unified school district parent marvel and grandparent marietta ramirez for receiving the um 2022 for assembly woman woman of the year they well deserved these ladies are always either in the community or they're in the school sites always volunteering their time i also want to announce the um azure leadership learning educational foundation has purchased books written by vipoc which is a black indigenous asian and people of color in support of the dei initiative in our schools we have a set of um these books in every third grade classroom i don't have the book in front of me but i do they're very colorful if anyone wants to see them they're very colorful and there's different oh you have here's a book really nice see how they're really nice they're really pretty and and um i'm really proud to be part of it and if you can pass them back through and it's really good i think we talk about um you know learning cultures and everything and this is where we're starting in in third grade thank you thank you uh so the only only comment i have um this evening is actually a comment to my colleagues on on the board there these have definitely been some uh challenging meetings that we've had over the course of these past couple months there have been a number of extremely difficult decisions that we that have been in front of us that we needed to make in and as we've talked about sometimes we made those decisions and and there are people who are who are who are pleased and cheer and sometimes there's decisions that we make when we see that that people are extremely upset frustrated um offended and and the the beauty of of how this community works just as it's been stated is we are we are elected by our by our community and and they come and they may or may not want to uh see see others elected and they also have an opportunity to run themselves with that said while we sit up here in these seats i i want to uh use this this opportunity to call us even higher um and just just ask that in the midst of the difficult conversations that we're needing to have in the midst of the late 12 a.m meetings that that that we have um and and all of the work that goes on in between the meetings when we're here at the dyess i just want to call us to a higher level of professionalism i want to call this to a higher level of decorum um and and also in civility and treating each other with with the utmost respect um there are opportunities and things such as governance meetings where we there are opportunities for us to address some of the the the challenges that may happen between uh board members but when we are here at this diocese and we're having our school board meetings i do want to remind us and ask uh that we keep that the focus uh and also that we'd be open uh to the fact that when we have lost focus um the the incredible seat that i'm sitting in right now and that we rotate this responsibility um i i will be tasked with with helping to keep things back on track and keep things back on focus and so i'll remind everyone that the way that that works here in this structured meeting is that uh the the chair will look to recognize and i'll ask that you look to the chair for recognition as you're speaking and please understand that if you're speaking but are no longer recognized that that you cease so we can ensure that everybody has an opportunity to speak even when it's challenging even when it's difficult and again i want to thank i do want to thank my colleagues for uh just the the the hard work that we have been doing and the hard work is not done there's still much more work for us for us to do okay that we'll move on to item 9.0 comments and reports by the superintendent cabinet and student board member and we'll start with our student board members who i believe we i'm not sure if we have uh is hannah hamilton online he's not okay do we have annette camacho it does not look like we have any student board you said any of them so crystal from flumino as well okay okay then we'll move on to cabinet and uh uh superintendent good evening um i just wanted to echo uh what uh board member rodriguez pena said about the books and say thank you very much to our azusa leaders for learning foundation for partnering with us um these these books um all of our third grade classrooms are going to receive five books that are all award-winning books that celebrate diversity equity and inclusion and that is something that our district is committed to and so we just want to thank you again for these beautiful beautiful stories our our kids and our our staff they're just going to love them so thank you so much and just to um piggyback on that this is the leadership didn't buy the whole thing like and you know i'm sorry we we probably spend not how much i can't remember but exactly it was kind of half and half or district case it wasn't all the a.l foundation funding we partnered with the this is even white school district good evening board of education i'm happy to report that the district and aea reached an agreement on school reorganization mou on march 30th mou addresses the impacts and effects of the decision to reorganize schools specifically the impacts of that are affecting our displaced teachers and logistics related to uh moving from one site to another additionally i want to congratulate kathy tahanian i'm sorry the hagian uh for being selected as our 2021-2022 district teacher of the year uh we will be recognizing her and all the site and department teachers of the year at our next regular board meeting on may 3rd thank you very much good evening ford um i'm happy to announce that our nutrition service department continues to work to improve our mil offerings we're trying to work on how to advertise and market ourselves and one of the events that we're going to try to participate is coming up on march may 21st the zoo azusa event where we're going to try to see if we can get some of our vendors and some of our staff to go out and help sample our food so the community also can have the opportunity to taste some of our food offering i would like to thank robert caraballo robert caraballo is our one of our campus safety aides at glaston high school he gave me the opportunity to shadow and partner with him i was i had the opportunity to be right next to him from 6 45 a.m to 2 p.m during my time with him i not only had the opportunity to get to know him but also get a first-hand look at the csa position at the high school level i really appreciate the opportunity to do this with our staff and their openness to allow for this so just thank you robert for for giving me that opportunity our district had the opportunity to partner with the center for equity for english learners out of loyola marymount and present at the cabe conference the title of the presentation was equity leadership for english learners we had the opportunity to highlight the things that we do in azusa to elevate practices for our el students and our parents and our families as well it is always a great honor to be able to share the great things that are happening in azusa at large conferences uh like gabe so thank you thank you well this brings us to 10.0 general functions and specifically 10.1 discussion and decision of school reorganization school mascot and colors for azusa high school uh superintendent ortega thank you uh so the board of education uh this item uh is coming back for the board's request uh to discuss uh what next steps or what decisions uh we're going to be making a round uh the azusa high school mascot and or colors and so um that's what this item is for today so i'll add a bit of just just reminder where we are with this there was a decision that was made which would have prevented future a committee that was formed from including the aztec as an option as they are considering it more recently than that uh there was a a requested a decision by the board to to have this item come back for us to discuss and so it would seem that one course of action is that as that committee is is continuing to do its work i it may even be on pause i guess you could so it's on pause so that that committee's work is on pause um as it's looking for either that the the the same direction that was given previously or new direction with new parameters to be given to this uh to this committee um and so we'll we'll open it up and and see if if there are um any any thoughts from anyone on the board and board president if i can just add clarification please uh we came to the board of education with a draft of what the process might look like if we were going to go in the footsteps or in the path of a committee but there is no committee formed or anything like that right now it was just a draft proposal that came to the board for feedback that's right and i believe there was even feedback as to who was included on that committee or not and then it was put on pause uh until we have this this discussion okay thank you for the update um then are there any any thoughts that any any uh my colleagues have i just have a question so regarding the vote so if the vote is going to be the um the mascot and colors together or they're going to be separate so i there previously i mean i guess we can we can determine that whatever what we are the direction that we're given previously the the current standing action that was given was that colors can remain the state