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meeting has been provided as specified in the ACT proper notice of this public meeting was provided in the notice said notice was posted at the entrance to the board office mail to the nutly sun the star Legend of North Jersey Harold News and the Nutley Journal mail to the Nutley cont clerk advertising Nutley Sun posted on the district website uh in consideration of all here present and in recognition of the importance of these proceedings it is requested that all cell phones and Pages be turned off or silenced for the duration of the meeting have the flag salute please ALG flag the United States of America and to the rep for stands one nation God indivisible withy and justice for [Music] all Mr K here Mr Riley here here MRSA here Mrs pado Mr C here we're going to uh deviate from our normal protocol tonight um we have commissioner Rogers with us who have been making some presentations Mr Rogers thank you Mr President and superintendent of schools and M School Board before I uh begin the presentations uh I just want to share with you how we got here tonight there were a number of students W this District that came to our office over the summertime and volunteered to help us with a host of uh of programs in particularly helping our veterans writing letters to senior citizens visiting veterans visiting senior citizens but here's my point they got here because of the hard incredible work of their parents and of the teachers of the school district you know teaching got to be a real real rewarding uh career because when you see see what students do outside the school district when you see them stepping up and becoming part of their Community that's a credit to every member of the school board the superintendent of schools and every teacher in this District as well as the parents what I'm talking about is character building I've seen astounding things happen with the young people in this town and we're not only talking about high school and uh middle school children but you're going to see Elementary School students here tonight receiving these certificates of appreciation so I'm giving these Awards to these students but my hats off to you all all you here I sat here you know I vowed when I left here I'd never come back never say but here I am but I'm here for a good reason Mr superintendent you've done a great job Mr board president you and I told the relationship that the school board has with our entire Board of Commissioners is probably the best best in at least all the years I've been here and to the teachers I don't know if there any see a few here tonight but to the teachers they're always here which we admire them for God God bless you all I mean what you're going to see tonight are students that that uh you know brought brought life you know to our veterans to disabled V senior citizens so without any further Ado I'm going to begin this whoever we kind of take turns so board members want to working way up to hand out the presentations that would be nice first uh I'm introducing Lindy Lindsay Lopez she works on our office she's in charge of an up Corps program that has helped put this together and this young fell Brendan Brandon CASRO he is a Nutley high school graduate he's now at a fairly Dickson University uh seeking his degree in criminal justice he came to our office most of the summer to help these young people in this project young man thank you very much he's given back to the community even now while he's in college so thank you and his mother's a teacher [Applause] Lori we do Taylor wlon Taylor come on now I'm not going to read every award because they they do say the same uh they have the same type of award but I'll read the first one so you get the flavor of what we're saying the township of Nutley department of public affairs military veterans and Affairs Bureau as well as n Court honors in this case Taylor wlon this certificate is awarded to the above named individual and recognition for participating in notle Corps for the year 2014 you made a lot of people happy thank [Applause] you Ashley thank you very much we appreciate everything you do Ashley job well done and I notice you in your entire family follows me on Facebook so I better be on my toes Nicole Duda K [Applause] Pavo Steven [Applause] Fidel you're learn you're going to learn from me real in fact you know I had a little notice I had a little surgery done here I walked in I said where's the camera angle so Jamie Meer to be here tonight so we'll make sure we get these oh kill's here Carill thank you very much thank you job job well done you covered both of me CU I'm a senior citizen and a veteran you have to take care of me pretty soon pardon me want a picture [Laughter] sure Skyler nilo well done really appreciate your mom wants to take come on thank you very much appreciate okay thank you Hy Fernandez [Applause] turn Hannah Lewis Hannah you're also here for your sister Shauna okay Alex heran Alexa [Applause] alexor we're spell right I I knew I got something wrong there job well done he didn't graduate high school wasn't avable I want to hear [Applause] that Amanda we Amanda thank you very much just get Ace get a nice [Applause] Emily [Applause] Carbone Sean Fitzpatrick I know there few things going on tonight so this would be the to Patrick family all there three children Sean Conor and who else was in there Kathleen [Music] Kath I believe it was Sean his mother had told me he's very uh prolific he's very good in history and so I kind of put him to the test I said let me ask you something uh do you know who fought raml in Africa man he mentioned George Patton his entire biography what div Vision he was in I mean so this young man's again accredited the school distri Brandon Castro I I I won't take up uh did we miss anybody that's important okay we all right ladies and gentlemen I want to thank you and the school board for giving us the opportunity to be here and to the students here we have about 30 or 40 responses from your pen panel senior citizens so what we're going to do is uh we're going to gather you after the holidays and we're going to continue to write thank you I salute you all God Bo up here for for a picture [Music] please [Music] yeah did are good how are [Music] you you very okay everybody up here congratulations everybody thank you of the Board of Education I really want to thank the parents students guys for what it's worth we're going to go we we'll what's your address [Music] I don't know it could go like [Music] are you filming right now yeah but go ahead it doesn't matter Taylor come on we're going to be going into close session so I'm going to read our um our orders and then we'll be back in in compliance with chapter 231 Public Law 1975 um we're going to be where at the Board of Education will be discussing manag exempt from the public discussion pursu to njsa 1042 now therefore be resolve the Board of Education recess to close executive session at this time to discuss student matters he had further resolved that the results of the discussion will be made public by inclusion on the agenda of a subsequent meeting of the Board of Education or when the reason for discussing such matters in Clos session no longer exist a motion motion all in favor a folks we're probably going to be 15 20 minutes I would hope no longer and we'll be back in session to approve the minutes thank you thank you all in favor thank you now we'll have the approval of the minutes MO second debie thank you correspondence no correspondence presentations yes Mr presid just following through with our strategic plan here we go and our curriculum action Team every year through program reviews we have three for this year but the first of three Mr Odell talk to us about our sociogram Mr Odell you I'll be as brief as a history teacher ever can be give you the a brief overview of the work that has been done so far with the program review uh as uh the board is familiar with the process that we go through our fiveyear process the social studies department is currently in the program review and hopefully cision part of it uh the go certainly to look at those aspects U of social stud education that might inform our work going forward specifically the New Jersey Department of Education model curriculum and the C3 framework I want to give a very brief description of the current social studies department and program a quick data analysis of our student performance and uh survey results and recommendations one of the things that really uh does have an impact on us is that the New Jersey Department of Education is creating model curriculum in different subject areas and for social studies they've done so based on the 2009 standards uh these standards did have a very quick uh edit over the spring which means we now have to realign ourselves with certain ctive progress indicators uh these this model curriculum also links to the Common Core which you've heard so much about and also is only done for the state mandated courses which at the high school would be world history us one and us2 is organized around uring understandings and key student learning objectives and each unit is each course is divided into five units with an assessment to follow those assessments were to be uh Statewide assessments uh as of this July these assment will change to Simply Be exemplars for districts to use as they went forward creating their own local assessments U speaking as a member of actually one of the state committees I tell you that the current progress is only up to unit three out of the five uh there are multiple assessment formats they link to a few key slos which are the most important parts and to the common core and regardless of how the assessment is designed there is always a writing component to it that's a lot of the work in the social studies Department being done to reinforce the writing program in each building another uh program that is very important is what's known as the C3 framework is a uh National program organized you see 21 states and certain major social studies organizations while New Jersey has not yet formally adopted it uh you can see the uh Department of V is looking for PR provide professional development on it we actually try to get ahead of the curve and that provide PD on that back in November uh the organizing principle is something called inquiry Arc we're trying to get our students to be curious involved Learners in matches the instructional models we have been pushing forward as a district there are four dimensions uh the first is developing the questions in the inquiries which goes right to student engagement uh Dimension two uh applying social studies Concepts there great fear that social studies would be overwhelmed by the common core and that simply become almost an adjunct to English Department this is trying to reinforce the very important learning that should come out of social studies the whole reason for C3 is with all that work on College and Career Readiness the feeling was there was a third C that was not being addressed Civic Readiness that one of the key purposes of education is to get our youngsters ready to be effective citizens in our democracy uh the third dimension in in Arc is evaluating sources using evidence which goes right through all the work we have been doing with teaching with documents reinforcing the reading and the writing programs and mention for the end product uh that the students can communicate conclusions and where appropriate take informed action that they will be the kinds of citizens we want them to be that simply a Model B inquiry Arc looks like and you see that unlike the New Jersey standards which are very history Centric this very clearly tries to identify work in Civics economics geography history and there are pendencies for other subjects such as sociology anthropology and psychology our current program uh it's based on various reviews and revisions we've done from 2010 or earlier especially some of the early uh Elementary programs were done much earlier uh key is that it's in a format that the teachers do not find very usable this is one of the key pieces of feedback that we received as they go forward you know planning looking to work on their instruction or their assessment so one of the things we to look at uh instruction does occur in every year of our K12 sequence we start to infuse the technology and as we get into the Upper Elementary grades there are scarcity of external benchmarks in social studies we are not a state assess subject so see a lot of our data is internal uh one thing we will link to is the AP scores and the elementary program we're based on what's pretty much called an Expanding Horizons curriculum if you can picture a series of Centric circles working out from knowing about myself to my family to my neighborhood to my world uh but what we've tried to do uh in conjunction with the what the state has asked for is Infuse actual history content into those Expanding Horizons uh when that particular curriculum was designed the then State social coordinator used to constantly make the phrase one more trip to the firehouses I'm going to cut it and we have taken him at his word and tried to infuse more actual social St content into the curriculum if you look at grade six we actually began our transition into the middle school level uh when this curriculum was done we were anticipating a Statewide assessment in grade eight there are three strands in the state standards and we wanted to make sure we hit every strand prior to that anticipated assessment which has since been delayed uh so grade six it's heavy on the C strand 6.3 and that kind of transitions us into the middle school where we hit the next two strands uh grade seven focuses on strand 61 which is United States history up to reconstruction and grade eight is the first part of a two-year world history sequence uh grade eight will get up to about uh the year 1500 CE and then the students trans uh transition from there across the street to the high school where they pick up the modern world these are our high school offerings the three state mandated courses uh you see we have four AP offerings and a host of elect design books uh looking at our data and some of benchmarks we can look at uh we want to make sure that we actually align with uh external benchmarks when we can and in this case the AP scores you see that some of our courses align some up with them and others not quite as much and so we feel we want to do some more work on that and try to uh better align ourselves we also put out a Sur many of you may have received it through Naviance U asking for input as to the program I just want to take you very quickly this will be available on the website I will not make you look at every slide but I want to address a few of them our feeling is that we want to be an excellent district and so we want to know that our scores are from eight or higher so looking at how many of our respondents came in seven or lower and every one of those somewhere between 5050 and 70 some felt that there was room for improvement uh this particular one uh Global perspectives happened to actually be 63% of the respondents felt that we could do a little more work there one of the ones this one is actually the one that came in with the highest score for you know doing well and it reflects the work that has been done by the social studies Department they've been working very hard on teaching with documents reading for bias and uh perspective and so that one came in a break even of 50% you see most of the columns are up to the right and of course we do want to one areas we want to uh grow is teaching the students to use data and quantitative analysis that in a heavily partisan age they can get their own data that they're not relying upon you know whatever is given to them by the media that they can analyze themselves to that end we're actually pioneering program called mapline uh actually part of the we are the district Pion ing for the rest of the country as this company tries to break into the market and um they can take the data learn to put in spreadsheets they can heat map it look for relationships and conclusions and so the quantitative analysis we're trying to push forward our recommendations we do want to review the sequence again K to four and further Infuse some more um actual social stud content into the Expanding Horizons includes economic Concepts which uh can be taught at a very very young age to that end we have a program called virtual economics 4.0 uh we do want to explore additional elective options in the high school our current offerings tend to favor the honors track and we want to get some more offerings for every student to pursue social studies content we would like to see the inquiry Arc being a part of every course and certainly anchor our AP courses to next AP items uh for the curriculum again we have to realign our cpis uh we do want to work oning understandings and cenal questions to facilitate the planning once again the inquiry Arc and C3 framework uh we do want to look at the current sequence and maybe model R is more on the model curriculum and perhaps all low more time to look at modern America also update our K12 curriculum apps and assessments terms of Staffing uh given the current projections of the configuration committee from the Strategic plan they feel that we may need at least two more teachers to keep our current course offerings going and if we do pursue those electives at least one additional teacher the middle school has just made a transition to the Middle School model and we hire two new teachers to uh to accomplish that and we' like to see that maintained certainly want to infuse the technology so that we do have the 21st century citizens that we want our students to become and given the age of our materials we do have to look at you know what materials we are offering our students and this is our fiveyear Outlook uh very similar chart as we go through the process we're currently in year zero right now as you can see thank you very much Mell appreciate the work that your um your group has put into this I'm sitting in on the U AC government committee meeting with Mr D and Mr it was very comprehension Association thank you for that technical support um Mr Odell thank you very much just while he's here to recognize that the board again Mr Odell this year was recognized by his colleagues as uh the supervisor of the year in social studies for the state of New Jersey so congratulations his year zero through year four is exceptionally similar to our years one through five in in our strategic planning curriculum team again just another example of that work supported by the budget supported by the staff thank the teachers for sure but making sure we're focusing on all of our curricular areas I know Mr Odell has waiting patiently through this process chopping at the bid to get social studies up on the Block and so we're here and we're happy we're here so thank you very [Music] much um as part of an annual requirement um we need to make sure that we're we're having a Public Presentation each year um on the measures that we use to protect ourselves our state our information technologically and so to do that we have Mr V meister and Mr leine that um in order for us to comply with the child Internet safety or child internet protection act there there number number of things that we need to do as a district number one is to have a internet content filter uh and the second one is to have a policy that talks about Internet safety so um we we do use a a internet content filter use a system called um light speed which blocks out um unnecessary content while uh stud students are browsing the internet um teach kids have come across the blue screen that comes up when to sites that aren't that are blocked by the filter um the other thing is the Internet safety policy it's it's policy number 2361 talks about um what we have in place and the processes in place to students that's available on dist cares to read um you made adjustments based on the am not this Cas we're talking specifically web accessing out um violence pornography obviously school and appropriate material while making sure that material that is appropriate for school at the appropriate grade level can be made Ava it also has the ability for teachers who sign to override some of those categories U case art classes where Sometimes some of the contents may hit a filter and yet is appropriate for a class that is available for and one of the things that our filter does provide is in you know exploring the bringar own device um environment that we're we're looking towards allows us to have students log into the network using their username passw and apply the restrictions to I think that would be a concern if we start to have students bring in their own devices how do we um how do we limit their use of their private device in our school technologically we can limit the use when they're connected to our Network somebody brings a device that's connected to a s Network at that point Sol but on our property using our using their own equipment and working on our program we can limit their use on What U I think part of what we do is is teach Internet safety proper proper usage um to go to thank you I question so on the filtering so do we follow what's being the new thing that's being searched and then block it as we find it do we that subcribe service that does that their business is to locate things that should be blocked that are new and have and then they you you block it on the filter or they no they automatic so it's the service the filter is the service repaying for was live that answer the question that's thank you some of that sometimes comes from us communica to our administrators to Mr B to let them know that we're seeing a lot of this all of a sudden we can request things to be added to it as well and then will show for the other my so we're paying for service that's actually live monitoring being reactive before we do find things that we can think that St that we maintain right that's what I need thank you and if there's site if there's a site that that someone needs to go to then we can certainly open it up thank you very much a brief report brief short concise um want to thank to teachers for being here to off like that Mrs cor's here every every meeting ni but she's with friends today thanks everyone for coming out even some of our M schal staff members who may be here under their own decision making or just because they married to the teacher OD I received an interesting piece of information did you write something about Mr Alexander H I did can you explain a little that to the board um I was uh I was lucky enough to have a research article that I wrote while I was in graduate school I I approved it over the course of the last two years and uh had it uh published by a peer edited journal the by the New York State Historical Association if I can add just one thing that has actually be referenced in other articles that are now showing up other Scholars are picking up his work congratulations that's actually how it came to my attention is not the article itself but that other people were using the article and part of their argument and I didn't even know that yet congratulations again thanks to all the teachers for being here sing with staff recognition um something we want to share is that Mr bar Raymond was actually featured um in the holiday of the Montclair magazine for his un service work and obviously his instrument playing um he's been all around playing with some of the greates but this was nice because it was really about giving back and it's nice to see our teachers not just here but out in the community like our students um just contributing to you know things that make this this this community great um student recognition we had the Patriot pen essay contest um essay was submitted by T lock from the an school um which is now CH it's been chosen District wide to uh compete for the the contest across multiple districts so again congratulations to in pling today competition goes all the way up to the National level where the winner receives $5,000 room for D um I know it's been a while between since our last meeting we had our our with our Communications action team our parent meeting on assessment specifically Park uh a number of board members were there we had a fantastic turn on a couple hundred parents and community members for some great conversation the not better online so if anyone's interested in following upe please please do so we also had our ASL B parent meeting which Mr Mater is running is continuing to run trying to get more people involved in those conversations to make sure we're supporting each Community within our larger Community um also had middle school students talk about presentation and our community action team not Communications not but now Community um a nice example was Mr rogers's work um with our students but the idea of our community action team is to get the learning and action of our students outside of school so they're contributing and participating in L Community um members of the middle school here um did a research project on our system of government in the township of Nutley which is somewhat unique but the commission form of government working with the various Commissioners doing research and they actually made um interdisciplinary presentations for an audience that included our a number of our commissioners um really getting their learning out having interesting conversation and I will say it was interesting um with our commissioners about how the how the government here in notle operates and uh why it's beneficial for our for our for our community so nice example includ the teachers for making that happen as well as Miss um on Tuesday previous Dr bani Mrs Christian T um met with leaders of our skip team just update the board again those are the state required panels that are in each in each school um there to make sure that we are appropriately following the state process for observation um we met with them just to review presentations that had happened on our November 4th training as well as answer questions and to try and ensure as best you can the information is getting out to each building and that that information as consistent as possible because that's critical we want to congratulate Mr vilio and uh all of the people at the high school guidance Department as well as Administration faculty and staff um on December 4th uh we held yet again our instant decision day um there were 229 College acceptances given out in that one day alone to our students um including colell college felici and William Patterson Centenary seat Hall NGIT fairly dickon uh in cane um students saved over $122,000 uh not having to put through the application fees um they saved uh over $3,500 in act fees for reporting um scholarships were offered um we had guaranteed first year scholarships of over a million and a half dollars and projected fouryear savings um of just under six and a half million just from that day so congratulations it's a lot of work on the High School site to put that together um I did get over there to see your counselors they were running around like crazy um but the kids everyone has smiling things they used literally every office they could find to make sure the college admissions counselors give me kids one-onone uh it really is a great day I recommend U getting over there just to see the Mayhem but again it really worked out benefited our students so congrats and thanks to them professional development both in science and language arts continues um at this point in time through our re Workshop plan has been a number of tear it has background music for this one um but my is at this point every single element teacher has begun their tier training in workshops we're moving through that um and with science Mr B trying to keep our [Laughter] teachers you call but just looking to stick our strategic plan our teachers have taken on a great deal one of the major switches to Lev in teaching a science ear new science program um the board has invested in that kind of professional development where teachers are receiving multiple times a year training just on the unit they're about to teach prior to active teaching so point of our Focus try to make sure we are as prepared as possible so thanks to Mr vany and the staff foric tournament Dr W and I have the opportunity to see our elementary students in action and where they in action um some rousing Renditions of pieces of literature I want to thank Mrs Woods Murphy Mrs molas Mrs Oakley who L the process District wide all students and parents who spent hours preparing those pieces um at each school um we had competitions those competitions led to the district competition and we have a number of our students moving on in the county so congratulations to all of them um the actual competition countywide take place on the 16th and uh prior this I some of our high school students served as our own internal judges U these were students that had participated in friend prior and it was nice talking to them the experiences that they had but also coming back as judg as they felt comfortable Circle great for them um our coret another good piece of news for the 54th year in a row performed seasonal music for nle RO um on the direction of Mr Valley's uh with Mr Riley's support it really was a terrific concert in the middle of the day they provide they performed a number of Staples that have been consistent for 54 years as well as some new pieces so stretch themselves and as always sounded incredible so just really kudos to our students um and to the staff and music department moving away from those pieces re-registration to update the board as of now our registration office is still finalizing the work from last week's face to face um thanks to Mr VI Meister uh we have currently 191 students who have yet to be registered um letters will be going outes as well as phone calls being made to those houses letting them know that they do not schedule a face to- face appointment during our regular operating hours um that on Mon a week from today they'll be receiving notice that their students will be disolved in TR January 5th other they'll have until the break and then they will not be um based on the response we get from those I'll then update the board as of now we've successfully re-registered every student minus those grade levels that we had exited because of recent registration um we're down to months so thank you Mr V for system um certainly Mr Ferrar M Bo they're the work in the office as well as the other staff members that the board was still will to hire we were M if you gone over there Tuesday Wednesday or Thursday last week line all the way to the gym so thanks that workk um continue our updates on strategic plan the character action team uh continues their work coordinate the activities within the district our Communications action team I mentioned a number of their efforts recently and you just saw U Mr a strong example of what our curriculum action team is doing um qap on the agenda for final approval with our initial DPR reports and we're expecting to be visited as of now February 17th um for our our official visit and again just as a reminder we have the VA coming from count we have the academic officer coming from Hudson County Union County sorry and then we have um our governance and personel coming all way down in mon count so that would be interesting some important upcoming dates our NJ cap parent information session for elementary parents our parents of elementary students January 6th um and a number of NJ capap trains happening the end end of January I just want to wish everyone um as I sum up a happy healthy end to 2014 happy Hanukkah this we merry Christmas happy holidays hope everyone's safe and [Applause] Mr thank you today we conducted the payroll verification process and I would just like to extend my thanks to all of the building secretaries principles Miss council Mrs Torres and Mrs Hollywood for their assistance with this process and more importantly to all of the staff for their cooperation and making the process go very smoothly please don't forget those are actual live checks so make sure you get to the bank and cash them um this is a process that we have to conduct every 3 years so we're good for a while uh also want to report that as of today we have installed plywood barriers along Franklin Avenue uh across the oval so that will diminish any salt from hitting the bleachers throughout the winter season season and uh that work was done by our in-house buildings and ground staff so thank you to Mr Nicollet for getting to that as quickly as possible and that's my report thank you committee report thank you Mr President the academic committee met on Tuesday December 9th Mr Odell presented the social studies program review that you saw here tonight Mr Riley presented the fine and performing arts program review as well as suggestions for future program changes Mr Riley will present his work during the January board meeting uh Dr Reed and Mr lordier presented the findings from the Middle School youth survey Public Presentation will be made in conjunction with Middle School staff at the January board meeting uh Dr volani reviewed the 201516 qac district score report and also the 1516 academic calendar including the proposed professional days um other subjects discussed included math Jing program fiveyear budgeting process professional development and field trips right Mr car uh finance committee met on December 10th uh we spoke about the final billing on the bleachers and the high school roof uh painting of the flag Pooles which uh should start this Wednesday sat right weather committee um we also discussed the 20145 budget as well as the 20156 budget uh we discussed the finance resolutions and tonight's agenda as well as cusac we covered the um we talked about the lease for our buses um transfer removal with the township and uh review The District calendar for the 2015 16 school year thank you the administration committee also met on December the9th we talked about the technology update which was presented tonight we talked about the athletic program we also discussed qac um we dealt with the academic calendar for the upcoming year uh we dealt with some uh recommendations for hire some job descriptions we have a legal update and then we review the um policies that you'll see on tonight's agenda any other committee reports did not come to the portion of our meeting where we allow members of the public to address the board in this section we allow questions or comments on only the resolutions addressed in tonight's agenda our board regulation allows 20 minutes for these communications each person should be limited to 3 minutes and we ask you to try to stay within this requirement speakers may may speak more than once only after all others wishing to speak on a topic has been heard all statement will be directed to me as a chairperson no one may address board members individually please be reminded that if your statement is too lengthy personally directed abusive obscene IR relevant or redundant your participation may be terminated please remember to we state your name and address each and every time you address the board the first person can come forward see none m d will you take the um academic resolution please yes Mr President i' like to discussion call please Mr yes Mar yes Mr CL uh yes I'm 1 through three no it's a four yes yes on one through three no on number four Mr yes M yes Mr take Administration res I'd like to move Administration Administration resolutions through discussion roll call please Mr yes Mor yes Mr yes Mr Riley yes Mr yes Mr SC yes Mr kin yes Mr Finance please Finance [Applause] resols discussion roll please yes Mrs yes Mr CL yes Mr R yes M yes Mr yes Mr yes Mr can you take off pleas yes Mr President I move personel resolutions one and two as second discussion Mr yes yes Mr yes Mr Riley yes m r yes Mr yes Mr kazinski yes we now come to the time we accept questions or comments on all School related matters our regulations allow 30 minutes for this Communications again each person should be limit to 3 minutes we ask you the statement in this requirement as I stated earlier all statements will be directed to me first person can step forward hearing none you you I know you want to say something so go [Applause] ahead one here speak well that's it's different it's quiet tonight for a change yeah so be quick uh Alex Rubin 354 Hillside have uh over the weekend I distributed a uh packet to to all of you uh board members Mr Las Miss y um and I would like to read the uh the letter portion of it into the record if I may um I I don't see a reason I don't see a reason for that all the board members received the email we're perfectly cognizant of what what your concerns are if you'd like to give a copy of it to the paper that's your privilege I guess okay so so I don't need to read it in for you I don't yeah it's it's not an issue for us The Other Well since I'm heing I may as well okay so this is addressed to the board and um it opens I would like to raise the issue of the par test refusal uh which is not opt out uh as was the case in the NJ ask but is a direct refusal to participate in the experimental unproven Federal Assessment program many parents in the in the district have opted their children out of the NJ ass over the years for a variety of reasons and never experienced a hostile response as they are now getting from the park tests many informed parents around the state realize that the Common Core Curriculum and park testing are bad long and dangerous on so many levels thousands have signed petitions attended board meetings as I am um and will attend the State Board of Ed meeting in Trenton on January 7th to bring the case to recommend abolition of this unproven dangerous Federal federally funded experiment within our state several states have pass legislation to revert off the common core standard and Virginia Texas Minnesota Nebraska and Alaska are states that have had the good sense to never go on the dangerous curriculum furthermore several states that adopted the curriculum are not administering the park exams Florida in Arizona are examples as such and New York has put a 5 delay on implementing the tests the NGA your teachers union uh succeeded in getting the governor to commission a panel to review the park and present recommend recommendations whether to proceed with the unproven experimental program the state Commissioner of Education presented a guideline uh to the districts to not provide alternative settings for students whose parents choose to refuse the test effectively imposing punitive punishment upon them by forcing them to sit and stare at the computer during the time of the test Boards of vet around the state have adopted resolutions respecting parental rights to refuse State testing for their children and provide a productive alternative setting for those not taking the test attached in that packet uh our resolutions from Bloomfield our neighbor in the county and Delan from October 7th and December 8th respectively that support and respect parental rights to choose how their children will be assessed academically in the most appropriate manner for them furthermore the Delan Education Association presented a well articulated thoroughly detailed position paper on why the park assessments are wrong and to urge their board to adopt the resolution that they did it is also attached as an attachment um and I urge you our elected board to adopt a similar resolution in support of parental rights to choose whether our children will participate in this unproven Federal experiment and to not impose punitive measures against it there is an update Monclair Board of Ed is voting on a similar uh policy to support uh the parent parent parental rights to refuse the tests as we speak tonight uh and there are others you know that I didn't want to make a whole dissertation on that we appreciate we appreciate your input um there has been some discussion we've all received your emails and um I appreciate your concerns will we see an update in future um meetings you know about that there will be some discussion about it I don't know if um if will be an update but there it will be some discussion about it okay now um I've taken the liberty of sharing this letter with social media you know the nutly you know uh social media pages and U one of the groups uh is putting together a petition that they they will present to you uh so sometime in the near future so this is the beginning of the wave thank you thank you anyone else wish to be heard any old business to come before the board I to I haven't been receiving the that that's helpful with a busy schedule that we have to find out who's transition I was going to do that but coming for where's the plan uh our parents Advisory Group we met last Thursday evening um some of the things discussed were Staffing updates professional development going on districtwide as well as we discussed the the park and actually went through some some uh Park test questions with the parents uh next meeting is scheduled for January right any new business coming forward Mr so uh I'd like to speak about our uai concert um if anybody's intance and Mr Riley opened it very well and I won't go through all the different teachers and programs but um you know I have to talk about our string program you know we B A String teacher on is our going into our third year I think um we had tremendous if you had heard the solo by one individual the things that go on they've started a once a week set on the kids on time a seven period kind of like string lab like we have the jazz band that gets together on their own time and puts it together was phenomenal um the concert band uh the Jazz lab which they work on again on their own um was just really phenomenal when you got to the cor aletes the chamber singers in the choir if you were sitting there listening to it and please it was taped I don't have our schedule it's going to go up on our Channel upload it as we speak right now upload as we speak thank you because I've been pushing for that uh multiple times thank you appreciate it um but uh please go on listen to the music that are students in this District um if you listen during one of the choirs um and I've never even seen a drum that Nick so used before that he sat on a square box but heard him play while the choir was performing it was truly excellent and our program is really excelling and I I wanted to acknowledge that also on calendar uh one other update I'd like like to give you you know um hockey president of the club but our hockey program for the first time ever is 4 and0 starting the season they're tied for first place with six points it's the best we've ever done early in the year our JV program is at 2 and0 um being very successful and uh um the school board has been very active in building that program here and I just wanted to thank everybody uh they hear me talk about it all the time but we truly get support our kids are out there really excelling um I'd like to thank uh Joe Mr D also came in sport at our sale and um Mr van Martin for our fundraiser and it's been a great time and to everyone else uh one last thing our mics are disappearing little by little I keep hear and we're getting them um I wanted to bring that up and say Merry Christmas to everybody thanks for coming to the board meetings this board really works very hard um I hope you do watch us on set on our local access station and see what's being done for our students and how our students are pering thank you thank you I also had the pleasure of attending a uh fundraiser um for Spring Garden school over at Barnes & Noble and um the fifth and sixth grade choir performed there and um they were impressive it it was a nice crowd it was a nice turnout and and our children did an outstanding job so again uh I also want to wish everybody Merry Christmas Happy New Year happy holidays and anyone else like to say anything if not where is the board of educ I'm sorry happy birthday happy birthday take in the Board Room for whereas the Board of Education will be discussing matters exempt from public discussion pursuit to njsa 10 board- 12 now therefore being resolved the Board of Education resar proposed executive session at this time can discuss stud matters he had further resolve that the results of this discussion would be made public by inclusion on the agenda of a subsequent meeting of the board of education for one of the reasons for discussing such matters in post section no longer exist make a motion motion second second all those in favor thank you realize

did you have I okay then we will move to item four which is communication with the public and this is the time that anyone would like to come forward and please um address the board on any matter on our agenda or or not howdy I'm Bob Kirsten Toma and uh I uh wanted to share a real short article with you folks here from uh uh the Minnesota Christian examiner from October and um in the news you know every so often we're hearing about uh uh bullying uh dealing with uh gender identity uh uh people and this is a new twist because U it has to do with school districts and it states a Missouri school district was uh sued for protecting students from porn uh Jefferson City Missouri uh the alliance defense fund and Missouri Family policy counc ccil filed a friend of the court brief September 9th in defense of the Centon R-3 School District after it was sued by American civil liberties Union attorneys on behalf of several homosexual activist groups any student the ACLU filed the suit as part of its joint National effort with Yale law school two cor school districts into allow students access to homosexual activists websites by ending the use of web filters that also block highly sexually explicit material I don't think you've heard this on the national news the alliance uh defense fund sent school officials a letter in August urging them not to succumb to the aclu's demands which it said would expose children to pornography under the guise of a concern about about censorship and bullying no school district should be bullied into exposing children to sexually graphic material said the alliance defense fund senior Council David courtman it's reprehensible that the ACLU and Yale law school are more concerned about forwarding an agenda that exposes children to harm than they are about protecting those children those who claim to oppose bullying should not be bullies bullies themselves removing porn filters does nothing to end bullying the ACLU threatened Centon and numerous other school districts as part of the aclu's quote don't filter me unquote campaign a joint Endeavor with Yale lawu that demands the deactivation of various web filters that block sexually explicit content at Public Schools when C and d uh instead chose to continue protecting students the ACLU filed suit and that's the end of the article and I just wanted to say that uh you know I just don't understand where some people are coming from when it on a personal computer I'm sure these people that they're trying to represent would have that same access to go to these activist sites or whatever they are these sexual sites if you will and uh I know that School District had a run in with the um uh legal uh a afd what is it uh Alliance defense fund a couple years ago but I just urge you that you know if you run into a situation of some nature like this or other Natures the uh uh Christian legal defense organizations with which Alliance defense fund Liberty Council and others is part of please use them as a resource besides uh the um uh people that the school district hired as far as the attorneys so I just wanted to uh bring this past you because it's just so outrageous to think that this has any value but here these people are uh pushing an agenda and uh and then you have a law school that's in with this it's crazy we're living in very strange times and thank you for hearing me out here thank you for sharing anyone else choose to come forward okay

e okay good evening and Welcome to our Wednesday February 22nd business meeting we'll start our meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance so if you'd all stand in face of flag pledge of aliance 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 our mission statement says that Richmond schools in partnership with the community will help all children believe in themselves respect others and experience the joy of learning through effective teaching children will first learn the basic skills including thinking skills using words numbers and ideas in addition children will be given the opportunity to learn more of what they want and need to know adults will Model Behavior that will teach children to resolve conflicts successfully take risks with new ideas and understand that they can erir without being judged amen something like that now we're on to public commentary the board of school trustees recognizes the value of public comment on educational issues and the importance of allowing members of the public to express themselves on Corporation matters the has set aside two 30-minute periods for public comment during each board meeting the maximum time for individual speakers is 5 minutes per person the board expects personal decorum and factual information from the speaker the president reserves the right to interrupt the speaker when the statement is too lengthy personally directed abusive obscene or if it interferes with the orderly conduct of the meeting comments recognizing the work of staff and students are always welcome however critical remarks concerning specific School Personnel or students are to be made through the complaint process available in policy 9130 if the public comment reflects inaccurate or incomplete information the superintendent May clarify the facts after the public comment session public comments requiring no research investigation or review may receive response from the board Andor Administration as appropriate tomorrow morning board members will be on radio Troy at 8:00 to answer questions that you might have about tonight's meeting and in the morning it will be Suzanne Daren galski and Aaron Stevens do we have anyone signed up to speak we do Bethany norwalt hello hi Anthony first I just have a question it might be really fast but um what is exact L considered the walking distance is it K24 1 mile or second through and up 1 mile is that how it works I believe it's K through 6 one mile that's what the policy is we don't enforce that you don't we my my whole thing just went out the window so what's the point of having it I mean not to be rude but um good question and we'll be revising that policy okay so what will do we know what the new policy will be like look like I don't have a recommendation yet okay but it will reflect it will be more reflective of practice we recognize that there are unsafe conditions from time to time that we have to consider it also has to be age appropriate we wouldn't want a preschool student doing some of the same walking that we would recommend for a middle school or intermediate high school student so it will look a little different from the current policy well that's pretty much it then because that just doesn't work out my whole life argument just went out the window all right thank you anyone else Alisa no okay thanks on to snapshots of success the first snapshot of success happens to be recognition of our spelling be winners and I would like to um call to the podium Rebecca Bailey and Alex Mitchell I don't think Alex is here oh she's not here okay Rebecca Bailey I think I recognized her from the newspaper this morning and from last year as well correct that was a nice article okay congratulations to you first place spelling thank you what was the word ecosystem very nice did you know right away or did you have to stop and think about it I knew how to spell it right away but I couldn't quite remember what the word was well congratulations so how are you preparing for the where do you go next Mrs bomgardner can you pose with her so we can post this on there we go hold that up okay perfect what is the next level of competition the regional spelling be in Dayton and how do you prepare for that well since they're the same words I'm not really studying it as hard as I did for the Citywide but I still look over him when do you go it's this coming Saturday how many contestants will be there for that one I think 21 that's how many were there were last year wow good luck to you very nice does any any comments good luck yes good luck and and we're proud that you're representing RCS M that's nice earrings now too who do you have with you tonight those three people and who are they are those three people you you have a fan club in other words could you introduce them my mom my sister and my grandma very nice and they look very proud and will they be there on Saturday mhm cheering you on good thank you thank you is that cool or is that cool that's I've discovered that spell check has taken care of any I ever had careful about that though our second uh snapshot of success is um recognition of the Wayne County educator of the year and Mrs wpy Principal of the high school would you like to come up to the podium and just tell us a little bit about this educator of the year who happens to be an employee at our high school thank you very much I am very pleased and honor Ed to present to you the uh Chamber of Commerce uh educator of the Year Rusty Hensley Rusty is assistant principal at Richmond High School he is the director of our Career Education Center he has been instrumental in gaining or in um having all of us have the opportunity for our students to participate in not only a lot of different careers uh but to attain dual credits uh while they are doing it uh at IB Tech uh we have students that graduate with lots of dual credits uh on their way to an associate degree through the career Ed program uh Rusty has also been in charge of our early college program this year and has done a fantastic job with that um so with that uh I'd like to present Rusty and thank him for all he does not only for for uh those of us on the administrative team but also all the students at Richmond High School too we're very very proud of Rusty and all of his efforts uh in his area and uh what he does thanks thank you I would like I'd like to um present him with something that's already been presented and I should have I I should have Brian Zimmerman help help me with this because actually this is made possible by the Palladium Item uh it's presented by the Wayne County Chamber of Commerce and recognition of our educator of the year but it's made possible by the by the Palladium Item every year so I wanted to give uh recognition to them I will display this up at the podium with Mr Hensley wow it's really neat that's nice the coolest award ever love doing that one oh that is nice that's neat beautiful painting they do something like this every year for our educator of the year it's even better being a board member of the chamber when it's uh Richmond High School where will that hang I have it hanging in my office oh you have it hanging in your office wife didn't think that was something we should hang at home she said that's probably for your office isn't it I can read what that so you understand that oh bridg oh Bridget's in it's a nice way of saying it really doesn't go with the decoration congratulations thanks sir thank you thank you congratulations on to reports and discussion topics first discussion topic will be our monthly financial report Mr codington good evening and welcome to 2012 we've got a lot on our plate right now uh we we will have an abbreviated uh financial report because uh as you can see in this material that we sent you on Friday we didn't have a budget we we've got some estimates but we don't have a budget and at 526 last night we got an approved budget but I haven't had a chance to update it but at the next meeting or the next financial report that I give uh I will talk about the budget the 1782 and where we are and uh we knew where right where we are and it's a good budget I no surprises but let's look at January where we're going to start the year first as we look at this we see our revenue is very flat but we're down $52,000 for the month the $52,000 as we started our first uh down uh basic Grant from our down being down 78 students and uh $200,000 in special ed reductions uh so we will see that throughout the year and probably the same uh same line throughout the year down down down we know that that's not surprise we've anticipated it and we're planning for it our expenditures are down for the month $688,000 from 2011 now if you remember in December our re our expenses were up because we paid our ba our benefits of uh Turf and perf payments we paid them it was a timing issue we paid them in December of 2011 we paid them in January of 20 2012 our gas bill we're continuing to see decreases in gas right now we've had one of the warmest Winters that we've had in ages and we're continuing to buy gas at a lower price so we hope to be able to see that throughout the year that's our revenue and expenses our year-to date's the same because it's the first month let's look at where we're going to end the year then and we'll look at our 2012 cash flow if we look at our 2012 cash flow one of the numbers if I can bring this up without doing uh you see that we're projecting revenue of 36,7 159,000 last year we had revenue of 37 M59 9 we're going to have $800,000 less Revenue this year not a surprise we've known that since September with that you see that we've got expenditures last year of 37 M363 th000 and this year we're projecting to date because the cuts haven't been made and I'll talk about that in a minute but right now if everything stayed the same we would have a minus 234 $4,000 $235,000 now I keep this right now to keep in front of a it would be real easy to make this a zero a plus one and a plus two but we want to keep in mind until those changes are made it's a plan when they're made then it's we'll Garner the savings so as we look at our cash flow and I'm not today going to go into debt service pension bond school bus replacement I'll do that next month to compare it to the budget and where we are it doesn't do us any good to say what's going to be expanded until we know what our revenue is and what it looks like but very briefly this is the this is the form that we're going to be spending our time on this year this is where we are you see again you go to 2012 you see our Revenue 36750 that's right off our cash flow that's right where we are we see our expenditures here that's where you get your minus $235,000 you watch our expenditures we're seeing right now we we we made adjustments in November uh or August of 2011 our teacher non-teacher salaries are down our teacher salaries are down benefits correspondingly health insurance there but the plan that we have and I'd be glad to talk offline to any board member of 218 ,000 right here that's from the master plan operational savings you can see that on I believe it's page 14 on there how we're going to get those 218,000 now it's 218 because we understand that any savings we put in place this year will not be fully realized until next year because these most of these changes will be made in August so of that 650 5 is what you'll see in the plan we save $218,000 this year estimated retirement savings these are we estimated that we would have 15 teacher retired and we would replace those 15 teachers that savings though usually coming from an older teacher to a newer teacher would save us $144,000 this year $415,000 for the year that full yet next year estimated staff reductions the staff reductions from principls to secretaries to uh uh uh teacher uh reductions hopefully through retirements will save us 167 and that comes again through building closures then we're going to have some add backs but safe students healthy students none and but our stabilization money the 20 people that we have in our FTE account now we we want to save 845 of those so if you look at this this is a plan reason I haven't bold we haven't we have not operationalized that plan we're in the process of operationalizing it with that we'll have a balanced budget per the St State Legislature in 2012 that's our financial report for January 2012 I'll be glad to entertain any questions one might have Mr C just clarification on the estimated staff reduction c s that we have on that line you mentioned principles were included in that no I'm sorry if somebody was listening close I just wanted to make that point thank you that that that's up in the master plan operational s thank you very much I know we've got a big agenda and uh looking forward to 2012 thank you next is our district evaluation update the district evalu ation update to just a reminder to to the board and to the listening public right um we're doing our district evaluation just a little differently this year and we're going to bring this to a conclusion probably in the summer June sometime uh it's going to be a busy June for us but at some point at in that month we will have a a community meeting where we talk about the district valuation and what you see tonight will be um what we're working towards we've we've talked about this at the beginning of the school year we're talking about it again now uh today we're talking about just an update of what we discussed earlier in the year basically there were four annual board goals 10% increase in math and language arts um IEP scores that would be in all grade levels 6% increase in the I 3 scores which we have not had yet 3% increase in the graduation rate and a 25 student enrollment increase we've listened to Dr Parker come for the board and talk about our Acuity scores we believe there's reason for optimism on the uh increase in math and language arts IEP scores if we are able to compare this year to last year it appears as though there's some reason for optimism there but again those are Acuity scores and U they are not IEP scores so we can't measure this one yet the 6% increase in I 3 scores uh of course we Haven an ad ministered the IR 3 that's a little less than a month from now and we have reason to believe that there's optimis there should be some optimism there as well based on the performance of the students this year but again this is a brand new test and we aren't sure what we'll what we'll see um in terms of results 3% increase in the graduation rate the graduation rate that we're talking about actually would be last year's graduation rate not this year's when we set the rate when we set the the the goal in what was that September the graduation rate already was but we didn't know exactly what the state would certify that at and our graduation rate did not go up 3% in fact it went down almost a point it went from 82.5 to 81.7 so what you're going to hear in the next few um weeks and in an upcoming report would be how we're responding to that and I think you'll see that it's an aggressive response that we're putting towards that piece the 25 student enrollment increase we didn't see um in fact we saw a 70 some student loss everything that we are doing in our master plan is designed to go right to that issue um our master plan implementation isn't just to save money it's to make this Corporation more appealing because we intend to see quality raised in every in every aspect if you recall I understand that the Press has led with the building closures we did not what we LED with and what we hope this community will come to see is that we've reorganized for Success we we have created K4 uh configurations because we know that we can better approach and better reach some of the needs of those students if we have critical masses at all those in all those buildings and so we've created um the these these buildings so that they are staffed and they have the student body in them to make this critical mass per grade level level possible we can approach various different uh ability groupings in within those grade levels in a more flexible manner we also have created the the uh 58 intermediate schools those intermediate schools are to give greater stability to that whole age range at a point when students need stability the most uh we're putting them in one year and out the other uh if you go across the state of Indiana and you look at the IEP scores we've talked about how the seventh and eighth grad scores are lower in schools where there are seventh and eighth grades when you start adding Sixth and fifth grades to those buildings the seven and eight scores go up as well so we're we're trying to create a school system that parents will find appealing and that we will see an enrollment increase over time as a result of of what we're doing we're also creating the only special purpose building that I know of in this area that Services uh High ability students and uh life skills in the same in the same area so we're you're hearing all the time how we're how we're uh working with this one on Resource Management if you recall we we broke our strategic goals into uh various areas Resource Management would be one on curriculum we have we have been working to align our curriculum with the Indiana standards but shifting to the Common Core uh this is this is been a tough a tough uh job because teachers are working diligently to try to to align their their curriculum which means their instruction as well as their testing to those Indiana standards while shifting towards the Common Core um Mr Millis could give you more information I and they're available for uh they're available here for questions should you have those in the finance area we talked about balancing our budget for 2012 and 2013 and you hear every month how we're planning to do that and how we're on on uh on Target in the human uh Human Resources area we are developing new operations manuals uh while those are not ready to roll out yet I think we've shared with you at different points that we're well underway and that those will be ready to roll out uh before too much longer on the facilities we talked about the importance of creating a master plan you of course know about the status of the master plan we're steeped in the activity implementing that and wireless connectivity um in the report we are almost there almost there for Community engagement we looked at value added impact study of three three of our major projects and that would be mentoring the Centerstone and the communities and schools online uh in our report you'll see where we stand uh Missy Hollis is here if you have questions on that as well on the Community Partnerships inventory um that's exactly as is we're we've inventoried all of our Partnerships and that information is available for the uh for the asking on the marketing we had a twoe two uh year two plan implementation that year year 2 plan implementation is just now rolling over and we're putting together another year's plan uh with the adoption of boundaries when that is set in place and the policy goes we're ready to start moving forward putting together a whole communic ation plan around that on school climate we have data guided instruction as one of our goals and we have a goal that in using our safe schools healthy students data we have two primary purposes one would be a safe and and productive learning environment and a safe and productive teaching environment and that is a report that's coming out on its own uh in fact you're putting that together as we speak aren't you due Friday it's due Friday and the board will be presented with that evaluation or that uh that whole report when it's filed with our safe schools healthy students uh uh Grant as I said we have cabinet members here the report is online uh it's been posted to the web I should have probably recommended that it be accepted and filed uh that might be something that you would want to call for but if there are questions we're here to answer them questions thank you Dr bour do you want us to have a motion to accept it and file it is that it might be a nice yeah it might be a nice thing to have that filed go down and consent items can I hear a motion toor I'm sorry I thought you asked for question I did ask for question well I just are we to ask or is the data to support this coming to us automatically or are we to just send in an email later and ask for that or how how is your some of the data hasn't been assembled yet for example the report that uh that Missy Hollis is doing hasn't been assembled yet for distribution but when it is it will come your way so so we can just assume as these sections are done you'll just automatically forward it to us yes okay uh okay any other questions do I have a motion to accept and file the district evaluation update Pat heiney makes the motion second Linda morgenson seconds the motion now are there any more comments or questions all those in favor please signify by saying I I opposed thank you the action items We Have Tonight are going to be Mr cottington's in Mr cottington's domain I'll turn that over to him we have donations we have additional Appropriations in the capital projects fund and rainy day fund and I'll let him work you through those thank you Dr Bor tonight we ask the board to accept the following donations from Charles Elementary PTO to Charles Elementary the purchase of two smartboards from Richmond Toyota to Early Learning Center the purchase of two bicycles from Hills Pet nutrition to Veil Elementary to be used for field trips Cindy McKibbon to rhs Athletics to the rhs boys basketball camp fund and from stud Baker Buick Pontiac GMC trucks in to rhs Athletics the rhs cheerleader camp fund we ask the board to accept these very generous donations of $7,295 ations all those in favor please signify by saying I I opposed on to additional Appropriations yes uh as we discussed two board meetings ago the following items is submitted for your consideration and for approval to advertise by the Richmond Community School Board of Trustees permission to as advertise a notice to taxpayers for additional Appropriations it has been determined that it is now necessary to appropriate additional money from the 2000 for the 2012 capital projects fund budget keep it in mind that this additional appropriation will have no effect on the Wayne County tax rate Administration is requesting the approval of the Richmond Community School Board of Trustees for permission to publish the required notice to taxpayers for the public hearing on the additional Appropriations for 2012 capital projects 5 this public hearing will occur on March 4 14th 2012 therefore it is recommended that the board approve the request to advertise the notice to taxpayers of additional Appropriations for the 2012 capital projects fund of 1,541 $640 do I hear a motion move Pat heiney makes the motion second Jeff slier seconds the motion are there comments and questions on the Appropriations for the capital projects fund Pat um I would like for the public to understand the number and why there is no increase in the tax rate and how that was how that demonstrates the Prudence of this board and this financial officer in the capital projects fund we have rarely last year was an exception and we asked board approver that every time there's a cash balance left over at the end of the year we turn that to cash that the only only way it can be spent is with board approval and additional appropriation so we we we do this rarely but when we do it's very well defined but this is on cash reserves that we have available to do these projects that we need to help make Richmond schools better and one of the things that people don't remember is that the capital projects fund has less money in it because we passed in Senate Bill 199 the pension Rel Le Bond and that had to be Levy neutral neutral so we have yes and we will get that from the rainy day what what we have done uh when we signed when we did the pension relief is the law said we cannot have any more unfunded liabilities with that we had to buy out our unfunded liabilities of 19 million we did that in August of 2004 but there was another caveat that the the state legislature said is buy them out of that unfunded liability but don't raise your taxes doing that okay the only there's only two funds to do that in because you must pay your debt you must pay your pension Bond debt you must pay your school bus replacement the only place you can do it is in capital projects so we do Levy neutrality from 1.6 to 1 .8 million that we got extra or we had 1.8 more million we had $4.8 million in capital project to maintain our facilities in 2004 we have $3,400 th000 to do it this year another one of the reasons that the master plan helps us well and wanted to make sure we connected the dots for people because that is all related and there's good foresight there Mr cottington thank you any other comments or questions all those in favor please signify by saying I I opposed on to the rainy day fund the following items is submitted for your consideration and approval to advertise to the Richmond School Board of Trustees permission to advertise to the taxpayers again for additional Appropriations because it has been determined that is now necessary to appropriate additional monies for the 2012 rainy day fund budget this additional appropriation again will have no effect on the Wayne County tax rate as we're using cash reserves that are unappropriated at this time therefore it is recommended that the board approves the request to advertise the notice to taxpayers of an additional Appropriations to for the 2012 rainy day fund budget of $ 1,900,000 do I have a motion Aaron Stevens makes the motion second Linda mortis seconds the motion are there any comments or questions all those in favor please signify by saying I I oppose thank you thank you on to master planning in our um Master planning session tonight there will be some action items and before we get to some of the action items that we've actually talked about I'd like to have an update from Mr Mays on the crestdale project which is a part of our Master planning implementation and he will discuss with you also a request to um uh gain your approval for advertising For an upcoming bid on the crestdale windows I believe Mr mace turn it over to you thank you very much uh we are progressing uh on our schedule for the uh design portion of crestdale School uh the drawings are probably uh almost 34 the way uh completed and uh one step that uh we have to do tonight we talked about this uh couple meetings ago about pre-bidding Windows and uh heating and air conditioning units and looking at the uh heating and air conditioning units that we're going to uh uh spec that's readily available and that's we do not have to pre-bid those the windows we do have to pre-bid those because based upon the schedule of three manufacturers we talked to uh we wouldn't get the windows until about a week and a half before school started so this is why we have to pre-bid them and we would like to have your approval to set a bid date for March the 22nd uh 2012 to receive bids for the windows and then we would uh come back to you at that March 28th board meeting uh for acceptance of the bid now the safeguard that we have there is that uh we would go ahead and and put the windows on order and then uh we would go through the shop drawing phase and uh ready for production but we would not approve the production of the windows until we received all the bids on crestdale just to make sure that that uh we're all in agreement to what we're going to do there so do we want it have a motion for we do need a motion for approval but I'm going to ask Mr Cross to weigh in on that is there any form that that motion should take well I think I had some questions but know the motion it would be as to as recommended to authorize the uh advertisement for bids to be provided for the provisional materials only I guess my concern is you know the I I I can see a different contractor than putting the windows that were these are going to be owner provided Windows basically the owner provided windows but the installation of the windows will be by the general contractor on his bid when we bid that in April okay well I I just I have some concerns that we make sure that the the fittings are proper and the tolerances are there because I can see a general a general contractor than having a claim for owner caused consequential damages because you know if if the we're fortunate field measurements aren that 90% of the windows are existing openings okay so he will have the opening and then uh uh part of the contract for the general is that he'll guarantee the window size opening when we construct the new windows on the new edition okay so we're basically bidding for Windows to repace Windows material loing well toop site drop but if I understand this correctly we're just going through a shop drawing process so that's exactly right at the end if if our shop drawings need to be modified we're not that's that's liable until we release them for production that's right are that are those all of the questions okay so then I I need a motion to approve to advertise for bids for the windows phas uh Jeff slier makes the motion Aaron Steven seconds the motion comments or questions all those in favor please signify by saying I I opposed thank you uhhuh kind of exciting isn't he up again okay on the U 7.01 now there's a recommendation to approve attendance areas and what I have prepared for the board uh is just U just a general statement saying the implementation of the board's master plan is at the point where approval of the boundaries for student areas is critical and the assignment of students to their respective buildings the balancing of enrollment the assignment of teachers all are dependent on the approval of the boundaries so I'm recommending there for that the board adopt the attendance areas as presented by Mr Ma and he may want to come back up to the podium um he's also prepared and I think you have it your places not only a graphic uh representation of the boundaries but a um description by Oh by Words streets Yeah by streets narrative yeah is that on the the website don't know that that's on the website yet not yet but it will be I think I think we're planning on putting that on tomorrow I think so too yeah want to go ahead and make the motion the maps that you have in front of you are a little difficult to read because of a small print so what I would like to do would be just to uh describe the the boundaries starting with crestdale and the uh North Boundary of of the crestdale Edition which is right here it would be uh Webster Road and the uh Northeastern uh School District to the East and then down the East Side would be uh State Line uh road to this point and then we would pick up part of New Paris Pike and the railroad uh down to the uh star District which would then be 27 down to L street and follow the Whitewater Valley up to uh Progress Drive and then Progress Drive over to Salisbury Road and then up uh this area right here this whole area then would be crestdale which includes this little dip right in in this area here the next would be the star District uh which is actually the the smallest uh geographical District that we have primarily because of the programs that are going on there is that we bring students in from all over the district so on the north of the star District would be the uh the railroad right along here uh Glen Miller Park uh along the Eastern side uh National Road East or Main Street would be along the southern portion and us27 would be on the western portion on on Veil uh on the uh north side of veil would be East Main Street and then 16 down to uh Worley Road and then uh West on Worley road which then also runs into test Road uh to the valley and then the valley up to El Street El Street back over to 16th or back over to uh 27 uh North which would be 9th Street and then up to uh Main Street so that would be the uh Veil school district one of the largest school districts uh would be the Charles district and we would start uh with the uh uh here yeah we would start uh right in this area where the Glen Miller Park again we would follow the railroad and parts of New Paris Pike over to the state line and then we drop directly south to parts of uh uh 227 or 122 I mean and the uh Union County School District and we would come over then to the valley right here and which is uh would be part of uh us27 again and come right up the valley uh to where the US 27 and and uh uh the road drops or starts going north again and follow Valley all the way up to Worley Road and then over to 16th Street back up to Main Street and in Glen Miller Park so that would be the uh entire uh Charles area on on the west VI area we would start on on Peacock Road and we would go from the Salsbury road to Peacock Road to Northwest Fifth Street and then we would drop down to National Road West then go east to the uh Valley Whitewater Valley and follow that Valley all the way down uh to the tip right here to where the uh Centerville School District and Richmond School District meet and then we would follow that district line up to Salisbury Road and peacock and then that would be the entire West viw area fair viiew uh we would start uh on the progress uh drive to the Whitewater Valley follow the Whitewater Valley down to National Road West up fth street across peacock and and up Salisbury Road and then this would be the entire uh Fairview District that would be the proposed attendance areas for the elementary schools now the uh proposed attendance areas for Dennis uh would be uh all of the uh crestdale West viw and fair viiew District so uh in looking at at the dentist test separation would be right along here right right down to the tip the valley up to where crestdale is here and all of this area then would be for Dennis and then all this area which would include Vil star and Charles would be for the test District before conversation do you want a motion yes um could I have a motion to approve the attendance areas as presented Pat heiney makes the motion second Suzanne der gski seconds the motion Now comments and questions Pat I have a fairly practical question uh when we say the district line is 16th Street for example is does that mean that the west side of 16th goes to Veil and the east side of 16th goes to Charles yes in in fact uh in looking at at that line which is right here uh ironically until we get down to uh Worley Road right here there's only three families right here on Worley road that that live on the uh one side of 16th versus The Other Side the rest of them uh they're off of 16th Street by a block or two uh but we do have uh students directly on the uh west side of 16th that would go to Veil is is that true because I was going to ask the same question is that true for all of these streets that yeah yes yes where we use streets for instance uh Peacock Road is one uh uh the uh Road up here yes what on the other side they would go to the other okay other school district the only difference would be the valley yes yes and the valley is definitely the river and and the railroad and the railroad we and we tried to use those lines as much as we could knowing that there's always a question when you use a street okay what what side and and and where do you go so you're basically going down the middle of the streets exactly right exactly right and are there any changes on this from last week no there is not okay other comments and questions no I think the thing that's kind of important to understand although we'll have when we get into 5120 we we'll talk about some transfer students our our policies but I think it's important to understand that part of the reason besides the boundaries or the national or the natural boundaries that develop these is U each of the schools are fairly populated evenly for full class size now we understand that that 5 years from now that may change but that's also in the policy where it could be re-evaluated every year so I mean there are there there that's the two primary reasons um I mean some of the lines look a little odd um I'll be the first one to admit that but if the way the population works out in the school I I think to go along with that the important item was the uh the new boundaries on the Intermediate School is that uh for the first time that uh Tess and Dennis are within 20 students of each other of being uh bounced out SCH other comments and questions I want to the other thing that I want public to know is there have been areas because of other movement that we've made made where in one neighborhood kids have gone to three different elementary schools absolutely and so we're trying to even not only even out the numbers but even out the neighborhoods so that they are all pretty consistent which makes a lot of sense yes that was primarily in in uh fair viiew crestdale and Westview a couple areas but in some areas there were almost all the districts all the nine districts at one time had a lot of crossovers on the other thing too is to keep the class sizes where we feel we need to keep them and for what the parents requested this is another way to achieve that class size low or Equitable Equitable equable yeah you ready okay any other comments and questions this is a big decision i't don't want to rush all those in favor please signify by saying I I opposed thank you thank you I think we need to thank Mr Ma and all of the different maps that have been drawn all the work that's a lot of work I I do appreciate that and it's a picture like this moment that's so that's why the next conversation is so important so I think the interesting thing too that you need to know that all these maps and data was provided inhouse we didn't have to go out for anybody to put these Maps together uh the secretaries had all the the students they knew right where they were and pick up so it's all been produced in house thank I Mr Ma I have one request now this is going to sound ridiculous but I'm going to make it anyway I love the maps got them at my house looked at them nicely but could I get one special one that instead of having all the streets and everything else that you would in bold colors have all the different have all of these different areas and highlight the names of the schools that they will be going to um um just for for instance this area which we know will be crestdale if that could just be one color with Crest up there I need a um so when I'm sitting at home I want to do some comparisons on my own and it's easier to do it when I can when I can look at the area and some other things kind of like paint by number paint by number right fill in the dots they SED highlighters H yeah but I don't want to have to do thank you I may not I may not stay within the lines had a problem doing that yesterday on to 702 okay 702 runs over policy 5120 and its supportive uh uh supporting administrative guidelines was the subject of our meeting last week the board work session and I've attached a and posted to the the web policy that contains the revisions that reflect a lot of that conversation from last week as well as subsequent suggestions from board members since then um due to the number of critical Communications from the school and resulting family decisions that have to take place I'm requesting that the board wave its requirement for formal uh for multiple formal readings the version of this policy so my first recommendation is that you wave it uh your requirement for the multiple formal readings the revision of policy 5120 um you want to go ahead and do that now so move Suzanne Darren gski makes the motion and Aaron Steven seconds the motion comments or questions all those in favor please signify by saying I I opposed thank you um secondly then I would recommend the adoption of policy 5120 as revised and posted to the web this is just the policy just the policy so move Pat hiney makes the motion and Aon Steven seconds the motion okay now comments and questions on the approval of policy 5120 which is enrollment assignment and transfers within the corporation reassignment reassignment I just read it as it was PR no I really just I appreciated the time that we was able to spend on it so I and and the changes that ref reflected the conversation I thought we were heard and I appreciate it and I think parents should feel that they were heard as well stuff in there okay there are no comments and questions all in favor please signify by saying I I opposed now we're going to go to frequently asked questions and one of the reasons for this is because in a parent meeting a few weeks ago the parent said said that they'd been hearing from a lot of other parents misinformation and they just had some simple questions so we thought if we could have um frequently asked questions be a part of our agenda that maybe some of those will get answered and I want to continue to tell the public to please send questions that you may have to the website we are richmond.com and uh we'll try to get those questions answered for you and we have some questions that we would like to present tonight that have been kind of a strand uh Misty Hollis actually Bridget hazelbaker and Misty both work with this and they're both here tonight I'm assuming that Misty are you prepared to work with this one thank you um we've seen us a real theme it's been interesting from when the master plan process started to how the questions have kind of changed as we've progressed the process so the themes that um there are specific for that we've seen come through the last couple weeks the first one is which school building will my student be assigned to for 2012 2013 school year and our response has been related to waiting on action um to be approved for the attendance areas which you've done tonight so some of those answers will be able to um start directing to our parents um and I we will post additional things after you've with the approval tonight on the website with a mapping second question is how will I be informed if my student will be assigned or reassigned to a different building our answer is parents will be mailed a letter of information and then a followup will occur during the parent teacher conferences week which is March 19th so there'll be some follow-up that occurs as well to that um and then um the other two will my fifth sixth grader ride the bus with seventh and eighth graders so now we've kind of moved into the transportation conversations and questions and um our answer on the FAQs is the administration is still reviewing all possible scenarios of Transportation most likely we will have five the fifth to eth graders on the same Transportation Route um I spoke to Mr codington today and they are the transportation department is looking at three different scenarios at this time a lot of it depended on the attendance area so now that that's approved they can really work toward the transportation routes and scenarios um the last one is will there be a separate start and end time for fifth and sixth graders as compared to seventh and eighth graders in the intermediate buildings and our response at this particular time is that all scenarios for start and end time through the entire District are being reviewed at this particular time so we don't have quite those answers I think it's important on that particular question and I'm glad that one came up um we're looking not just at fifth and sixth graders we're looking at the start time for the high school the start time for the intermediate the start time for the elementary there may be some pretty significant changes and I also I I don't want to throw um a huge bomb into this into this conversation but uh oh je but um Mrs walpy is also looking at the idea whether it's this coming year or the next staggering the start times for The High School for students who would like to come in later and stay later um so we're looking at some changes now at the high school that could really change the complexion of what um start and stop times look like so I appreciate that that response and I appreciate the the question I want to make sure that we've heard from parents not just whether the fifth and sixth graders will ride with seventh and eighth graders but the real concern is uh say safety at the bus stop and on the buses and we need to let people know we've heard that correct and that we are looking at all of those yes yes absolutely and during the time they exit the bus and get into the school also one of the questions I had with with now that the district Maps can be put on the website I was wondering if we could have a little interactive tool with Google or something where parents can type in their address and boom it'll take them right to that we're going to build a Google map that's interactive three of them one for high school one for intermediate and one for the elementary I think elimin they'll be able to now before we get yeah when will when will this happen tomorrow we will begin working on it tomorrow morning but so what's a realistic time for us to hold your feet to the fire on that we're thinking by Monday morning oh oh okay so by our next meeting that that'll solve a lot of questions I agree the other question I have along and it's kind of a step back but uh we have a lot of other policies um that that we need to discuss and one of which you give us the 51 13.01 but we also have 01 uh 03 and 05 the homeless and then the 8600 Transportation are we expecting to go ahead and go through all of those we will have to do that okay so I'll bring that in fact that'll be on our next agenda one that Miss norwal mentioned too the whole thing yeah okay and what I'll say is if I can just add for those that might be listening there will be um this update on the attendance areas frequently asked questions will be online tomorrow as well so we'll have that posted for parents that might have questions good so when do you expect the letters to be sent to the homes informing each family of where their school will be um we have letter doesn't say what school they'll be at they're being asked to come to the parent teacher conferences and the reason for that is because you can't just assume the attendance boundary because we are trying to grandfathers and Par students into their current buildings so we want to be able to explain that process there will be written confirmation though and it'll be right around that parent teacher conference time either before or after once we've confirmed addresses mhm and as I was looking back at the FAQs that we put together when we started the master planning process our timeline that we told parents about letting them know attendance areas was around spring break so we're moving ahead of what we said originally um to parents and to the public well thank you Linda did you have something else I just wanted to ask because um so is this a form of the enrollment when is actual enrollment going to take place that is a form of the enrollment at the at the parent teacher conference time we're act asking them to confirm enrollment and I we have have we talked about actually registering them at that time I don't recall that about the rollover registration just having them update their information yeah we are having them update and we'll also ad be advertising for new enrol a so for those parents who probably cannot attend a parent teacher conference how will you get in touch with them through for one thing there won't be too many we we have an over 90% attendance rate for that but but yes we will actually call them and we'll we'll make sure we have physical contact with all of them I think the internet with the interactive map that'll be so great will answer yeah a lot of the questions so that's going to take place around um parent teacher conferences right okay then kindergarten enrollment is in April or April I I was just thinking that if if these D because I'm thinking about preschool also so if if those dates are firm and those could be posted so that people are aware that's a good you've by by the action you've taken tonight you've you've you've caused us to be able to put some of these pieces together we should be able to communicate that information as early as Friday yeah good well I I'm a little concerned that I don't want parents to think that the Google Google interaction is really the enrollment or the registration so while it answers questions about where they might go that isn't enough enough to let us know that they want to go to that school so correct I mean it's not going to be that interactive is it but we will have registration a Registration site online will we not a link to go to mhm oh my so they may look at a map and have a link to directly to the registration but there may be another step they have to take right the early registration is is planned for maybe that week after spring break after we've had the parent teacher conferences after we get through that spring break but early right after that that we had planned see this so you're and now that we have these you're actually catching us work in motion work in progress here okay that's phenomenal though I that's great needed to do that for a while so it's really can you imagine this pre computer International the good I mean other than Esa where only the grandfather number of students is between 40 and 5050 so what's nice about it is with the the boundaries being established and now the policy approved the address of the residents without those 40 or 50 students that were talking about grandfather because they've already been they've already been asked to leave their home District to go to another District because their building was full will be fairly accurate mhm with the exception of Esa CU that's 98 or 96 of our students that are guaranteed enrolled in the esa so H oh fun that's great good conversation thank you on to our press conference Brian did you want to ask any questions want to do consent items or did we do that already no no the press conference the press conference ready for consent now we're ready for the consent items all right for consent items tonight we have the approval of our February 6th and February 8 February 15th uh minutes also recommendation from human resources and we have no addendum tonight uh counts payable also a recommendation to approve a request for Corporation sponsored travel this would be our business Professionals of America I believe it's the competition in Chicago and uh recommendation to approve Corporation sponsor travel uh spring overnight athletic uh opportunities do I hear a motion to accept the accept the consent items as presented Aaron Stevens makes a motion and Dixie Robinson seconds the motion comments or questions on the consent items all those in favor please signify by saying I I opposed thank you we have our second public commentary now is there anyone signed up no is there anyone out there who would like to speak okay follow up on old business I'd like to um alert the board this is continuation of old business um we have submitted some sections of policy to Neola to have that updated and within the next few weeks there will be significant a significant amount of work uh to go through the board policies in some of these sections these are sections that have also had updates with administrative guidelines it's it's substantial work and I just wanted to let you know it's coming what are the sections sections uh Pam Section 8 that was very important because we the timeline didn't have a lot of wiggle room so I appreciate everybody being willing to do those extra meetings I know they're kind of hard to do when you think oh that's the off Wednesday or whatever so just makes it a lot easier tonight when we're trying to have a discussion and make a decision and there were more of the public who were able to be involved with it not necessarily here but also by watching it or hearing it uh reading it online or any or other opportunities that they may normally not have had which has led to other questions from the public and answers coming from us and coming from Dr DF as well well I guess that was a reflection which is and a celebration maybe all the above um is there any more uh follow up on old business that anyone wanted to talk about okay then we'll go to superintendent and board reports Reflections and celebrations Kathy Parker has something I do I have a couple things um the first thing I'd like to talk about is you remember last year when we talked about the new Indiana K to6 reading framework the Indiana Department of Education is working on developing a 7 through2 literacy framework and um they have put out an offer for schools to be a part of that pilot and if you are a part of that pilot opportunity then you will be um getting some really good professional development and uh Richmond High School test middle school and Dennis middle school as they now stand all applied to be a part of that we were notified that Richmond High School has been accepted as a part of that pilot we still don't know about our middle schools but um they will begin um at the end of February participating in some online professional development and they'll be putting together a literacy team the focus of the secondary level obviously is to spread literacy throughout all the content areas and so that will be the focus of those groups so congratulations Richmond High School for that um the second thing that I would like to highlight is um with the passing of the waiver and um our waiver from nclb um some of the focus of the Personnel at the Indiana Department of Education has changed Dr or uh Richard benberry who had been a turnaround specialist is now working to um create and house what he's calling best practices and education examle samples from across the state of Indiana and he was looking through the data for schools across the state of Indiana and wanted to Spotlight great processes that are going on in schools and he has identified CR Richardson as a turnaround school as a um because of their um really good um growth and high ranking in the pl 221 because they received the um letter great of an A and they also have sustained growth across several years and so um he's scheduling a visit he'll be coming spending about 3 to 4 hours talking with the leadership team at the school talking with um students talking with parents and doing some walkthroughs so it's really good um we'll be a part of the best practices in Indiana how many schools do you know how many schools I don't know how many schools they've identified initially but I think we're probably one of them in the first group that's great I think I saw where our bowling team placs seventh in this stage girls bowling team congratulations to them I have one um we received notice and we'll receive a lot of notices in the next few months about our seniors receiving Awards scholarships and other honors uh one of the first ASA Bowen who is a senior who and many of us have heard her sing the national anthem at Veterans Day and a few other uh songs she also also happened to be a member of the All America City team of a couple of years ago but she was selected as a CO scholarship finalist that's worth $10,000 there were 48,000 applicants and she was one of 250 selected to be a finalist they will receive the $110,000 and they each are then going on an expense paid trip to Atlanta for interviews and out of those 250 one per state will be selected to receive another $20,000 so ASA Bowen this year uh has been that student head of the kickoff mentoring program and she's been very active in a lot of things so congratulations to Asia I know all the way around I know just I could just hear her sing all the time Dixie um congratulations to the Star Academy taking the science title award um they um placed first in the state champion for Class 2 competition in the 2012 Elementary science Bowl uh Charles uh finished 9th Garrison uh finished 12th and Highland and CR finished 18th and 19th great news but to win isn't that exciting I'd like to highlight some some work at the high school um we have Oklahoma coming up this weekend Oklahoma the musical will be Friday no Saturday Sunday Saturday and Sunday Saturday evening Sunday matina and you know we we went through a dry spell on drama and musicals at Richmond High School and it's wonderful to see that that's coming back I also want you to know that our uh Speech team coach has put out an all call for some additional judges for I think it's this Saturday um but the real the real news is that we have a speech team right that also that also was kind of a dry spell Jo she's been after that right so we have a we have a speech speech team we have a drama program musicals and I I I can't let this pass um we also had a victory over cooko high school at at the ball game and uh that what did you win well not only did we win the game but the team gave me the the game ball in 20 years being a superintendent that's the first time that's ever happened so I appreciate I appreciate that gesture from the team but what they didn't know was they presented that to me right in front of one of my high school best friends and he's going to have to live with that memory the rest of his life and maybe in some of the pictures you can yeah and that was a great game it was a fantastic game they they did a really really good job that night and and so did I don't know how many kids participated on the floor during halftime but that FL flash mob but for that that was all for Lemonade Day uh to promote that so we had a busy game that night okay well thank you everyone oh wait a minute Mr Cross has something I'd like to celebrate a a graduate of Richmond High School uh if you would last week uh Michelle maner who is working as a beat reporter for the Chicago Tribune had a special uh feature article in Tribune uh that dealt with the fact that she and her now deceased father share Valentine's Day's a birthday if you uh a ni want to read an enlight uplifting article I commend that to you and the copyright law by down congratulations I saw it on Facebook so it's out there okay thank you that was e

good evening i'm here to stand against bias presented in this textbook's content that is an attempt to sway popular opinion to excuse acts of violence towards israel in the beginning the foundation of education in america was to teach people to read and write for the sole purpose of reading the bible i believe that good leaders don't concern themselves with issues like popularity they go out of their way to glean a small remnant of truth to stand for and become advocates of it what are you advocating in the cultural landscape curriculum it asked if a palestinian suicide bomber killed several dozen israeli teenagers in a jerusalem restaurant is that an act of terrorism or wartime retaliation against israeli government policies and army actions for what educational purpose does this line of question and serve it seems to me you're provoking a way of thinking that encourages violence and retaliation toward a nation who we should be encouraging our youth to be grateful to wouldn't it take a blind person to not see the attacks on the jewish people and the christians around the world wouldn't we be repeating the horrors of the holocaust if we sat silent in our comfort zones as even our children's textbooks were splattered with anti-semitic anti-israel unconstitutional and anti-american propaganda is islam presented in a manner in which facts are embellished and its virtues exaggerated while unfavorable negative or detrimental information about the religion is omitted glossed over understated or rationalized thus amounting to indoctrination rather than education is my time up yes ma'am and for the record could you please state your name and your address please my name is lita miner my address is 1075 savely road pigram tennessee thank you 37.