the same and or uh colors can change based upon the decision of the committee but that that committee was not able to include as an aztec as one of the options so so the board can give similar direction new direction uh the the board would have the authority to do that i i would like to make a recommendation regarding on this vote is that they're two different votes okay colors and then and the okay we can we can do that so why don't we start with um as we're looking at separating those for the sake of conversation why don't we go and start with colors um so the the i guess the question is is the committee are we wanting to give the committee the direction and the authority to change the colors uh to keep the colors the same let them decide whether to keep it the same or whether to change them is there a sense one way or another i i i think that um i think that we we should speak with the mascot first because wouldn't that determine what colors they're going to use i don't know um or so i don't i don't think it has to let me let me let me go ahead and um well let me ask others are there others who would prefer to discuss the mascot first or or do you do you have a preference with mascots or colors i don't care i think board members i think that we should speak about the mask up first okay i have the discussion because that would determine okay let's start with mascot um i have a different opinion on colors i think that graphic identity and visual representation is a part of what we're talking about and also another big part is um symbols and what they mean and how they how they uh permeate our culture and our educational system and specifically what they mean to stakeholders in azusa with that being said i think the the hot button if you will is the mascot and not i don't think it's the color i think it's both well in my opinion i think that the hot button for me the hot button is the mascot and not necessarily the colors i do understand the consideration of blending schools and i understand that um however in consideration of other factors including finances fiscal responsibility i'm looking to find ways to seek compromise and for example to be really clear if we're able to keep the colors and then consider mascot change if that is part of the process i would be in favor of that and using those other dollars to go more to to fund any variety of program and so for that reason i think that i am in favor of keeping the colors and having the work that any committee or any governing board do be around the mascot as a visual represent the graphic representation of whatever that is whether it's an aztec an object an animal whatever it is that's where i sit on this so we'll go ahead we will go ahead and and put a pin in that though uh with with colors and we'll we'll we'll tee off the conversation with uh with mascot as the as as more on the board have suggested that so um then are there any initial thoughts uh in regards to mascot so so you're starting with the mascot first and then the colors is that what you're saying correct oh okay okay well okay yes i do have something to say i um first of all i want to say that you know i heard from both sides of the community and students and parents and i also did my own research um regarding the zuzo high school as um master mascot i understand it's emotional for the communities on both sides the merging of two high schools is not an easy decision but it's inevitable at this time so i like you know i think we should work together and try to make this transaction fair to both schools the best way to honor tradition on both schools is to equally move forward with a new beginning it's difficult enough to experience change let us not choose one school over the other let us grow into one by allowing our student body and input from the community azusa high was citrus high school before in another location and before became azusa high school in 1956 it was chosen azusa aztecs and the colors were chosen by the student body in the board of education on a um azusa herald article on may 17 1956 i have the article here in my hand a new mascot we would send a message that we have not chosen one school over the other we cannot dismiss gladstone high school gladiators their feelings either because you know they have been in existence since 1964 58 years azusa high school ashtop ask aztec mascot currently is insensitive to the native community we have also heard from them regarding the changing the mascot and logo for the following reasons the headdress is a sacred object that was earned through the years of battle native americans are not a character or a mascot we are stereotyping the indigenous people the zeus aztec name is not a concern to me i'm good with that i'm good with the colors i'm good with the zoo's aztec i'm fine it's just the mascot for the reasons that i stated i um you know if we're going to keep the enthusiastic name we um should change the mascot where it is not offensive to anyone in the native community now it's time uh now it's time to unite the rivalry between glaston the gladiators and the aztecs as one and at some point i would like to hear from our cbo latasha jamal about the cost and the funding i know that's a big concern and um what is it going to entail to i mean if we're just changing the mask and we keep the name you know keep the colors and just change the mascot i don't know if we looked in just to the mascot we can have that when when you get time work thank you that's that's my any other thoughts about the mascot directly so i'm i'm perfectly happy to keep it as is just the aztecs the way it is um i'm open to having a conversation i know we've seen we've heard of examples brought to us by community members but also in research that i've done around um communities putting together a a committee that's representative that includes native local natives community representation students sort of figure out what's the best way to um honor right the history of the land that we live on the culture of um of our community um to find ways i think there were some good examples tonight talking about how can we start incorporating actually some of the cultural aspects um of of heritage of chicano heritage of heritage of many of our our ancestors into the work we do and make it authentic and make it um make it a learning experience for our students and so i think i'm i'm open to what yolanda just suggested um i'm also i think my first preference would be just to keep it the same but i'm open to that and having that conversation and having that conversation about whether um does it even even going as far as i wouldn't say specify that this would be the charge but even specifying as far as if if it becomes the spirit leader or the the name of the the high school um dewey or do we not have a mascot that goes along with it um so that's number one um i i gave examples before of for example my college where we had uh we were the engineers but our mascot was a beaver right so we had a title of what we were but but are we at an animal mass thought um so that those there are examples like that out there um i think i would be comfortable having a committee that's represented not just i think the first committee you invented arthur had a student right whether you brought to us right i think this has to be a much larger group and representative like i said um but to me that's where i am i would have to agree with uh my colleague board member beau um and board member rodriguez pena and keeping the colors um or changing the mascot or not changing the mascot and changing the colors i i really feel you know i'm going to stand with what i've said from the beginning and that is that we do need some some some commencement some new beginning so we need to meet halfway i i would really like to meet halfway um so that that's that's where i stand i think it's really important you know uh i i hear a lot of um which which you guys bring out really great point you know why is it that the pool and asusa like it was functional and for pe you know uh you were able to like makes no sense i i don't get it i hear you and i i would like to see that full fixed regardless i would like to see gladstone's pull fix regardless you know one of the comments that was made is one of our i'm not gonna go but moving forward you know i would like for us to unite and compromise you know moving forward just to be able to go ahead and start something you know whether it's going to be the mascot whether you know it the colors but i really really hope that you guys you know can come together and understand that this is a new beginning for us a new chapter and change is not easy i i it's not and i'm the first one you know person to say i'm going through a lot of change right now we are all going through a lot of change and i really would like to come together and move forward in this and you know collaborate and so with that being said um i stand with but um i remember bo i do i do want to give you an opportunity to speak in just in case because i know you were originally talking about the colors um and so did you have any additional comments specifically about mascot to add or were your previous comments uh sufficient i think i shared my main points thank you i i myself would say that some similar to the journey that uh barman rodriguez that you shared uh when this when this when this item first came up i i i know that i originally was not in favor of changing the ass aztec um and and we even had a meeting where we talked about it we discussed it in december and then brought it back later and in between that time there are conversations that i had with with community members i know there's a lot of there's there's a lot of talk about folks from pomona folks from pomona i had conversations with community members who who expressed the the the offense and the and the hurt that has been experienced uh from the aztec uh mascot subsequent to that that turned me on to do my own research and when i did my own research reading scholarly articles on the on the impact um it became clear to me that that there is real impact to how uh indigenous folks serving as mascots for schools and school campuses how there just is a real impact that um as i've had additional conversations with with uh individuals within the community from from the indigenous community one of the things that that was stated is there have been times in the past where there were efforts and attempts to say okay wait let's let's try to do it in a way that's honoring that that's that's that's not uh um offensive to culture and that wasn't and and those kind of those cries were not heard and and now it seems that as the conversation has shifted to say if if there's not going to be any type of uh cultural understanding and and finding a way to do it in an honorable way then let's move away from from the mascot all together i'll say though that as time has gone on and as we've seen over the course of these past several weeks i think that that there has been enough disgust there's been enough said that i do think that it warrants an opportunity for us to look at how we might be able to to to move forward in an honorable way i think if we were to look at yes can uh can just as you shared board member uh cruz gonzalez does does that does are we caught up on the term mascot because maybe yes maybe azusa high school can have a different mascot but maybe azusa the azusa aztecs can have a different mascot if that makes sense um and i don't want to i don't want to be presumptuous as to what that can be but i know i've i've heard some talk about you know for example if if there is a cultural and spiritual significance to certain animals within the aztec uh that kind of community and culture maybe that can be the that can be the mass the mascot but can still remain as the aztecs and i do think that there is opportunity i don't even know what i would say i i don't even know that i would call it compromise because compromise comes with an inherent expectation that both sides lose a little i don't even know that i see it as a compromise i see it instead as a there's there's the potential for there to be a win-win um which is for whether to continue to be richness of culture but maybe taking a hard look at the fact that though some of us even here in this room say that that you know we as individuals have never felt any offense or haven't seen any disrespect by way of the aztec as it has been still recognizing and understand that there are those from within our community who have and so this isn't uh this isn't a matter of the people with this perspective are right or the people with that perspective are are right or wrong and opposing but instead how do we how do we honor all those perspectives and i do think that there is room i so i would be in i personally um closer to what you were saying board member cruz gonzalez i would be in favor of keeping the azusa um azusa high school known as the aztecs uh but but expect explore different terminology and maybe even explore an additional animal that will give that could serve as a as a true mascot in the spirit of of the azusa asset i remember bo i have a question around um cost and question around in our imagery so we have the the a we have the aztec with the headdress where are the places that we would need to change if we were going to make a change so for example if we keep aztec as the identifier but have a different mascot where are those places that we would need to spend additional money and i don't mean money that we are already slating to spend to upgrade facilities but purely incremental differential money to change an image to a different image where where does that what does that look like and where do you find that that would be our athletic football field um the middle um logo in the middle of the field um so that will require a turf overlay and the murals um throughout our campus i mean if we have any helmets i don't know specifically each one of our sports events um sporting teams but if we have a helmet like some of our team just have an a but if any of our uniforms actually have the aztec logo that will be included but the main item as far as facility is our football field so for what i see it's in the uniforms they usually just have an a on them or like these young people here it says azusa right and then this has the a i mean like but that's not there's no change there that would only be a change a lot of uniforms i think that's really uh there is one more area um the current marquee i believe has the um aztec logo right now and so that would be um that would be a cost but we are recommending in a later board agenda item um we were gonna we were already gonna recommend that those marquees be redone regardless of mascot so that might play into you know again it's a recommendation right now but but that is a recommendation that we had to overhaul the marquis did i ask why the recommendation regardless yeah we are reimagining our schools i don't want to say specifically the high school but we are looking at recommending quite a bit of upgrades to our high school it's going to be our one high school um and so because we have already done the marquee the the biggest cost of the marquee is going to be all the underground the data the power that's already done the actual change of the marquee we think that we can bring it up to a 21st century uh better marquee as we are looking to improve our communication this would be another avenue it'll be a lot bigger than it is now i don't know about the size but it'd definitely be bigger i mean definitely be 100 better in terms of quality or just just for the sake of of conversation because i know that we're gonna that that will be an item on specific on uh for discussion later right maybe we could put it we'll put a pin in that we'll talk about it when we get to the item but we'll talk now uh and stay on on track about the mascot yeah thank you mr mull for pointing out the the main facilities pieces so i heard you say that if we were to change the graphic identity from the aztec warrior with the headdress that that would be the turf overlay on the football field and various murals that are on campus at azusa high school is that right yes ma'am so i'm thinking of um kind of a museum approach to preservation of art from previous periods and how the curating process is important to explain the history of a piece and how it was created in that era and perhaps there's a way to consult with additional arts experts both in our own school district and in neighboring um higher ed institutions around preserving the current murals but adding a curated piece or a second mural that our students would design and install that gave a recognition to the past but also an interpretation and a vision for the future so not an erasure of murals but an addition to and i think what we're hearing a lot is about education and dialogue and going forward so i and i also see that as a great way to engage our students certainly build upon the art talent that we have within our student body and it would be a it would stand there that second mural would be a piece that would be an addition to the azusa high history like are you talking like a statue or something or what exactly are you talking about not being an artist myself but um so if this is the mural on on a wall maybe there's a a plaque that talks about you know did you know right uh that this mural this uh aztec warrior was selected by students in 1956 that's the history and then on an adjoining building our own azusa high school students develop a new mural a new graphical representation of what being an azusa aztec means to them so maybe not such a literal interpretation but again i leave it to art students art teachers and art experts for that idea i mean we're surrounded by that talent now any additional thought one thing i'll add and then i'll i will ask for greater levels of specificity because i as we i think we're kind of collectively all over the place a little bit um if if we were to move forward with with that and that would that would be my suggestion that we move forward and find a way to to maintain aztec but but still shift to have a a mascot that that supplements and serves as the true mascot whereas the aztecs can be you know who who um the school is if you will um it would it would be tremendously important to me that those who are here locally and and and representatives of the indigenous community are invited in to speak into that process so that it isn't just a so that so that the groups of people who who have expressed offense have an opportunity to communicate what could be done in a way that that would allow it to to honorably move forward and so if if we were