next individual is les cleveland my address is 1104 savannah avenue in gallatin and i'm here today to support not changing the textbooks the statement as far as i can see is okay these our children can think for themselves and most likely what they would say when that one comment that everyone as opposed to comes up that's terrorism but you need to expose them to these different types of ideas so that they can grow in this area the second thing i want to point out is that this is an outstanding school district until recently i was a resident for 10 years and people around this state and possibly around the country are watching what you do we need to make sure that we provide students with this opportunity and finally mrs laurie cadoza more she goes around the country attacking different muslims verbally in her speeches and we've had those problems here in tennessee where we have a mosque that where where that mosque we have people attending it that are professors at mtsu and have been there for decades and yet we still find that this kind of attitude is a prevalent with with her and i think that please don't give in to this is religious bigotry and hatred and you in williamson county can put a stop to it thank you ladies and gentlemen this is a business meeting of this body we have this forum to allow citizens to communicate to us it is very difficult to hear what anyone has to say if there are others in the audience that are talking out above them we've all sat and listened respectfully to different points of view and it is my hope that as you see here tonight you will continue to sit quietly and listen whether you agree or disagree with what someone is saying if you don't feel like you can do that i would invite you to leave right now otherwise we will proceed on next is lori cordoza more as you said i'm lori cardoza more here to defend my position and my address is 1858 wilson pike in franklin tennessee since my presentation before the williamson county school ad hoc committee on june 17th i have expanded my research into pearson prentice hall publishers and their audit their authors and editors the information i have uncovered is very disturbing and only the tip of the iceberg according to a report by citizens for national security a consultant with the council on islamic education in dealing with pearson prentice hall shabir mansouri has publicly stated that he is waging this is his quote not mine just for clarification waging a bloodless revolution promoting world cultures and faiths in america's classroom and that the council on islamic education has warned scholars and public officials who do not sympathize with its request that they will be perceived as racists reactionaries and enemies of islam the phrase enemies of islam is not a veiled threat and it can be directly linked to the numerous islamist terrorist factions such as the muslim brotherhood al-qaeda hamas and others this threat is very troubling and indicates that the council on islamic education will go to any length to drive their anti-american anti-jewish anti-israel dogma into our children's minds through their textbooks students in k-12 schools lack the experience and skills to validate most of what they hear they easily absorb propaganda and tend to believe what their textbooks and their teachers tell them i'm asking you to please remove the textbook next is cantor nathaniel berman yes ma'am cantor with birmingham a jewish cantor 3322 highway 76 cottontown tennessee there's a new kind of anti-semitism israel has now become the jew of the world the cultural landscape proves without question that the text which we are referring to connects both israel and anti-semitic propaganda and disinformation and it only fuels the hate that must be removed from the classroom because hidden behind the smoke screen of anti-israel fervor is a familiar hatred of the jew blood libel the elder of zion the powerful secret international conspirator the pariah and the scapegoat of the world our children's minds are like sponges especially at these years i have a 13 year old son alexander who when he was six years old attended a private school in gallatin sumner academy when alex was six years old he was sitting in the cafeteria next to one of his classmates he was the only jewish child in his class and was very proud of his heritage and his religion his classmate turned around to him during lunch and said you killed jesus she got up from her chair and walked away when my son came home he was understandably upset and could not fully understand why he was blamed for this story speaks volumes about what is taught to our children as a renowned pulitzer prize winner and holocaust survivor ellie wiesel said what hurts us as jews is not the cruelty of the oppressor but the silence of the bystander and you my friends are the bystander remove this book please next is paul lovett's my name is abby wolf 801 percy warner boulevard in nashville i represent the jewish federation of nashville and middle tennessee the jewish federation of nashville middle tennessee opposes the use of this textbook as as it is currently written we're concerned that williamson county students are being led to believe that terrorist acts of palestinian suicide bombers can be justified as wartime retaliation against israeli government policies in our opinion this question never should have been asked in such an inappropriate manner to create moral equivalency between acts of terror and legitimate territorial disputes that are political in nature serves to legitimize premeditated violence against innocent civilian victims this paragraph should be deleted because of its error its bias its inconsistency with the definition and explanation provided in the previous paragraphs on terrorism and its misrepresentation of international law and the positions of palestinians and israelis if the school board is unwilling to remove the print version of this book as it's currently written the jewish federation has offered to work with the williamson county school district specifically the ap human geography teachers and students to help them understand why this book is problematic as it's currently written with no additional education teaching from this book in its current form is a disservice to all the students of williamson county thank you thank you next is tiffany workout did i say that correctly sorry little so i broke my toes this weekend so tiffany borgelt 1228 kelly court franklin in the last few months parents have brought their concerns regarding our textbooks their approval process as well as common core standards and yet it seems like our local board has done little to address them everything seems like business as usual and the system continues to chug along this leads me to believe either our concerns don't matter or be that the school board has really no power to make any real changes or maybe specifically you've been told that it is not within your jurisdiction to do so if that's the case then the school board is really relegated to nothing more than an implementation board of federal education policies where is our system of checks and balances i thought we elected the board to represent our concerns and to be a watchdog for our community not to just blindly implement what the governor signed us up for especially when there is a national debate raging about this in our united states many of the men and women here tonight have collectively spent hundreds of hours researching these issues they've spoken to state legislators gone to mtsu to search out books that haven't even been fully written all in an effort to be informed but despite these efforts they are seen more likely as the enemy or people who just don't understand instead of being seen as the neighbors and the friends and the community members that elected you and supported and campaigned for you school board members in states like georgia colorado utah texas and oklahoma are taking a stand and saying no to certain textbooks and standards in the face of their governor's decision and sometimes to the public disapproval of their superintendent has the road been tough for them are they being told they can't yeah i'm pretty sure they have but isn't that what america is about we are a government for the people of the people and by the people and we voted for you to represent us not to be an implementation board for federal policies and regulations next is darla spears i'm darla thompson spears at 186 sturbridge drive in franklin i would just like to as a fellow williamson county parent i've served just like you my most recent services the ptso president at centennial high school and so i just want to thank you for all that you've done and who who you represent in this county i would ask that you would let me read my notes here that you would remove this book the cultural landscape if you have not read the book other than the one paragraph that gets a lot of immediate attention i do not think you have enough information to make an educated decision in this area if you have read the book as an american citizen you must have noticed the anti-american anti-christian anti-semitic marxist comments with more than 14 inaccurate statements i do not find it to be a credible source for any students much less our youngest high schoolers this is a college level course being taught to 14 and 15 year old students that do not have the capacity to understand and process the different thoughts that are being presented to them as a follower of christ i am deeply offended at the crusades as being our defining moment they did not discuss jesus and the actions and the words of jesus yet when we get into other other world religions the positive things are being produced and being presented to our children so in in in conclusion i believe that we need to teach our children how to think and not what to think and this book to me is an outrage thank you next is julie west and because of a growing concerns for my safety and that of my family my husband has requested that i offer my driver's license for anyone on the board or the officers to examine but i think we all know by now that i live in district i proceed okay after the april school board meeting many of us here distinctly remember dr looney saying that the decision had been made that the human geography textbook had run its course and would not be back that statement was repeated several times on fox news including fox and friends with gretchen carlson since that time not only is the book back but the changes that pearson promised to upcoming editions are non-existent if anything that book is worse in addition we've received an email from mr squires questioning whether the statement that the book wouldn't be back or might not be back was ever made my question is once again we feel like we've been lied to and we have to ask who is lying is it i'm sorry but dr looney and williamson county schools or is it the reporters at fox news and the parents of williamson county who know what they have heard thank you that concludes public comment for this evening we move on to the next order of business which is the superintendent's report dr looney thank you madam chair and board members good evening and thank you for your participation in the board retreat from this past weekend i hope that you too felt like it was a productive meeting i wanted to give you an update on student enrollment our current enrollment numbers are exceeding our projections the report that i got at the close of business today was that we are 89 students over projection that number will continue to fluctuate quite a bit until labor day or right after labor day so i don't have school specific numbers but i can tell you and from a global perspective we are exceeding our expectations in the area of kindergarten and ninth grade students across the district and so i'll be glad to give you more reports in the days to come as enrollment begins to stabilize mrs birdsong is going to be available now to discuss some very important news to include the announcement that governor haslam and commissioner huffman made today about our school district's performance this is birdsong thank you we're going to save that for last though just in case because we're going to open up our school year with da da da da a perfect act score this is gerald reigns he goes to independence high school and we are very happy for him and his perfect 36 on the act and we're excited for summit high school and ariana ackerman because arianna earned summit its first national honor in school history she won first place at the national hosa in contest and prepared speaking her teachers are christina isong and denise asbury and we have a staff spotlight tonight the 2013-14 president of the tennessee educational theater association is mark sotomachia and the kids call him salty and that is why is because i'm sure i did not pronounce his name correctly but anyway wonderful wonderful teacher over there at franklin high school now we're going to talk about the awards that were given out at the superintendent's banquet on august the 1st and superintendent's award for academic achievement at the elementary school level went to walnut grove elementary school at the middle school level it went to woodland middle school and at the high school level it went to ravenwood high school and that is for academic achievement for academic growth at the elementary school level clovercroft elementary school for academic growth at the middle school level brentwood middle school and at the high school level page high school now on to the information that dr looney was speaking about that was announced by the governor today folks we have 26 count em reward schools that is the most in the entire state and gosh dr looney can tell you i think we increased it by what 300 or something like that i was an english major not a math major but let's read off the list the 2012-13 reward elementary schools for performance and they give out in two categories performance and performance in progress edmondson grassland kenrose lipscomb nolansville oakview perry creek scales walnut grove and winstead now we put hillsborough over here with the middle schools even though they are awarded hillsborough elementary middle hillsborough page middle sunset middle and woodland middle were named reward middle schools for performance and at the high school level brentwood franklin independence and summit high school for performance and growth at the elementary school level allendale clovercroft crockett sunset trinity brentwood middle grassland middle and page high school congratulations to all of our student staff and school spotlights this evening madam chair just for public consumption i'd like to further articulate what that word growth means from the state's perspective for those schools that had growth reward status that means that on average a student in that school grew more than one full academic year that concludes my report thank you dr looney and i'd just like to say wow we have a lot to be proud of and i want to thank everybody for their hard work and their participation in making all that happen for our students next item on the agenda is the board chairman's report i too would like to thank the board members for joining us on saturday for our retreat we had a interesting day and very productive i also like to welcome our new safety director is here with us this evening mike fletcher is in the back of the room thank you for being here look forward to working with you and that concludes my report and we will move on to the next item on the agenda which is under unfinished business on page 73 the 2012-13 five-year capital plan adjustments dr looney the command chair and board members i do recommend your approval as submitted someone like to make a motion motion from mr mclaughlin not here second mr welch mr anderson yes thank you i'm seriously concerned about moving the raven the east brentwood nolensville area high school back with the crowding at ravenwood and page high growing to its capacity rapidly those would be the two closest schools as far as feeder zones and i'm very concerned that we wait another year it's going to put that much more pressure on raven with that many more portables out there dr looney is there some alternative plan here to handle this growth that's there because that side of the town is the fastest growing in the county so i'd like to know that and if it's possible if the county commission has a approves the funding in the near future at least for planning could the planning piece happen because i know construction wise opening a school in 18 19 months is very difficult but the plans are in place the construction can happen in 15 16 months i believe for a high school i'd have to lean on kevin forney for that but i kind of like to have the answer to those two questions because i am really concerned about this yes sir thank you for your question and we too share your concern ravenwood high school is approaching 2 000 students this year we intend on adding a couple of portables there there are some some plans being developed as relates to how to relieve that capacity in the near term assuming that the board grants permission to make this move tonight we will be asking the county commission for design and site preparation monies for that property and obviously we'll begin the design work just as soon as we get authorization as i discussed in the work session there is some there is a potential to do something creative in a 810 configuration there or eight nine configuration there to relieve some some of the high school strain that we have at ravenwood in the 14 15 school year so i hate i can't give you more than that i understand you're concerned we share it as well and as soon as we get funding in place we'll begin design the design work and with all do haste yes sir go ahead so if this is approved at this evening's meeting we are pretty sure that you're going to have something in place that the community will not be having 2200 kids at ravenwood that you'll be able to do something in in 2015 with the proposed elementary middle configuration whether it be 9 12 added or whatever 9 through 10 grades 9 through 10 added because i'm very hesitant to vote for this knowing that we're going to be pushing this out if we're not going to be assured in some form or fashion that something's going to be handled for the 9th and 10th graders and i know you know people will say well sports wise they can't compete well at that level they can't compete anyhow as the first year is in to two aaa as far as varsity football and stuff that is still going to be like a jv schedule so a ninth and tenth grade configuration would be okay not perfect or ideal but at least something so we're not so far overcrowded that school we can't handle it yes sir there's certainly multiple events and decisions that this board would have to make in advance of that but my intention as your superintendent is to provide relief as soon as possible at ravenwood and the only way that for that to happen is for us to have an option for at a minimum 9th graders in the 15th year thank you mr mclaughlin dr lennyson so the people can't see what we're seeing here as far as our five-year capital plan and the changes made can you talk about the designs not just being requested designed for high school but also the other design so that they would understand what we're seeing here yes sir thank you for your question as the board knows and members of the public may may or may not know the board saw fit to purchase with the county commission's approval approximately 100 acres of land and the reality of it is the nolans feel the northeastern section of the county is growing so much so that we not only need a high school but we need an elementary and a middle school all three and so the design work that we're talking about is to develop a comprehensive campus that serves all of those students and it may be a k-8 campus it might be a sunset type of configuration on one portion of the of the property with a traditional high school on the second portion of the property but once again this the money that we're asking to for you to approve and therefore ask the county commission for approval at a later time in september is to begin the design work and the site preparation for that property so that when the architectural designs are complete and we have gone through the submittal and approval process we can begin construction and secure funding full funding from the county commission for those construction projects i hope that answers your question it does thank you ms hammond and probably just two for a little bit more clarification if we can just go back to that since we're asking for funds we proved for the design is it possible that as part of that process it could be that those dates change or that the high school comes first or is there is there even a possibility to be thinking along those lines or really even with the design phase going on are these really the dates that we are now looking at and saying this would be the order of the schools well thank you for your question this is the best estimate that we currently have based on current data as with all five year plans this is subject to change depending on what happens with student population over time but based on today's enrollment numbers this is our best guess miss mills dr lenny when you were talking about the campus and it being potentially an elementary middle and high school campus in the request for funds for design work are we looking at a k-8 are we looking at an elementary middle are we going to go back and revisit that or because i'm not i know the board was going to have conversation about what type of school configuration it was going to be elementary middle right and yes ma'am i haven't had that conversation and i just was curious as if that plan includes that k-8 design or is it a or where are we on that right that decision has not been made by this board yet it's a conversation that you will have in the days and months ahead okay is there any further discussion are we ready to vote your vote is 12 yes 0 no motion passes next item is 4 b this is on page 77 it's the sac financial assistance program dr looney thank you madam chair and board members as you know we have had some discussion at our work session about using a sliding scale for families that qualify for freody's lunch for the sac program just as a reminder the sac program is not a tax based program it is a fee based program and it covers 100 of its own expenses so those students that qualify for free or reduced lunch would have a discounted rate which was paid in that program someone like to make a motion motion for miss mills second from mr gregory is there any discussion miss vote dr looney could you explain whether or not the other alternative the ymca does the same thing thank you for your question the answer is yes ma'am i actually believe it's the same rate miss goodwin is that correct it's very close to the same rate but not the exact same rate so this is offering it out of both options that's correct yes ma'am thank you is there anyone else that wishes to speak are we ready to vote your vote is 12 yes zero no motion passes next item on the agenda is 5a reconsideration of instructional materials the information is located on page 79 dr looney thank you ma'am chaired board members i appreciate the importance of the issue at hand and your decision i took the time to set in on part of of the hearing process that was convened as relates to this textbook as a result of what i believe to be the work the sound work that the committee did i recommend that the board uphold the textbook review review committee's decision someone like to make a motion decision motion from mr hullett second second from his vote and the motion is to uphold the decision mr mclaughlin i am i think we should have a hearing but the motion is on the floor i would like to make amendment to the motion though to be considered page seven of the committee's conclusions they say that the committee recommends that teachers of the course be made aware of the publisher's decision to remove page 260 paragraph from the electronic version and subsequent editions my motion is a little different than that my motion is that the teachers must inform the students and parents that this paragraph about bombing jewish teenagers cannot be used as part of this class in any way that's my motion my amendment to the motion would you repeat that please yes i will luckily i wrote it down okay my motion is that the teachers must inform the students and parents that this the paragraph about bombing of jewish teenagers cannot be used as part of the instruction in the class in any way okay we have an amendment to the motion that teachers must inform students and parents regarding the paragraph regarding the bombing of jewish teenagers cannot be used in any way is that correct that's part of the instruction in any way yes that's part of instruction is that information on a particular page mr mclaughlin it is it's it's it's the paragraph from page 260 i think that's chapter eight as well do we have a motion we have a second from mr gregory mr gregory did you wish to speak to the amendment that's currently on the floor okay miss hammond did you wish to speak to this amendment i would i also would be in favor of a hearing but and i do support this amendment that mr mclaughlin is putting forward i also would like some additional verbage added to be communicated is it appropriate now to bring that up as part of this amendment it would be furthering just more the communication that came out of the ad hoc committee's findings you can certainly add that to the amendment but i think it might be easier if we handled one at a time all right that's fine okay okay i have miss mr mezra did you wish to speak to the amendment no i don't i don't have your mic on because i won't take you out of the queue until i until i know if you want to speak to the amendment okay thank you mr wimberly did you wish to speak to the amendment well that wasn't my original intent but i do have questions hold on just a moment because i don't have your mic on may i speak now yes sir okay go ahead so may i ask mr mclaughlin a question so you're saying that you would be okay if we don't remove the book but you want this particular text removed is that what the amendment would say am i on yes sir okay i'm not necessarily saying that but i am saying that based upon the amendment or the motion that came forward that if that motion goes forward that this is the amendment that i would like to to add to that motion and as i understand it the ad hoc committee said the committee also recommends that teachers of the course be made aware of the publisher's decision to remove the page 260 paragraph from the electronic version and subsequent editions so they intend to remove this paragraph correct okay understand the committee it wants to remove it no it says the publisher is going to remove the paragraph yeah is that not correct the publisher it has been can i talk yes sir okay the publisher has said that he's going to remove that in the electronic versions that are coming out but that doesn't take care in my opinion of the books that are that were out there that are going to be used nor does it take care of new books whether it's taken out of those books that would the students would also be using and not everybody can use electronic version not everybody will have that available to them okay i think i understand your amendment to the motion now thank you thank you miss mills did you wish to speak to the amendment on the floor i have would like to ask the question of i guess jason and dr looney in what i believe is our policy and our procedure that is spelled out in board policy and in what i believe to be our options in regard to what we are to do with the decision out of this committee is either to uphold the decision of the committee to throw out the decision of the committee or to grant a hearing and the question that i have is does this do do we have the authority and are we doing the right thing by making a decision on whether or not to add or subtract language from the decision of the committee because i'm not sure it appears to me that steps outside of the scope of what we've been asked to do in this situation and i think that's amending the decision and if we're not comfortable with the decision of the committee then i think we should vote to say we're not comfortable with the decision grant a hearing and see what comes out of that or throw out the decision or uphold the decision so i'm curious as to what we're supposed to do yes sir go ahead dr looney because mr golden was the hearing officer for the review process i think the question would be more appropriately directed to the board's council and that's mr bill squire bill would you comment on that and then i'll have a closing comment sure thank you for the question you know ultimately you know you start with the overarching premise that the board is responsible for curriculum and textbooks in any classroom i will say going to miss mill's question the way the policy is written what it contemplates is that the lion's share of the review hearing take place with the committee and then the decision itself come to the board if on appeal like by ms cardoza moore and that the role of the board then is to as you described uphold it turn it down or have a hearing to do get additional information or questions you may have answered is it possible for you to adopt all or part of the committee's decision the answer is technically yes is it wise to do that i can't really tell you that but i will say that what the policy really is looking for is for you all to discuss and review the committee's decision decision itself and take a vote on what you think about that decision as it came to you okay then i need to say i can't support your amendment tim because i think that if we are going to if we want as a board and believe that we need to hear the case and we feel like that the committee has not made a reasonable judgment and that would be the reason in my mind that we would exclude that i think i can't support that because i think our role at this particular point is to do one of those three things and if we believe as a board that we need to have a hearing and hear that i think that's what we need to do but i don't i can't support amending the recommendation of the committee so that's where i am i respect that is there anyone else that wishes to speak to the amendment that's currently on the floor if you would just signal with your hand welch thank you yes i think you brought up a great point and bill i guess i'm going to go back to you on this as kind of a point of order if the original amendment put forth by bobby is that we're going to accept the recommendation of the committee can we add amendments to that because that would seem to be contrary to the motion that is on the floor to accept this would be seemed to be a an amendment to to have the hearing or make additions that way in which case i think we would either need to vote the amendment up or down to accept or to not accept and then move forward on additional options including mr mclaughlin's recommendation to add a change to it the second question that i had i guess for mr mclaughlin and it is a question i think i'm asking for kind of some help from the assembled board here to help me think through this is i understand the philosophy and what you're looking for it's kind of a the stated belief of the board that this is not an appropriate statement to make my concern is the cure worse than this disease in this case and i would want to sort of go to the fact that dr lenny how many members are outside members how many students do we have currently signed up for ap human geography this semester just under a thousand just from how many did we have last semester tim can you answer that 600 tim is telling me okay so we've had a what a two-thirds increase from laughter this year based upon the publicity that we've had upon this issue probably not solely on this issue with a growing district and you know it's hard to attribute just to this but i would say it's it's hard not to attribute a large portion of that growth to the publicity that this issue has garnered in the media so again my concern and i'm not saying i disagree with you but i'm just having trouble kind of thinking with this is that by this action by having the teacher point out trying to think the mentality of a teenage child having been one myself years and years and years ago the teacher at the cloud at the front of the classroom saying whatever you do don't read this page this chapter and verse and then that student the very first thing i can see them doing let's go into that phase in that chapter and verse and reading that thank you is there anyone else that wishes to speak to the amendment on the floor i do i'm there do you wish to speak to your amendment i do yes sir i just want to answer mr welch i don't disagree with what you're saying in regards to the curiosity of a 14 15 year old that's what's probably going to happen but i think there's a big difference of them reading it and that them being part of the curriculum and being taught that and so i think that's the thing is as part of the instruction i just really feel so that you understand everybody understands why i feel this way is i think it's a horrible thing to compare bombing any teenage innocent person and trying to compare that to any political stance of anyone that is coming out there i think to take that to a 14 year old i don't i was a 14 once too probably a little further back than you were just a little but i think the thing about it is i have four kids and hopefully by friday i'll have eight grandkids and the maturity of a 14 year old no matter whether they're taking a college class or not is greatly influenced by what they're taught in school and i think that this type of thing is horrific in my mind that this would be taught in any fashion about any group of people or even if it was compared and even talked about in williamson county the innocent killing of children has anything properly based upon a government decision to do anything i just don't think that's has a place at all in the instruction of our children and that's just that's my opinion so that everybody understands where i stand okay but i appreciate it as well and i don't argue the fact that the enrollment and the curiosity of 14 15 year olds contributes to how many people are that have signed up for the class now is there anybody else that wishes to speak to the amendment i have several people in the queue but i'm not going to click on your mic because that will take you out of the cube before we vote on the amendment that's on the floor does everybody understand what the amendment is before we vote are we ready to vote dr looney mister you'd like to talk mr anderson okay as far as if this amendment is approved what does that mean to the main motion on the floor since there seems to be a contradictory point here what are we saying legally we go here mr squires thank you for the question my understanding is that the original motion was to uphold the decision rendered by the committee i understand mr mclaughlin's amendment to be a modification of the actual opinion that was provided to you so my understanding would be that you're upholding the decision of the committee with that one change by mr mclaughlin i think we need to really make this very very clear because i see them as contradictory to one saying this is what it is and the other one's saying this is what it is but if i can speak dr looney thank you madam chair board members once again i can appreciate the difficult position that you're in consistent with the way that we do business in winston county my recommendation would be to not support that amendment i agree with mr anderson's position i think that they contradict each other my opinion is that you have one of three choices to make and there needs to be a motion a second and a and a vote on one of those three outcomes and if you choose to have a hearing which is certainly your prerogative then these other issues would be surfaced and come to the forefront but the decision to be consistent with the way that you have done business in the past you need to vote up or down or vote to have a hearing does that bring clarity my beliefs i unclear what he's saying that if we do vote for this then he dr looney if i'm saying israel believes that then we've decided to change the decision of the of the committee that's correct okay is there anyone else that wishes to speak miss vote could you simply restate the motion on the floor and make it clear what a yes vote what a no vote is just so everybody's on the same page a yes vote will be to uphold mr mclaughlin's amendment that teachers must inform students and parents regarding the paragraph on page regarding the bombing of jewish teenagers that it cannot be used in any way as part of the curriculum and i think as a point of clarification for the board that paragraph was cited in the work of the committee and the publisher has indicated that he is going to remove that paragraph from online version and from future publications did that provide clarity ms vote thank you before we queue up the vote ms ms hammond so again just for clarification the committee's conclusion that are in here and they made they put forth some directives to teachers to to communicate some things out about their their findings are those communicated is that inherent in it that those would be communicated out if the if it was if the book was if their recommendation was upheld yes ma'am it would be an administrative function to make sure that we've communicated our expectations of all of our employees based on the hearing panel's recommendation should this board uphold that recommendation and then again just for clarification i know we've asked it a couple different times so if the one more time would you clarify if the yes or what the yes or no vote would mean based on this amendment is the yes vote saying then that we have already made the decision to in to uphold the decision and does the no vote mean what would you clarify that one more time currently the motion on the floor is an amendment to the original motion the original motion was to uphold the decision of the textbook review committee right the motion currently on the floor which is an amendment changes that motion that was on the floor so it's an alteration to supporting the decision of the textbook committee so a yes vote would be that you're supporting that amendment a no vote means that you are not supporting that amendment and we move back to the main motion excuse me following that vote either as amended or at the main motion depending on which way the vote on the amendment the results of that mr anderson yes textbooks in tennessee are on a six-year cycle when is the social studies this textbook up for redoing it's being reconsidered this year for adoption for the next year so it's got a one year window with this textbook is what you're saying right yes sir the review process and the public input process is taking place in the current year right now for purchase for next year the purchase for next year in the new textbook then that's being reviewed right now is this section that's been in question is that in the new textbook edition that's being reviewed our communication with the author has been that will be removed in the print and edition edition for the next adoption cycle okay so they have told you that it is going to be removed now there's no guarantee that the state's going to say that's a an approved textbook right is the state is reviewing it at this point or is it down to the local level now no sir it's still at the state level state level that's all right so there's no guarantee that the state's going to approve that this textbook is within the tennessee guidelines or the ap guidelines for this class right my understanding is they have narrowed the list because there were only a few publishers that submitted textbooks for review i believe that the revised version of this book is actually on the list to be reviewed what ultimately happens i don't know as you know there's also a legislative hearing process coming up to address the matter so i have no idea okay so if it's a one year window and they are going to take it out next year that gives a perspective to where this is yes all right thank you very much okay by signal of your hand is there anyone else that wishes to speak at this moment mr wimberley so in the meantime until the decision is made by the state and that i assume us to whether this textbook would continue as i understand the ad hoc committee's recommendation they are recommending that teachers be made aware of the publisher's decision to remove the paragraph from the electronic version in subsequent additions is that do i understand that correctly yes sir that's correct okay thank you is there anyone else are ready to vote on the amendment if you vote yes you're voting to support the amendment as stated if you vote no you are not supporting the amendment as stated does everyone understand okay are we ready to vote your vote is five yes seven no motion fails we're back to the main motion which is to uphold the decision of the committee mr mezra thank you madam chair i would not like to uphold the committee as it as it currently stands i really would prefer to hold a hearing in order that we may be able to inter interact and actually dialogue with the complainant i was not given that opportunity not being on the committee and i would like that opportunity thank you mr gregory thank you i wish i had mr wimberley's voice for speaking into the mic i think this book has some redeeming qualities found some of the parts of it very interesting and i could see where it could stimulate some vigorous and enlightened debate among students and their teachers however i think we need to be aware and alert to the sometimes subtle and sometimes not so subtle attacks on the founding principles of america christianity and judaism and capitalism for us to sit back and ignore these attacks i think it would be akin to like an ostrich with their head in the sand just if we could i think it's page 179 there's something that got my attention that hasn't been brought up by many of the folks that have been participating in this there's a section on the origins of religions and the first one that we come to is the origin of christianity and in that we read that christians believe that jesus died to atone for human sins that he was raised from the dead by god and that his resurrection from the dead provides people with hope for salvation christians believe that the next religion to be studied in this section is the origin of islam so one would think that there we would find what muslims believe but instead we are told this muhammad received his first revelation from god through the angel gabriel the quran the holiest book in islam is a record of god's word as revealed to the prophet muhammad as he began to preach the truth that god had revealed to him muhammad suffered suffered persecution and in 622 he was commanded by god to immigrate christians believe god revealed it's not even subtle i just think that for us to ignore these attacks and i would say it's radical muslims main street media liberal elite that come after us in subtle ways and not so subtle ways so i think there comes a time when you draw a line in the sand and i think maybe that time for us is now mr wimberley perhaps this is a question for mr squires if there is a hearing what would the hearing consist of what would be kind of the rules for the hearing now to put this into a little bit of context it's been roughly seven years since you all have had a book request or book review request of any kind the last time was 2006 and the book was to kill a mockingbird at that time you all did not vote to grant a hearing based on what was presented to you to me it's not even clear that you've ever done this before so i say that just to give you a framework to think about this in the appropriate way to have a hearing if you voted to do that would be to consider it in the nature of oral argument based upon the record created by the committee as you all know i've provided to you under separate copy the entire record the committee created including audio recordings of the hearing they conducted all of the written materials from ms cardoza more and the written decision of the committee itself ordinarily you would give the complainant with a person presenting the appeal a span of time i believe in this case it's 10 minutes to present whatever they wish to present in advancing their argument after which you all could ask questions of the complainant in response on the other side you would also hear from the committee chairperson which in this case would be mr golden who would also present what the work of the committee entailed and what they decided after which you could ask mr golden questions about the position of the committee after that you all would have to vote to uphold or deny the decision made by the committee thank you miss vote as a member of the committee it was my privilege to have the opportunity to read this book pretty thoroughly and to listen to miss cordozo moore's presentation and i just want to assure everyone here that it was a very professional and respectful exchange and it was very thorough and somewhat lengthy but i felt that it was a fair process i do want to remind everyone that this subject matter is a very broad subject matter human geography we've talked about cultural landscape as being a curriculum it's it's really not that's the curriculum is human geography and the goal of the course is an ap course and it's a survey course and like i said it's it's broad there's a lot covered in the time that is covered in this course there's a just a wide variety of subjects although that religion is covered in it to some degree it's not any more covered and i wanted to also let you know that one of the big takeaways for me was the fact that this is but one resource used in the course the ap teachers who teach this course utilize many resources in fact at the end of every chapter as you know there are a lot of resources listed so i would like to remind this body that in the context of the course this is but one resource that is brought into the classroom for discussion so i just wanted to share that perspective thank you thank you mr peterson i just want to i appreciate miss boyd's her comments and mike you know the way i look at this and i reviewed the committee's decision quite extensively and i just you know for me ultimately as we as we just heard a thousand students have signed up for this for this course this year and i don't see a lot of those students here so clearly those individuals want to learn they're they're they want the opportunity to to be taught and ultimately you know our policies that we put into place was to provide the committee the opportunity to to review this and they did and the what we received back from them was a well thought out response i think that everything that was in there all the all the things that were brought up were explained very well with regards to how they perceived it to be and i think that we should think more on the lines of educating the children of williamson county which is what we're here to do under the idea that they are you know they're receiving instruction inside the classroom and as we know this book's been in inside the classroom for five years correct this is the sixth year yes sir this is the sixth year in existence it's the third year that we've used it okay so you know and we know that you know as we've heard the ap cores or the ap scores are good i just think that we should look more at the idea of allowing our students to be taught rather than being told what we're going to teach them so that's just kind of the way i think of that miss mills i think that we have we are led by our policies and we say that's how we operate and that's how we do business and i think that we have given this complaint fair and adequate hearing through our process and in our process i think our committee went to length to try to understand and be objective and open-minded and it was all people from different walks within our community and i think they came together and made some decisions that they found probably not to be easy decisions because there's a lot of responsibility that goes with this and i think they came to a decision they made some suggestions within their decision and i and it now because the decision wasn't what we want what ms cardoza moore wanted she has the right to appeal to the board and i think it is incumbent upon us to stay consistent with what we have done in the past regarding these type of of issues and i think those three things we talk we have talked about what are what our responsibility is and what it is that we should be deciding and i think in my mind and from my perspective if i think that if you don't believe that the committee made a reasonable judgment about this book then i think you have to do something different but i believe that this committee went through a lengthy process and they came back with a thoughtful reasonable decision and i think when we start getting in to changing what we've allocated through our policy to do then we need to go back and revisit our policy if we don't feel strongly about it and i think you know at this particular point i can't see where the committee didn't make a reasonable judgment and a very thorough judgment and so i can't support overturning or going back and revisiting that because i think the opportunity through our policy has said this is how we evaluate and i think to go back and continue to give information and add information is not where i think we should be so i'm i can't support anything except for upholding the decision of the committee mr mezra thank you i just wanted to clarify that in not supporting to uphold the committee decisions not that i disagree with in total or in part what the committee's decision was and i do appreciate the hard work that the committee did put towards that decision and the hearings that they had in in saying what i did i just wanted to clarify that i have questions that weren't asked during that committee time and i would like to have the opportunity to do that thank you mr wemberly to make sure i have this straight before us now is not the motion to approve but an amendment that would create a hearing am i correct about that no sir the motion that is currently on the floor is to uphold the decision of the committee the review committee we haven't been asked whether or not there is to be a hearing no sir there is only one motion on the floor currently and that motion is to uphold the decision of the hearing committee okay i think that i can be supportive of upholding the decision without the necessity of a hearing the committee's work based on what we've been given has been very thorough very deliberative and certainly miss cordoza moore has done a professional and complete job of presenting her her opinion so i think i could support the motion to accept the committee's report without the hearing mr welch thank you i think janice's point about having kind of a reasoned and thorough discussion i think we've had that i think we've had that by both sides and to your point i can find someone's rationale reasoned and thorough and well thought out and at the same time simply disagree with them as well i can respect the opinion of people whose points of views are different than mine as long as it's well crafted and factually based sometimes there's just different philosophical beliefs that run up against one another i had the opportunity to listen to the recording of the hearing i was not there either but did listen to it from start to finish i think both sides did this and as you said in his vote in a very respectful manner and i think it's important to say too i don't know if it's it's been said by this full board yet but i think we owe a debt of gratitude to that committee which which was you know taken from the community we had a pto member had a representative of our teachers from our central office from our board of education so it was a cross-section of our educational system each one as well as the administration as a principal as well i forgot that one one of the challenges i think we have sitting up here is where we have to be decision makers and it's real easy to sort of sit on the sidelines and criticize the choices say what's wrong with the decision that's real easy because it's very rare that there's a perfect decision that can be made and so the simple route the easy route is when someone does make decisions to just point out well here are the flaws here what's wrong with it and no matter what we decide tonight i think there's going to be some things there's going to be some downsides to it unfortunately we have some very limited decisions that we can make very limited we're not able to just kind of start from from whole cloth create and put something forth from the start we also need to take in consideration the classes to start do we have a thousand students that are currently in the classroom that are currently taking this course they currently need to take apparently need to use curriculum so i guess one of the questions going on through my mind here is if not this then what else i think we need to address that and kind of come up with that answer because it is important as we vote to whether or not to accept the committee's decision or whether we look for an alternate option now i understand the book as gary pointed out was six years ago it was introduced and at that time i believe it was the only approved textbook for this course is that an accurate statement i believe that's correct okay and put that kind of in context what it is the state board of education is one that approves these textbooks and that is our universe to choose from now since then i believe there have been other textbooks that have also been approved is that i believe there's one other textbook that's on the potential list that particular textbook as i understand it is actually not approved by the college board and the college board is the vetting agency for giving college credit for that course okay so then our decisions here as it would seem as we have a choice between the current textbook and one other textbook that is not approved by the college board and for those listening that don't understand what that is this is an ap class it means that it's a very challenging course that the students at the end of it can opt to take a test and receive college credit for that and so this book is not recommended which i assume means that it is not going to properly prepare them for that curriculum and i want to clarify just to be transparent my understanding is that there are other districts in the state that have received approval exceptions to use the alternate book whether it's a good book or not i don't know i will say that i can speak to our ap exam pass rate in that course which is second to none exactly absolutely is there an option to go outside of either those two books that the state board of education has approved yes sir there's always a way the butt part of that is it's a process and quite frankly it would not be feasible to do in the short turnaround time that would be required to continue offering the course this year to that group of students so what that would require then is to form a committee to evaluate these books one that we would hope it also aligns with the college board curriculum if such a book exists then we would need to order that book wait for the months for it to arrive if it does come in before the end of the course our teachers would then need to themselves read develop a curriculum from it begin teaching that curriculum midway through the session if we want the third option all of this again good until the end of the year when a new textbook adoption would happen from the state that's great okay that doesn't seem a reasonable option to me and mark i can go through this book i agree with you there are limitations to it as well there's there's things that i don't like in this book it's not a perfect textbook i don't know if a perfect textbook does exist i wish this wasn't the textbook that we had but it is and i really don't see any other options that we have to replace it so i think this is one of these times where we need to be a leader it's very easy to kind of pound the table and point out flaws and everything else and there are but to be a leader you got to kind of step up and say what is your option what is your alternate choice then if not this then what and so i'm open to another what i'm not here to say that i love this book this is the greatest book ever but i'll be darned if i've found a better option if anyone has here can give me one please provide it thank you mr gregory well to address eric's questions of what else or what options do we have we can only find out through a hearing if we vote to support the motion then there's no chance for a hearing it's a done deal so there may be opportunities to address this book and get it to where we're much more comfortable with it but we'll never know that unless we vote to decline the current motion if you will and move on to a hearing that's the only way to find out what options we have mr mezra thanks mark again you spoke exactly what i wanted to say just to reiterate i think there are probably some other options i understand mr welsh you're you're well-stated problems with both the academic and financial issues and turning down the textbook flat and in the current as we've already started the school year but i believe there may be other options available to to to meet the disagreements of the complainant and yet continue with our academic school year unhindered and i think one of our speakers that came up for the public speaking miss abby wolff stated that there may be some other options available to us if we were given the opportunity to speak with them and try to come to a conclusion thanks mr welch pj i appreciate it but again what are they to just say there's i think there's other options good tell me what they are so that i can consider them but what i can't do is say let's just pull the rug out from underneath our students feet in the hopes that there's other options because we think they are we don't know what they are but we think they are so please provide me other options and i will gladly consider them it's not you can ask miss hammond i just wanted to say and go back to policy a little bit janice i appreciate miss mills your obviously your expertise on that but the policy does allow for those three options i wasn't aware that mr mezra had additional questions to ask my feeling for saying that i supported a hearing was just to give opportunity available for communication mr mclaughlin i just want to add you know i i still think there should be a hearing as well and i think that there's a number of things to talk about number one miss vote when she was talking about the committee when they went through and considered this they said this is just one of many resources they used for this course probably of an important resource but one of many resources and i think that's what was said if i misquoted you can correct me they so it's it's only one of of one resource so it's not the only resource you know that the course doesn't you know you know lift or die you know according to you know using the entirety of this book i think the other part is the committee on the downside and i understand the time frame dr looney but the committee also recommends that williamson county schools should include in his adoption review process a review of other human geography textbooks so that a comparison can be made i think one of the things that we've continually run into is the fact that the state gives us one or very few choices on a lot of our textbooks and then we have to choose the best of the worst in some cases and i think that you know as we move forward we shouldn't allow that i think we need to go through and i understand the short time on this i understand the time frame on this but i think you know it's not the only option and you know i have to agree with my colleague to the right i think the that we need to i think there can be more discussion on this i think more discussion would be very positive mr wimberley mr squires when the hearing if one is held beyond the record and not on options wouldn't there be another forum we could discuss the options sure and thank you for the question technically the hearing would be about the complaint itself and the resolution of that complaint so going to mr gregory's statements to the extent that the idea is that we would consider options tonight as part of that hearing that is not what would occur thank you miss males i would like to call the question we have a motion to call the question second from mr hullett do an oral vote on that we have a motion on the floor and a second to call the question all in favor any opposed was your vote no yeah okay are we ready to vote mr king is everybody aware of the motion that is on the floor before we vote okay just for a point of clarification the motion that is on the floor that you're going to cast your vote for is to uphold the decision of the textbook review committee your vote is eight yes four no motion passes next item on the agenda is item 5b1 it's board policy revisions for first reading 5.1 5.115 transfer this information is on page 81.