to do that i would i would want to make sure that that is a that's a piece and a caveat that that those groups um are are invited into the conversation okay so i'm gonna i'm just gonna kind of go around again because because they're they're we've all kind of been all over the place and so clearly speaking about mascot the mascot alone i mean uh and i'll ask each board member um are you are you of the mindset that the mascot um aztec needs that the the aztec needs to no longer serve as the mascot or identifier um at azusa high school you're looking at me i'm looking at you so oh yes i i believe that we should um keep it azusa high school aztec colors thing but find a way how we can make it right um where it's not offensive on the on the mascot yeah that's my input board member beau i concur with board member rarity gaspina member chris gonzalez i agree board member honest i would like to add that listening you know used to be uh board president um one thing came to mind i'm just throwing it out there um aztec jaguars i like this now did that so it doesn't have to be i'm just saying you know throwing it out there but i would i would say i would have to agree i think this this is an opportunity i think we've neglected so long um you know the fact that we don't have we barely have one class of honor studies and we're about to approve ethnic study soon hopefully um don't know how it's gonna go but you know bring it to the agenda i i think this is a great opportunity to ratify um you know those people that that need to be ratified and i would agree with board member beau i really like the idea of having to you know being able to teach not only to preserve that mural but to also um you know teach the new and what our history here is moving forward and um again yeah i i also um would be in agreement with that with uh azusa high school remaining the azusa aztecs uh but again supplementing that with with uh for the the sole purpose of mascot and you know be uh looking for whether it's animal representation or something like that and we could look to indigenous communities from within that community to communicate um what would embody that um also that again we're including them in in that conversation um superintendent ortega maybe you could speak to are there any pieces as we're as we're looking at at this and the board has has weighed in as it pertains to the mascot alone do you have a clear direction um to give to this soon to be formed committee or is there anything more that you would need from it i just have one clarifying question i think i heard but i want to make sure um let's pretend the committee's going and they said at the end of the day well you know what we're just seeing this is a high school aztecs we will not have a mask is that also um would that be an allowable conclusion that we're just going to keep azusa high school aztecs we're going to be the a we're going to be the aztecs but we're not going to we've decided as a committee that the best way to honor and the best way to keep this you know what what whatever they feel is to actually not have a mastop a mascot and maybe it's just the a or you know i don't know i'm just thinking a lot but is that all is that allowable but but i thought we just discussed about keeping the azusa aztec name and colors right so now you're we haven't discussed colors we haven't discussed colors yet oh okay we're going to keep that right correct so now you want to ask the community if they want to change it no so if the committee's working on how to make it not offensive culturally appropriate no about the mascot or maybe it's an animal or whatever but if the committee decides well why do we need a mascot let's just be the azusa high school aztecs i guess my question my clarification are we saying no that's not we actually have to come up with a mascot president i think that us as a board um we we should take a direction in that that it should be a new mascot if we're going to go ahead and keep the you know the asusa aspect i think we should move in that direction and give directions to the committee be able to go ahead and report that oh i mean i i think from the outset arthur right i said that's what i that's the scenario that i laid out and that i would be i'm okay with that i mean i think what's what's important to me is that we have a process where we have a diverse group of people thinking about how can we best um honor our community and honor the history of the aztecs of the local um natives of of um all of those generations so i'm okay with what arturo just said i agree you're my option so i'm not understanding i i just need clarification what you're saying is that they can say we want no mascot is that what you're saying i'm asking if that's yeah if that is a a choice for the committee i'm not saying that's what they're going to agree on they might agree on an animal or a different representation working with this committee but if let's pretend that this committee after studying and looking and collaborating if at the end of the day they just said well you know what it's just best if we let's just not have a let's just not have a a mascot my question is is that an option or are we saying the committee no you must come with you must come up with a mascot so even even to be specific uh or or well this is maybe this is a statement and a question at the same time so what we're what we're looking at is as we look to the to the is the to the potential future of an azusa high school logo because because because we've seen the there's like the the the portrait head headshot drawing of the the asset so so we have that that's what is served as the logo there there it is uh thank you we have illustration here so that that so that is what has served as the as as the logo so so this would come with azusa high school aztecs remaining the aztecs but but shifting away from from this image as the official logo board remember bo you're suggesting where that may be painted on a wall where we still honor it and keep it um so don't don't paint over it keep it where we're honoring it with our history but with but with uh supplemented with information and education the goal to go along with that yes and and then we're also saying as we look at what does it mean what is a mascot or what is the function of a mascot it means that um let's i'm picturing a football game and a football game happens and it's a halftime show and there's the there's a lady there's an aztec warrior and an aztec warrior that are that are running out so if that group were to say we want noah we want no mascot then there would be there would in essence be no character that runs out during a halftime show however if i'll use i'll use board member ariana's suggestion if uh it were the jaguars uh that were that were voted upon and and decided upon then um then there we could still be the azusa high school aztecs uh but the azusa high school aztec mascot might be in the form of a big headed jaguar costume that someone is wearing and running outside so i just want to add i mean there are other ways to be able to incorporate the identity right so for example we heard in public comments lisa talked about having danza steka right like if we had students actually learn dantas deka actually be immersed in that because that brings together that brings part of that is learning is learning about that culture the aztec culture right um and they have authentic ways of honoring um the different they have different ways of doing that through their dancing right um so there are that's why i think i personally feel like it's not appropriate for us to be specific at this point i think it's appropriate for us to say and i wouldn't even base what i believe based on what people came and made public comment those were opinions by people right they're not experts they're they're not even part of the local indigenous group they're not part of the thong ball right so so i would i'm not comfortable trying to pigeonhole people and say you have to do this or that i would i want to have a really open conversation in our community i'm spearheaded by this community this diverse committee i'm going to say diverse again um to have this conversation about how can we best honor it does it mean changing the logo i don't know i think i think that's a conversation they have to have and i don't feel like i am able to just do make that decision on my own or the five of us i would just like to go ahead and re-emphasize that there needs to be some change and i think that we as the board can direct that if we're going to go ahead and um you know moving forward there's five of us saying yes where we would like to go ahead and um you know uh keep asusa aztecs but you know make the modifications i think that we as the board should direct that um because of the fact that you know again i'm going to say we need some new commencement and somehow um and that that person i i i thought i heard you say that we haven't reached a consensus if not a formal vote but we haven't reached a consensus about keeping the colors and i thought we had and i say that because i heard board members pena say keep the identifiers the aztec the name of the schools this is a high school and keep the colors and i agree and i agreed so have we reached consensus or have we not on that so that that would be uh just process wise so that would be two two people um uh the first request from board member rodrigo was to separate the two and then the second request was to first discuss the mascot and then after we have the mascot conversation then then have the colors so so i'm i'm i'm honoring that though we've had some peripheral conversation which might bring us to the point of colors which could be a very simple uh movement forward um where i'm i'm looking to keep us on on mascot uh alone first oh okay the only way i just wanted to add one thing because i recall in the past we talked about um um keeping the colors or not not not necessarily changing them in the past we spoke about it before right yeah well let's let's come back to color let's let's say let's stay on mascot uh did you have something to add about mascot what are you uh excuse me um i think we've we've had um enough discussion that we can go ahead and move forward with with direction board president yeah would someone like to make a motion yes carlos if i may um in just saying kind of listening to this from the outside here i'm not hearing a consensus uh from the board prohibiting any one specific outcome from the committee's work but i am hearing a consensus on the board that the original action back in december doesn't necessarily need to stand where the mascot has to be changed so i guess one suggestion i have is rather than kind of have the board wrangle itself around a motion to give to the committee the the board could just say there's a consensus that there's work that needs to be done by the committee the superintendent is delegated to to handle that work and have the committee come back with those recommendations and those options and the board doesn't necessarily need need to take a specific action today i prefer if we take action because we already took action giving directions to the superintendent that their committee academy committee had to um go out and figure out if if we're going to change the colors with the authority to keep it the same but with the direction to look to change the mascot so i would be i would prefer to have an actual vote today to undo some of those pieces and make a clearer give clearer direction about what we want a committee to do and so i agree on that because on here just specify information action yeah and just just for the for the for semantics and this is this we're splitting hairs at this point because we're talking about the difference between i don't even know that we've identified an alternative term we're saying not mascot but something else so we've not identified what that what so i've heard i've heard the word ambassador i've heard i've heard the word spirit leader i've heard the the term identifier so we still need to figure out what what that is but it does sound to me though that we're saying as far as the mascot is is concerned that the mascot the direction is for the mascot to change but that the identifier the ambassador the spirit leader the blank can remain as as the aztec and so to carlos's point i don't i don't think that that would that would be consistent with the vote that we took in but we gave specific direction that they couldn't be the aztec but that wasn't the vote right the specific direction if i'm if i'm not mistaken is that the mascot had to change and not be the mask uh and not be the aztec so just from a semantics from the looking at semantics that doesn't change moving forward to say that there's a different mascot but now we are adding additional direction to say that the identifier the spirit leader the ambassador the blank whatever whatever term can now with new parameters remain as the estimate i think that because additional context and ideas and discussion has taken place i i am in agreement with board member um cruz gonzalez about taking a very specific vote and if we're decoupling it to colors identifier and mascot i would feel more comfortable either voting on them as a block or voting on and or making three separate motions because it is complex and i think whatever we the direction we give for this very important issue should be codified in a in a board action then uh does someone want to make a motion yes i'd like to make a motion and i'm open to word to um amendment um in terms of how to phrase this but i'd like to make a motion that we take a vote to agree to keep it the azusa aztec and direct the superintendent to put a committee together to um of diverse stakeholders including local local native representation um to be able to ensure that we are um i don't know how to say it um um not only being sensitive but honoring honoring right um the indigenous roots of our community um and our student and our and our yeah of those so that's that's my motion a second okay any additional discussion thank you member uh president i i would like to add amend i think you could make a comment and and uh board member chris gonzalez may be open to adjusting her amendment based off of your company right so i i would agree most of it just um making it open that it is not the headdress and uh the fire that's it i i would add to i think that you made a you made an excellent point um gonzales which is for us to not try to make that decision here um i think that if we are going to open it up to a committee and and and one of the requirements that we're making with this action is to include those who are actual experts uh and and representative of this culture um we can allow them to speak into that because you're right maybe it's not that had maybe maybe it's something else but instead of us making that that decision as as the non-expert let's let's look to the to the cultural experts to to make that recommendation the culture can can you are we bringing in a group are we hiring somebody um remember recruits do you want to re-clarify your recommendation and what it would include well i don't want to i don't want to specify because i think i want to give the superintendent the flexibility to put together again i'm going to use the word diverse purposely vague right so that we can make sure they're representative but i would imagine that it would include um local local um representatives of tongva so that the land that we live servant and potentially maybe someone someone that has an expertise in terms of this um aztec and ancient indigenous cultures as well um um so i i'm not i'm not putting that into the motion i'm just saying like in my in my mind like it feels like that that would be important to have those those expertises on this committee and i just wanted clarification um they have that conversation so we need to have it in public though yeah okay let's do that okay yes so it's been moved it's been seconded are there any other questions or uh clarifications then we will move to a uh hand vote there are going to be multiple layers of votes in this within this item so we'll move to a hand vote to uh for this particular layer um uh board member rodriguez pena yes board member beau yes board member cruz gonzalez yes board member arianes and i am also a yes um and so the motion that motion passes five to zero uh the next clearly the next clear item that that requires uh some action is just around colors so i'll remind you that up to this point we have given this the same committee discretion around around colors um and and i think there was a little to your point board member rodriguez pena i think they were given a little more flexibility where we said that that committee could choose as an option for the colors to remain the same or they could choose for for the colors to be altogether different so so now as we're looking ahead to what this new set of parameters will will be is there a preference on whether this committee has the option to change the colors uh where we are removing that option where the colors remain the same or any anything in between there i think if it's remaining this is the aztec right and this is more about how are we how are we displaying it how are we honoring how are we talking about and educating about it um it makes sense to me to keep the same colors and not even have that be part of the conversation so that that's fine and and i in what i that's what i said earlier you know the name the aztecs and the colors to keep the colors yes i agree with keeping the colors of azusa high school as is i agree and i i also agree with that with keeping the colors the same i i think it does as we saw and there still is a student there in the in the hallway um thinking yeah there she is um and so it that that is as we look i think those are great uniforms i think those are awesome uniforms yeah they're i think we there are other uniforms that we've identified that are our are in need of being updated um this by keeping the colors the same it just puts us on a timeline where we can address what is most needed as opposed to um try looking to do everything uh all that so i would be in favor of that as well so if i'm not mistaken then um we would be looking for a motion from someone that would remove the option of the uh uh of that committee to change the colors and that those colors would remain uh what they currently are if i suggest can we just have a just can we just have a just an affirmative motion just saying that the colors will remain the same i think that's clear to people um anyone is welcome to make that motion yeah i'll make a motion that the um color should remain the