dr looney thank you ma'am chair and board members from time to time it comes necessary to transfer employees this policy changes some language as it relates to that it eliminate eliminates the locally negotiated agreement since that no longer exists i do recommend your approval someone like to make a motion motion for miss mills second from mr mclaughlin is there any discussion are we ready to vote your vote is 12 yes zero no motion passes next item is five c one is their 2013-14 general purpose school fund budget resolutions the first is on page 85 it's the park state funds for technology dr looney thank you madam chair and board members this has been a topic of conversation for a couple of months we finally have received the final notification of this grant award for one million one hundred thirty three thousand nine hundred sixty seven dollars i do request your approval motion from his vote second for mr welch is there any discussion mr wimberly dr looney what would this money be used for technology infrastructure and computers for classroom use all of it i mean all those things 100 yes sir okay thank you mr mclaughlin question dr looney if for some reason the state made a decision not to use parcc then we still get to keep the technology money well whether a federal government's involved i'm not sure there's ever our understanding is yes sir okay thank you is there any further discussion are you ready to vote your vote is 12 yes 0 no motion passes next item is 5 c 2 this is a coordinated school health program this information is on page 87 dr looney thank you ma'am chair and board members good news we received some additional funds for our coordinated school health program thanks to mrs boykin i do recommend your approval of this screen someone like to make a motion motion from mr wimberley second from mr mezra mr wimberley you didn't have your button pushed i didn't mean to if i did okay sorry that's all right not a problem is there anyone that wishes to speak to the motion on the floor are we ready to vote your vote is 12 yes zero no motion passes next item is five c three this is cte equipment needs dr looney this information is on page 91 thank you ma'am chair board members i recommend this approve approval as submitted someone like to make a motion motion for mr hullett second second mr peterson is there any discussion are we ready to vote your vote is 12 yes 0 no motion passes next item is 5 c 5 4.

this is on page 93 it's invest now dr looney thank you madam chair and board members before i make this recommendation i'd like to thank ms deb dr deb enright for helping us put this program together as board members as you know there is a feature directly off our web page where individuals can make donations tax deductible donations directly to the schools called invest now and as a result of those donations we have received 27 499 dollars for the purpose of buying computers and i'm very very proud of dr enright and her work and particularly thankful to the community members that have supported us in that way i do recommend approval motion from mr wimberley second for ms hammond is there any discussion mr mclaughlin i don't i push the wrong button is there anybody else that wishes to speak to the motion okay or ready to vote your vote is 12 yes zero no motion passes next item is five c five this is located on page 95 it's the united way grant dr looney thank you madam chair and board members we have a fantastic partnership with united way they participate in a program called raise your hand where they provide direct tutoring to students in some of our at-risk schools this grant award is for twenty thousand dollars i do recommend your approval someone like to make a motion motion for mr peterson second from mr wimberley is there any discussion are we ready to vote your vote is 12 yes zero no motion passes mr mclaughlin did you wish to speak okay thank you next item is 5c on page 97.

this is a verizon grant dr looney thank you madam chair and board members this too is good news we have a great partnership with verizon we have a thousand dollar seven hundred and seventy four thousand seven hundred nine dollar grant that we need to reallocate for professional development for teachers do recommend your approval someone like to make a motion motion from his vote second from mr mclaughlin is there any discussion are we ready to vote your vote is 12 yes zero no motion passes next item is 5d these are capital funding requests this information is on page 99.

dr looney thank you madam chair and board members before i make this recommendation which is an intent to fund for 15 million 410 000 this takes care of the discussions that we had about the five-year capital plan i just want to make sure that i remind you that this may or may not include the seven hundred thousand dollars of additional general purpose reserve fund monies that we have as a result of closing the year out so the county commission may decide to use some of that money for this intent to fund or for some other with some other directive so this may or may not include that money i just don't know based on what the county commission wants to do regardless we're going to ask the county commission for funding of 15 million four hundred ten thousand dollars for these various projects someone like to make a motion motion for mr peterson second from mr howlett is there any discussion mr mclaughlin i'm just going to say i understood from the newspaper that we found a million dollars i assume that's the 700 000 you're talking about yes sir it i think interest went rates went way up leslie i'm not sure how that worked is there any further discussion are we ready to vote your vote is 12 yes zero no motion passes next item is 5e1 this is 2013-14 central cafeteria fund budget amendments this is a two percent employee raise dr looney thank you madam chair board members this is for the two percent raise for the cafeteria workers once again this is this is a self-sustaining fund this is just putting the dollar figures in the appropriate categories to get them their two percent pay raise motion for miss mills second for mr peterson is there any discussion are we ready to vote your vote is 12 yes zero no motion passes next item is 5 f 1 this information is on page 103 it's the 2013-14 extended school fund budget amendments this is also a two percent employee raise dr looney this too is a self-sustaining fund used with fee monies collected no taxpayer dollars this funds the pay raise for those two those employees at a two percent rate somebody like to make a motion motion for mr wimberley second for miss mills is there any discussion are we ready to vote your vote is 12 yes zero no motion passes next item is 5 g this is on page 105 it's the board resolution to reopen the tcap appeals process dr looney thank you madam chair and board members this is provided at your request this if passed would provide a resolution formalizing the board's opinion or position that the tcap appeals process should be reopened should the board pursue any additional action to include legal action obviously that would come back to you as an action item i do recommend your approval as submitted someone like to make a motion motion for mr welch second from mr hullett mr peterson yeah i've got based on the work session i do have an issue with the last line the board further authorizes the superintendent dr mike learning to take all reasonable steps in effectuating this resolution up to and including any necessary legal action i'm not in favor of that so i'd like to amend that be stricken from this resolution so you're making a motion that the last sentence in the paragraph is stricken from the resolution correct is there a second okay the motion dies for lack of a second we're back to the main motion which is approval of the resolution mr mclaughlin dr looney i think it would be good for us we've had a lot of discussion on this but i don't think a lot of the public have and i think it would be hooves to spend just a few minutes of you talking about why we feel this resolution is necessary i fully support the resolution but i think it would be good to talk about it just a little bit yes sir thank you for giving me that opportunity and let me be clear we're not alone there are 41 other districts i believe it's 45 other districts in the state that have similar concerns and so to make a long story short we identified after the testing cleanup process had occurred that three of our students three of our high school students were mislabeled miscoded as being white students rather than hispanic when in fact they are hispanic that resulted in our district being identified as needs improvement for hispanic subpopulation gap closure we took that on the chin because we thought that was right the problem or or the disconnect came into existence when dr david snowden from franklin special school district was notified that despite the closing of the window according to the state guidelines nashville metro schools had received an exception and their native american students were in a similar situation and they were able to get the record corrected and so our position is simply this the record needs to be right whether it works for us as a school district or against as a school district we hold teachers schools i mean today we identify 26 reward schools part of that is gap closure and so we have all these stakes associated with the data and it's imperative from our perspective that the data is accurate mrs hammond asked me specifically about one school today why was school x not a reward school and we had the discussion that it was because of a small group and so it's important it's imperative from my perspective that the data is accurate if we're going to hold teachers principals school officials accountable for those kinds of results i just think we should we should have an accurate record and because the state provided an exception for one district we just feel like everybody should be afforded the same opportunity that's not in any way meant to disrespect or disparage nashville metro public schools they've done a great job and we actually think that it's great that their record is right that they're that the report is correct we just want that same opportunity miss anderson can i ask one more question on that yes sir my understanding too that you have already talked to the state about making this right and that and that they have not been willing to do that is that correct yes sir i have corresponded with the department of ed and personally have talked to the commissioner of education mr kevin huffman without success in getting this reopened and so from our perspective this would be the next logical sequence in a chain of events to ask formally from the board thank you mr wimberley as i understood our discussion at the work session and your introduction to this that we would be authorizing you to urge the department of education to reopen the tcap appeals process which i wholeheartedly support but it looks to me that this resolution reads that we would in effect be authorizing you to take legal action without coming back to the board and i think i'd have to go back to mr peterson's motion had i been awake i think i would have seconded that because i don't think that's what we intended to do or did i miss something there yes sir thank you for your clarifying question i do not think this entitles me to act unilaterally without the board's approval to file a lawsuit i do not take that i understand that to be true could could someone help me understand that because it does clearly say the board further authorizes the superintendent to take all reasonable steps and affecting this resolution up to and including any necessary legal action that sounds like we're authorizing you to sue am i incorrect jason on in the four corners of the document i would have interpreted it the same way dr looney has stated that he doesn't see it as as the case he's created a public record that he doesn't see that as a k as the case based upon that based upon his statement to you publicly if this passes i would advise him not to sue unless he got your authorization separately i think i would advise that as well but that's not what we're saying here well my understand let me clarify if i can my understanding of the conversation and consistent with the letter that we sent the department this week it talks about the potential of legal action so for me to talk to the department about potential legal action without the authority of the board i think would be short-sighted and i have forwarded that letter to the commission based on the conversation that we had at the work session so well i'm quite comfortable with that but i'm not so sure i'm comfortable with this last these last few words of this statement here of the resolution if if we took those out would would you feel like you would have less strength i do okay thank you mr hallet mr squires mr golden might be able to help me out with this but i believe what we're doing is with that statement is we're putting it on the table so it's just out there saying that this is an option it's putting some teeth into it but if we were to come back my question would be to go to what kenneth had said originally is what i'm hearing is that jason said he would recommend that you come back to us to go through with that if we do go forward as it is would he or is it carte blanche you can you know the system and dr looney could just go ahead without the board's approval or knowledge well before you answer that i have confirmed and affirmed that i will not pursue legal action without your express authority miss mills i'm good i couldn't figure out how to un-push my button i pushed it three times tim keeps pushing his i can't figure out how to unpush mine okay mr welch thank you this is very simple well it boils down to two items for me the first is equitable treatment and i believe mr peterson you kind of brought up the good point of if this wasn't an issue before we knew about metro nashville why is it afterwards i think that's a great point that you've brought up for me the issue is when we speak vector full treatment we speak about it both ways at that time the district was told by the state that there would be no reconsideration of the data now that doesn't mean we agreed with the data it doesn't mean with the decision rather we didn't think didn't agree that it was the right choice but it was the choice and for us to have a reconsideration of the data solely would have been inequitable treatment for every other school district we would have been treated better than anyone else and that would be as equally wrong for someone else to do it now we find out that what the state said was not accurate the state said that we won't consider any appeals but they did they did consider appeals they did allow changes to be made and they treated metro nashville differently correctly i don't see any issue with what they did for metro nashville i think it was the right decision but it should be the right decision for every school district that has similar concerns so that's that's the distinction right there so i think you bring up a very valid argument but i would i would make the case that what we're talking about is equitable treatment in both cases both positive and negative towards the school district the second point this comes down to is accurate data what we're asking the state to do is very simple not saying treat us better we're not saying change the standard or anything else we're just saying use accurate data into many a high school wrestling match where the referee will throw up a two or three points and that person at the scoring table gets it wrong now when that's done the coaches go to that table together they review the scoring and they correct it they don't reward the wind to the wrong athlete and that's what we're asking here simply use correct data now why this is so important to us well for one we're rolling into an era of more and more top-down dictation from the state about what our curriculum will be how we measured how we will evaluate our teachers and so if we're going to have this we need to be able to as a local district to trust that the state is playing fair with us that they don't have their thumbs on the scale that the inputs that they provide to give us our scores is accurate and it's not we know it's not and the impact here is great our most valuable resource as community our public schools the one that drives our economy here in williamson county is being inaccurately tarnished by the state by their refusal to use accurate data so i wholeheartedly support this resolution up to and including any necessary legal action i support that far that going that route as well if need be i hope it's not i hope secretary hoffman will see reason i hope he will correct the inaccuracies in the state data and i hope we will change the missed label that the state has provided the school district so i do fully support this document as written mr peterson i just want to make make it very clear that i completely support the document you know i support the idea that the data has to be right i support the idea that you know i have no problem saying it i mean ultimately you know we had you know the same type of issue last year with regards to you know the exemplary and the intermediate and that type of it that type of thing but i think we all can ultimately say you know the 12 you know that we're absolutely an exemplary district you're number one in the state you know all of those types of accomplishments i have nothing you know i mean i want the accurate data i want the data to be correct i think the state should hold themselves accountable for giving us the correct data but at the same time you know i don't like i said my only issue is with the idea that you know i don't want to use district money to go after something that ultimately wouldn't have been correct in the first place and we were resigned to the fact when they told us there wouldn't be any appeals so i understand that once there was an appeal that changes the playing field but that like i said my only issue was and still is that i would not support us using any funds county funds to to fight the state when we ultimately know that they're wrong we know that they did something they shouldn't you know that ultimately they said they wouldn't but i think that ultimately we should hold them accountable certainly for the net for this upcoming year and if this if this is a fight that we have to take then we ensure that it's a hundred percent correct this year and they and they realize that you know that we are going to stand up and this resolution goes to that we are going to hold you accountable going forward but like i said i mean my only issue was that specific line item but again if dr looney says that he will ensure and come back to us and tell us that you know if that's the route he's choosing then we would have the opportunity to revoke then i will support this resolution mr mclaughlin i know the board is going to find it's strange for an engineer to offer a change of word usage but would it be a problem dr looney to change the word necessary legal action to potential legal action which i think would be a little more along the line it does that take away strength no sir i'm amenable to that change so mr mclaughlin are you making a motion to change the third to the last word at the end of this document to potential i am we have a motion from mr mclaughlin and a second from mr peterson and that is to change the last sentence to read the board further authorizes the superintendent dr mike looney to take all reasonable steps in effectuating this resolution up to and including any potential legal action is that your motion mr mclaughlin yes it is there anyone that wishes to speak to the motion that's currently on the floor mr michael i guess what i was going to say is germaine to the motion i was going to say that i was comfortable with the language the way it was with dr looney's assurance that he wouldn't sue without the board knowing about it i wholeheartedly support it as it's written but i certainly don't have any problem if the word is potential instead of necessary thank you miss vote do you wish to speak to the motion it's currently on the floor so we have a motion on the floor to amend the main motion of which is the approval of this resolution to change the last sentence and the third to the last word from necessary to potential does everybody understand do you have that on the queued up are we ready to vote your vote is 12 yes zero no motion passes so we're not back to the main motion as amended miss vote dr looney could you talk a little bit about the other school districts that have taken issue with this specifically are we leading the charge or are other school districts taking it upon themselves to draft resolutions like could you give us a beat on what you have heard through the grapevine from the 45 schools that do take issue with this yes ma'am i can i can tell you that toss the tennessee organization of school superintendents has passed a resolution similar to this asking the state to reopen the appeals window i cannot speak to whether individual school districts have done so i will say that i have spoken to a number of colleagues that have expressed a willingness to take this issue as far as necessary in order to get the record straight okay and specifically would that include taking a legal route if it were deemed necessary would some of these other schools be interested in pursuing that path absolutely okay thank you for answering mr wimberley would you push your button again please and confirm thank you your vote is 12 yes zero no motion passes that concludes the business that is on this evening's agenda there's a number of staff and principals that are present with us this evening some already have slipped out because of the late hour but i do want to take a moment to recognize you and thank you for being here so if you'd please stand and let us recognize you and i actually think all of them received some sort of recognition earlier this evening so congratulations on your reward status absolutely congratulations we appreciate you've been here this evening we appreciate your support also i think it's important that on behalf of the board i express our sincere appreciation to the ad hoc materials review committee i don't know that if everybody realizes what that committee actually did during that review process but i think it's important that the community understand the importance that this committee the importance of their job that they read the textbook in its entirety they didn't just read an excerpt they read it in its entirety they also reviewed other materials and they listened and attended a four plus hour hearing with the complainant and i think that is commendable that they took that time out of their time and did that work on behalf of this board as a result of our policy additionally they wrote the very lengthy report that we all received as part of that report and so i just want to express my sincere gratitude to each and every one of those individuals who worked on behalf of this board on that ad hoc materials review committee so i thank you very much on behalf of the board that concludes the business that's on this board's agenda this evening i want to thank everyone for being here and this meeting is adjourned thank you do we have to give our books back yes if you've got them just leave them here you can leave them here tonight or you

[Music] I will call to order the December 9th meeting of the Dearborn Board of Education sorry we're late we had a prior hearing today can we have a roll call please usin Barry here Joseph Guido here Mary Lane here roxan McDonald here Amy shelles here James School Master president Adams here next item pledge of allegiance to the flag Miss Pamela Denine principal of Lindberg Elementary School will introduce students who will lead the Pledge of Allegiance right go ahead start theed the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all hi right thank you it's lindberg's pleasure to introduce Brena Thorp and Nicholas Thorp brena's in in Miss leck's room and Nick is in Mrs no's first grade room and they are very excited to save the pledge as you can tell um and they they uh have their they brought their mom and dad with them too which is important to know they're very involved in the Lindberg community dad is Father Vice president and mom was even co-chair of our haunted school event so the whole Thor family is very busy with Lindberg so thank you very much for having us this evening and thank you for taking the time have a good holiday break next item don't tell them that they'll think it starts tomorrow now yet feels it does it couple more days superintendent update agenda items agenda items you do see that three people are retiring with more than 20 years of service Mona adimy Smith math teacher 26 and2 years Christine faen how paraprofessional 20 and a half years Darlene Teasley deborn interpreter technician 28 and 3/4 years service so we certainly congratulate all who are retiring but we certainly want to point those out as some people have served more in 20 years so congratulations to them then on non-agenda items the leg legislature continues to debate an expansion of the EAA uh School District uh reform school district they're still talking about mandated third grade retention and still talking about moving from a colorcoded system to something like the Florida leather letter grade system in addition they are looking at um uh Merit curriculum modifications to include some of the make it a little easier to take some of the um programs uh like technology uh programs that the Michael Barry Center type things Senate is continuing to debate the carry guns and no carry zones and expanding who can carry in those no carry zones and then safety drills they're looking at re uh re changing the requirements for the types of drills the number of drills that we have uh including some reporting requirements after the drills have have happened so we'll keep you posted on those Mary has a question try Lane uh superintendent Wiston I wonder if uh you have a recommendation I'm interested in the third grade no pass um legislation I'm quite bothered by it but I wonder if the superintendent Association has a stand on that our position is an opposition that wanted should be a local decision made by the local expert the teacher and administrators and as you know in Dearborn we're trying to address the problem through parental contracts talking about what we're going to do in schools to help students get back on track and asking the parents to join us in that partnership so again anything mandated uh from the state takes away our local flexibility and the Brain Research is pretty clear that kids develop at different ages and so a kid could be a month behind and you're going to hold them back you know a student could be a year behind and you're going to hold them back now obviously we have real concerns with that on the other hand we have concerns with kids getting high school you know reading at second grade level so of course we all have that concern and nobody wants that to to happen but I I hope that your Association is lobbying State Legislature I thought their policy was not to micromanage and smaller government and all that blah blah blah but uh well regardless of all that we can't even agree on a standardized test for anything much less a past fail grade it just blows my mind that that they would make that based on a test which there is a one right now that no one can even agree on I mean our Meep tests are changed from year to year to year to year so I I it's incredibly punitive to me but sorry that was my two is always moving well and it's yeah it's just punitive not not constructive I hope you're lobbying hard we are so are the school school boards the TR county allian is also I think Charter Schools everyone maybe we should start making some um maybe we should start trying to pass some resolutions regarding you know balanced budgets at the state level or perhaps some of their other issues that they don't seem to be spending too much time working on be here that'd be nice we could take up wolf honey it' be thank you um at the end of your I'll use next item citizen participation citizens wishing to address the board on agenda and non-agenda items for Action who are signed in by 7:10 p.m.

by submitting a blue card to the secretary may speak at this time uh I have no blue cards for either agenda or non-agenda approval of minutes approval of minutes of the following Dearborn Board of Education meeting the me the regular p12 meeting of November 25th 2013 board report 13- 67 recommended action make any necessary Corrections and move approval of these minutes so Mo support there any changes or corrections to the minutes hearing none we will attach a unanimous affirmative roll call next item recognition and acknowledgements item a Forts and women's Jazz Ensemble performance okay always a fun time of year when we get to hear a performance you are so right good evening TI the season one of the unique features of this season is the various music that is associated with this time of year music ranges from The Nutcracker ballet to I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas tonight we have the Forts and High School women's Jazz Ensemble here to perform some holiday Classics they will be singing Carol of the Bells and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas in the latter piece Fatma shihab will be our soloist their director is Mr Matt Laura Mr Laura joined our Dearborn team this year and we are thrilled to have his strong musicianship at Fortson High School School interesting thing happened about 40 minutes ago I walked in and heard these women warming up and singing their piece and I commented at the end that I was really impressed with their blend and that's when I found out that a third of their group is out very ill and I told them you are unbelievable musicians to be able to adjust your blend comp in order to to compensate for that yes so you are definitely in for a treat let's welcome the four women's Jazz [Music] Ensemble to hear words of cheer from everywhere filling the honey raising sound [Music] [Laughter] [Music] seems to hear words of a cheer from everywhere fing the [Music] s [Music] yourself Merry Little Christmas let your heart be light from now on our TR will [Music] be Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas make the you from now on still [Music] be here we are as in olden days happy Golden Days of your faithful friends who are dear to us together de to us once more through the years we all will be together if the F alive hang a shining star upon the [Music] [Laughter] highest your very little [Music] Christmas here we are as in all days happy Golden Days of you Faithful Friends who are dear to us G here to us more through the years we all will be together if the F Al love h a sh St upon the [Music] highest and yourself Mary little Chistmas merry [Music] [Applause] Christmas that was lovely oh we don't want it to end amazing outstanding job that was beautiful thank you ladies very good may I make a recommendation to the students yeah uh I was in choir many years ago and I wasn't as good as you are but uh I've read I've heard uh brain research indicating that singing is one of the best things for mental health and physical health as well because of the increased airf flow so uh I hope that you're singing in the Fords and choir uh will last you a long time I was just at a concert last night and I couldn't help but kind of sing along with with the music and I hope that uh when you have occasions in the future when you feel like you need to pick me up you'll go back to your singing because it really does cheer you in the downest times that you have so good luck to you in the future and yes exactly it really does work good yeah good thank you thank you very much [Music] next we should start every board meeting now we all started by singing we'd be a lot happier I don't think the people in the audience be happier if I started singing But we would be always to treat next item is commendations uh Fortson High School senior Jad elh haraki will read the tonight's commendations good lots of students participating tonight good evening ladies and gentlemen uh I'm jadel haraki and I'll be reading the commendations commendations to students at ha Elementary for their efforts to collect 670 food items that will be donated to the Salvation Army to help those in need commendations to the students at Whitmore bows for their efforts to collect coins and donate them to Habitat for Humanity staff members will also be volunteering their time in December and January to help build houses for Habitat special thanks to third grade teacher Robin Philpot for coordinating this effort congratulations to e8th grade student Isaiah Gard who was selected the middle school student of the year by the Michigan Council of social studies isia was selected for his positive attitude and consistently helping his fellow students he was nominated by Bryant teacher Ryan pay commendations to O Smith students Kalen Bernett Lexi Schultz and Maran Ferguson for their efforts to collect more than $200 the students used the money to purchase gifts and then donated them to children in need the students collected returnable bottles and then threw in some of their own allowance money to purchase the gifts congratulations to deborn High School's beus yubi for making the Detroit news football Allstate dream team that means they believe he was one of the best two offensive tackles in the entire state for all divisions not only is beus an excellent football player but he has also achieved a 4.0 cumulative GPA beus yaku recently accepted a full right scholarship to play football at Northern Illinois University for the next four years congratulations to the 20 seniors at deborn high who have been awarded University of Michigan Dearborn scholarships totaling $322,000 17 additional seniors have been awarded either the Mason blue Deans and or Hen Henry p P scholarship individual scholarship winners include Matthew Enright Rasha canfer and Eric senson who have each been awarded a 4-year Chancellor scholarship valued at $46,000 commendations to seniors Ramy kadu Erica Mera and nor kadu who put together special Thanksgiving treat packages and delivered them to several residents at session Manor a retirement complex in Dearborn both groups of seniors shared cider donuts and enjoyable conversation during their visit congratulations to the sunit and staff involved in the successful fall production of and then there were none the cast in crew did an outstanding job performing this Agatha Christie classic commendations to the students in the Dearborn Magnet High School for their efforts to help the Detroit soup kitchen and those that stopped in for a meal each Friday the students packaged food needed at the soup kitchen and have spent time working at the facility and serving me meals commendations to the counseling staff at etel Fort for their efforts to host a very successful college night at the school several hundred students from all three deborn high schools and other high schools in the area attended the event that featured more than 30 colleges and universities commendations to the fors and Key Club who helped who helped out at the annual Kanas bathon the students encouraged and assisted special needs individuals during the event special thanks to forson Key Club adviser zanab commendations to the students at forsen for their generous gift of more than $720 collected during the annual trick- or treat for Unicef commendations to the students at foron high school who collected more than $5,400 canned good items all donated items will be given to the Detroit Rescue Mission to feed families in need commendations to all district art teachers especially Miss Kate Blair for their successful efforts to host the annual empty bowls event those attending the event purchased a ceramic Bowl made by students and enjoyed a simple meal of soup and bread all money raised at the event will benefit gleener food bank and Hyer International special thanks to all these all of the sponsors of the event including Mr Gary kulman of Park Place thank you before uh he leaves the podium I I want to talk about this young man a little bit a little while back we had a press conference on school safety and and driving and you had a dozen VIPs Sheriff you know uh the mayor uh myself Ford Executives uh AAA Executives and here this young man walks up to the podium and steals the show with his his comments at the news conference he did an outstanding job and because of him you may notice around our high schools and in our schools and around the parking lots there's signs about not texting and driving I can't remember exactly what what was your slogan uh stop stop the stop the text stop the re stop the Rex so you'll see that around our posted around our parking lots and in our schools so and actually if I may add something for the National Honor Society um for my senior project um we have uh uh it's called the strive for a safer driver um it's uh I'm actually we're I'm getting $2,000 from triaa to uh to hold to hold many different events so such in as assembly to um to tell the students how important it is and how how texting and driving is really it's it's very dangerous so quite a special young man we be going to different buildings to do this presentation yeah oh yeah of course very good yeah thank you so much thank you thank you actually in the last couple of weeks I don't know if you've noticed but in the local papers there's been uh stories about some of these donations in the Forts and can good and of those it's always good to see that in paper next item acknowledgement of donations there are two a donation of costume fabric of all types styles and colors valued to $33,000 has been offered edel for high school by Mrs Sally Victor to be used by the theater department and a donation of $3,000 has been offered to the Michael Berry prer campus by square one education Network to be used towards building an electrical vehicle for the ivd innov vehicle design competition so we thank both of those for making those donations possible no other any board members have any uh commendations or anything okay seeing none next item special reports item a p12 audit report Mr Weston I'd like to invite Mr barnab to uh in invite the plant Moran up to give you a report the committee did receive the report prior to the board meeting and not to steal anybody's Thunder but it's an outstanding report so well thank you and good evening and happy holidays president Adams Board of Trustees superintendent of the Year Mr Wiston we I would like to introduce our fantastic audit team of plant Moran Mrs Teresa Pollock and Mr Nate Troyer these are all my the previous ones from the report committee good evening thank you for having us here um as superintendent Wiston alluded to uh we are happy to present uh what is an outstanding audit report for the Dearborn Public Schools um as you're aware you're required annually to undergo an independent audit uh of the basic financial statements as well as compliance uh with Federal program regulations uh for the district so our role uh as your independent Auditors is to uh conduct the audit in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards essentially put your business office through the ringer and uh validate uh the significant balances uh financial statement disclosures and internal control and compliance matters as it relates to your grants so the outcome of that report is the expression of the opinion on the financial statements that I am pleased to report um you you have an unmodified opinion that's new terminology this year there because there has been a change in the auditing standards it used to be called unqualified um but nonetheless now it's unmodified that is still um the highest level of assurance that you can receive from an independent audit firm that we believe the financial statements are materially correct and that the presentations and accounting methods conform to uh the appropriate accounting principles and would meet all of the the state and federal regulations um in addition to the report on the basic financial statements um we with uh the federal Awards report uh we select uh programs based upon their relative size and risk profiles and compliance history uh this year the Child Nutrition cluster uh Title One cluster and uh title three uh clusters were uh selected as major programs for testing um we do have uh clean opinions as well relative to the compliance in those programs there is one finding that is noted in the report um but on the whole uh very positive results uh as it relates to all of the audit matters U Mr Troyer will uh run you through a quick slide presentation uh to show the financial results for the year and then we're happy to help with any questions that we we we can assist with good evening board and thank you Terry so again a couple highlights from the financial statements um starting with the the balance sheet as of June 30 2013 you can see the assets total 44 $4 million included in that was 10.5 million of cash and Investments as well as $29 million of receivables with the largest item being $26.4 million of state aid uh two of the 11 payments are not received until after year end which equates to about 18% of the total um the state set this up to basically assist them with their cash flow issues which then pushes that down to the school districts to have to borrow and in your case as you can see in the liabilities there's a state aid anticipation note of $1.2 million that was borrowed to assist the school with cash flow needs um that was subsequently paid in in late September in full uh the other large liability is ACR payroll and that's for wages earned prior to June 30th and paid afterwards uh to the tune of about $16 million this next slide looks at where the money came from this year and you can see in both years the largest piece is from the foundation allowance as well as other state sources and with 90% And 91% tied to State the state that really demonstrates the dependency on the state economy also with the largest piece being that Foundation allowance which is based on that basic formula of your Blended pupil count times your per people allowance that illustrates the schools have very little ability to significantly impact the revenue on a yearly basis next slide looks expenditures and this is by function you can see that the two largest pieces in both years are instruction and support um instruction increased one percentage point this relates to direct teacher pupil interaction support decreased from 39% to 38% and this would be for costs such as Library cost custodial Administration Transportation costs uh among others this next slide shows the expenditures this time by object you can see the the number one cost are people costs as schools are essentially a service industry and that's TR illustrated by 152.5 million or 88% of the expenditures being spent on salaries and fringes this next slide looks at a five year historical trend of the impact on general fund fund balance you can see that the current year had a decrease of fund balance of $2.5 million that was less than the budgeted uh decrease of $2.9 million but you can see in total for the fiveyear period we have a decrease of $2.7 million and and I think you know the takeaway is that with the the decrease of $2.5 million this year it's not sustainable as we're we're decreasing fund balance quickly this last slide is another slide um directed at fund balance and it looks to put a little context about around that amount as far as how much is enough um one way to to look at that is to compare it to the state average um the last stated State average which was as of 630 2012 was 10.6% of expenditures I'm sorry fund balance divided by total expenditures Dearborn as of June 30 2013 would be at 4.44% which would be below that stated that state average and also this year would be at a 5year low another way to look at that would be to say on 180 day 180 day school year that 4.4% would give you approximately seven days of operations so again just trying to put some context around how much that fund balance is or isn't I have a question just to in order for the state average to be 10% there must be some districts that are sitting on a pot of gold somewhere I'm I'm I question that number I mean I want to know what District 20 and 30% but it's got to be the med average I know I mean with all of the districts that are in negative positions year exclude the city of Detroit so I'm sorry and Pontiac and the like Grand because you know iner or dissolved it probably doesn't include the districts in the that are having trouble mhm I mean it it just be surprised gives us a bad perspective you know when you talk about the state average how many have a have such a positive fund balance that's well I know that there's 50 or 60 on the watch list so that would mean 700 and you know Michigan school business officials and the the government Finance officers of Association make recommendations about what's the appropriate level of fund balance to I mean I know what I would like us to have they always recommend you know somewhere in this 10 to 20% range um and and so you know many districts would have guarded it very closely um when the state funding was starting to diminish and made made perhaps cuts and changes sooner we were one of those districts yeah yeah well and and certainly dearborn's funding Cuts were more substantial than than many districts were with with the loss of um 20j funding and and some of the other special funding that you have I do agree I question that because some of the outstate small districts can't have a a large fund balance they've had Cuts substantially like the rest of us you know I can see some the government been targeting those districts I mean there's been you know potential legislation out there that would force districts to spend their their reserves before they get funding that was just a couple of years ago I mean so there have been districts that have been hesitant to keep too much and with all the cuts that have come down I mean it's I've been on the board 13 years and we there are some districts we've made severe Cuts truste School Master yeah I'd like to congratulate Sam Barta who is our Chief Financial Officer in effect we adopted a budget that we knew was going to be a negative budget we adopted a budget that called for a loss of $2.9 million because of a lot of things like buyouts and whatever and so this is actually good news this is $300,000 better than budgeted and when you can budget within $300,000 we hit that Target and have $176 million to play around with you've done some pretty good work so congratulations and congratulations to superintendent Wiston too that I know is very involved in this try uh you mentioned on I think page one that there were wages earned before 6:30 but they're paid out after is that uh that's a spread for some of our employees spread out over 12 months I'm assuming okay yeah the much of the in many of the instructional staff will elect to be paid evenly throughout the year even though their work is performed during the school year be sure I understood that did you finish your report before we get into too many questions yep yeah okay trusty McDonald you had your hand up yeah I just wanted to say also congratulations to Tam Sam and his team they did an excellent job um but regardless whatever the state average is the fact that we have 4% seems pretty good but when you bring it into terms of that 7 Days operating it's that's frightening it's not good it's not good not at all I mean it means we tend to have to borrow and pay borrowing cost to we used to have we used to have a substantial enough amount that we didn't have to borrow for summer pay we all know why we're here this and and we're doing well all in all I mean I don't think that we're I don't think that we're throwing money away I think that the money that we're spending are going to good you is going to good use the problem is is that we're getting strangled yes one positive thing is the voter stepped up and passed the bonds that freed up you know the burden of general fund money so that's one way that we can help our own budget without you know and that's very much appreciate have to continue to be prudent about spending and uh protect what we have and hopefully build a little bit every year absolutely a little consistency from the government would be nice to yeah predictability from the the government any other questions just a comment okay we used to put a lot of pressure on Dr Hughes to to put away money every year so I just wanted to kind of move that towards sorry and you know the the bad part is it takes so long to to save it and so quick to spend it it seems like I guess that's with everybody's budget that's that's the same thing but uh I remember maybe it was my second or third year on the board we had we were down to zero and we were borrowing money so it's cyclical we're right kind of right back to where we were what 15 18 years ago we were able to build it up for a while we had yeah you know another name for fund balance is a rainy day fund do we have weather some storms yes yes we have that's a good point but I agree with Joel we should start going that direction slowly first but we should start building it back up well it needs to be built into the budget great yeah that's but thank goodness we've been able to depend on the fund balance to pay the bills or we would be cuz borrowing is very costly I mean it's just it's just throwing money away yeah right there will be more rainy days I would like to say it's The Balancing Act though this money is given given us for the education of children and I don't want to see us scripp and saving money at the expense of the kids and taking it away from the children absolutely that has to be the priority thank you thank you thank you very much another job well done thank you very much well thank you very much um we also we want to recognize Mr Bara and the staff in the business office as well as we said it is not a pleasant process undergoing an audit and we did get tremendous support and had very very good results uh in in all of the tests so we do appreciate their hard work and happy holidays to all of you and thank you for the lovely music it was lovely it truly was thank you very much next item uh Item B technology update Mr Weston I invite Troy Patterson to come up to give you his annual update on where we're moving with some technology issues yeah TR good evening president Adams board members Mr Wiston and audience it's my pleasure to um be here tonight to provide a technology update um they told me I couldn't go for two hours so I I am going to narrow down what what it is that I'm talking about tonight and you're required to use technology that's right I am I am I've got it um this slide is a little overview of just some of the things that um the technology department is working on and I'm going to focus on a couple of things that we have to report every year and then a couple of things that are a little more fun and provide some real support to teaching and learning the first one is sipa sipa is the uh children's internet protection act and this is a reminder that we do follow sipa every year um and essentially what this law says is this is a federal law and this says that we must filter or block internet access for pictures that are considered obscene child pornography or anything that would be harmful to miners um last time I was here I talked a little bit about sometimes technology being the Wild Wild West and this is one of those places where we try to bring Law and Order to the Wild Wild West um we do have policies in place uh filtering and knowing what to filter and what not to filter is a very real challenge um I think we do a pretty terrific job there are always uh hiccups in the gidy up every once in a while um but overall we are able to provide kids with the access that they need and adults with the access that they need the next um area I'd like to bring up is Copa which is the children's online privacy protection act and um essentially this one says that we are going to make sure that um information is not collected from kids that's not appropriate and this is really focuses on um mostly students kids who are 13 and under uh but we really extend this and make sure that we are um protecting the information that's shared about kids and what kids can share uh this was first passed in 1998 has been reviewed uh every 5 years and was just recently renewed with no real change uh next up is one that we're really really happy with and this is deck um and there's a very specific reason that we call this deck this stands for Deerborn educational curriculum but really really it's so that I can do this one little joke and that is it's time to get all hands on very good um and and what that is is this is our view of the educational curriculum that we provide now last year we paid another another provider for to do this for us however it was something that was kind of confusing for teachers to use um and it meant that not a lot of uh teachers used it as well as it would could be we also experienced a couple week outage with it because they were not doing proper backups so what we're doing this year is instead of paying somebody else for it we've implemented our very own open-source solution um which means that we house it we own it we have it we control it and this is something that's still under development but I'd like to give you a quick look at this um and I have to go back this is kind of like dance I have to go backwards and sideways here um deck Works looks like this it is very clean and and straight forward teachers sign in using the same credentials that they do for their email and for signing into a computer sounds like a little thing but not having to remember another username and another password lowers the barrier def I it's a little thing but it matters yeah when they when you first look at this there's two ways of looking at the curriculum you can look at it by Department which works really well mostly for secondary because secondary is frequently set up that way however for elementary you can also look at it by grade level so we provide flexibility um whichever way teacher is more comfortable looking at it I'm secondary so we're going to switch back to Department uh in uh in this we've laid out each section of the courses by the way that makes sense for those courses so for example Elementary is laid out by marking period um math is laid out in a way that makes sense to Math teachers very linear one step at a time and what we have is it if they click on the course they can also click on the course description and this will bring up the pacing guide for for teachers and it's right there in one window that they can look at makes it very easy for the the teachers to use and it also has pacing guide this is math was pacing guide for the entire year and then pacing guide for six for just the sixth grade as well next they can take a look at the course summary what this does is this shows all the units that are part of that course and it's all tied to the common core standards so teachers don't have to go looking to another site they don't have to go outside of where they're doing the common core standards are right there tied to that unit so they are clear with with what's happening and why it is that they're teaching each distri area we also provide learning targets which are all of the common core standards that would be um taught and we're working with the different departments to become even more specific than the common core standards and break those down into things that are very very usable objectives by course then we have this neat little unit calendar which gives an overview of what the teacher is um addressing so you have these bars that tell you the time frame and These Bars you can click on and go directly to the that unit so it's very well self-contained here it shows the desired results uh again tied to the Common Core we can enter e um the essential questions gives you the big View and the enduring understandings and then all the resources are available for teachers right there so we're developing these with the our various curriculum groups um and they're doing a a a really nice job of that um and this just makes this very usable for teachers and um very very user friendly and this is something that again we are developing and we've made a lot of strides in so it is uh it's coming along it allows us to customize it to what the teachers need so that it is not something that just looks nice it's not just a great board presentation I hope but it also it also impacts students in the classroom and teachers and that's the that's the part that I'm really proud of because I think this makes it so we can communicate we can get everybody on the same page there is um one more thing that uh I want to address um and that is um our website um we're working on a slight redes design of our website um it's going to have a lot of commonalities if you're comfortable using our website it won't be completely different but there are going to be some substantial differences when we designed our website six years ago most people used a desktop computer to to access the web now um an awful lot of people are using these or um even more so these to um to access the website and then there's a few things that we wanted to address as well we're now providing a lot more services for parents we're providing a lot more services for students so we wanted to kind of pull those out as separate um tabs I'm going to switch back over here this is a preview this is uh again is still under development but one of the things that you'll see is we still the same tabs similar tabs up here um we do have the schools tab we'll go straight to schools so a lot cleaner uh a lot better organized um and then we have a parents Tab and a student tab but really what happens is this is called a responsive design and what that means is that if you're on a mobile device it's going to it's going to look a little bit different if here we go when we shrink this down you'll see that main menu switches over to a mobile menu so it becomes easier to use the same Tabs are there but they're presented in a more logical way for a smaller device so the other it just makes it easier for um for phone users to access and if as soon as we get large enough again it switches back to a more full-featured design and as well the other thing that we're really working on is we're making the design a little bit flatter with multiple ways of getting to the same spot because what we really want to avoid is trying to have somebody think like I think or think like the web designer thinks but rather looking at it from a variety of perspectives um we've gotten some feedback from parents from community members from Realtors to say what are you looking for and how would you think to get there so we're we're cleaning that up as well can I just uh interrupt just recently I've had two Community people one was looking for um policies our policies and the other was looking for U uning contract information and they couldn't find it so I dug around and you're absolutely right it takes a lot of G could be here could be there you know needs to be a little more direct for people that aren't at your level yeah well we're working it's not just my level though we're working real hard at at how we do that then one of the challenges that we face is there's so much information um and that we need to provide and so much information that we do provide it's there you just have to find yeah that and that's why we're trying to create multiple Pathways to kind of get the same way and we're really taking this from the perspective of okay I'm a parent what is it I would be looking for how would I like to find it um and talked to some parents and said okay and just watched how you know here's here's what you want to find how would you find it and we're watching them go through it so we can make sure we provide those links to get in where they need to be and I had someone that was looking for the contracts because they were intrigued with some of our um you know unique uh agreements and and it wasn't apparent it wasn't you know people of all kinds try to get into our website and find information trusty m down I had a parent and this was U last year but they were looking for something specific uh regarding the Collegiate Academy and I said I know it's there it was and I went home and I tried to find and I did it was listed under the date that that was presented or something obscure that a parent would never be able to find it that way so I'm really glad to hear that as well and we are cleaning up those programs those programs will have a separate area um we're working to kind of standardize so that all of our departments um have a consistent look and feel to it um and again just make it easier for people to find the basic information that they want and then as they delve deeper to make sense for them yeah wonderful wonderful I take a quick since we're on this detour The Detour um our our Parent Connect is that something that we have I mean we have a link to it but do we have control over that at all because you cannot book bookmark that page because when you come back to it all the options are gone so the only way to get to it is to go through the whole website um maybe if we can't control that maybe we should think about putting a link on the main page somewhere so that it's not um it's not completely obscure but it's very easy on a mobile device to hit something else like the student connect or you know it's um and that is one of the reasons that we have a parent Tab and Parent Connect link is going to be right there right for it's like words that are right next to each other so if you're not and actually the The Parent Connect and I didn't didn't show that page The Parent Connect has a big Square block because we recognize that's what most parents are are doing yeah when you're trying on the fly to find out what your kid's not doing it doesn't make it any easier when uh you can't get there it's an important piece of information for parents yeah absolutely but that is something we we can provide a link to it but that's not a website that we right have control over um I do want to note just a couple of other things um you'll see big blue button down here and this is a project that we are actually working on with the Mozilla foundation and we've actually got gotten grant money that we've worked with um big blue button on um and big blue button the big blue button company to develop uh HTML 5 uh um versions of their software big blue button does video conferencing so it allows us to share students to share with other students and teachers to share with students and HTML 5 is important because it allows for iPads to be used so it's um flash is something that's going away uh mobile devices do not support Flash anymore and most video conferencing software uses flash so we're a conduit for the big blue button foundation and the Mozilla Foundation to get this done so that all across the world we can use this in education um and that'll help not only our students but everybody another project that we're really working on is the Moodle Hub and we call Moodle iearn what we're really working on is we're working with other Educators around the state to be able to share courses online courses online materials to again to leverage some of the good things that not only we're doing in Dearborn but with other Educators from around the state um we're going to benefit because there's some excellent teachers uh that we haven't been able to bring into Dearborn and we can take advantage of some of their Knowledge and Skills um and it makes for that sharing just to be um very very simple so we're kind of part of a state initiative to work on that as well and if you'd like me to talk about the other stuff I'd be happy but I love his passion it is for technology trusty mcdonal I have a question you talked about uh the deck program and I love the fact that that was customized to fit our needs are there any other areas and I'm assuming that's saving us quite a bit of money are there other areas where we could find sure um you'll see Zebo listed on there Zebo is another open source sof software package that we've put on um Dearborn High School came to us and said they wanted to do a wall of fame um if you've been over there you've seen the monitor that they have running and usually digital signage is actually pretty expensive and there's maintenance fees that we have to keep up with uh instead of that we implemented Zeo absolutely free they have control of it and that's something that we can replicate in other places as well and we are looking at doing that um as you know as we as we move along um we've put in the the a notification system that was absolutely free so if we need to push out anything to computers that are in the district we can do it immediately um so it gives us some control over that we have by putting in Moodle uh which again we call I learn and and doing some training um Chris kenberg who's our Web Master absolutely phenomenal um he and I frequently go to schools and we just hang out for the day and we work with we provide professional development for teachers that's what they needs uh so different hours we get different teachers have different questions and they're at different points in their in their Journey on providing Blended learning so we're able to provide that kind of support right then and right there uh and we have all the tools in place so that teach can take advantage of that and use that I think the website is a work in progress and yeah the the website's always going to be a work in progress um you know again Wild West things change rapidly couple years ago we wouldn't really have predicted that as many people would be using mobile phones to access the web as they are now well if you could you would have made us a lot of money good um and and what's going to happen in a couple of years you know we have guesses but it's not saying we're absolutely right gu yeah well I'm I'm sure that you and and Chris kinberg are on top of it and always looking at the latest and the greatest seeing what works for us and I I hope that I hope that at the end of the day my passion is really for student learning the technology stuff is fun but it's a way for us to really support kids learning at the end of the day and that's where that's that's why we're doing this it's about student learning not about the technology yes ma'am that's a way to provide it and we appreciate it any other questions from the board thank you very much I wish I could come up with some of these names I think I might hang out with them and uh get some professional development myself next item action items special consideration of an action item uh there are two supplements 12 and 13 uh are there any agenda items on this agenda which board members or the superintendent wish to discuss and vote on separately if there are we will we will exclude these from the motion below I believe 9 and 10 you need to do a roll call call does the bond need to be separated or can it be done does not need to be separated you want to do the resolution doesn't have to it's up to you guys don't we use have don't we have a roll call usually on expulsion yes which is 13 oh that's right Mr Barner do we need a roll call on the fond make you you would like to on the bond we do need a roll yeah I think so TR l so that's seven to make a comment on 9 10 and 13 so far I'm sorry I'd like to make a comment on number two and number three okay um did you want to make a comment on number eight yes I will after you vote okay just a comment you don't want to hold no so I guess we have uh 9 10 and 13 F correct right wa a minute okay please recommended action move that action items numbered 1 through 13 be approved as recommended in this agenda with the exception of 9 10 and 13 so moved support would you like to ask your questions now or mine is a question it's a comment comment so the comment is this I uh read the names of people on the Committees there are maybe two of them here and I would just like and I did not see any women on that committee I would just like to say but sometime that's partially my fault well I know it is because I couldn't take time off of work I was supposed to be on that I mean maybe I missed someone she sat in on one but I don't think she was a permanent member of the committee but in any case um I just want to say that generally speaking our I feel that our committees should be as diverse as possible that's the way we get the best decision making um and particularly now I don't want to throw any stones at Architects but uh and I have to be careful you know when you're at a public facility sometimes the bathrooms uh people view them differently women men I mean sometimes women end up waiting longer than men so um so I just think that we want have our committees as broad as possible as diverse as possible we don't put urals in the in the women's I wasn't going to I was not going to go there I wasn't sure I didn't want to be beeped out or anything but uh I mean class sex race religion I we we for the best decision for uh you know a crowd source is the best decision so as broad of uh committee as we can get and I noticed that there were no women on this committee so did this start out I just started a new job I couldn't take time off of work so and rock s was one Nei Nam but I'm just making the point not criticizing the commit all right I just wanted to say although that's true and it's a good point I believe the firms that were um hired a lot of them had women Associates that would be part of that yeah part of that so so there will be mhm still on the job work done and we did look for diversity among the firms that we interviewed AB as opposed to in the interviewing committee I was very pleased just as a on the side comment um at the choices uh for the Architects I'm I'm happy to see that you know we kind of split up the work a little bit we've we've had uh good results from both of these organizations and I'm sure they'll do a very good job on these projects too I'm not familiar with the construction firm but I trust that you guys the one that's done the work before it's just a different name different name same for okay I didn't recognize it I think Kudos should also be given to the individuals that negotiated these contracts after we decided how the work would be allocated because there was a significant discount in the amount of money that were being charged good Ahad yes and so I called them good news and bad news called them with good news that they could get the contracts if they were willing to lower their rates so we did get significant savings you tough so you're tough good for you it's our money that was the direction it's our money that's what I mean we have to watch every pen s okay that any other questions or comments on the items hearing none we'll attach a unanimous affirmative Ro call may I comment on number eight please I we do have Mr Greg oi here in the audience who you just approved as the new principal Stout Greg if you could come up and looks like you have some family members here we're going to want to meet I also as Greg is coming up uh he comes to us but he used to be here I think if I remember right I don't have in my notes you went to uh Bryant and derborn high and Henry hag elementary elementary so uh a long term and I think your father-in-law used to be an administrator in our district my father-in-law is uh or was Dr Art Neville okay both my parents who are with me are also products of Dearborn schools my my father's a Dearborn High graduate and my mom's an ETA Ford graduate I'm not sure how that happens did they'll have to share the story it happens so but I have I have my mother and father with me today rich and an my wife Christine my seventh grade son Brendan and my mother-in-law ly very perfect so thank thank you very very much uh for entrusting Stout Middle School to me um it's a responsibility they take very very seriously um you'll be be very proud of the accomplishments and the leaderships that the students there show thank you believe I read that you were also School Board member in Leonia correct oh yes yes I was and I I don't envy you any of your position um the last uh last seven years have not been a fun time to be a school board member so um I was I was on the board for five and a half years and uh um I I can't say I entirely miss it it's a it's a tough job especially in these times I know being a principal is kind of a really difficult position to so I think I'd rather sit on this side of the table it's kind of nice though because you have a perspective that uh where we sit and how we have to make decisions and I'm on Wayne County Association and some of the Leonia people downard and some of them I've worked with for years so good board good board thank you so we thank you and your family for being here tonight and with that you don't have to stay for the rest of meeting only been here for a couple hours sorry about the delay I'm going to let you normally we're much quicker at this call a meeting thank you can we return to the items we need want the summary first we still got do you want to do the summary sure okay okay item one was the approval of warrants which are items for payment by the district and have been reviewed by the administration items 2 through 4 was the approval of non-instructional and instructional Personnel items for p12 item five was the approval of the financial statement six was the approval of the appointment of principal at Stout Middle School seven the approval of sale of bonds eight was the approval of stout principal 11 was the approval of donations uh 12 was the approval of fifth grade social studies books and materials number nine please number nine uh recommended action move that the board approv the resolution authorizing issuance sale and delegation of 2014 building and site bonds as per board report 13- 73 some of support any questions on that item none do we have a roll call please usin Barry yes Joseph Guido yes Mary Lane yes yes roxan McDonald yes Amy yes James School Master yes president Adams yes number 10 number 10 recommended action move that the board support resolution opposing open carry firearms and schools for board report 13-7 so and support any questions or comments on that tesse lane will we be forwarding that to the places that we've mentioned I believe the uh resolution itself says where it will be copy yes it does and then also we had an email asking also from that was IPS an board member yes I think this actually would be a good topic to put on the website with contact information for parents to be able to contact the legislature maybe with a quick link good idea you know with some email addresses to uh blast to everyone because it's an issue that affects everyone absolutely and there are more and more districts that are taking this position so I'm proud to be one of them yes we will do that agreed uh okay roll call roll call please Usain Barry yes Joseph Guido yes Mary Lane yes roxan McDonald yes Amy shellis yes James School Master president Adams yes number 13 item 13 move that the Dearborn Board of Education having heard and considered the evidence in the cas case of an O Smith School student shall be permanently expelled from O Smith Middle School and the Dearborn Public School District for one year 180 days so mve support any comments or questions on this item another difficult one as always roll call please ran Barry yes Joseph quido yes Harry Lane yes roxan McDonald yes shellis yes James School Master yes president Adams yes next it discussion items none acknowledgement of Correspondence I believe we all received it was been kind of quiet I sorry whatever everybody's busy getting ready for the holidays hopefully we'll we'll catch up in January next item uh Board of Education Affairs board member committee and organization reports I know the finance committee met tonight the finance committee met you saw the results once again congratulations not that we lost $2.9 million but we really were yeah gained $300,000 can you appreciate that yeah any other uh just yeah um also the building and site committee met twice to hire a construction manager and two architectural firms and uh as usual everyone before us was very well qualified it was a tough decision could have been any in my opinion could have been any of the groups that presented and it's uh it's hard to watch a group put that much effort into it not be successful but there can only be one so I think uh based on it was a lot of hard work and I think one took a a half a day both of them oh yeah both of them took part of a day yeah there was a lot of good questions asked and and answered and I think we made a very good decision so we should see a good results uh with our bond funds sounds like the committee was very thorough trusty Lane you have a comments trusty School Master mentioned previously the finance committee and I just want to make a note that we would like to have the finance committee meet on uh the hfcc um item in the audit report so uh we'd like to do that as soon as possible so that not that we want any more meetings uh before the holidays but so that we can turn it over our responsibilities Dr Jens is here so that next year we can turn over our responsibilities and be assured that uh the new incoming finance committee is perfectly satisfied uh that all measures have been taken perhaps 6:00 on Monday before the board meeting would that be appropriate okay you will uh email the committee and let them know confirm that Dr jenta yes thank you very much any other reports next I board member commentary Jesse Lane um I would just like to thank superintendent Wiston for uh returning the music program um to the middle schools uh we all know that art and music is particularly important it's not mandated by the curriculum but it's mandated by uh what we know to be good good rounded education for our citizens so I'm very glad that we've been able to retain as much art and music in our schools as we have when so many other districts have cut so thank you superintendent Wiston it's something that I know that our community feels it's particularly important because they've appeared many many times here to uh to oppose any music cuts and and we all know that uh music education and art both uh stimulate the brain and and uh help people overall to become um good citizens so thank you for that restoration I think we all got an email from a student yes thanking this as well which I really appreciate went out of his way to to send us a cuz I think he had sent a previous email he was very concerned about not having the program so it was nice that he did email us again after it was reinstated C MCD um it had been mentioned that perhaps we could get some students uh in the higher grades who are accomplished or really enjoy Arts and Music to help um interest recruit recruit that's a good word the um students in younger grades has that been working they are working on that the art music staff are very good at at you not using students but utilizing thank you utilizing students uh to go out and interest other students in art and music and we just have to concentrate on that because we all can talk about how important it is but when they make their class schedule uh choices if they don't pick it it's difficult so we need to get students interested in it and we have a great new music te a music teacher from um uh snow that is taking over the program and any any of you know him know he's outstanding loves music and he'll get the program built so well while we're mentioning that maybe we could uh extend that to video as well so uh it is uh I did hear a student talking recently about uh the demand for sign language at Dearborn High and it's really nice to see uh students recruiting other students it's the way to fill classes it's the way to fill your shes when you move on it happens with a lot of our programs though like the very center the students go and speak and and it's good citizenship for them yeah absolutely trusty Barry you had a com like trusty Guido said that uh construction manager firms and architecture firms were all more than qualified any one of them could have taken on that job but once we got past the price we threw in there we were trying to find the connection to Dearborn either employees or supporting the community what have you and I think we did that very confident that with the firms that we chose so I'd like to see that superintendent I'd like to see that continue with other contracts to we awarding try to keep the tax money in Dearborn or coming back to Dearborn just uh not just on contracts I I'm always happy to see it when we hire our own as far as employees as well people with Dearborn ties uh invest more they're invested in the community and MH and these two particular firms performed well for for us in the past so sure uh it's a known commodity and that helps also um any other comments next what about wishing everyone a happy holiday you know that's a wonderful comment that's a great comment a lot of a lot of holidays coming there are a lot of holidays uh coming up so uh we uh we extend our best wishes to all of you for a very pleasant holiday season enjoy it next it request for information and or future agenda items I slipped you I did get three as we were sitting here from board members we'll get those slow night I know that's good any other requests seeing none next item superintendent reports just three things real quick you do have them in front of you but dearborn's Got Talent the dearborn's youth Affairs commission is announcing their spring Community event for all high school students called dearborn's Got Talent whether it's the musicians dancers singers comedians strugglers um musicians gymnasts or any other type of performance you're encouraged to participate a grand prize will be awarded high schools can signed up at the lunch tomorrow and Wednesday at their lunch hours at the high schools uh live auditions will be held from 2 to4 and 6 8 January 13 and 15 at etel 4 the show will be Friday ail ail 4th at the Ford and Performing Art Center for more information you can contact Romy kadu at Dearborn High Julia harder at for Fortson Celeste Holmes at etel Ford or Jackie re and the the uh this is really a driven event by students so this is completely planned for and put together by students response to bullying video contest uh we're excited to announce this year's big video contest open to all deer public school students and staff the team is looking for Creative videos that show how our District's core values relate to our response to bullying program it's a great opportunity for students and staff to work on creating a video that will deliver a positive message reinforcing the good work being done in our district and could even save a life because of the message so uh get those creative juices flowing and pick up those cameras and start creating your video today all videos must be submitted by Friday February 14th to Jackie r or the Communications office third and last fortson's PTSA dine and laugh scholarship event the Forts and PTA presents their first annual dine and laugh scholarship fundraising event Thursday December 19th at biblo Banquet Hall in Chase Road the event will feature comedians Amir zahar and Ron Taylor tickets are $30 and will benefit the Forts and PTSA scholarship fund and you all have handouts on all three of these events that were publicized that sounds like a fun event unfortunately I've got another Diner a half to go to that L that's it no other no other next item future meeting dates Monday December 16th 2013 h hfcc meeting at 700 p.m.

at the Andrew mazara services and Conference Center in the Rosena boardroom at Henry Ford Community College Monday January 13th 2014 p12 Board of Education organizational meeting at 6:45 p.m. at the administrative service center in the Frank Frenchie boardroom Monday January 13 2014 p12 Board of Education meeting at 700 p.m. at the administrative service center in the Frank Frenchie boardroom and Tuesday January 21st 2014 hfcc meeting at 700 p.m. at the Andrew mazera services and Conference Center in the Rosena boardroom at Henry Ford Community College and you added the meeting uh next week at that's a committee meeting committee meeting okay okay happy holidays to everyone enjoy the season we're joury thank you

good evening my name is Natalie swadley and I'm a senior at catville high school the pearl of Clinton my GPA is a 4.0 and I'm the vice wind commander of Air Force jrc unit I'm an active student in Statesville high school I'm a varsity soccer and softball player I participate in everything relating to rooc and I am a member of the National Honor Society and Kitty Hawk Society my plans for the future is to attend a four-year College such as North Fork University and participate in their RC program where I would like to major in criminal justice my long-term goal is to become a officer in the military and become a military police officer I'm a motivated and strong-minded sasville high school student and I am ready for college now I would like to to welcome you to the January 23rd 2014 Prince George's County Board of Education meeting highlights for this evening will include the proclamation designating the week of February 10th through February 14th 2014 as the peace week for Prince George's County Additionally the Board of Education would like to address address the 2014 2015 school calendar please continue to check ww.

pgcps.org for upcoming Board of Ed Board of Education meetings and events and now the January 23rd Board of Education meeting will begin thank [Applause] you thank you so much good evening ladies and gentlemen friends and colleagues uh I'll thank you so much for your patience uh I am uh so excited about the packed house that we have here this evening our apologies for keeping you waiting but you know when the house is packed and the and the main event comes on you got to be a little late to build up the anticipation a little bit so uh so thanks folks for waiting for us uh this is of course the January 23rd 20133 board meeting of the Prince George's County Board of Education again a reminder particularly since I see some young people in the house this even evening turn off the cell phone keep it on vibrate uh ladies and gentlemen as it interferes with the microphone and the taping of the meeting and of course makes for a very awkward situation when your phone rings uh uh before I begin of course let me uh thank again uh Miss Natalie swadley a 12th grade student at saratz high school and vice Wing Commander thank you like so many others she represents what excellence in education means every day here in Prince George's County we know that you will uh continue to serve us well and to represent uh uh yourself and and your students well thank you Natalie uh okay uh Miss Mundy would you please lead the board prayer and Pledge of Allegiance oh God we pray to administer that which is just in all educational policies being ever mindful of your guidance steer us to action with love wisdom and understanding amen I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the stand na indivisible andice thank you so much Miss Mundy Mrs Parker would you please call the role thank you Dr Anderson Mr burls here miss apps Miss Eubanks here miss Higgins here miss Jacobs I here Dr Kaufman Miss Mundy happy to be here Mr Valentin here miss Waller here Miss Williams here miss Muse Ario Miss Boston here Dr Eubanks here thank you thank you colleagues and uh before I take an adoption of the agenda uh Miss Higgins do I have a motion yes um Mr chair I move that we uh move 13.1 public comment on non-agenda items to to after 5.1 on public comment on agenda items second it has been moved and seconded to move uh non uh to move up to uh non-agenda items to agenda items or something to that extent is there any discussion hearing none all those in favor please say I I all those opposed all right so in addition before we take adoption of the agenda in addition to that change please note that item 1.1 the motion uh to meet an executive session at 3 p.m.

was canceled uh uh because item 2.1 oral arguments at 4:30 p.m. was also cancelled uh uh and uh and so those are changed and in addition uh to that change uh uh that we just passed I entertain a motion to adopt a 201 uh4 January 23rd board meeting agenda so move second has been moved and seconded all those in favor please say I I all those opposed colleagues may have a motion to approve the January 9 2014 board meeting minutes so moved it has been moved and seconded is there any discussion seeing none all those in favor please say I all those opposed the minutes are approved item 4.6 we will now have a news break entitled is there a doctor in the house I can pick up stuff I can pool I like my holding up remarkable medical devices like a prosthetic hand artificial knees and perfectly formed skull bones generated by 3D printers as examples of her agency's oversight responsibilities Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr Margaret Hamburg recently spoke to the assembled biomed students at Bladensburg High School who could one day be working for the FDA themselves Dr Hamburg earned her MD from Harvard Medical School and completed her residency at what is now New York Presbyterian Hospital wild Cornell Medical Center she conducted Neuroscience research at Rockefeller University in New York and at the National Institute of Mental Health and later focused Fus on AIDS research as assistant director of the National Institute of allergy and infectious diseases I was very fortunate in many ways in that I grew up in an academic setting I actually grew up on the Stanford campus and both my parents were on the faculty at Stanford and actually at the medical school these kids are so impressive because they they haven't always had all those opportunities and yet they've made these commitments to their Studies have identified this area of interest for Learning and possible uh career development after answering questions that range from the safety of genetically modified foods to the new nutrition labels on restaurant meals Dr hamburg's parting words were a personal prescription for Success follow your passion to not try now to Define exactly what you're going to be doing 2 3 four decades from now not to set your heart on one particular thing but to de into the opportunities before you the reaction to Dr hamburg's plea to keep options open was immediate as students including Bladensburg newly selected posi scholar sensed its wisdom I've always aspired to be a pediatrician so I plan on going to Bucknell and majoring in chemistry or biochemistry and later on going to medical school just like Dr Hamburg and eventually becoming a pediatrician as of now I'm looking into working as an environmental biologist so who knows I might possibly end up working at the FDA this would be the frontal lob the prial lob doal the cerebellum and the hyp of Salamis would be there stirring as the commissioner's words were the biomedical students hardly need more motivation in their anatomy class for example the identification of body parts on mannequins is intense as wouldbe health professionals try to raise their stem cell and skeletal IQs abdominal good what separates your thoracic cavity from your abdominal your diaphragm good I think that the biometal program is fantastic just because it allows students so much more access to applicable science and it's now associated with diseases that they're seeing in their families It's associated with case studies that they're seeing in the news they're able to put together bodies like you were seeing in here earlier um so just the Hands-On aspect in the real life applications I think is what is really going to make a difference for these kids to be able to pursue it in the future the students as they're coming in we're trying to give them an excitement to become a lifelong Learner in anatomy in physiology so that they don't just take a course but they understand that they're taking a process that's going to deliver them uh into a career eventually but they'll be prepared and enjoy the journey along the way the real world immersion in the biomedical Sciences is as hoped giving students the chance to sample careers along the way discarding some reconsidering others at first before I even got to class I was like okay pediatrician that looks good no I don't want that forensics no I don't want that I was like I can go somewh microbiology I don't want that took chemistry I'm taking chemistry right now I don't want that I'm I'm still looking and I'm still searching and I just keep writing them down and scratching them off to see which one I want and which one will keep me happy show just as Dr Hamburg found her health care happiness in ways unimagined so too will James a doctor in the house if you will of his own making the pressures on me were different because everyone expected of course I'd be a doctor with two doctor parents and so making that final decision to actually go into Medical School some ways was harder because I had to reach deep in and and determine is this what I really want to do or is it just what's expected of me and then of course my career path hasn't been that of the typical doctor when I get in this class I'm thinking about 5 years from now 10 years from now am I going to be sitting behind a desk am I going to be saving somebody's life that's what I see that's when when I come this class I just got to remember canack off this is more than just a grade this is more than just a A or a B this is for the rest of my life for channels 96 and 38 this is Dave zar [Applause] thank you for that as you see every day we're working to offer every one of our students a full range of College and Career options as they uh as they leave our our schools prepared for the challenges of the world and just another great example of a great program that does that I just got to uh just give aside it still continues to amaze me and I don't know if we've given David Zar a Lifetime Achievement Award for the tremendous work that he does for this for the school uh for the school district but his work uh uh on really uh publicizing the great work that we do every day is tremendous so uh special shout out to him uh all right we'll go to item uh 4.7 which is the report of the chair um a couple of notes first you know uh uh now that our board is complete with our newest board member Sonia Williams welcome again Sonia you're a veteran now second second meeting you're a veteran uh we're even more focused on the enormous tasks ahead of us to advance the achievement of our diverse student population through collaboration with the CEO with his staff with our colleagues in in our uh in our uh staff unions and associations uh throughout uh as well as the uh community at large uh the Board of Education would like to encourage all constituents to be sure to attend the upcoming fy15 proposed operating budget work sessions and budget public hearings uh those who had the opportunity uh to listen to Dr Maxwell present his budget knows that it is ambitious and robust uh and we have a heck of an important task as a board now uh to move that budget on to the next level and to make sure that we present one uh that is worthy of the great uh uh students uh parents and teachers who work with us every day for us to do that we need your support and we need your attendance uh on January 27th 2014 we have a uh work session at 5:00 P pm and a public hearing here in the boardroom at 7 p.m.

on February 29th we have our second uh public hearing at 700 p.m. and on February 25th we have a work session and public hearing uh at 700 p.m. all sessions work sessions and public hearings will be held here in the boardroom so please do uh attend and give us your feedback kudos to our students uh congratulations to the 12 Prince George's County Schools alumni from the class of 2013 who are recently honored for receiving their International Balor diploma or IB diploma uh to earn the IB diploma students had to pass the IB exams write an extended essay and complete course requirements in theory of knowledge in creativity action and service while participating in the IB Program during the Junior and senior years of high school all honores are currently pursuing degrees at Higher Learning institutions again congratulations and best wishes uh upcoming events uh we have a February 27th 2014 board meeting at 7 p.m.