same which is um blue and white but i'm i'm not embarrassed but she has blue black what is the color of that right blue what is that glue doing i mean it's not just blue colombia blue i like to yeah i like to keep from columbia blue i would just make them to keep them the same i think it's keeping the same thing don't specify the colors oh don't i'm sorry yeah just use it then we look it up and [Laughter] any discussion okay then we will go ahead and vote on this particular uh and we're gonna do a hand vote again because i do have a question in case there's one piece that's left out um board board member roger espana yes board member beau yes board member cruz gonzalez yes and board member audience yes and i am also a yes um so now but before we move on there because we had identified three layers where we talked about the identifier we talked about the colors and then there's also mascot um we can we can leave it as we can leave it as is if we're comfortable and and and uh superintendent ortega if you think you have enough information to be able to move forward and we don't need to we can or if there's a direction to want to take clear definitive action in regards to the mascot specifically i'm happy the way we are right now i think i think i'm good anyone else with no other no additional emotions that's what i'm saying yeah um yeah uh do you have any additional things first no okay okay then then we will go ahead and um move on then from this item and we'll we'll call this item settled and move on to item uh 10.2 which is uh approval of resolution 21 22 28 declaring the month of april as armenian genocide of 1915 uh commemoration month i'll make a motion are you going to make a motion to approve 10.2 moved by board member rodriguez spain is second by board member arianes any discussion can you please explain uh mr tega yes uh this resolution um has been coming to the board of education for the last couple of years this is just to recognize the armenian genocide and commemorate the month on behalf of a commemoration of the genocide that happened i believe it was in 1915.
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promotion from chuck a second from diane all in favor looks to be unanimous also okay item 3.4 a recommendation to approve the social sole source provider advancement via individual determination that's avid we had an avid presentation by mrs reek but a month ago and she explained what this is and i do believe we accepted that program now that we're just working towards it being the sole source yes yes sir and for accounting for um auditing purposes and to follow the statute anything over ten thousand dollars for a single person has to be approved as a sole source provider and rationale must be provided the rationale is simple it's there's no one else that has the continuation of the program if you had mixing programs it wouldn't work we this is a k-12 approach and so because it exceeds ten thousand dollars we need the board's approval uh to uh name app excuse me to name this um provider's sole source avid is the sole source yes sir provider any questions regarding that were understood i mean that understood well all right we have a motion to accept item 3.4 for avid to be the sole source provider emotion from chuck the second from margaret all in favor be also unanimous okay item 3.5 which is also along that same lines this is the nexus coalition friends of navajo county anti-drug correlation for junior the junior leadership academy this is also for a approved sole source provider because it has a cost of twelve thousand dollars yeah this is we do this every year this is i understand what this is a long-standing program yes sir and it's valuable and it's a summer program it exceeds the ten thousand dollar limit so we must have the board approved it as well in order to proceed um ages 10 through 12 are the participants during this i think it's 10 through 14 what this states i'm sorry ages 10 through 14.
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these people are mothers fathers sisters brothers uncles aunts nobody is paying attention to them because they're saying you are doing this you're hurting me you think i want to see you like this no i left my life for you and you're acting like the world is looking upon you you're acting like you're in the crazy one while i'm here working my ass off for you oh sweet child of mine you know nothing you're still a child you don't know what it's like to pay taxes filled you do not know the pain of an adult let me tell you i don't know the pain of being an adult but i do know the pain of life life yes it could be beautiful but can also show you the things that you parents didn't want to see your children go through you parents didn't want your kids just to see how someone put injects a needle in them and gets high you didn't want your kids to see another person beating up another innocent person you parents didn't want your kid to be corrupted by the reality of truth the ugly truth you wanted them to be safe in a beautiful lie i am one of those people who was saved was not saved by the beautiful lie and my friends who have died wasn't either i'm sorry for being making you sad but that is the truth thank you for listening to me have a good night [Applause] i mentioned earlier that the number one fear that most people have is speaking in front of an audience and you can only imagine what it must be like to come up and speak with the lights and the microphone to to speak about something so personal and so so meaningful and to share that with everyone and that's the joy and that's the beauty of the mikvah challenge that we are able to share our voices thank you nicole our final high school speaker is from catella high school alana excuse me from catella high school alanis vieira [Applause] what are insecurities many people boys and girls have things about themselves that they don't like and wish they could change it can be anything from your hair your height your way or an action i personally connect to this topic because i have been an insecure person for a very long time and i'm still learning to overcome these insecurities as i get older something that i have been insecure about all of my life is my height i was told things like alanis you're so tiny or oh you're so cute you're so small and although these comments were probably not intentionally met in a mean way it still did mess with my mind i started getting into hair makeup and fashion so i could make myself look older to compensate for the youthful appearance my height creates i was even offered steroids as a kid but my parents refused and i had always wondered why they didn't let me do it because i just wanted to be like everyone else i realize now that being small is something that makes me me and i want others to understand that they can look at their insecurities and think the same way so how can we observe our insecurities and learn to embrace them and grow confident from them insecurities are in everyone studies show that 13 to 17 year olds are considered the most insecure that's us everyone especially teenagers in high school face insecurities that can affect them and can even affect the people around them and even their actions i decided to interview a football player at my school who is actually very confident but he claims it didn't come so easy he explained i wasn't naturally confident i can definitely say that i was insecure about my looks and my hair and my confidence was just really low and i wasn't really good at talking to anybody but over time when i started appreciating myself more than others would i began to come with that confidence and just gain more confidence overall his best advice was to boost yourself for your confidence a good thing to do is when you wake up and you get ready you go in the mirror and look at yourself and look and say i look good he said that was a big thing for him to boost his confidence because if you can't live yourself who's gonna love you he lastly shared if i didn't overcome my insecurities i don't think i would be as influential today his advice is very inspiring and even shows me as an insecure person that i can grow confidence from my insecurities and learn to love myself now why does this matter this matters because it is something that we face every day insecurities do exist and it is possible to go past them by journaling challenging your negative thoughts and surrounding yourself with positive people who encourage your self-love journey even if you're someone who has been able to grow past their insecurities it is still important to be aware of this topic and be careful with what you say to others because you never know if someone is struggling with their own personal insecurities if we don't start to try to fix this now while we're young it can lead to serious consequences in the future that can affect our future careers or our future relationships if we could erase all the insecurities in this world we would be able to pursue our passions and dreams and live life to its fullest fullest extent everyone is beautiful in their own way so let's embrace the unique lift each other up and let's overcome our insecurities together [Applause] let's give a round of applause to our high school speakers [Music] my husband is a playwright and he has participated here in the district many times giving playwriting