uh uh and all meet that meeting stated will be here in the boardroom persons interested uh in speaking at those meetings of the board must register with the office of the Board of Education two and a half hours prior to the meeting by calling 301 925 6115 I'd now like to yield the remainder of of my report for a point of personal privilege uh to my colleague and friend Curtis Valentine Mr Valentine thank thank you thank you Mr chair um good evening everyone um my name is uh Curtis Valentine I'm a member of the school board here um and when I began became a teacher here in the county one of the first people I interacted with when I walked into the school was a custodian any of you all know that in our schools uh our custodians our custodial workers do their best to create the environment for students for teachers administrators to do the work that they're doing uh they are the the institutional memory of our schools they create a an environment of Public Safety and for many of the staff they allow them to come in early and stay late and know that they'll be taken care of when I went to visit my wife uh at the time when she was teaching at Steven Decor Middle School the first person she introduced me to was not her principal but was to the custodian when she went to work at ow and Science Center when I went to visit her there the first person she introduced me to was the custodian she said these men and women take care of me they make sure I come in I feel safe that the environment is one of learning so what I wanted to do on behalf of the school board in front of everyone is recognize our custodial workers for all the work that they do uh the tireless work they do for the work that Mr Brown did at stepen Deer Middle School for the work that Mr Clark and Mr Johnny did at Owen Science Center to create an environment for my wife but also for many of our teachers and students to come in and feel proud of their learning environment but also understand that as staff turn over that these custodial workers are there uh and that they they take ownership in our school buildings and that they understand that we have the support and the support of our school system so I'd like to bring up Miss Cynthia Collins from seciu local 400 to accept this U token of our esteem on behalf of the custodial workers and the ation reads uh certificate of recognition presented to custodial services and recognition of your hard work and tireless efforts to provide clean healthy and safe learning and working environment in Prince Georges county public schools presented on the 23rd day of January 2014 signed by board chair sigun Eubanks and CEO Kevin Maxwell thank you very much everybody in here this thank you Mr Valentine for uh for taking that initiative and thanks to all of uh uh the dedicated and committed employees of Prince George County Public Schools and with that uh I will yield the floor to Dr Maxwell for his report thank you very much good evening everyone now that we've had our first significant snowfall of the school year I hope that everyone has had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with our winter weather emercy codes uh when the threat of inclement weather arises we work collaboratively with County government and agencies National Weather bureaus and adjoining school districts to determine a plan of action that ensures the safety of students and staff while traveling to and from schools and offices Please be aware that due to the size of our County weather conditions may vary greatly between the Southern and Northern Communities and the decision to close schools has to be based on all road conditions School operating status is posted on our website and share with local radio and television stations you can also sign up on our website to receive emergency e alerts that send notification of school closures or delays directly to your email or cell phone for details and to sign up for for uh e alerts visit our website as a reminder the deadline to apply for the second semester of evening high school has been extended to Tuesday January 28th the program on runs January through May and is conducted at crosson and Northwestern High School sites you can also register to take the online version of the program tuition and registration rates apply to find out more click on the revolving story on our homepage registration for charter schools and Specialty programs is also currently in progress these programs offer a variety of challenging and specialized programs for students including Creative and Performing Arts language immersion montau talented and gifted science and technology and more seats are filled on a space available basis through a lottery process the deadline to register for the charter school Lottery is January 3 1st and the deadline to register for the specialy program Lottery is March 12th other programs of choice have their own registration deadline separate from the lottery for details on all programs please visit our website and don't forget to share your input as we develop the school district's operating budget and CIP plan the Board of Education will host a public budget hearing on Monday January 27 at 7M here in the boardroom and the department of capital programs will schedule one more opportunity in the central planning area uh for the community to take part in develop the educational facilities master plan your input is crucial in helping us develop an operating budget and capital Improvement plan that truly reflects the needs and priorities of our school Community thank you thank you Dr Maxwell thank you for reminding us about this lovely snow and weather we've been having uh I'm sure students are happy to finally be back in school and we won't have any more delays uh that's uh been official official board policy right now no more delays for the rest of the year it's too too late [Music] oh except for tomorrow oh Lord all right all right well we'll see you kids all the way through June then all right folks we are now at uh uh uh item 5.0 public comment on both agenda and non-agenda items we have a nice long list today so I'm going to read all of the guidelines for the evening uh you have been registered to speak in a public comment Forum where the Board of Education will listen to your comments the board will not address your comments all registered speakers will have three minutes to make their presentation at the sound of the buzzer speakers May complete that sentence only registered speakers may not relinquish any part of their speaking time to another registered or unregistered individual speakers may not address address individuals or issues with profanity or derogatory terms um you will be warned y yada yada but no one will do that so I can skip that part uh speakers are encouraged to use titles rather than names uh for example principal superintendent etc etc please do leave a copy of your statement in the file box located next to the microphone your adherence to these guidelines will enable the public participation process to move smoothly uh we have um 13 speakers are registered for us this evening we're so excited to have you uh uh expressing your uh uh your concerns to the board so we'll start uh with speaker number one uh Mr David Khan Mr Khan thank you the board has before today a draft policy on um culturally proficient schools and Central offices this is a great idea there's so much good in this and yet the draft is pulled down by some rather dangerous language that's in it so I'd like to uh highlight some of the problems with the way this is worded um it defines culturally relevant uh it says it means that students see themselves reflect in curriculum and one of the outcomes is that uh every uh PGCPS shall provide every student with Equitable access to high quality and culturally relevant instruction curriculum support and other educational resour resources every student that doesn't mean just white and black and you know there's not a single white culture and there's not a single black culture and there's not a single Hispanic culture Italians are not like Scandinavians and African-Americans are not like uh more recent immigrants from Africa and you have Arabs are you going to teach how the uh the Muslims um uh contributed to the Fantastic improvements in mathematics and physics are you going to teach Holocaust studies and how the Jews financed the uh Revolutionary War are you going to teach things about the Lans are you going to teach things about all these people and if they're not reflected in this which is what you say you're going to do you're looking for lawsuits so you might want to examine this and say what you really mean um you talk about outcomes and the board establishes the following outcomes well the board can't establish an outcome it can work towards it it can desire the outcome but it can't establish the outcome because the outcome will be established by the work that's done under this so I suggest a change then in the second outcome I thought this was brought up at the policy meeting that you had back in December but PGCPS shall welcome and Empower all families and then it says including under representative families of color including those whose first language may not be English well that's unnecessary if it's all families and this could be seen as words of limitation for example the reference to esol students is are only those who are under repesentative families of color so so that if you're a representative family of color or if you're white the fact that you have um a second language I mean English is your second language you don't come under this you don't necessarily get any help the worst part of it though is in number six reviewing policies procedures and practices that may impede the school system from correcting over representation of students of color in areas of special education and discipline and under represent representation programs such as gifted and talented this is really easy deny black kids the educ the special education uh that they need and lower standards for gifted and talented I'm sure that's not what you mean you've got to come up with a better way to say this the goal of this is terrific I love it but you got to have a better drafted policy thank you thank you our next uh speaker uh on the non-agenda item uh is m m or Mr Morgan Austin Middle School student is Morgan Austin here oh here she comes all right hello Morgan good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is Morgan Austin I am currently an eighth grade student in he highville Middle School in the Creative and Performing Arts program for theater my request at this time is to please allow myself and other out-of-bound students currently attending H highville middle school to attend Northwestern High School Academy for Visual and Performing Arts program most of the students in the CPA Pro program will be attending Northwestern these are the students that I have worked long tiring hours with both before and after school I have built relationships that have helped me Foster my creative and academic achievements Northwestern will allow me the opportunity to maintain consistency as I pursue my Creative and Performing Art Talent transitioning from high school middle school with which is a theater school for Northwestern I have thrived at highville and am surrounded by teachers that have taught coached and nurtured me both academically and creatively we have relationships in a spirit of cooperation and teamwork that have developed over the past 2 years among me and my CPA family to watch us practice and perform together is a thing of beauty we have bonded and gel a feed and feed off of each other's Creative Energy we have formed relationships that will forever be a part of me my issue is that I am what they call an outof bound student upon leaving he highville in order to continue on the Performing Arts track under the current boundary structure I will have to be busted to suland high school my mom attended an informational session where it was was made clear that out of bound students would be would not be allowed to attend Northwestern and will be sent to suland high school I a Chevy Maryland resident and suland is a much further commute more than twice the distance than Northwestern Northwestern is where I will I wish to continue to pursue my Performing Arts dream any consideration given this request will be a blessing and greatly appreciated thank [Applause] you thank you Morgan our next speaker is eno Wilson Jr Mr Wilson good evening good evening Mr Wilson um my name is Enoch Wilson Jr and I am also a 8th grade um student at highville middle school and I'm currently studying studying theater lab and my CP department when I was younger I remember my life goal was to be a wrestler and a police officer by the time I got to fifth grade my whole life gold changed I realized that by expressing myself with true theatrics theatrics that I made my teachers and family members laugh while in the sixth grade I learned also the opportunity to attend a CPA school that helped me develop my skills and further Talent on stage I auditioned for theater Lab at highville middle school and was very excited when I got my letter of of acceptance into the program since that time I had the opportunity to grow in in my area of interest and performing on stage at my school and also the folders at theater lab as liander and M Sumer night stream I was very proud of myself when I won awards in my performance but also more importantly being able to understand the play and the language during Shakespeare time I have grown and learned so much understanding in the theater in the CPA theater lab teacher my teacher she makes me um give out my full potential and helps me does my best the teacher the other teachers are just as encouraging as well as my friends and I have true grown a relationship with them during this time but I was deeply sad to learn that once I leave highville middle school that I would not be able to attend um Northwestern I would have to go to a school across town so my neighborhood school does not offer a CPA program those these are my friends that oh my desire would be to continue to um be in the highville area and have the right to attend Northwestern High School they have a CPA program that will keep me challenged and academically and also build my craft as an actor most of my parents that attend highville Middle School are also going to n Northwestern because they live in this area these are my friends that I'm familiar with and developed a strong relationship with and we keep each other encouraged I hope you don't mind if I mention that my brother Rico Cooper attended and played football in Northwestern High School for the 10th Grand year and graduated in 2000 so please I'm asking that you reconsider the decision on sending your students in the highville to a school across town my twin sister who was a dancer at highville Middle School in the CPA program we are all striving in the area and we love the opportunity to continue to strive for excellence in the heinsville middle middle school area and continue to come to Northwestern thank you [Applause] thank you uh next up is nette Moody good evening everyone good evening my name is nette Moody and I am the nutrition Outreach coordinator with Sher strength sharff strength is a nonprofit organization it's nationally known but more specifically here in Maryland are working with the county to help end childhood hunger a pretty lofty goal set out by the governor of Mali one of his goals for 2015 is to end childhood hunger um ironically enough one and five kids are actually very food insecure which means they don't know where the next meal is coming from and we are trying to close the gap between students not knowing where their meal is coming from and make sure that they are provided with the best food and nutrients especially while they're at school um you guys may not know but this month January is School Board recognition month and the Maryland noed hungry Campaign which is the campaign working to end Ted hunger here in Maryland would like to thank the Prince George's school board for all their support and making sure that students in this area start the day with the healthy breakfast Prince Georgia school board has been instrumental in helping us move School breakfast out of the cafeteria and integrating it into the regular school day we've helped fund over 30 schools to begin an alternative breakfast model um the share strength campaign gives out various granting to help the schools buy equipment or just to help kind of promote breakfast in the school Believe It or Not breakfast for some reason isn't very popular especially among the younger kids so we try to make it seem more appealing and appetizing to um the kids at school um our biggest success is actually in our Maryland meals for achievement or MFA schools um our organization helped to fund and support Governor Mai to give $1.8 million more to Maryland schools to fund this making more students get free meals at school and our biggest achievement I would say or one of our biggest achievements is Princeton Elementary School in suland Maryland at the beginning of the school year they were serving around 87 kids for breakfast and now it's 282 students it's a 200% increase um breakfast is extremely huge and as you guys know it's the most important meal of the day you have to have breakfast whether it's a you know snack bar or something kids need to have something like that in their stomachs to perform better and do good in their test and studies um because of the support the board members because of the support of the board members and our food service director Joan shorter we've helped fund and support over 37 schools in the county so that more students are eating breakfast and ready to learn and a special thanks to our CEO Mr Kevin Maxwell for being a national voice for promoting our school breakfast and as was mentioned earlier by the chair as you guys know we did have a couple school days so yes of course a lot of students are very happy but there are pocket of kids who are actually pretty sad because they weren't able to get free meal or just a meal alone at school and so just something to kind of keep in mind the next time you have a school day um board members you guys will receiving a package like this that'll be going around has L of information about organization and it also has my business card for any other questions or concerns feel free to reach out thank you so much thank you Miss Moody our fifth speaker this evening is Leona Lowry Leona Lowry here good evening everyone I'm Leona lri fitsu the Visual and Performing Arts coordinator at Northwestern High School I am a 20-year employee of Prince Georges county public schools musician Mentor teacher Mentor Arts integration specialist and lifelong Arts Advocate I want to thank the board and Dr Maxwell first for the support that you've given the Arts in general and in this County and the Visual and Performing Arts Academy at Northwestern in particular we now have additional Staffing and resources that will allow our students to not only be career and college ready but to compete on National standards and the Arts with peers from around the country we will have additional tutors to prepare our students for private instruction and M music our TV and Film Studio will have a new tricaster which will allow live and remote broadcasting of events and class classrooms we have new instruments for music and music for the orchestra and band artists and residents that will help to inspire the students of the academy in dance and visual arts we are proud at Northwestern to be allowed to carry the name of our illustrious Alum Jim Hinson and we're proud to send students off to work with the national with the Washington Opera Broadway Productions Network news and Television Studios we have teachers actors singers dancers all over the world in order for for Northwestern to continue this success however we need students who have had an extensive arts training before grade n like the students at he highville CPA program to join our Academy in order to complete their college preparation in the Arts and continue the Excellence pathway that they've already begun students who are beginning or an entry level in arts at grade n are less likely to Su successfully compete for college and Conservatory auditions because of that lack of intensive training if Northwestern remains an in boundary only program only three of the 85 CPA students at he highville will be able to attend Northwestern the remaining 81 students many of them living right there in hyattville Brentwood and those Northern areas will not be able to attend because of the boundaries restrictions these students were allowed to audition for for Heights for middle and they were accepted and they were provided transportation for grades seven and eight but now in grade nine they either have to give up their passion for the Arts or be bust across town to suland high school and many of them can walk to Northwestern but they're considered out of bounds my office in the creative arts supervisor's office has fielded dozens of calls from highville middle Charles Carol middle green belt middle Buck Lodge middle parents who want their children right in the area to attend Northwestern but the boundaries closed my proposal tonight is to provide our feeder School hi highville middle access to northwestern's vpa program it is more educationally sound and fiscally responsible to send students to a school 5 minutes from their old school rather than to bust them across town to continue to study the Arts or to have them drop the Arts all together at a school that doesn't even have their program if we're committed to College and Career Readiness and all students should have that consideration we are offering best practices to these young people we should have best dancers best voice teachers best media inst structures thank you so much and thank you our next speaker is precious Carter good evening in agreement with Northwestern High School proposal I would like to further reiterate the importance of the Highfield Middle School CPA students being given the opportunity to audition for Northwestern BPA let me first say I am precious Carter the Creative and Performing Arts coordinator at hefi middle school as current Creative and Performing Arts students they are considered to be students of highville and students in highville feed into Northwestern High School so why shouldn't these same students be given the same opportunity we're not asking you to open the boundary to everyone but we are asking that stipulations are made to accommodate the Creative and Performing Arts students these students have chosen careers in the Arts and just like any other career choice parents teachers and administrative specialists want them to receive the best instructional practices that will prepare them for College and Career Readiness as the cluster of schools highville middle and Northwestern have begun to establish a collaboration amongst the schools at both the staff and student level in an effort to build creative mentoring relationships that will Foster academic performance and professional growth our goals at both schools are to PR prepare our students for competitive Global Society presently we serve 200 students of which at least 75% of them are out of boundary students it is unfortunate that while the mass major majority of them are highville residents according to the boundary stipulations they're considered to be out of boundary why allow our students to attend our feeder school for Northwestern and then deny them the opportunity to attend it why deny them the opportunity to further develop their crafts to prepare them for Collegiate auditions and scholarships at their current schools fater school what happens to those students that do not meet their creative those school students who have to go to schools that do not meet their creative needs many of the students homeschools do not help perform in arts programs where do our creative writers go future authors hi Ville presently is the only creative performing art school with creative writing as a discipline and those students are hoping to matriculate into Northwestern as journalism Majors what happens what happens to the Future Elementary School that you plan to have with the new creative performing art school that matriculates into highville Middle where are they going to go we're presently presently attempted to build a cluster of schools between the three schools what will happen to their opportunities if we do not stop and think about the future of these students and their development as we continue to prepare them daily through collaboration our goal is solely toward College and Career Readiness and overriding what Society has statistically said that they cannot do but of which we know that they can do if happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow why oh why can't I please consider making a class for highville Middle School creative Performing Arts students give them the opportunity not just to fly but to spread their wings and soar thank [Applause] you I I don't see anything in my public speaking guidelines about not being able to sing so thank you our next speaker is Alicia Davis is Alisia Davis present good evening Dr Maxwell members of the board my name is Alicia Davis I'm here I accepted appointment as a Medicaid liaison over 5 years ago with the Department of Transportation Prince geores County Public Schools I would like to share an experience that I entitled a broken system I'm an employee who was injured on the job can you believe that no one came to help me I I was a very diligent worker in more areas than I was hired to do is it possible for officials in this system to allow to have a policy that is conducive for all employee in the community with Prince shett County public school system if you could take a moment to follow me on the overview of my journey I was severely injured October 4th 2011 due to faulty off office equipment while I was sitting at my desk working on a spreadsheet for payment I sat up and sat at the chair and it broke throwing me backwards hitting my head neck and back the carpet had no no padding my body weight hit the concrete four which was indoor outdoor carpet I blacked out for a moment and was very dizzy I was taken to Concentra Medical Urgent Care where I suffered from headaches constant pain head to my neck back legs and arms the chair was affected it was broke at the welding in addition it was a newly purchased office chair that was purchased by Prince George's County public schools here is um what occurred in the fall new events they never performed an MRI they did typical X-ray and wouldn't do an MRI because I was in constant pain but they felt an MRI was suffice at the time I went back to work which the county states that they do not have light duty but I'm here to state that they sent me back for a week I was in pain to actually have to go out with work restrictions on a light duty policy on October 17th I had an emergency appointment with another orthopedic doctor that took me out of work immediately and I was out now until the present even standing today Corville is Prince georg's County Board of Education insurance company took their time approving MRIs pain management epidurals and other services that were required and majorly delayed my treatment to me this is grossly affecting my recovery and prolonging my healing I have I've lost my health insurance I have one child with the disability I had to go on public assistance and try to get insurance for myself to this today I don't have health insurance I had to search all over the DMV region looking for free medical services and hoping to find a much needed exams that were I needed to have because I hadn't had for two years it would not have taken place with your organization had been advised or talked about during my interview process if I knew this policy was get well in 90 days or lose it all I would have never taken this job it was delay in treatment how do you get well in 90 days I asked myself I was also told that had to pay a $1,500 a month benefit after my 90 days expired well you know you're injured and you're on a reduced income how can you pay $1,500 to continue your healthare now keep in mind I was injured on a job by purchase office equipment by your school system there was time stated by the union that they have covered people in the past in situations like myself like I said I had a disabled kid that had medicine that costus $2,000 a month and it it's heartbreaking to stand here because I was a very diligent worker to end it you know I was making $314 a week on workers comp so I come to you today and ask how am I supposed to survive when you all can't accommodate my disability and I stand today because my I'm heartbroken to work for a system that has left me um cold and dry and some people on the board have been notified have yet and gotten correspondences from me have never even responded to help me and my family so that's why I stand today because if you're entered on a job you're left out in the cold and I you know would want you all to take a look at this and I would like to meet with the CEO County Executive you know the chair so we can work these out because I don't wish this on anyone it's been a nightmare for me so I if you have to be in my shoes I'm a single parent I'm a widow of two so I cry out for help and I stand here today and hope you all can B ically understand my cry I was a diligent employee to stand today it took everything I had to come out I thank you and I hope you can take that time and consider my pain through this all thank you yes our next speaker this evening is Dita Spencer is Dita Spencer here good evening my name is Dita Spencer I'm the mother of two straight A students who love school my husband and I work hard to support and encourage their love for school and reading and age appropriate activities I also resign from my corporate position to start a family child care because even though I can only have eight in my family center I'm committed to helping as many children as I can truly prepare for school and have a love for learning that being said as you make the decision to vote on whether to move our Barack Obama fifth graders to middle school I would greatly appreciate it if you would keep the following in mind and in prayer for the success and safety of our children there are many articles and studies that deliver the pros and cons of moving sixth grade to Middle School please consider these issues many 10 and 11 year olds are not mature enough to handle the social pressures of Middle School most of our Barack Obama students are doing very well and being groomed by some amazing teachers and caring staff to continue to do well in their technologically advanced learning environment however with very little notice you are going to require them to completely change the way that they're learning and studying and receiving information most of these students while they are looking forward to middle school and high school and college they are also looking forward to their last year at Barack Obama to be the sixth sixth grade leader ERS they were groomed to be many 10-year-olds are not responsible enough to be home by themselves and with no after care in middle school that leaves us parents with another challenge to face if they are the only school being moved that does not make for much of a peer support system for them and potentially leaves them as targets for older children moving children from one overcrowded school to another does not seem to be a logical step in alleviating overcrowding issues particularly when other schools in the area are underc capacity my opinion noted I wanted to highlight this in almost all the data pro and con the Common Thread is preparation you wouldn't logically send a second grader straight to fourth grade or only give them a few months to prepare they obviously need that third grade work but they also need time to grow and to mature for the next stage in most instances in life preparation is required for health transition please give us parents and our children the respect of allowing what logically takes some time to prepare for instead of only a few months I do thank you for your time and attention and I truly truly appreciate the work that you are doing for our babies and for our community thank you so much and thank you our next speaker is Derek homesley it's Derek holmsley here good afternoon to the distinguished board members Dr Eubanks CEO Dr Maxwell I am Derek homsley I am a product of this school system I graduated from Sriracha High School in 198 6 I became the acting director of Transportation in 2009 I went on in 1996 to represent this County in the Olympic trials in the long jump in Atlanta I have a four-year-old daughter I am a parent I mean I I have parents sitting to my left here who are Educators two retired principles in DC public schools that were very well respected I am cut from a superior cloth I am here today to talk about a conspiracy against me as the Director of Transportation I was asked to send a disclosure letter to my department about behaviors that are are not accepted by Prince George's County Public Schools which had Department of Transportation rules and regulations attached to them the former director of Labor Relations did not want the letter that I sent to be sent out to the masses the letter that was approved by the former deputy director of of schools the and the former general counsel of schools he in turn the the former director of Labor Relations wanted me to send his letter I told him if we send that letter you would get grievances he sent the letter anyway after sending me an email telling me I don't give a damn who you told who you need to check with to send it I said send it after that a mulus occurrence happened for me two weeks later I was uh the the former director of uh Transportation who was promoted to the chief of supporting Ser services and the chief of it came to my office and confiscated my computer and my cell phones and told me I was under investigation for internet pornography during the course of their investigation the the investigation showed that there was no internet pornography in my computer or in my cell phones so then the charge turned to inappropriate emails for which these emails contain pornography and I am not an IT Guru but if you send an email through a computer that has a pornographic picture attached to it it will attach to your hard drive how do you give me an investigation from IT services that tells me that my computer does not have internet pornography in it if the emails that were sent through this computer had pornographic pictures attached to it as I continued the journeying this I was told sitting in my home with my father two officials from local 2250 the bus driers Union in which I supervised came to my home and told me that the director of Labor and relations and one of my former Transportation supervisors who sat and worked with the former chair on their attempt to become chair again exchanged these emails and infiltrated them into my computer and caused my demise I ran my department cleanly I ran my department well and I never had a smudge on my record until this time so I'm asking the board to please look at my case investigate my computers and my cell phones and give me the opportunity to clear my name and I'm a product of this school system and I I I can't believe believe that I'm standing here talking to a school system that I ask God through my athletic career to allow me to effectuate change and when I got this job here I was delighted because I effectuated change by transportating transporting your children to school thank you I thank God for this opportunity and I thank all of you for this this opportunity today thank you our next speaker is Carol Barber Carol Barber please make your way to the mic thank you good evening my name is Carol Barbour and I'm addressing my concerns about the human resources hiring process and the lack of Latino principles a multicultural Latina I meet all lure requirements required by the state and I'm a fifth generation educator I was a successful administrator in Prince George's and several other school districts I've won Community Service Awards and received a Governor's Citation for excellence I served our County by volunteering evenings and weekends to interview teaching candidates I hope to reestablish my roots in our school system I've re reapplied to reenter the school system since 2008 between 2008 and 2010 the application process has changed at least twice in 2009 an associate introduced me to the former board chair spouse the former board chair spouse asked my associate and me to give a political fundraiser for the former board chair my associate paid for the fundraiser that we hosted jointly I stopped hosting political fundraisers because my participation could have created a conflict of interest throughout the camp campaign season the former board chair spouse informed me via email that opportunities opened up on June 30th that I have the patience of Joe and that we don't forget favors among other statements when it became obvious I would not host additional fundraisers there were no interviews beyond the second level with no other option I entered litigation though I'm no longer in litigation and let me be clear the process was quite instructive during depositions the chief academic officer testified that I'm qualified and and eligible for hire the acting Chief Human Resources officer testified that I must be eligible since the system accepts my applications a former female Chief Human Resources officer testified that some candidates who didn't meet state certification requirements were hired when reviewing an email that named such a principal she said I don't keep tabs on people Doris did as you can see she also testified if x did not pass the exam it would be near the end of the year anyway so height would have removed her from the principal ship it would have been his call the chief academic officer and former acting Chief Human Resources officer testified that I'm qualified and eligible for hire this former female Chief Human Resources officer testified that principles who were not qualified by state standards were hired there is quite a hiring conundrum indeed thus I request a formal meeting with the chair of the board the chief executive officer the Chief Human Resources officer and a decision-making representative from the county executive's office to resolve my Myriad concerns I do not wish to be a problem I wish to reestablish myself in this school system to again be part of the solution thank you thank you our next speaker is Alfred Turner Alfred Turner here uh good evening board members and uh Dr Maxwell thank you for the opportunity to speak I'm here today to express my continued dissatisfaction with the lack of response and the Integrity of the several supervisors Chief officers and directors of which you had left to maintain the oversight of some of the largest budgets in our district namely the supervisor of Transportation chief of Transportation uh director of purchasing and supplies her superiors Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer I have made numerous inquiries regarding the status of my uh Freedom of Information Act request and bid protest on the ifb 049-2 providing few additive based on the process in your uh purchasing the supply manual a says an interested party May file protest to an award or propose Award of a bid or propose against alleged solicitation defects alleged only restricted uh specification omission of required provision or ambiguous or indefinite evaluation factors B States all protests are to be submitted to the responsible director or Contracting Office of the person Department within 10 calendar days after the bid of the pro uh protest has actually opened and you have to present it in writing as the above mentioned bid was uh evidence of all the violation item listed above I filed a timely protest on 312 2012 to date neither the chief of Transportation director of purchasing and supply the chief uh the CFO or the COO has provided me with an answer regarding my concern all of which have uh notified I have notified on numerous occasion and provided documentation to support my allegations how are we as taxpayers parents and community members expected to trust the board when there officers which have been made aware of clear violation of law at a minimum federal guidelines and they failed to act and you also the board members continue to leave them in place yes I have also courtesy copy several of you all in the emails uh to make you aware of some of the violation namely bid steering by the transportation supervisor Chief and purchasing uh director allowing repeat allowing repeat so sourcing of the product under bid 0493 for 11 years this bid was issued to the same vendor or one of his subsid subsidiaries without seeking any additional participation imposing unfair stalling tactics to prevent MBE participation intentionally imposing cost per bid requirements on MBE then posting the complete opposite in the bid violating fair and open competition for local mbes by imposing acccessory cost requirement which was clearly stated that they would be absorbed by the board in good faith mbes come expecting to do business with the board to take over the board by Mr was to clean up the black hole of the waste and reestablish some Integrity in the system if this is a careful look at at the individuals who have been in the department for years it does not take a genius to realize what needs to be done Dr Maxwell and board members the fox cannot guard the hen house please clean up the yard thank you thank [Applause] you and our next speaker is Mr Gerald megot Mr megot would you please make your way to the mic good evening sir good evening um uh good evening board and um CEO uh my thoughts today I wanted to share two ideas and I think everybody knows my spirit now when I when I come to the table uh my focus is on the students and um I'm embarking on two different projects that I thought you might find interesting for the students um a research assignment in which I'm teaming up with 100 um CEOs and entreprene leaders in the DC metropolitan area my background you know I've have eight years of experience um on a Fortune 500 executive level on the district um Regional and state level working with the CEOs to answer one question and the question is um why don't more young people aspire to be entrepreneurs and so in interviewing these CEOs and these directors what we're doing is we're coming up with a profile of who they were at the ages of 14 to 18 and this profile is designed to give a road map for not only um students but it's giving a road Mac for teachers um parents anybody's involved in these students lives to say these are where these CEOs were at that age group and what can we do to kind of shape our future in those directions so we've garnered some attractive attention from um the CEO of priceline.com I have a meeting with him in February um one of the CEOs and um executive directors of projet Aviation but the idea is I'd love to be able to team with some of the schools so as we're continuing to develop these um interviews and these meetings package that and be able to provide some type of assistance to give out to the school system to show students who are interested in Business and Entrepreneurship these are the people that are making it happen today in our community here's how you can connect with them and here's their stories so that's really exciting the second is I sit on the board of the fellowship for Christian athletes in mcgomery county and I think one of the other ways we can accelerate our students and their livelihoods is some of the role models in the classroom are our athletes and if we can impact their lives in a special way we may be able to encourage them and and Inspire their lives to shape others as we've been doing in mcgomery County so I'm working on a special project with the the state director of the fellowship for Christian athletes who was an who graduated from Buie State High School and also our board chairman in Montgomery County graduate from Buie State High School to put together a program inside of Prince ridges County so if you have coaches in your school system that are interested in connecting I go to a lot of the basketball games and I serve as a character coach for the middle school where we improve students characters and we might end with a nice God bless you and see where the conver ation goes so I'd love to um have any type of connection to some of the coaches who may think um inspiring students in another direction or a special way could be beneficial in their classroom and in the livelihoods of uh of the hallways in the schools so the the two ideas is um coaches and also putting together the research for the uh um project executive in the hands of um principles and teachers and maybe we'll do um some seminars and assemblies that we talked about a couple months ago so I thank you for your time and we always want to do something Innovative to advance the students lifestyle past the um the traditional and uh and see where it goes so really appreciate it and continue the great work thank you our next speaker is Sandra Collier Sandra Collier in the house good evening my name is Sandra Collier and I am the President of the PTA at Barack Obama Elementary School and we would just like to bring our concerns to the board today we are asking that the board reevaluate the boundaries at Barack Obama elementary school there are students that spend over one hour on the bus to get home how is that a neighborhood School Barack Obama Elementary School pulled from five surrounding elementary schools when they open according to the enrollment status on the Prince George's County Public School website those five schools are now all under enrolled Villages of marbor plans to redevelop the golf course with 300 homes this will surely bring additional students to Barack Obama Elementary if you re-evaluate the boundaries this will potentially eliminate the overcrowding at Barack Obama so that the sixth graders will not have to be removed removing the sixth graders out of Barack Obama Elementary School why were we only notified of this proposal in December at the form at James Madison Middle School why in the middle of the school year how do you prepare your fifth grader Midway the year that they may be may be going to the Middle School in the middle of the Year Common Core is a new curriculum just enforced this year so we now want our students to adjust to the new curriculum and they now have this new distraction of moving to a middle school they entered into the fifth grade knowing they had another year at their state-of-the-art Elementary School many families moved to this District just because they knew their child would be attending this state-of-the-art school why would you move students out of an already overcrowded school to attend another overcrowded school out of the mouths of babes at our last January PTA meeting one of our fifth graders comment comments was as you parents sit and worry about our education we worry that we are the youngest and the smallest students at the middle school we are concerned about being bullied um as I said I recommend um here today for the Barack Obama PTA and I want to show you that PTA at Barack Obama worked as a unit so I'd like all the members of the PTA and parents and students student of Barack Obama to please thank you thank [Music] you s's business okay thank you very much uh that concludes our list of speakers for this evening uh thank you for taking the time to come out in this weather uh to share your thoughts your concerns and your suggestions with us we listen we hear you and we deeply appreciate your voice um so now we will move on uh to um there are uh no legislative agenda items this evening and there are no discussion items on the agenda this evening either so we move on to item uh number 8.0 uh the consent agenda I will now yield the floor uh to Dr Maxwell for an introduction of items 8.1 and 8.2 under the consent agenda uh Mr Dr Maxwell thank you um 8.1 is a proclamation commemorating peace week in Prince George's County public schools for the week of February 10 through four what two 2014 uh and 8.2 is a declaration of surplus for property identified as Thomas Addison Elementary School 7100 Oxen Hill Road Oxen Hill Maryland on December 2nd 2013 the chief executive officer that would be me received a request from The Prince George's County government to transfer ownership of the school located on 7100 Oxen Hill Road Oxen Hill Maryland 20744 also referred to as Thomas Addison Elementary School thank you Mr barles i' like to move 8.2 to item 10.1 um the uh 8.2 to non-consent agenda item 10.1 uh that does uh does not require vote we will move that to a non-consent agenda item uh and I will um entertain a motion to approve item 8.1 under the budget consent agenda so moved second it has been moved and seconded is there any discussion hearing none all those about 8.1 yeah oh sorry Dr Anderson uh yes Dr Maxwell since we want to engage parents uh in the schools do you think it's feasible to engage them in in uh advocating for um uh peace and uh advocating uh um for for uh safety in in our schools during that period during peace week I I certainly see no problem with them advocating during that week and and every other week of the school year but particularly to bring them to the schools for some activity possibly to bring them to the school for some activity during that week we can certainly consider that make a suggestion to principles that they think about how they might do that all that Miss that's all okay is there any other discussion seeing none all those in favor of adopting item 8.1 under the cons uh consent agenda please say I I all those opposed motion carries we now move to item 9.0 the budget uh uh consent agenda uh and I will now yield the floor to Dr Maxwell for an introduction of items 9.1 through 9.5 under the budget consent agenda so 9.1 is an increase in the scope of work and A&E Services for Tulip Grove El elementary schools uh major renovation project in the amount of $4 46,7 N3 9.2 Kenmore Middle School approval of a proposed change order number seven in the amount of $2 29,285 to the contract of specialty Construction Company Incorporated for steel frames for rooftop units uh item 9.3 are the February 2014 expenditure requirements 9.4 are appropriation reass assignments over $100,000 within a major category for period dece uh for the period December 13 2013 through january3 2014 9.5 is a ratification of 201314 school year agreement on employee contracts confidential and board employees thank you may I please have a motion to approve items 9.1 through 9.5 under the budget consent agenda so moveed it has been moved uh and seconded to approve items 9.1 through 9.5 under the budget consent agenda is there any discussion seeing none all those I better all right this a budget consent agenda so I'm going to call the role Miss Parker please call the role on the motion Dr Anderson Mr burrow hi Miss Eubanks hi Miss Higgins hi Miss Jacobs hi Dr Kaufman hi Miss Mundy I Mr Valentine I miss Waller I miss Williams I miss Boston I Dr Eubanks I thank you motion passes thank you that concludes item 9.0 we now move to item 10.0 on the nonconsent agenda item in which we would take up uh previous item 8.2 the Declaration of surplus of property identified as Thomas Addison Elementary School on 77100 Oxen Hill Road Oxen Hill Maryland Mr burrow uh Dr maxw staff can you all walk me through the process uh of the evolution of this um uh uh item on the agenda prior to today what was the the process that your Administration followed um to get us here today good evening good evening so what takes place is um in this case the County government requested um us asked us if we wanted to utilize our Thomas Addison building right and then reached out to um our director of operations Sam stefanelli to see if we had any use for the building we looked at when was the last time we used it um we have not accessed that building for 5 years um we've used use staff to kind of go out and um remove the debris and trash that's been placed in the facility because it's been unoccupied for so long right have been van vandalized um we looked at what the square footage was for the building which is approximately 25,000 sare ft um its location and then determine whether it would be a building that we would need in the near future right unfortunately with 25,000 Square ft that would only accommodate less than 175 students right so at this time we don't have we don't have a need for facility with such a low um SRC and we hadn't used it for years and now the location is not the best location with the implementation of the new um at that time the new um Mall Outlet Mall that's there and all the traffic from the National Harbor right um we told the county no we did not have a use for it they then um drafted a letter requested the property and then we began the process of creating a board action summary and did you consider the community proposals that were on the table uh prior to their the letter they that they submitted to you so when you say community propos you mean the what the county will use the building for no there were there were several conversations with um at the time Carl beler beler Sam stefanelli uh there was a school uh a private school uh that was Spanish Immersion that wanted to lease the building uh they um conducted a walk through of the building um it appears from the last email that I was able to pull out of my email account that uh Eric Walker and several uh Personnel from the school system uh was moving in the direction of awarding them um or leasing the building to them um the the private school made several commitments to the school district that they would work with our students allowing our students to have access to the the facility and also to their Spanish imersion program program um as you know Hy left Dr Potter left then Dr Crawley came all at the same time and so you know I've had several conversations with them over the years I had a pastor of a church in Fort Washington that recently reached out to me um you know asking about this facility and so my question to the administration you know this was posted in Bard dos Bard dos four days ago um roughly and uh you were contacted I believe in December right uh moving forward it would be helpful to to gain as much information as possible ahead of time um and to provide enough notice to the board ahead of time because there are proposals you know I have a 20 Page proposal here from a school in the district um and 50% of the private school students um at their school 50% uh come back to the school system for middle and high school and there's several other community proposals for this school and I ask the administration to to consider this as a first reader and second reader I'm very happy that it will be used to train um our our um our our Stu you know our citizens hopefully uh I think that's an amazing thing but I would hate for community members to feel slighted because they have been in contact with staff and they have been working through the process to the best of their ability I ask Administration to to make this a first reader second reader to allow time to review those proposals um to have those conversations to ensure that community members like this group and other groups did not feel slighted by this move and uh the administration was not willing to comply with that right this is before the board as a consent agenda item and consent agenda according to policy is something that's administrative in nature or something that the board has reviewed in the past this is the first time that we're seeing this and so I didn't have adequate amount of time to reach back out to these Community groups letting them know that a change had occurred um and so you know I have no problem with with this today I have no problem with it becoming a training facility for MGM um it's you know I represent this community and if you're going to do this um if you're going to declare this property Surplus at least have some regard for the people that live in the area so let me share that um I've been in this position for a year and a half right and this is the first time that I've heard of a private school wanting to access and utilize that building and I must be honest I've had um Charters to reach out to say that they needed facilities and we've tried to accommodate and in any of our vacant buildings and typically they have not been able to use them just because of size right but this is the first I've heard of that um so I would think that even in the year and a half that I was here if they were interested in that actual property that they would have reached out directly to myself or anyone in our staff within the last year and a half yeah I have emails um from yeah uh Sam seanell is in here and I know he's still with the system and other personnel and maybe it didn't reach your desk um you know I think moving forward if we're going to have um and you know I did my best to work with Administration offline regarding these issues um I think moving forward if we're going to declare property Surplus or impact neighborhood school or neighborhood community it's important that we consider the proposals that are already on the table from the people that live in that area do you mind sharing the year that that information was requested 2011 is the last the last walk through that they did but like like I said they' they've been this is the last email that I've received I know a number of those individuals are still talking about it in 2012 I had correspondence with PTSA leaders at the school um as early as two months ago I talk with a parent at the school about it and so this is the last correspondence in my email but the the school's closed so I'm not sure but yeah so the school was shut down but this proposal this private school proposal this private school I got you now I'm sorry PTSA when you said PTS when you said parent I didn't understand thank you for clarifying no problem the PTSA at this school uh was on the proposal committee um that met with Dr height I know they was working uh they work with Bonita colan Potter for quite some time and I'm not opposed to to moving forward the training facility it's just um very difficult for me to represent the community not knowing that you're in the process of working on this you know I got 4day notice if you knew in December it might have been helpful to just shoot me an email um to let me know that this is something that you're looking at doing thank you thank you I have uh Dr Anderson Miss Jacobs Miss Boston Miss Higgins uh and myself in the queue anyone else wants to get in the queue let me know um I understand the concerns of Mr Burl but I I have to tell you I was very excited uh to read that uh the school could possibly be used for training center because the first thing that came to my mind is how we could prepare more of our citizens to take on the jobs at those three major companies in in that Community that's uh at National Harbor MGM and and Tanger Outlets so I'm looking at this as a great opportunity that we don't have to pay for possibly to have our residents prepared for jobs that many of them have not been capable of of getting so I'm excited about it notwithstanding you know I'm excited about it possibly being used for uh for that purpose and I would certainly be happy to support this okay thank you Miss Jacobs thank you um excuse me my my concern I actually uh support thank you Dr Anderson for um approaching it from the standpoint of what could be used for the community my concern is actually um and if there's some legal impediments to this just let me know what those are and that is why not let them lease from the school system instead of us Surplus the building I know it was long before my time and probably a lot of people sitting here that the school district surplused a lot of areas um in some previous years and then when we actually needed the property we didn't have it so my question would be um lease it to uh MGM let them build the build it back up into a training center and when they're done they give it back to us still could be used as a community um um organization and it's still owned by the school district so um we're of the uh belief that the law compels us when the county asks us for a property that we have no in ention of using that we yield it to the county would you like to speak further to the changes in the law and I'll be glad address the uh M Jacobs the statutory rubric uh is not quite uh as availing as you you might suggest section 4-15 of the education article sifly states that when a school board or school system no longer has a need uh for a land School site or building for school purposes it has an obligation to inform the County government and the County Council um of the fact that it's Surplus so that the County government initially can make the decision as to whether or not it has a need for for economic development or as part of its economic plan in the county if the county then decides that it does not have use for it in conjunction with in this case let's say MGM National Harbor um then under another section of law that was passed in 2011 that's codified at 9- 111 of the education article school boards have an obligation to offer it to Charter Schools if it wishes to use it and again this size this condition may not make it very uh amable for Charter Schools who want to use but that's if the canic government doesn't have a need for it uh nowhere in that statutory rubric does it provide that private schools not charter schools which as we know are public schools in the county and in the state that private schools have a priority for usage uh Mr Barrow to the uh to no I'm saying that private schools don't have a priority use of of the property now unless we have reason to believe that we have a need for the building as a school or for offices uh down the road and I just heard uh Miss gson say that we don't then there's no reason to maintain it in our inventory and preempt the County's role in Economic Development by just leasing it directly to to MGM it's an interesting um analysis um especially considering whether it's private schools or not I think um I think what I heard Mr Burl say is that we didn't hear what the analysis was in terms of actually making ultimately making the decision that we had no educational purpose for it so um and I and I I appreciate that because I think specifically what you read was that once we've determined that that we're not going to use it for an educational purpose and so that's at the administrative level that you made that decision that's what you're saying correct yes Miss Boston um you know I support us doing uh remaining this property back to the county um my question is is if we didn't how much would it cost for us to renovate that property uh to use for to have a school or another organization to come in because I I want you know I just want to hear for the rucket how much it would cost to renovate a property that property I definitely don't have an exact amount for you but it would definitely be in the millions thank you Miss Higgins thank you Mr chair um could you help us understand how this became a consent agenda item instead of a discussion item um it was brought to our attention in December as Mr um burls brought um so announced earlier that um the County government wanted our Surplus property we had no need for it um it's been in existence and unoccupied for 5 years um it has become a a item where there has been vandalism um and we wanted to provide the opportunity for the County government to have that um site as soon as possible and they requested that if we could grant that property as soon as the process would allow they would appreciate it so but in this process is also a board action is required so for it to come in as a consent agenda item um certainly says consent agendas there are no discussions so I for me personally it puts me in the position of having to add questions as opposed to have it be a discussion item and and I'm I'm speaking for future events as well if there are things that are going to cause this kind of um action on the part of the board it would be very valuable to have a discussion to have the full um presentation by the ad Administration in regards to what we're doing because I look on it and I see we're giving a surplus building to the casinos I don't know what we're getting in return for that I think our students we certainly have tremendous needs as identified in the in the budget and so to turn a a a school over and then I hear there's also Community needs that could be addressed so if this is the best plan I think it would be better for us to talk together and have the full information as opposed to putting it on a consent agenda item and then board members having to pull it off and raise issues and it found sounds like um it there there's dissension when there's really um a lack of of um ability to come together in terms of this uh I I have uh a problem without any kind of understanding as to what MGM casinos will be providing the school system back for the use of that property and I haven't heard anything about that what how do we as a school system benefit from that I would say to you that I don't see it as within my purview or my role or the board's role to negotiate with MGM over the use or anything of the building the law says that if the county has need for the building and we don't we convey it back to the county that's our role and responsibility the county then through its Economic Development arm they're going to have to work that out with MGM whatever the the lease you know purchases are I mean MGM is certainly you know I think uh been in the newspaper saying they want to be good partners and those kind of things but it's not up to us to to withhold that to to say unless you give us something we're not going to follow the the direction of the law as we as we see it and understand it we got a request in December to convey a property that hasn't been used for 5 years back to the county not in my wildest imagination could I have thought that we'd be you know talking about you know requests that are a couple years old that that neither Miss Golson nor myself nor you know people at this table at least perhaps somewhere else in the organization but that we have no knowledge of uh I mean this is 2014 not 2011 not 2012 there has been a change in leadership I understand that but everybody else is aware of that too it's been pretty widely spread and if people are interested in in things they should be conveying that currently not not years old and I think that that communication would be best done through the administration of the school system and not individuals that then we don't have any knowledge of I mean when when Mr burough says he needs to get back to these people on private schools I'll be quite honest and say I believe that's the role of the school system not the elected board to mean you know negotiating where you know private schools are going to be housed uh and if they've been talking to us uh you know maybe maybe we would have had a different perspective on it but for now we've got an empty building uh that hasn't been used for 5 years that we have no purpose for going forward that we can uh foresee and the county has asked for it back and so you know I think all those points are well taken and would be have been valuable to have in a discussion or in some information as opposed to consent agenda item and Mr margol is presiding what the what the law says we have Authority or not to have had that documentation because otherwise we're reading a consent agenda item that says we're giving Surplus property to a casino so I I do want we're giving to the county not to the casino that that's I can read the board action summary says we're giving it to the casino no we're giv no no no we're conveying it back to the county as a request from the County government to convey it to them the property will will be used the location will be okay thank you I do want to clarify um about the process I looked at a previous board action summary for Surplus property and it was initially placed on consent it wasn't on first and second reader and that was back in 2011 and so that was also the reason why I placed it for consent this year I can go back and look at my notes thank you have some myself and then and then Dr Valentine so um I'm just so I'm clear we do we I know we lease some of some space in some of our buildings to some government agencies but other than that aside from Charter Schools I have we do we have the the knowledge expertise or interest or history and leasing buildings uh to private entities the most recent one that I'm aware of is to um the city of Green Belt um utilizing a small portion of green belt Middle School which is currently under renovation so they have not um occupied the facility actually no one has how however it would be fair to say without conveying the property we do have churches and organizations who through our building use process use our school so but they're not receiving the building or leasing the building in its total you know from us they're using a building that we are occupying that we are using not one that is Surplus all right and so is it your assessment George this this might be for you as well because it seems it seemed when you when when you read the law that it's relatively cut and dry we have a building we haven't used in 5 years the county says we need it we are part of a shared governance structure we're not you know a completely separate entity from the rest of the government we are part of that government and the law says we ought to be working interchangeably and so if we don't need need the building we convey it to them and well there's plenty of gray area in in the uh in the language of the law does it seem pretty clear to you that that's that that's our move I don't want to presume that the board doesn't have a role in here I mean the Board needs to approve the recommendation of the CEO or not obviously uh but yes I think it is somewhat uh cut and dry in as much as the recommendation goes that there is a considered judgment on the part of the administration that there is no need for this bill building and if there is no need for this building and the board agrees then it needs to be considered Surplus and turned back to the County government under 4-15 of the education article if the board does not agree and thinks that there is a need for this building educationally in our inventory then you're free to reject the CEO's recommendation right so I understand that but we so so it it would just see seem as I understand it that yes we have every right to say we think there's there there is a real need for this building here's the need don't do that use this need that's different than saying we don't know if there's a need we just don't want to give it to you right now we're going to hold on to it because there might that that's correct we might be need a future all right so I may I'll conclude with that other than just to talk about a process point because I've been corrected on this on a number of occasions we not only we both have the right to discuss a items that are in the consent agenda item and every time we move I've I am very explicitly now been told to ask for discussion and of course we have the right to pull it off of the budget cons consent agenda item which we have so the processes are in place for us to have the discussion because after all we're we're having it right now Mr Valentine thank you um and my comments come from the perspective of the board member who lives closest to this building um um for the longest this building has been vacant I think longer than 5 years I'm surprised you said I thought it was more like 10 um when you pass this building it is vacant um for anyone who lives in a community where is a where a vacant building is located where you have children playing it is not safe uh I have been looking for years to figure out what was the use of this building um because of where it's located in the middle of a community where as a parent of two knowing that this building is available for people who may have unseemly ideas to do with it that is being used for something uh a member of the Riverbend Community someone again who lived right down the street from this building uh I am happy to see that something is being used for those who would oppose it uh I would ask you what you would do if you had a vacant building in your community for more than 5 years boarded up where children play and and there was a use where County Employees County potential County government County companies excuse me would be able to use that to create Workforce Development opportunities and hopefully Partnerships with those local schools for those of you who like to use additional additional money to refurbish it I could find a number of schools in the area that would take that money gladly and use that for other uh more timely uh reconstruction uh particularly in the school areas uh that which I live and I visit on a regular basis uh so I would recommend approving this as a community member as someone who lives very close to the school as a concerned citizen that does not like to see uh vacant buildings in their Community thank you I see no one else buzzing in for round one we'll move on to round two Mr barl and Miss Jacobs and I'm not sure if I if my comments were clear um once again I I don't oppose I'm I'm not opposing um allowing the the County government to use this facility for training I want to ensure that Community groups and Community Partners are not um ignored um as the board member who's elected to represent that District I've received the phone calls regarding this property and I've received the phone calls regarding proposals dealing with this school and you know um moving forward you know I think it's important that the administration and the board work together you know certainly uh that's what the school tried to do before and I'm not saying that uh the community should work solely with the board member or work solely with the administration if we're going to succeed as a community and as a school district there has to be a partnership between the board and the CEO um I'm not opposed to this I simply wanted the administration to take the time to review all the proposals before making a decision and that's not too much to ask for the people that I represent thank you Miss Jacobs thank you Dr Dr Eubanks um just to be clear don't want my comments to be misrepresented um you know I think someone asked a question what would MGM use the use it for in terms of turning into a training facility I think one misconception with regard to casinos and part of the Mantra when the whole gambling issue was put before the voters was that there this would bring jobs to our constituents and there's some suggestion that just because people live in Prince George's County they would automatically get these jobs and in fact um as I understand it the jobs that are that exist in casinos really do require extensive training for people to be up to parted to get the jobs so for example our high school students could graduate and still not be um have the skill set available to them to be able to do that so to the extent that this would be a training facility that MGM would use to train citizens of Prince George's County so that they're prepared to take on the jobs um I think that's a great thing in no way was I suggesting that the school district pay anything to refurbish the building um my my question was very specific to let them have it let them refurbish it and the school system remain um owners of it you've explained that that's from a legal perspective um not necessarily feasible so just to be clear about what my comments are and I'm not suggesting that there wasn't discussion or anything like that I'm just simply saying that I understand the purpose of it I just would like for the school system to maintain ownership which we obviously have heard we can't do thank you I see no other comments on this issue uh so I will entertain a motion I'm I I move to accept 8.2 I'm sorry I moved to accept 8.2 it's been moved is there a second it's been moved and seconded is there any other discussion on this motion hearing none Miss Parker please call the role Dr Anderson hi Mr Burrows hi Miss Eubanks hi Miss Higgins hi Miss Jacobs Dr Kaufman hi Miss Mundy I Mr Valentine I miss Waller I miss Williams abstain Miss Boston I Dr Eubanks I motion passes thank you uh we uh are now uh moving on to item 11.0 we have any yes uh uh governance unfinished business second readers I will now yield the floor to Dr Maxwell for introduction of items 11 Point item 11.1 under governance unfinished business second readers so item 11.1 is the Board of Education policy 0102 focusing on culturally proficient schools in central offices and 11.2 if I may is the uh fiscal year 2013 final operating budget transfers thank you uh Miss Higgins you want to talk about this sh I put it on the floor first or do you want to do something different well I'm I'm going to suggest that we um pull 11.1 given the comments made by Mr Khan and give us a chance to review them to make sure that the policy is reflecting what our intent is so I would make that motion there is h a motion on the floor to pull item 11.1 I'm sorry could I use the word table till next meeting that's probably more accurate to table item 11.1 one to the next meeting for uh of second reader uh board policy 0102 uh is there a second to this motion second it has been moved and seconded is there a discussion I see Mr Valentine can I ask Dr Maxwell to tell us what the impact of delaying this two weeks would be on any things you had planned none Dr Anderson Dr my reason for seconding the motion is that I think some of the language is a little loose and I would like to see um uh sort of like stated objectives that are measurable because I don't understand you know language like welcoming environment I mean you know it's nice and how do you Empower people and how do you know that you have done that uh Equitable access to high quality that's you know just kind of loose so I I love the idea I think it's wonderful um I think that some of the goals could be stated in terms of objectives and some of the outcomes could also be stated in terms of objectives and if we have measurable objectives there that we could monitor over time and have some mechanism for monitoring then I think the the the um uh the uh uh policy would be much stronger thank you don't don't I got it because I actually we we weren't supposed to have discussion I would just remind folks this is a board policy we we wrote this Dr Maxwell didn't really have anything to do with it so I appreciate us directing the comments to I'm happy to have people work on fixing it though but regardless we we worked on this in committee and we approved it in committee I don't have any problems with us taking another look at it without question but let's not go to Dr Maxwell okay I said too much I must stop right now stop my attorney said stop no more discussion the motion is to table this until the next meeting and no one can talk about it can I do this by V Voice vote at least all those in favor please say I I all those opposed the motion carries we've tabled our item uh so we will now move on to item number 11.2 may I have a motion to approve item 11.2 under governance unfinished business second readers I can't do anything without a motion so move it has been moved may I have a second it's been moved and seconded is there any discussion I can't talk about this right I can't talk can I talk about this too Abby no is there any non- discussion we're not discussing this it's been properly moved and seconded um and so since there can be no discussion even though that's what my my my script says is there any discussion just saying to done all right please call the role Mrs Barker Dr Anderson hi Mr barrows Miss Yanks Miss Miss Higgins hi Miss Jacobs hi Dr Kaufman hi Miss Mundy hi Mr Valentine I miss Waller Miss Williams I miss Boston I Dr Eubanks I all right motion carries motion carries thank you that concludes uh uh that agenda item uh we've taken care of public comments uh item 14.0 follow-up items followup items from the January 9 2014 board meeting are pending due to uh recent office closures and when available these items will be posted on board dos uh uh item 15.1 colleagues may have a motion to confirm actions taken Mr chair did you uh do the calendar 12.1 first reader 121 oh new business first reader yeah I did that you missed that I'll do it again item 12.0 new business item first readers I will now yield the floor to Dr Maxwell for an introduction of item 12.1 under new business first readers it it is on the agenda as a first reader I think I believe everybody has copies and doesn't require discussion we have no more presentation all right colleagues we're now at the point of accepting item 12.1 as a first reader there's no discussion necessary may have a motion to accept item 12.1 under new business as a first reader so moved may I have a second it has been properly moved and seconded um uh to accept this item as first reader uh all favor please signify by saying I I all those opposed the eyes have it this item has been accepted as a first reader thank you Abby uh okay now item 15.0 there not a 14.5 or anything I missed item uh uh 15.1 colleagues may I have a motion to confirm actions taken in executive session on Thursday January 23rd 2014 it has been moved may I have a second it has been properly moved and seconded that the Board of Education hereby approve actions taken an executive session on January 23rd 2014 and are as follows Personnel appointments student appeal legal matters and administrative matters is there any discussion hearing none all in favor please say I all those opposed the items uh taken in executive session on January 23rd have been confirmed colleagues may I have a motion to adjourn second it has been moved and seconded that we adjourn a January 23rd 2014 board meeting is there any discussion hearing none all those in favor please say I all those opposed ladies and gentlemen we are adjourned have a great good night

I'm recording it is now 7 o' we call to order this meeting at the school board and as is our custom with a moment of time reflection Mr would you call Ro Mr crer here Mr Meer here Mrs mil here Mrs Rand here Mr here Le St Here We Begin our meetings with an opportunity for public comment on non-agenda items members of the law school board Valu be inove students parents staff members and community members the board's regularly scheduled meetings providing opportunity for opinions and concerns to be expressed publicly the board values all comments and will respectfully consider this inli and decision the board request that individuals limit their comment on each item to three minutes following any comment an individual board member May respond on the issue raised however it is not the intent of the public comment portion of the agenda for the board to enter into debate with MERS of the community because non agenda items are not publicly posted in advance no action will be taken on public comment regarding non agenda items if anyone would like to make a comment on an item n of tonight's agenda please approach the microphone in the front of the room and state your name address to make comment seeing none we will move to approval of the consent agenda are there any items on the consent agenda which board members would like to remove for separate disension action seeing none may I have a motion to approve the consent agenda move to approve thank you m is there a second second thank you Mr is there any disc consent agenda is there any Community comments on the consent agenda say n Mr call Mr croner yes Mr May yes Mrs mil yes Mrs Rand yes Mr R yes that brings us to recognition Mr R thank you for the fourth consecutive year West High School's greet people the citizen and the Constitution team has won the Wisconsin State comp uh Championship competing against teams from across Wisconsin at the state capital in Madison on January 7th West High School won the right to represent Wisconsin at the national lead the people competition in Washington DC in April social studies teacher Chad mesy is the adviser for the team the fourth consecutive state championship ties wos East High School for the most consecutive wins in the competition East High School had two teams taking part in this year's competition those teams finished second and third giving the district top three teams in the state social studies teacher Alena Meer is the adviser for the east team We the People is sponsored by the center for civic education the program is designed to Spur broader understanding of politics and public affairs among high school students the program is hosted in Wisconsin by the State Bar Wisconsin public education committee and the Wisconsin law Foundation West team members are waj Ali Daniel Brookner Max Massa Ellen saer Alexandra UT Katie C Daniel angle Ellen kurtley emiline C Nicole saback Amelia fors MO leam M Luke Salamon Daniel schneck Drew zanis Mitchell bolman Megan Canfield Savannah rice Martha Schuster Melina Zimmerman Allison Dean Amira Eckles Sab Alexander F Alexander Lindstrom Aaron Murphy Catherine Adams Alexander Chu Megan Faulk Cara Gaines and zakaya Robinson thank you Mr congratulations to each of these students and to their advisers it's quite a remarkable accomplishment to win this four times in a row and I think we should all be very proud of these students in both schools and providing us with the top three teams in the region we now move to our action items starting with Business Services Mr Meer it is recommended that the school board approve the resolution authorizing the transfer of funds the establishment of an esro account with respect to the of serving of the general obligation refunding fund St February 1st 2006 and I so me is there a second second thank you Mr is there any board discussion is there any Community comment say n Mr Mr con yes Mr yes Mrs mil yes Mrs Rand yes Mr yes Mrs Le Mrs yes morning Mr it is recommended that the school board approve the creation of an elementary library immedia services coordin coordinator position Elementary library media Services AIDS and Elementary Spanish teaching positions for the 2011 2012 school year and direct Administration to implement a plan to teach Spanish in the district's elementary schools beginning in the 201122 school year and create a transition plan that includes teaching and appropriate World Language offering at the sixth grade level beginning in the 2012 2013 school year and I so move is there a second second thank you Mr um toate a little bit of a framework here because I know many people would like to speak on this tonight I believe Dr ER would like to make a statement following that statement there'll be an opportunity for board members to ask followup questions or clarify questions from Mrs Aron burer and others who might be here to present on this issue so that would be an opportunity for public comment and board members can make a final comment before our we call for a vote so we'll begin with that thank you good evening I'd like to thank everybody that's here in attendance and those who have communicated with over the past several weeks regarding this once again as is always the case in our district regardless of the issue of a particular point of view it is clear that most of us shared belief that the education of our students is and should be our top priority and decisions should be made with that in mind so let me take the chance to address some of the questions that have been asked and some of the concerns that have been raised well there's been information put out regarding the world language program what the board has been asked to consider tonight is simply the approval of new positions these positions are approved in the development of the curriculum and the allocation of classroom time to the program again in Earnest I think everyone in this room understands the budget constraints facing this board and every school district but we remain committed to moving this District forward and improving quality of education for our students unfortunately there is not an opportunity to add programs about offsetting reductions this has been a clear direct me from the Board of Education the challenge is to do this while the same time improving opportunities for students not creating any reduction in services at data shows would create a negative impact on students I strongly believe this proposal does v as to the question of why we have chosen to suggest this particular course of action I can tell you that it came down as it should to student achievement to respond resp fiscal management and sound educational decisions this board and our district have successfully PL time and time again to save programs and services which are proven to enhance student achievement well there's no question that library media Specialists have played a unique role throughout the history of our elementary schools as this District looks to the future we must continue to dedicate our resources to those areas which will have the most direct positive impact on student achievement and overall success in our schools the benefits of a language learning at an early age are well documented and research based this proposal uses our resources in a way that we believe best prepares our students for the future there have also been questions raised about the implementation of the world language program let me address a few of Cl some wondered whether the amount of allocated construction is sufficient and appropriate it is our District's goal to provide the best prodct program possible with the resources available to us the 30 minute three times per week recommendation is set as a baseline so that there's a standard Benchmark upon which to gauge student achievement we believe our model takes this into account and takes into account the fact that language learning takes time it affords quality teachers sufficient opportunity to make significant strides in student achievement it also provides students with the best opportunity for Success there have also been concerns concerns raised implementing the program in all grades at once we are confident this can be done the curriculum can be established and the program in grades 1 through 5 simultaneously simultaneously for the beginning of next school year some also wonder whether the Middle School curriculum will have to be adjusted the answer is yes because the students will be entering middle school with various levels of language ability those changes will be gradual and seamless and done in a way which provides the best opportunity for students success the most common concern perhaps has been whether students will continue to have access to the libraries and libraries Library resources again the answer is yes in fact they will have more they will continue to have access to the current Library resources in more digitally enhanced resources we will have the libraries ready for student access on day one of the school year and they will not be closed to students the last two weeks of school nor excuse me nor on specific days where there is not a library we will also be working with the w wosa Recreation Department to determine needs of students and parents for access to libraries and will look to have additional hours outside of the student day during the school year and during the summer there are also some questions related to students with special education needs research on how students learn language legitimizes the fact that most students are candidates for the world language program but most importantly if a students's disability and him or her to receive special education services study of World Language will be included in that student's individualized education plan or an i as is always the case when a proposal includes some type of reduction of diamatic change some will question whether other options were considered the answer to that is yes and in fact I can share some of those with you we looked at reductions or elimination of the elementary lool program we also considered liviing the music instruction opportunities and choice and programs available for our students we chose not to pursue those options because we believe our music programs life language learn provide a data support and positive impact in the student achievement we consider shaving instructional time from one on PE music and art but that was not a practical option as those times are mandated by the DPS and would have to be carried up in classroom teacher another option was to offer World language program only as a Rec Department after school program charging the fee for participation we do not believe that this is an option that would benefit all students throughout the district that it would significantly promote language learning or would Advance overall student achievement it has been offered in the past we also consider the possibility of sharing principles in our elementary students we look at reductions the central office and it support staff such reductions would not create any change in instructional time to allow for langage considered reductions in teaching positions achieved by one every classroom teachers teach subjects such as P music and art the elementary level in addition to their classroom duties or increasing secondary class s both of these op will potentially have a negative impact on student we also consider the consolidation of services and staff at our secondary life unfortunately many of these areas will have to be considered in near future as more drastic funding challenges are ahead there will be more difficult decisions to come with involve staff which may have an impact in some programs the option we are proposing We Believe provides the best opportunity to achieve the appropriate balance of funding and instructional time to make this language learning initiative a success for our students finally let me address the questions concerning the Staffing changes being proposed with any change of proposal invol staff movement relationships will be affected and that can be very difficult to accept but it is vital that we continue to do all we can with the resources available to us to promote Student Success and achievement and move this District in a direction that would make it a lead in education I would not have brought this proposal forward without believing that we can accomplish what we set up to achieve that we can do it efficiently effectively within our Mees and most importantly that will have a strong positive impact on all of our students as we move forward thank you members there any questions Mrs um I have some Dr could you help me understand more about the pitfall say of transitioning this levels and I'm not sure if this is your question or if other staff memb might want to answer um for example to allow you more flexibility as an Administration going forward into the next school year since this will be a pretty tight implementation is what I understand would starting at the first and second grade model be more um allow you more flexibility uh that um I have talked to school districts that have both done St in and also have chosen to do it um all at the same time and in fact U Oregon school district is in the clergy of implementing a program where they did not phase in they started at kindergarten at first second third and fourth grade they actually view it as having considerable advantages that relate to having um instructors being able to collaborate with each other development a curriculum they thought it provided more flexibility for um teachers to be able to um be in buildings so they wouldn't have to be tra spending some of that time traveling but they would actually um be able to be on SES they um they felt that the work that they did in the curriculum was much more creative because because of a cross-section of experiences um from having the instructors hired all at the same time uh they uh felt that writing the curriculum each year it's really important that you're not re it's not a rewriting curriculum it's writing curriculum and using reusing the curriculum from the first year the second year the third year they found considerable advantages to having um more differentiation available at a grade level for students uh so I think there was lots of advantages to being able to phase in or to be able to um not phase in as much as The RK to phase in so it's um I talk the district were worked both ways I think in Oregon school district um they were very clear to say that um there would be hard press to find anyone that didn't feel that their implementation went very smoothly and Contin to do so I actually have a couple more um I mean one of the one of the advantages that I see in a large roll out reorganization if you will is that you can keep some experienced staff while you change over and add new staff however they can also be a drawback um that you might not have Buy in once you R out under program with the existing staff so I'm probably consider that um and how that would work I know this is a little bit of of a pointed question um but I just I just want to make sure that we have enough flexibility and enough staff going into the next school year to be able to implement this programing the other thing I was add to that is that they did say it was really important um to be able to hire high quality staff as early as possible so that you have choices of being able to get the very best the quality of the instruction was extremely important and they felt that the earlier you can hire and have um teachers available to um begin at the beginning of summer writing the curriculum they began in June so um and you were able to implement by um by fall very readily uh they also explained you're not writing the same not writing a different a completely different curriculum for each grade level you're writing the developmental curriculum that um when you're first starting out so Dan you may and I guess in terms of piring good staff I would note that uh we've already had interest to express both from existing teachers who hold appropriate certification in elementary and Spanish and also from teachers from other districts who are really excited about um being a part of starting up an elementary F language program so it's gener a lot of interest from teaching staff a lot of enthusiasm think will be is an indication as to the pool of candidates that we get response and so the deliverables then for the Spanish program the language programs they're not to be proficient coming out of elementary school that would all be determined as we write curriculum um I have I have talked with people on proficiency based programs and those that um do not have proficiency as the goal it certainly that's where Dr curtain who is the leading researcher and expert in the United States is advising us um as to what that exactly would look like what will we use as our indicators um at each grade level or at certain key points in the uh language development at the elementary level any questions thank you um my first question is for Dr C you replied to an email I sent you from a citizen that wrote to me and it's I don't think it's still show to everyone how you implement over five grades at once you describe in that email however when get a first year CRP in the first year and I don't think I can explain it the way that it would work is that in grade one sorry in year one everyone in grades 1 to5 gets a similar curriculum but of course there would be adjustments based on developmental level so six-year-olds and 10year olds can um have long 10-year-olds have a bit longer retention span and so on but the curriculum would be basically the same so uh everyone in grade 1 to five will get the year one curriculum in year two uh everyone in grades of two through five would get the year 2 curriculum in year three everyone in grades 3 through 5 would get the third year curriculum and so on so that by the time the program gets to grade five the curriculum would have been developed year by year so it's not that 5 years of curriculum have to be developed at one time but one year of curriculum has to be developed at one time and of course it would be tweaked as the years go by and it would be amended but basically the work would be done so the work that would have to be done for September excuse me for August would be one year's worth of curriculum and proficiency targets uh just to to add on would also then uh be established for uh what kind of proficiency expectations there would be at the end of that year all right thank you that was thought you send particularly good explanation tonight I wish I had explained it that well when I was here the last time thank you so much and I guess m arber one question I had from that in the first few years you know when the fourth and fifth graders and you're getting year one curriculum year 2 curriculum I presume they'll be getting most of their social studies in English right so that's correct so where how will the where will the minutes come from to teach both Spanish and social studies first few years what we'll do is um and one of the things in the conversation even with the Oregon school district where they didn't do the phase in they looked for seven themes that tend to be social studies related so for example immigration and immigration shows up in both our fourth and fifth grade curriculum um Wisconsin immigration and then um us um United States immigration so they they said there are some common themes that we can find inside of those curricular areas so um that would be the way that we would look to to be able to tie the social studs in and yet be able to use some of that time that instructional time all right thank you um this is for Miss KRA someone wrote me and I thought had a very interesting idea that if we were going to be a World Language District why not have three schools each have Spanish German and French and that way promote all three languages and maybe make it a more World language program can you explain how thinking if that was looked at and why just decided to stick with one language um I think we maybe need to start with the terminology and that this is not exactly a world language program if we are just representing Spanish we could call it an elementary Spanish program but what our goal is is uh to incorporate more Global competency in preparing our students to be involved in as as citizens of a global Community that's a demand for 21st century skill I think um it's come from our federal government even that our students need to prepar be prepared at that level undeniably Spanish is a societal Norm right now and in choosing this language we are preparing students for the day-to-day job placements that they may face upon graduating high school even in the jobs they have as high school students in interactions of the grocery store as elementary students and what May face in college and then Beyond in terms of employability there's a daily visibility behind Spanish that I think I I as a German teacher have to acknowledge um do I worry about what this might do to the other languages that we have in the district yes however in deferring to the experience of other school districts who have implemented uh World Language programs at the elementary level they have seen students choose to continue after they've been in say Spanish in elementary school but there have also been students who have said you know what I have enough Spanish at this point I want to try a different language and that's what the other languages in the middle school and the high school um where they will get their enrollment from or those CH those students who choose to do other things one of the things that um Mrs arberg and I have discussed is that when you do have to develop curriculum and you are dealing with a group of teachers who are doing that um you will be able to clle much better if you're all speaking about the same in the same terminology within the same language as opposed to having a couple french teachers a couple German teachers a couple Spanish teachers I I personally feel you know from my own perspective that I believe we could do different elementary schools but at this point in time um I think it puts everybody on a Level Playing Field across n elementary schools it will'll have similar expectations that are then testable and uh you can analyze them uh to inform curricular decisions and I think that's something that we do need to take into account for I think for those reasons then the proposal has been brought forward with just a Spanish program at this point I think we'll be very successful in that in that measure um knowing that we have consistent expectations and collaborative capabilities um across the district thank you this is Aron burer um when we wrote the uh long range plan one of the primary Concepts in the curriculum section was that you know we have a a regular curriculum cycle that reviews all the subjects and that those reviews include an outside experts administrators teachers and community members and that has led to the evolution of our curriculum cycle and the curriculum Council and has worked very well for for all the subject that have been looked at so far I didn't actually realized till now that we have standards and Vex marks for Library Sciences but that's not part of the shering cycle so I guess this is for the future as what it should be on here but the question I want to ask tonight is in the absence of having a group you know outside experts and a committee like that evaluate Library Sciences how did you go about evaluating uh the role of the library program and literacy you were making these decisions if I there a number of factors obviously uh we started by looking at at the guidance of the Department of Public Instruction offers in this regard uh and the recommended number of minutes at each subject level and as we previously noted library is not one of the subject areas that is the focus of the deep gu recommendation even within our own breakdown of the min that we spend on instruction Li really included within our English language arts and those standards are to be integrated within the classroom including our our media and Technology standards so when taking look at the various subject levels in terms of various Elementary subjects in terms of what could be integrated most easily within um the other within a regular classroom teachers duties Library sciences and that information access and Technology access something that should already be covered with in the classroom um to one degree or another and so could be most Seas Incorporated doing a lot of further reading we took a look at the guidance that the Department of Public construction put out there regarding improving reading performance and while the Department of Public construction does have a document that attempts to correlate the presence or absence of librarians to reading scores of districts in Wisconsin the guidance about how do you improve reading scores for students in schools um provides a lot of advice it focuses on curriculum it focuses on making data driven decisions it talks about having staff development look into our professional learning communities where teachers focus on data and it references you know the access to library or to L excuse me to um specialized literacy teachers the only reference to libraries within that document actually are references that that school district should be encouraging parents to go to the Community Library um and so despite the fact that they they have a extensive set of recommendation they don't actually reference School libraries within that document I think that is very taling in terms of the critical parts of literacy development I was just add to that that the classroom teacher and our reading Specialists are the primary have the primary responsibility for reading instruction in the district and that is where accountability by both federal and state law lies as well um With No Child Left Behind legislation the accountability lies with that teacher so um I I don't think um I want to debate what kind of influence library and Librarians may have on literacy that I don't know how we can pull that out and measure it but even with the recent Common Core that came out for English language arts these standards were embedded into that Common Core they were not delineated separately all right thank you any questions Mar then at this time we'll open the floor for Community comment again I would ask that anyone who like to make a comment cl to the microphone state your name and address and also please Mo your comments to 3 minutes so that everyone who like to have a chance to speak does have a chance to do so I would also ask that everyone in the audience remember this is a business meeting and your trained for out such as appuse thank you anyone would like to make a comments please hi I'm K Winer 6826 West wisc Avenue my daughter goes to ENT and I look at it as you know we talk about the library time and how much it impacts and my daughter is a strong reader I emailed all of you guys you know she loves to read but she's not pushed to read and to do these new series of books about Mrs tibits guiding her along the way and all these different books that come up CL I can't help her out with all these different series um I just want to reiterate that I urge you to vote no for the staffing changes that are proposed I firmly believe that eliminating Library specialty media specialist PHS have only harm our children not help them reading and technology is what these kids need to survive this ever changing world that is what will get them a job I volunteered in the library monthly since my daughter was in 4k she's in third grade now and it's amazing to watch the children they always constantly come up and ask the suggestions I always have to refer them to Mrs tibit because she's with them year after year after year she knows these kids personally from kindergarten all the way through fifth grade she knows what each kid especially likes to read what kind of they're into um kind of their reading capacity levels different things and she the one I have to suggest with books it's amazing to watch with those kids um a book one child likes the other might not like because of her personal knowledge and her interaction year after year with these children that's what keeps them interested in reading and there for learning my daughter's a strong reader and needs a challenge with a bookcase full of books she first to read all the library books Mrs tibit introduces her to she's fights to go to school and she's sick and absolutely loves school when I asked her what she'd like to learn if she had to choose between Smash and Library time there was no thinking she looked at me and said library of course mom she acted like I asked a stupid question she urged me SN to come and she said just SP her Mrs TI's job I really like library and being able to read all the books she um introduces to me so again I'm just urging you to vote no and getting rid of the library media specialist thank you my name is Carolyn wrestler 8102 aine Court jph I'll be brief since I've written to all of you and uh I think you know how I stand I'm glad to hear that the board values the in input of community and I know You' heard the community I feel the so-called restructuring of library media Services is ill advised there is data and from other states that shows the impact of library media Specialists I understand the B budget constraints and I applaud sound fiscal policy however not at the expense of our students the idea that at a time when we're using more technology and we will be using more and more technology that we should cut out the position of the teachers who teach the use of this this beyond my comprehension library media Specialists enrich reading abilities they teach re search skills and they Implement technology which I are do the V well is there any forur the community good evening myy good evening my name is Mike G 8127 Hill Prest drive I have a few comments for the board this evening and let me Begin by quoting my college graduation speaker Dr Martin Cen the advice he gave me or at least the only that I remember from that speech is gentlemen listen to your wife CU my wife couldn't be here I asked her what she would say her response was simple reading reading reading substituting one educational Pursuit foreign language that will enhance reading for another Library science is just not good enough for our kids we talked last time about one in seven students in this District not being able to be proficient in Reading I'm happy to see that there's an effort to try to enhance our educational pursuit in that but not at the expense of another there are some statements of fallacy that are been made in the conversations I've had with school board members and others that I want to draw attention to right now first is we can't have at all that is a statement the AL at least in this instance we can there are over 800 positions in this school district and we're talking about eliminating six Librarians Dr erle thank you very much for your comments about other Pursuits that you uh uh looked into to fund this initiative um initially what we were told is that Library Sciences just isn't as important as World Language and then we were told that it was a money thing now we're told that it's a minute issue I think that's what you said in your comments about why we couldn't share principles or reduce central office staff if you need minutes for instruction please take back the 60 Minutes you took away from my daughters on Wednesday afternoons to implement additional instruction if that's not enough please look at stag your remember the beginning time of the days for different teachers so the teachers and the the uh instructional staff may not have to be at the school longer but keep this students there longer so that they can have both the library media specialist time and for langage time another feny that I have heard often in my conversations with members of the board is that we hire the superintendent and we are to listen to him I just am appalled at that you aren't in a position to listen to the superintendent his voice is extraordinarily important in this conversation but you all are elected officials you all put your names on the ballot and those parents and others here and not here voted for you you all need to represent your constituents in this debate and not simply defer to the administration that is escapegoat easy out the talk and conversations I've had with many of you indicate that the feedback you're getting is as much as 10 to1 in favor of World Language without jeopardizing Library Services I hope that you will do that thank you very much my name is sa desmore I live at I'm the library media specialist at Washington Elementary School and I'm speaking on behalf of all of the district media Specialists I know that you've received a number of letters phone calls and emails telling you what the elementary library media specialist does during our library classes Elementary School library media Specialists deliver a specific information and Technology literacy curriculum to all grades JK through 5th on a daily basis we know that you've been told that this curriculum can be taught without us by being embedded into the regular teaching day teachers have also told you that while in theory this may be the case in practice it will not be teachers cannot effectively add another entire scopen sequence of information and Technology literacy standards to their already crowded day while the district's published Q&A states that this model has been adopted by other surrounding districts it fails to follow up and ask the more important question what is the result of this model is the information techology literacy curriculum still being consistently delivered unfortunately in wakaa in Franklin and other school districts it is not instruction is suffering and uneven at best and Middle School teachers are now seeing students who think that research equals Google wosa students deserve more adding hard work to our building buildings not equal quality instruction in using this Hardware to meet learning targets I would like to share with you some of the other essential things that an an effective library media program provides to students and staff outside of the regularly scheduled student contact Time students and staff are provided with these important Services when they are in a building serviced by a certified library media specialist curriculum support by evaluating selecting and purchasing materials print and non print that support and extend Treasures Everyday Mathematics and other academic curriculum help teachers evaluate and select quality internet websites for teachers instructional use and student research use emphasize and reinforce effective research methods by reminding staff and students of the other resources that our district provides World Book Online and badgering please not just R help teachers integrate instructional software and other technology tools into the te teaching Day by demonstrating how these might fit with an upcoming unit work with teachers as they develop units troubleshoot technology hardware issues throughout the building during the school day give support to students who are identified as approaching or Beyond The Learning targets by providing additional resources to meet the needs of these students and Foster a love of reading and literature by being the building expert in the children's literature field the library media program provides us with a unique opportunity to know each child throughout the elementary school career as a thinker a reader and a learner we' urge you to vote no and preserve the vital services that a library media program staffed with certified degreed library media Specialists provides to wosa staff and student thank you attorney for the community C Melissa B 214 of 76 grade I just wanted to comment on um I grew up in a district where I had Spanish in the elementary school and I cannot even tell you how beneficial it was to me to have that opportunity to learn a language in elementary school it not only helped me in my other subjects it broadened my view of the world and it gave me just the skills I needed to live in a global society and it helped me become a better reader and it helped me in all my other subject areas and I also think that um while the library media Specialists do a great deal of work and I think that what they do is important I do think that it's important to integrate what they do into the rest of the day and integrating curriculum is so important and with this program it would allow teachers to integrate the technology standards as well as Spanish being able to be integrated into all the other curricular areas so I fully support this proposal and I ask you to vote Yes good evening my name is De f p I live at 7435 West 12s thank you everyone for your service to the community um I apologize I arrived a little bit late so if there was discussion um I arrived in the middle of dror statement but if there was discussion regarding servicing uh certain students with special education needs um I did not hear that one I arrive so let me share my comments um my concerns are is there a plan has the board heard a plan about how we are going to service certain children with certain disabilities um in in World language for example are the current have the current special education staff been consulted with to find out what they may need um to implement this and have we prepared for training for them will the Spanish teachers that were hiring and proposing to hire be knowledgeable about changing curriculum to address the needs of of certain learners the speci special education needs um I I know that uh District staff have been talking to other districts but uh could we have a consultant to work with our student services department to help them with understanding what some of the challenges will be with uh teaching some of students in a different language I'd also like to highly recommend we consult with attorneys who have special education background to be sure that we not infringing infringing upon or denying rights under your Fai or Ida um I I do have concerns about the St we heard that we're proposing Spanish and social studies so that that could be integrated into other standards and benchmarks and math and science Etc so my concern are we going to be um going back to the 70s and segregating students because of disability and having a difficult time with already learning but now learning uh subjects in a different language and how we will deal with that obviously the IEP process is what drives the the plan for these students so will parents that have had IEPs developed since September 1st to 2010 be notified of changes in the curriculum and then be invited to you know at any time a parent could call the IEP team together but I think that we would need to make sure that students that have these IEPs are notified of a major change in our curriculum so that the team can reconvene and talk about those special needs um if the I process you know if the I don't know if anyone's heard yet during the I process um it's been determined that for various reasons that this is not a practical idea for that student who is going to teach that student and the standard and benchmarks in English and how that done who will it be done by is that person qualified to teach those particular Core Curriculum areas so I'm just feeling that we need a plan beyond the IEP will figure this out because I think the IEP will show for certain students and we've heard from the the um the expert um Dr curtain here that there are certain disability or diagnosis groups that this is not going to work with so have we devoted the resources to be able to teach all students so that they all can learn and I would just like to see a solid plan we did lose a point5 reading specialists at our school and as I learned tonight that I mean obviously reading Specialists are very important in literacy so uh that that's a concern with me also um so thank you that's what I'd like to say hello chrisy Tyson 1301 or 71st Street um first I would just like to say I don't think a anybody has an issue with foreign language we're all for that b um just from what I've heard this evening an issue was not the availability of libraries um our community I'm pretty sure most people in Roba do use our Public Library um it's always very busy the programs there great we take the kids to the public library often as well as the school library so our issue isn't that the kids are going to be able to get into the libraries at school but that they have Educators there to lead them and teach them what they need to know um and I have a question then if it means that the classroom teachers have to implement what our library and media uh teachers that they're not there anymore will uh the class teachers have to get further instruction on technology and media in order to teach the students what are Librarians are teaching them well I urge you to vote now thank you ready for the community comments good evening my name is Patrick coffee I'm uh live at 1850 the Second Street I have uh two daughters from school and I also teach atber School District um I am here tonight because I'm concerned I do hope that you vote against this um I what really got it for me was the the question by Mr croner with here and that was what research did you do to discover the impact how did you measure the impact of librarian and Library Sciences today and there was a pause and hesitation and kind of looking at e standards and and and the theory and it took me back to last uh the last meeting that we had was at the Fisher Building and I was in the hallway more people the gentleman who talk about the cloud the cloud and the technology and the cloud and the cloud technology and that's one of one of the things that I see here is there's there's a disconnect I from what's going on in the trenches and what the theory that we have here amongst the the hardw working people Z bur I work with B at and we we a good relationship and worked on Comm and so on but one of the things having been on committees is that there's times when there's that separation and they don't know what it's like where the fell is ring the impact on at the trenches it all sounds good on paper it all sounds good in the plan but how what are the what are the teachers going to have to cut as a social studies teacher I'm very concerned about a watered down social studies program I'm worried about what are our teachers going to have to cut to implement the very necessary livebrary media skills being a high school teacher it's really important with technology advances for our students to have the understanding that you can't get everything it's not all the truth that there's a difference between what you find on Google what you find on as co host and so on that's crucial more importantly I'm a graduate of laosa school and I remember my Librarians from Jefferson to Hawthorne to Longfellow to to East all the way through and the wonderful coaching and that's really what you're Alum as a a coach all throughout it's utility player that's in the building all the time that can help on all the levels that it's hard to measure but they're essential for the learning culture that exists in the school so I urge you I know sometimes at board meetings there's a meeting before the meeting and we go through and we go through this process I urge you to reconsider I urge you to vote against this program and vote against this resolution thank you well I'm B Frey from 7025 C Street I'm concerned that students and teachers should think about this because they haven't been asked about this and the students will be ring this and it will be taken away from the teacher time so I really think you should think about what the students are going to learn and I encourage you to vote you know for the community Margaret Justin 2013 North 114th Street um I appreciate all your time and listening and those of you who um responded to my emails I urge you to vote no again please listen to your constituents I have a couple of issues I know they mentioned that the um um the literacy teacher I'm losing my thought but um has a great impact fortunately I suppose none of my children are struggling readers so guess what they've never seen that teacher the teacher that they see is the librarian who knows my children who says oh Adam can read that story oh this is a good one for Marissa oh Andrea would love that book who knows them from the beginning to the end my children don't the the reading teacher fortunately I guess but if you take away the library media specialist they will not have no one who knows from beginning to end you mentioned that there's additional cuts that are going to be coming can you guarantee that in 3 years 4 years 5 years we're still going to have the resources to have this world language program I don't know that's a good question you mentioned writing a curriculum that they would start with just everyone would start at the same curriculum but you're talking about teaching this and and social studies so if you're teaching the same curriculum how are you be teaching Spanish and social studies to a first grader and to the fifth grader I'm I'm missing that and I agree with a gentleman who spoke before me about the disconnect you say that the teachers can embed this in the curriculum have you seen how busy these teachers are how late they're there how hard they're working I don't think they can do another thing I really don't they rely on the library media specialist many of them have difficulty I believe integrating some of the new technology because they just don't have the time please please rethink this issue and please vote now thank you my name is Lise Bower I live in 1831 North 71st Street and I have two boys in One in Lincoln and one in long and um thank you to the one person who responded to my minutes that I sent but I didn't share it with everybody here and I wanted to say that I have approached many people many different levels through the school district about the lack of creativity in the classroom and why I have seen such an extraordinary change from the time my son Calvin who is now in seventh grade to the to my son Brody who's now in currently in fifth grade the huge change I've seen in the droing creativity and ining teachers and principles and people at the curriculum making decision decision living decision making level what I've been told is it's teaching minutes over and over after teaching minutes which makes me question again the Wednesday planning getting I mean that sounds wonderful but how how can these teaching minutes be so valuable and so critical and we don't and the teachers are going to infuse this