classes and at the end of the day he'll come home and say oh my gosh the teenage angst all they do is complain and their family and oh my gosh we didn't hear any of that tonight we heard intelligent insightful beautiful stories given with passion and bravery and courage and i think that i think that we're in good hands with this next generation don't you agree can't wait to go home and tell my husband what i heard tonight we do need a few moments to tabulate our points so during this time uh before we give out the awards for third second and first for junior high and high school i'd like to give our judges and in mikvah we call them the youth voice champions i'd like to give them an opportunity to express their opinion on some of the speeches that they heard tonight and just in general what did you see what did you enjoy what touched you what's going to be memorable what are you going to tell your spouse when you go home tonight mr colon can we start with you absolutely thank you first of all thank you so much for having us and thank you for inviting me to be a judge i think it was again inspirational um first of all i want to tell all the students you guys were magnificent i got chills and every single one of you as you came up your ability to speak to speak clearly to speak with conviction to know exactly why you have chosen that topic was amazing again i think that for for us as judges it's going to be hard but i want to just tell you how very proud i am of of every single one of you um i was sharing before this started i would have never have been able to get up on the stage and be able to speak the way you guys did so again congratulations i think every single one of you did amazing uh and inspired us not only because of your skills but because of your passion for for for your topic so thank you very much [Applause] renee green the ceo of mikvah challenge i i do want to echo again to all of the young people echo the exact same comments i hope that you're really proud of yourselves i would i watched each of you as you guys some people like sighed before and i was like all right come on you can do this some of you as soon as you were done you were like oh like either i nailed it or i was really really nervous i speak for a living a big part of my job is to travel around the country and talk to people about mcfa challenge and i got started and got really comfortable because i had to give speeches at a really early age you know we were the easter speech at church i don't know if the other people had to do that you had to go up at three or four years old memorize your lines and say them my fifth grade teacher emma brown i still remember that entered me into contest after contest and got really really confident and so as i was watching you all i was like they are ready they are ready some of you stepped up on the stage i felt the confidence as you walked across the room others of you got more and more comfortable as you spoke and some of you were just relieved when it was over but you did it no one walked away and said i can't do this anymore no one stopped mid-speech that's why at mikvah a lot of times we'll snap it up or we'll say go on you can do it but just the fact that you got up here that you spoke again these are skills these are skills that adults don't always have they're really really anxious about and you all are way ahead of the game so just want to congratulate you again i travel across the country to events like this i was blown away here i was blown away with the poise the presence the confidence and the content one thing i will say and i always say this to adults let's look at the topics that our young people have chosen one thing we pride ourselves in mikva is that we don't give you the topics not to knock other curricula but we're we don't say here is what you need to talk about we ask you what's the most important issue to you and to the young lady who said adults don't listen they don't hear me i'm going to echo we need to make sure that we're listening i heard mental health a lot of that i heard insecurities a lot of that my short-term memory is poor so i don't remember everything that was was on the list but i do like to go over this because i do want to make sure knowing that we have school leaders in the room superintendents in the room people who can help make change and that's important i'm a former school guidance counselor i know that students need to be heard it's important to be heard and just want you if you haven't students are worried about social media the influence that they have they're worried about their own self-esteem so what are we as adults and decision makers doing about the issues that young people have amplified for us that's our call to action you all have said these are the things that are most important to us you all are taking steps to drive change you've given us calls to action and it is our job as adults and my job as ceo of mikva to amplify these issues nationally we actually have some students talking to the department of education next week to say these are the things that are most important to us and these are the changes that we need to see in our cities in our region so i thank you for the invitation to come and again each of you young people i wanted to give a hug for different reasons afterwards so there's a big hug for me congratulations but also keep talking and we'll keep listening rita ray our human resources well first of all i want to say to all of the speakers congratulations you guys are all winners your champions your role models what you got up here and did tonight was way beyond impressive i know it took a lot of courage um i could tell how well prepared each and every one of you were to give your speech and i just want to commend you on how well you did this evening and i was also impressed by the vast range of topics that are on the minds of our young people these topics were deep they were thought provoking and the way you expressed yourselves and the way you talked about your topic was truly inspiring so i just want to say congratulations to each speaker that was on the stage tonight and in my opinion you're all winners [Applause] and mike switzer the ela curriculum specialist congratulations um all the students out there your your presentations your soapbox speeches were fantastic tonight you should be incredibly proud of everything that you did and all that you have accomplished they were beautiful they were strong they were powerful they had great magnitude probably more than you realize right now parents teachers coaches anyone who had a hand in it congratulations to you i taught english for 18 years and i used to say to my students writing is a process of making decisions and when you write something when you write a two-minute speech there are hundreds and hundreds of decisions that you're making while you're writing that speech what should my first line be should it be a question should there be a story what pronouns do i use do i use the second person pronoun do i use a collective third-person pronoun students all of your decisions were perfect you did such a great job we are so proud of you in auhsd well we are nearing the end of our event i am going to announce the award winners for third second and first for junior high and then for high school then i'd like to invite our superintendent mike mitsuda up for some final words and then if all of our speakers could come up to the stage for pictures and we have a wonderful mikvah challenge t-shirt to give to you to to wear proudly to remind yourself of what a terrific job you did this evening to help me with the awards tonight may i ask our board members to come up and marie randall trejo anna piercy and brian o'neal [Applause] and i did not realize that al jabar was in the house yay [Applause] i don't envy our judges i'm glad i'm up here experiencing my number one fear of speaking in front of an audience our third place junior high school winner receiving the trophy is ava martin from walker [Applause] is in second place from oxford academy nathan pereira congratulations and the first place trophy for junior high goes to ella's cd muhammad from dale junior high [Laughter] that's okay he could come she's up [Applause] [Laughter] [Applause] wonderful [Laughter] come back next year and you'll see him on stage terrific my junior high winners if you'll please take your seats we'll have you back up for pictures in the high school level third place from anaheim ilc cassandra almeida [Applause] second place trophy goes to alanis vieira from catella high school [Applause] and first place goes to rebecca cho from cypress high school yes [Applause] uh so exciting to see these speakers come on down you'll come up in a moment for more pictures and to close out our evening if i could ask our superintendent to join me on stage for a few moments [Applause] hey let's give it up for miss autumn brown or mc tonight i'd also like to acknowledge our principals and our administrators in the back there you know one of my all-time favorite musicals is hamilton the story of our american democracy and it's really a story of having a voice in government it's being heard by our leaders and that's when it came right down to it that's why our founding fathers decided to reveal rebel because they were not having a voice and they created this 250-year old experiment called democracy and arguably our democracy is under threat but tonight what we saw was the development of leaders of student voices of young people who have the capacity to express themselves about the many issues affecting them and all of americans one of my favorite songs in hamilton is the room where it happened where aaron burr laments that he's not invited to that room where the great conference compromise was made between hamilton and jefferson tonight our students spoke in the room where it is happening and that deserves a big round of applause i think all of us adults learned a lot from you in fact i had coffee with a colleague and friend of mine dr barry from south carolina who's studying education and teacher effectiveness and we had a nice conversation about how teachers teach but really the best teachers and you're seeing them here in this room are also learners we adults tonight have learned so much from our children and our students and it gives us all hope and optimism for the future not only of auhsd not only of orange county but for the future of this country thank you and congratulations to you all thank you mr mitsuda well that is our presentation for the evening i don't miss being in the classroom but i do miss students and tonight was such a joy for me and i hope you enjoyed yourselves as well all of our speakers please come up for pictures and please come up for a t-shirt and we'll see you next year thank you so much happy speaking each one i was like okay we're here okay they're always the best [Music] you know what this is i've had so i was like i'm just gonna go in and out see the work but then make some plans
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does it read on here that we're supposed to have a collection of not on here next okay sorry i'm ahead of myself i'm good any additional discussion or questions okay then we will move to a vote and board member audience had to step up for the user restaurant um we'll go ahead and we'll go ahead and vote yeah so uh what remember roger espana yes member beau yes board member of course gonzalez yes and i am also a moving on to item 10.3 approval of resolution 21 22 29 humanitarian relief from the children and families of the azusa unified school district is there a motion to approve make a motion to approve 10.3 a second move by board member rodriguez pena second by board member beau any discussion question um i'll ask yeah uh superintendent ortega if you could if you could enlighten everyone us all on this yeah absolutely uh this resolution uh is coming to the board of education for consideration for approval uh this resolution um is to acknowledge the atrocities that are happening right now uh in in ukraine uh with the uh war that is happening uh there this particular resolution not only is um is having us recognize but it also directs the superintendent to begin some fundraising efforts that would all be donated to a child-centered organization that is that that is helping in the ukraine so this takes it one step further saying that we would start a campaign to raise funds it does say in a resolution that that organization would be decided by the superintendent but i will say um now that i'm doing some research and thinking about this and the possible passage of this um because it is it does specifically say that it has to be child centered i would be recommending that the funds go to save the children they are doing some specific work in the ukraine and again this organization is child centered any additional questions or discussion conversation yeah i just i do have a comment um and i fully support this i think that it's it's something one it's an important statement i think it's valuable but i do want to i also do want to say you know we've had a lot of conversations at this school at the school board level and within our district around just um structural racism how we how we view people right and so i i have been hearing and reading different articles about the reaction that we're having to the ukraine crisis right um when we think several several months ago we had the afghani crisis we had afghanis coming to our country we had the haitians right trying to get into our country and are visibly being stopped at the borders um and so for us to really think about internally like i we we should make this effort and i fully support it um but let's think about like what's driving us think that this group is so much more important than maybe the other ones that we just saw even within the last few months that we didn't take this important step to say we need to support these refugees that we know are coming to here so i just wanted to put that out there but i but i will i do support it and i will vote for it okay any other comment um yes so uh board member bruce gonzalez i i think i agree with you but i think that you should um bring it to the superintendent or bring the words that we can um also have a resolution for any other culture or anyone else in need also we can do that okay if there are no other comments we'll go ahead and vote and the motion passes five yes uh zero no moving on to item 10.4 consideration and approval of amended employment agreement for assistant superintendent at lark is there a motion to approve make a motion to approve 10.4 moved by board member rodriguez pena i'll second it seconded by board member adianas um any any discussion well i i could you plea could you please explain this so we're clear about the role that dana will be serving uh yes um so uh dr data mitchell um has announced her retirement uh for uh this school year um although we are all extremely sad to see her uh go on the other side of that is we're very happy that she um that she gets to retire she's retiring at the same time as her husband and so we are happy for her uh for that um so seeing that she is retiring we have taken the opportunity uh in the next board agenda item to bring for consideration um a new assistant superintendent of ed services so this would change dana's title to at large number one and number two it would change her contract to end 6 30 20 22 which is this school year so those would be the two amendments to the contract dana mitchell then would move into a support and coach and partner role to get us through the end of the school year so that's the role that she would be taking to finish off the year i just want to say that i appreciate that we're giving the opportunity to provide on-the-job coaching and mentoring especially for a new a new um person at the same position i think um it is an expense right it is an expense um because for two months we'll be having an additional superintendent but i think that the value of being able to be onboarded um have a seamless transition um i think is is well worth that expense so i appreciate um you thinking about this and doing it and you and dana planning this so that we can have this this overlap and i'll just say i i there's there's so many things that i would say right now but i imagine that we will have an opportunity before uh june 30th to to to share how much we appreciate you dr mitchell um and so i will i will save my comments uh for that moment but just know that they are expensive i'll save my comments for the retirement party too [Laughter] we're going to have one right okay then we'll move to uh um oh there was a there was a motion in a second that will move to a vote and the motion passes five to zero moving on then to item 10.5 consideration and approval of employment agreement for assistant superintendent educational services i motioned for 10.5 more consideration approval of employment agreement for assistant superintendent educational services um movement for approval is there a second second any discussion board member agree i just wanted to make make sure that there's going to be a summary of the item 10.5 or any of the fringe benefits in 10.5 i understand 10.4 is really um it was an approval of an existing contract with a slight amendment to title but i imagine that 10.5 is going to be slightly different yes so thank you um if so going back to uh 10 10.4 um well 10.4 i think is is really just a slight amendment that did not impact any of those fringe benefits so i'm focused right now just on 10.5 because that's going to be a new person holding that position so if we can have the summary yeah so can i just clarify so is this done before or after the votes taken i this is done before the votes taken it's a summary to the public of the the uh the compensation and other fringe benefit pieces in the contract so for this item prior to taking final action on 10.5 an employment agreement the browneck requires the governing board to orally report a summary of a recommendation for the salaries salary schedules or compensation paid in the form of fringe benefits for local agency executives an assistant superintendent is a local agency executive and proposed contract is before us this evening the contract before us employs the assistant superintendent of educational services norma camacho effective april 20th 2022 the assistant superintendent's annual base salary will be 681 dollars and eight cents and they are eligible to receive longevity in crim increments as established by the board the assistant superintendent's current contract runs from april 20 2022 through june 30 2025.
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