technology into our kids and they're going to teach them how to research and how to how to how to understand how to get through the technology safely and find what they need to find out um it's intangible what one person in our school in our school Bey Daniels what difference one person makes to our kids's days it's unbelievable and you're talking about eliminating one person I think we need to think very carefully about the kind of atmosphere we have in our schools about what we're asking for our teachers to include in their incredibly busy days things have been changing and they're still changing this is a very negative change and I would urge everyone to think very carefully about eliminating this one position before I ow you to vote know is there any the community com speak next we come up and and your mind so we can move along a little faster I appreciate my name is Tiffany bruitt 741 Watson Avenue um I'm the Lincoln Library Aid coordinator I've spent a lot of years helping out in the library um and I speak to you as a parent whose children spent the first three years of their education in a monor environment which I was very pleased with um but I moved them with Lincoln to Lincoln because of the quality of the school system um with the expectation that I would return them to monore if they did not do well well uh not only did they do well they've thrived in that environment um and it has everything to do with the curriculum that has been offered I have seen what Mrs Daniels does in the library I'm blessed to have children that are very strong readers um and are sometimes difficult for me to keep up with uh new things to keep them interested and she always knows them very well and is able to um anticipate their needs as they grow and change um so I urge you to vote now on this proposal thank you the PT Library yes thank you okay I thought I hi my name is Michelle sore I live at 1917 North 84 um I have a son at La and one in fourth grade at roselt um I have several disjoining comments to make as I was taking not um as a parent I have not only tried the futurist Spanish program but also have hired a private woman to teach my children Spanish I fully fully believe that Spanish French German any foreign language is a huge importance to our children however I also cannot comment enough on the fabulousness of the library specialist that we currently have at Roosevelt Mrs janger my kids came home and I have two completely opposite readers one was struggling so hard and he has come a long way now as a fabulous reader and one has just been fabulous all the time they have both come home to me and said look at what Mrs janger suggested I read look at what Mr anger suggested I read and unfortunately although they get books at from their teachers never once have I heard them say this is what Mrs so and so suggested I read I've only heard it about Mrs janger and I have several considerations for you that you gave us a little bit more thought we I'm not a big fan of the early release Wednesday wck Department program my kids have done it they're bored with it they do the same exact thing semester after semester they come home with the same art project I don't know if you could consider doing before or after after programs with Spanish with children who are truly interested in Spanish not all children will be not all children are interested in math I get that but but I think it's truly important to keep librar and a foreign language I just can't even tell you how much it just seems that when someone suggested over here that the guidelines the state guidelines didn't have specific language for towards librarians seems like an easy out that they were the easiest to get rid of you couldn't do F because they had language you couldn't do somebody else because they with language and it seems as though this hasn't really been PL out as much as it truly could be historically in TOA when we've hit obstacles like this where the community hasn't thought it's been fought out well enough seats change the next time because people get so irritated that it hasn't just been thought out enough and it feels like this is one of those times I really really urge you to vote no today and put more thought into this thank you hello my name is Rebecca Al I am a parent of two Underwood children um I have currently been working with um a librarian there for almost three years I volunteer um once a week and I work oneon-one with her and I also assist some of the children there it is not about as you know checking in and checking out books a lot of parents think that it is uh you know just the checking in and out their job entails a lot more um they're showing all the the technology um how to do research reports and things like that that also goes on to help them in their class with their papers um I myself went to a profield school uh grade school and then I went to a a very high upstanding High School I do not recall learning any type of research when I got to college um we had a class that was Library research paper I failed it I had no idea what I was doing because I did not have those skills to take me through my previous years um I have been blessed with two children who love to lead um and that is you know that is great for them and they come home with wonderful books but there are children out there that cannot read and to have a librarian that shows them examples of what to read and what to learn this just you know it makes the children really really open up their minds and um you know I know the teachers are I don't know if they're worried about um how they're going to fit this time in I am all for the Boyer in language but I understand that there's possibly just one vote it's foreign language and getting rid of the Librarians and I wish you would reconsider because as a strong supporter of the librarian I I urge you to reconsider thank you my name is De Cruz I live at 1903 North 84th Street I have a son at Roosevelt um just to start out like Michelle was saying I have a son who we hire a tutor so I would love that we would get free or included in this that would be great um but not at the cost of our library media specialist I help out I started this year helping out in the library and I'm just afraid I know that you said you're going to keep one library media specialist throughout the entire um area and then have AIDS and then you're going to also use parents to help out and I'm afraid that you're going to use parents like me I'd love to help out but I'm not good at when kids ask me questions you know I always refer them to our specialist I don't know what to do and I'm afraid that the kids are going to get lost if that's all that we have I urge you to vote know hi my name is Suzanne rver I live at 6261 upper Parkway North I'd like you to consider with the differing population that we now have in our schools that possibly we have a population for which the school library is their only opportunity to visit a library to have guidance by a a librarian or someone who knows them to find reading and get reading materials and to get the support that they need for those things that they might not get at their home or in the community that they live thank you good evening my name is Mona CR 1823 North 69th Street I almost forgot where I lived um El follow puges and I speak English I am so not attacking the world languages nobody really is that is not why we're here we are just here because we do not agree with the way you want to fund this we do not agree and there is more parents that disagree with this than agree with it with the funding of getting rid of the LMS I don't know if any of you have asked teachers in each schools really about how they feel about this I have they don't they don't like this I know an you know same teacher as I do and so I just want to say vote no at least for the proposal the way it sits now it is not the right way to go about it I want languages we are not attacking you and I hope you know that we just need a different way to go about this thank you hi my name is Mary G I live at 2283 um I just had a couple of comments um first of all I want to thank you for your time and I want to thank the board members I did respond by email I appreciate that um I want another parent had me a comment um about that their child doesn't really see the reading specialist in their building and I it's the key for my child as well both of my children although they are very Advanced readers and finding books that are age appropriate yet um challenging for them to read is a nightmare as a parent and even as as classroom teachers um and we've had very very good teachers and not but the library media special is the one person in the building who has been able to find books that challenge and interest my children that yet are not high school content um so it's not an easy task and I very much appreciate having them and I worry about the boy that would be Lov who would help my children find or younger children cuz I guess as mine are getting older but younger children that are very Advanced readers finding books that that they can read um also um my son's teachers are often there in the building until 6:00 they answer emails on the weekends they are um overburdened they're very good teach teach and very dedicated but they already spend way more time than I would expect a teacher to be putting into the classroom and to add um to say that they need to learn all the technology that the library media Specialists has and know the volume and the vastness of the different books the new books that are coming out um to me seems un an unreasonable expectation for teachers that already do a lot for our students um and third is a as a scientist um research is crucial um and had I not learned how to do research in an appropriate way look through different volumes because um you have to find credible sources things that are reproducible and that that really isn't as easy of a task if you're not trained how to do it and that's such a valuable Source um important in our current um world technology so I would urge you to vote know for the current proposal again I am a very proponent of foreign language and I think it's very valuable but I just don't think that the way can propos is the best for our children thank you is there any the commity hi there uh Paris cus uh 2535 North 7th Street um and um I'm going to come out in the minority on this tonight uh and completely support the proposal that's with us I mean you he you heard a lot of things like everyone I talked to is for it everyone I talk to is against it but in reality we got to get around the warm fuzzies and everything else we got to look at the BR TX learning for like just at a young age is imperative I speak four languages three of those I learned by the time I was six I wrote to all of you guys told you my PLU growing up with the Greek father and the whole works so um I went since the last meeting on the one I don't know if you remember me that I talked about we always called our librarian coand the librarian we did not have a good uh experience with her but that's just me but I asked my daughters each one of them one's now in junior high school and the other one so she went all the way from kindergarten all the way junior high school and they asked my other daughter who's in third grade currently what they learned and and asked them separately kind of app blly test and they both said that they seem to learn the same thing every year and this was their perception um whenever we've always had to ask we've always wanted to know what's what our child be read our one childhood was having a little bit of struggle being what approprate forre we would go back to her teacher everybody's thinking that by eliminating their Library media specialist all our kids are going to become illiterate and not learn how to reach that is a major fallacy we are going to continue teaching the read we're going to continue teaching and H to research if a teacher has hey I need you to write a paper on such and such a subject they're going to probably show them how to look it up begs the question though and I wrote this in my letter also that if teachers are not well versed in technology that's something that needs to be looked at and made a minimum expectation of holding on to their job because technology is changing and they have to evolve with the technology and I also would argue that many of the new teachers the younger teachers coming out are already learning in those more advanced technological methods um so I apologize for my disjointed comments here but I wrote a lot of notes tonight hearing hearing a few things um I Heard comments a lot last week last year or last week when you guys were doing that meeting that library media specialist take a lot of graduate courses and stuff like that technology and stuff like that I'm very vers in technology and I've never taken a grad W course in technology at all and and I would argue that my children are very very well versed in technology now in fact I would argue there probably more more ver technology than have board members here especially my four and a half year old he's amazing already um uh somebody somebody made an illusion to the cuts that are coming there the cuts are coming like it or not they are coming from the state government we have a new sheriff in to and there's going to be a lot of a lot of changing happening if you have something that looks more valuable it's less likely to be cut and I think the foreign language program is more going to give it's more appropriate I think if you have to decide between the two that should be the direction to go um there would be a second um oh yeah and by the way you're impl test I amly Against Math and Science the United States is already behind in math and science and it'll be much more difficult to try learning that in the foreign language we need to focus that on English because you know social studies I can't think that's fine but uh um and I also want to brought up the thing about the maybe supplementing the time CU I mentioned an hour a week may not be enough time to actually learn a language supplementing with something like the Rosetta Stone and I would hope you guys have done some research on that over the past few few weeks here because if you have that in that there are many school systems that are relying exclusively on that but if you have your Spanish teacher and the Ros Stone software as a compliment to that these kids are going Master language very well and this is something that help them as they grow older uh and couple more quick thoughts uh I didn't I didn't three minutes all right well think you very much time but I think you should vote Yes for this because it's very important that our kids be able to compete in the future world and the younger they are the better they learn they'll learn and the better they'll learn how to be able to read in other in in English too because they going be focused so hard on learning that foreign language too it's going to help them in the future just like learning music helps my daughter with math there's always a correlation so and there's so many teachers even without the liary meting special that they're all going to do great thank you my name is is Chad Layman 8129 Jackson Park Boulevard um we can we can talk about the merits of the world language program and the library media specialist all night long everybody that I've talked to is in support of the world language program I am as well um unfortunately tonight the vote is one or the other um and I appreciate Dr erold sharing some options that were looked at in the past about uh some potential other staff situations or reductions to find the money for the six positions or ballark figure for that um when I when I heard those the the thing that concerned me was the library media specialist Cuts was the only one that's going to impact every single Elementary child in the district the other ones that were mentioned are not going to have that impact um and I I I believe that's going be a very negative impact on our kids I think it's one that we're not going to see for a couple of years I think our Middle School teachers and our high school teachers in 3 four 5 years are the ones we're going to see that this was really a bad decision so while right now it is a one or the other vote what can certainly happen tonight and if the board is is hearing and listening to what all of their con constituents have been saying you can vote no on this proposal tonight and still keep the world language program Al live by funding it another way and I think that's what most of the people that I've talked to are looking for a no vote tonight and let's come back and see what we can do to fund the world language program or the Spanish language program another way thank you good evening um back Julie 2468 North 88th Street um Dr ear one of the things I like most about you is you don't like to change stream you to of what TOA does well we're going to do well we're going to continue to do well and we're not going to try this curriculum and then try that curriculum and I don't I'm not saying that's what you're doing with the Spanish because I'm for World Language I'm for kids learning Spanish but we do library really well in all elementary library program is fantastic and I thought it was just at M but as I've listened to the teachers and the parents and the Librarians from the other elementary schools it must be going well there too because they're as passionate about their Librarians as we are about ours I am fortunate to have good readers for children and there wasn't a person in the building that could find a book for my son to read that was appropriate for him both at a rigor level something that would be challenging for him and appropriate for content there wasn't that and the teachers are great teachers but they have a lot on their plate and now they're asked to be experts in technology yes they should know technology they should be out to where the kids are at they should be able to integrate it into their stuff and that can be something that can be maybe learned rather quickly but I want to know who's going to be the literary expert in the building who are those kids going to be able to talk to because while a first grade teacher might know first second third grade literature are they supposed to know Fifth and Middle School l Middle School and High School level stuff that is appropriate for a first or second grader degre and there are those students and the people that they go to are the Librarians and on the other hand you have fifth graders who are reading at a second grade level but they can't walk around with June be Jon because their classmates will tease them who are they to ask the Librarians are who the experts are and to take that literary specialist out of the building the children will not have access unless they go to the library and whether they get there or not it's dependent on their parents or what community they live in and a lot of our students don't live in our community and you're asking the teachers to be an expert on something else I think that's a lot to ask of our teachers um and someone brought up whether the children were for this or not what they thought about it and I believe the school board got a signed petition from some fifth grade students and some other students that family they love Library they absolutely love it they've learned a lot from their librarian I just think you've got to get back what you're giving up and there's not a place where you're going to get that literary specialist thank Kristen Olsen 2551 North 85th Street I am the parent of two children at McKinley Elementary School I am in my 18th year as an educator the last seven years have been in the albrook school district I feel I am well versed in technology however the library media specialist in the albrook school district is much more capable to teach the current fourth graders fifth graders and all the way down than I am however I am well versed in technology she has an understanding of the technology standards we work directly with that librar library media specialist to integrate into the curriculum however her expertise allows us to then have a product come out that is way better than I could ever do with my fourth graders uh the staff develop vment or your teachers to get upgraded in the technology skills will cost a lot of money substitute pay if you do it within the school day it is not an easy funding if you want to have them do summer school or summer classes that will cost a lot of money maybe uh the the staff development and technology will surpass your budget um and then you're in the hole and you'll have to find a different funding source for the staff development we need to keep our library media Specialists again I would welcome a world language program however not at the cost of the library and media Specialists they need to be separated I urge you to vote no thank you no CRA Hollander 764 North 119 Street I am a product of Bal education and I ask you to call yes nobody's denying the importance of a librarian my daughters love going to the library I do not think they only check books in or out I know that they do much more but please do not vote no we Americans are already lagging behind in comparison to other countries when it comes to learning other languages universities around the nation have a foreign language proficiency requirements and the earlier the children start learning the more ahead they are with this requirement please consider this with I don't want the librarians to lose their positions I know they're important but it's also important that we have this foreign language proficiency thank you is there any further Community my name is Molly Delio 3303 North 107th Street and I would just like to reiterate something else that was mentioned tonight which is that for many students in our community the school library is the only Library they visit the school librarians are the only Librarians they know and interact with day in and day out year after year so I would like to speak for those children and say please save our libraries save our Librarians please vote no see no fur fromard members anyone um I have several actually um uh first of all I would like to uh give voice to some of the correspondences that I have received um from teachers classroom teachers and I for me if I'm wrong but I don't believe we had any speak tonight or at our last meeting um but these are teachers who are contacting us and telling us um that um they're willing to take down the responsibilities um they are already doing this in their classroom that they are teaching technology research reading and love of reading and so um I want you to know that I am hearing that um from our teachers although they're not here saying tonight uh that's one thing secondly in know a lot of my U interactions with the community um I notic that it seemed that people had partial information um it wasn't made clear that there has been discussion about the library media role over a period of time um and that in fact whether or not this changes whether or not the impl foreign language we will do needing to change the library Med specialist role it has been reported to the board um in a variety of ways back um for reports from Mrs technology reports from Mr price so we new changes to come so yes these are tied together and yes there's a financial impact but it's not the clear black and white that I believe some people are worth that it is the other concern that I really heard um was that there will not be anybody qualified in our libraries at one this happens and so um Mr Chan I'm going to ask you um but j a little bit uh we spoke and I asked you to put some information and writing about why we believe um we will have um qualified credible employees Staffing our Li under this new plan and if you wouldn't mind sharing the important points of that I would appreciate it sure I'd be happy to I'd be happy to I think one concern was a concern uh voice not just to board members but also to me uh directly that the thought was we would be able to to find certified staff who would want to work at UH Aid rates or want to fulfill the duties of of of a library a our experience in terms of hiring is that 22 of our approximately 100 or so AIDS are actually teacher certified um it's a rate that they accepted that we are always able to fill with certified staff and we put that requirement on there in addition we looked at what the going rate was for librarians for Library services in the greater Milwaukee area the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes regular statistics on average way is for both Librarians and librarian technicians the average salary of a librarian in the Milwaukee West Dallas wershaw data track is $ 51,8 that's assuming that those Librarians work 280 hours which you know full-time employment the mean salary of our library staff is 65,8 46 uh we have 191 day teaching contract we pay on average our aage dollar weight for a librarian is is $43 an hour in addition we took a look at the job duties of a library technician which is really roughly equivalent not roughly very equivalent to the library Aid um job description that we're looking at the library technician average salary for our census area $12.25 to 12.95 an hour um $12.95 being the medium 1225 the me which is roughly $26,000 our average 8 salaries um Wells our average our aid salary using teacher certified Aid rate is $24,000 again that's for um 180 days of work versus 191 because they do not work all the DAT that a teacher knows we also looked really carefully about the evolving role of librarians and and if you look uh at the the uh Bureau of Labor Statistics information they actually discuss the fact that many of the jobs traditionally performed by Librarians have been delegated to library technicians or Library AIDS vocabulary of using even within School libraries technicians and assistants encourage and teach students to use the library and media center they also help teachers obtain instructional materials they assist students with assignments and these are considered the Hallmarks of a library a type position while it's difficult to share that information uh the reality is in looking for Effective and efficient ways to staff our libraries the market late for the services that we're asking for within our schools and our elementary schools in particular is um not currently what we're paying for those Services my one final um comment and I might ask Mrs arer to address this but um there were a couple mentions of the Wednesday will we release time and um it's my understanding um that the some of that is well it's collaboration time and that our classroom teachers are during some of that time um becoming technology lit um they are also I believe learning from the library making specialist correct we know a collaboration time um the library media Specialists meet as a group um uh part some of that time and some of that time the meeting in the buildings with um grade level teams and um we also had distri teacher leaders that provide some instructional Technology support that are also part of that team as well um it's a collaborative efforts in delivering instructional technology it's a partnership between the classroom teacher District teacher leaders um the RO of library media specialist may or may not play depending on um their level of expertise so um guess I would have thank you I you know I I know and respect many of our um current leg media professionals so um it's difficult to have a discussion um but it it can't be about relationships it has to be about the children um the outcome and the quality of Education that we caner comment I just wanted to ask um specifically there have been a lot of comments tonight about technology and how it will be integrated into the classroom and I know I had to link the conversation with Mr Price to try to um and also miss Amber to try to understand which a lot of the questions that we hear tonight what how is this role functioning in our elementary schools and the answer was uh was quite surprising to me but I understand why it's there um that our our Professionals in our buildings make these Services transparent to our kids and to the people and to the parents that there are many people involved in um our example delivering the technology and Media Services it's not just the library specialist there are other individuals that are also involved and and it's a wonderful Testament to how the staff is working together to try to do this um and maybe Mr Price could also share some of what is happening with technology in the libraries and how that is changing and already currently in what's happening so if you could just comment a little bit more about the staff the technology I know there's a lot of questions so in that particular take um as was shown in Mr Jan's uh presentation last two weeks ago um the libraries will be transforming into more of a collaborative and Project based learning and information center uh so there will be changes made there um they would be expanded beyond what they are currently capable of doing in terms of um like I said projects and and Global collaboration um from a starting perspective could you be a b more specific on what you're well from what I understood there is uh there are different people in the elementary buildings other than and the liary and media Specialists that actually perform those technology services oh yeah yeah sure um in every building we have an individual that receives a stien uh and that individual's role is is a multimedia coordinator uh they're really the localized technical support um because the technology Services um not have an individual in each building uh there is it's important to have some localized um knowledge and and support for the the questions here and there that come up that need immediate attention um currently the multimedia position in some buildings is uh filled by the liary media specialists in other buildings it's fulfilled by the teacher or an administrative assistant whoever uh wants to adopt that additional ver and receive the cens under the approval of the the building principle uh so as we move forward that position will not will not go away uh that's from the support perspective from the instructional perspective um it is a collaborative effort as as has been mentioned before the district teacher leaders are involved as well with the uh integration of of um instructional technology literacy standards and to a certain degree the technology service is time also provides uh Training Services to to stop Mr thank you um at the last meeting I talked about how this is a difficult decision and one of the reasons that makes it a very difficult decision is because we're dealing with two issues both of which can have positive impact on students and trying to figure out uh which of those two positions is the best one to uh recommend or to be in favor of is difficult it would be much easier if you were dealing with a situation which was clearly um a negative and a situation that was clearly a positive um we not another thing that makes this decision very difficult and I speak personally but I I think that every board member is in the same position is that we have we we know individuals who are in the positions that are being affected or being impacted by what we're being asked to vote upon and we know that people in those positions would prefer that their current status uh maintain where it's at as opposed to being changed and knowing individuals that are in that boat uh makes it a difficult situation to be in as you consider how to move forward on the issue I think objectively as a board member considering this I have to try to factor that out of my thought process and move forward with the two proposals the proposals that are being presented to us that uh we have to act upon to cut to the chase I guess for me what it boils down to is I hear from our Administration a willingness to put their absolute best foot forward to make a recommendation work to make it work for students to do it in a way where things that would be missed from a change in a library media specialist position would be addressed and that is a challenge that I think the Administration has put upon themselves and the challenge that the board would have to hold them to to move in that direction but hear them indicating that they willing to take on that challenge and make it work as best as it can uh as this ISS moves forward um having heard all of those things having heard all of the voices of the community we've read many many emails um and again I want to be complimentary about the tone of which this discussion has taken place because it has been a very civil discourse and a very knowledge based discourse I think for everyone who has spoken seems like the heart of our students is after for the discussion that's taking place um the decision is a difficult one and um whatever the outcome I hope we move forward and Mr thank you this is a very difficult decision um I don't need to make a l of the situation but so a few days ago I was hoping to come here and use my favorite parental technique and say I think about it and hope everyone would forget but I can't do that um we initially received a proposal seemed like there was a quite a bit of information from a lot of different directions technology and foreign language and a lot of different things and I had to think about that a lot and Mr Ray alluded to this and I finally distilled things down to me which to me was the essential question and that is whether the benefits of a foreign language program are greater than what we would lose by by losing the library me specialist in other words you have to weigh the both both of them which program provides the most for the most children in the district and I appreciate uh Dr Curt coming and explaining so clearly benefits of foreign language programs and I've looked at some of the studies and you know this it's clearly beneficial and I think everyone here has has agrees with that but I also found many studies that also show the benefits of having full-time library library media specialists in the buildings um there's a particular study sent me from Colorado that was of the state of Colorado that showed that when uh it correlated reading levels with amount spend on libraries and with having full-time Librarians in the buildings that if you reduce those positions reading levels actually went down and it wasn't just Colorado but you know there were a number of studies like that so well another thing about the Colorado study I think that bothered me the most was that it seemed to show and this is concern of mine that low achieving students were affected the most by not having a library media speci and so you know many some students lost reading ability when they lost their library media specialist but it seems to affect Lo achieving students the most and one of our main goals in the district is you know closing the achieving Gap and that's supposed to be one of our highest priorities and it is and so I think for me that that's an important thing that we have to think about um so so then we have this balancing which is the most beneficial and I think the what persuaded me to to decide to vote against this proposal and present form is realizing and looking at our goals and addition that reading is our primary focus it's in oldold type it's our number one focus in the district and while I don't know that our library media specialist our con job configuration is perfect for a reading program maybe it could be improved to have more impact on our reading program I've come to the conclusion that of losing the library media specialist is going to have a negative impact on our core focus in the district which is reading instruction and so in putting in an either or situation we going to have to vote no in its present form Mr when I cast my vote and I will vote Yes it is a product of balancing the needs of the children to read love books that's one consideration and some of the best people we have in the district as employees are sitting at that little table up front and they telling us they can make this work the second consideration is what I feel is a compelling need for language skills in the world that our kids are growing up in and this proposal provides that the third consideration is why I raiseed my children in W and why I still live here and why I want to be in service to the community on this board is the belief and the value of the relationships of the adults and the people the employees of the district with our children and this vote basically trades against those relationships in favor of the compelling interest in language and it is not an easy vote um part of this package that makes that less unpleasant and less difficult is that the representation that's been made to us said is very likely that all of these employees will be able to remain in the district working with their kids and I believe they'll be at at the same salary scale they are now this is not you know they won't be gone if they don't want to be gone is the understanding so those are the factors I had to balance and that's the reason for this is my file on the emails that I have received and I still have a few at home that I have not completed this is a difficult decision and I have strongly supported World languages but I cannot up until about 5:30 this evening I still was undecided the direction I was going to take but the keeps coming back to me what each and every child needs in this community and it's the joy the ability to read at all levels I cannot I cannot support this resolution that is before me and please don't anyone tell me that oh we looked at music wait until you even entertain them because this room will be fluttered I just feel so strong that we have such a great district and we we want it all but we cannot have it all and I know that there are some serious Cuts coming for us please um what we then so my vote will be then this thank you brother well as the chair I have to go last um I do want to make a statement of sometime uh I think that it's important that everyone in the community who has um gotten in touch with us via phone letter or email knows that we do read these I've read every one of your emails and I through to the little links that you've given us and I've read all the documents uh I read not only the DPI summary two-page report but the 200 Page document do it before the meeting last week and I'm sorry I'm getting over my voice not the strong as tonight um so I want to thank each and every one of you and for myself at least I can say that I have read everything that you sent us to taken it to heart um I would also like to thank the administration and command them for bringing forward ways that we can improve the education for our students as to continue to to try to improve the education that we provide um there was reference made earlier to information we received from teachers as to their opinion and I'd like to make clear I've received um opinions on both sides from teachers I've received opinions on both sides from everyone in the community and one thing that no one seems to be against is RO language uh people might be against the proposal for different reasons they might before the proposal for different reasons but everyone thinks that teaching our children in the elementary school is a word language is a a valid and laudable thing that we should try to do um I sometimes lose my train body just catching up with me so some of the do my statement I will actually read tonight so I don't forget parts of it um I would reiterate what some of the other board members have said that this is a very difficult decision for many reasons and I think it's the first of many difficult decisions we're going to have as we want to continue to improve the education of our students without increasing the cost we simply cannot uh add programs uh whenever we like to we have to contain costs and so we're going to have to continue to make difficult decisions um I'd also like to address why these two issues are together that was raised more at the last meeting than at this one but I think it's clear to point out that as Dr mentioned at the beginning the board has told the administration if you're going to bring us a new program we need to know how we're going to pay for it and so that's why these things are presented together because this is how the Administration has decided um we need to pay for this program oury program I'd like to deal with the library issue first um because in my opinion and I want to make clear I'm speaking only for myself not for the board as a whole whether it's now or in the future the library Med specialist position is going to change um I speak as someone whose first job in mle school was in a library and I used to have the doy do sstem my heart because it was my job to put all the books away make work um I have been a library volunteer at Lincoln for I think it was 11 years ago the first time and I was a Le volunteer from Mrs Gman and now and Mrs Daniel until the last couple of years I've got any to do that I understand what library Specialists do and how they interact with their children I think that there are really two main functions that the library media specialist does there what we think of in a traditional librarian helping the reading to the children helping them gain a love of books and of reading um helping select appropriate books lot of the things that were mentioned here tonight what I think of as a traditional Library there's also the library media instructional part of that and that interacts both with the students and with the teachers it is my opinion based on the information we've received uh in the the course of these proposals that that first function is not going away it will not be performed by a master degree Library M specialist but there will be Library services in our school I know that this is not a cular thing to say but you don't need a master's degree to help children buy books you do need to have a love of books a love of children and a strong desire to get the two of them together and still a love of I think that that part can be handled by the a of described chain the I I want to say Mr J I think the human resources department has a strong o should this proposal pass to engage things in very strange enironment practices to make sure that our our children do have the services of the strong is in the schools it's a technology uh and information and instruction part which I believe must have been change technology is now intering into every part of life and Technology instruction must eving into every part of instruction thebly require a change in how to deliver the curriculum but media and Technology cannot be separated from Reading Writing Math and Science every teacher should be a teacher of Technology the core to that of course is that we as a district to have to Prov teachers with tools and knowledge that need make them happen I'm not yet convinced that one supp Elementary media services coordinator is going to be enough for many schools uh should this prop proposal passed this evening I would encourage Administration to involve elementary teachers in the transition process in order to ensure that the realities of the classer considered and if necessary another Elementary servic to the STA with all that being said for me this decision is not Hing on Library staing that's going to change it's just a question of when the issue for me is the World Language proposal and as I said before almost no one has spoken out saying we should not have a language proposal research shows that foreign language instruction benefits students in many ways and I don't think there are many people saying we don't want excuse me many people saying we don't want to have a fore language program I understand that theing opinion is that we don't want to lose one specialist F their known there have been questions raised about how impact schools with special needs and different types and that's a very valid concern I visited Wan last week uh and observed uh first and second grade classes being instructed in Spanish and while we were there we were told that I would population of almost 600 only five students were not participating in Spanish uh and those students were the decision was made based on their IEP team other students with individualized needs were successfully incorporated into the classroom and actually one of the classes we to have a a child with quite obvious physical disabilities in the classroom fully participa in that instruction uh this is an issue which clearly has to be specifically considered and addressed in the curriculum development process I do not believe the decision I difficulty should hand on that to issue she's involving student excuse me students with special needs are often individual issues in in this case as well my major concerns with this proposal rolve around whether really feasible to roll out this program in the fall whether it's the best option to implement all the Elementary grades at the same time as opposed to facing in over several years and the lack of the sixth grade foreign labor program I um I wrote this this afternoon and what I wrote at the time because I continue to struggle with these issues this is something that I think we' all there a lot of time thinking about up to probably looking in this room and continuing as we listen to everyone here tonight for this motion to adopt the program proposal now and spend the next year developing the curriculum resolving the scheduling issues in Middle School addressing the technology education changes and other issues which will certainly come up in the process and then Implement during the2 excuse me the 2012 2013 school year I would not have any hesitation I would vote Yes without any difficulty with a much shorter time excuse me the much shorter timeline of implementation in the 20112 school year I am concerned there's an incredible amount of work necessary to make this work for our students at the beginning of the disp of the proposal I thought I would vote no to try to do all the things needed to implement this program in a man beneficial to our students as well as incorporate things the changes to media and delivery system media system puts us in position of trying to do too many things at once I asens vised mon Elementary School and observed the social studies being taught to first and second graders I've learned that the Argon School District implemented a language program all grad at the same time and has had success they did have to write curriculum on an ongoing basis as the young students mov through grades but also found a benefit in the teacher collaboration across I been reminded that used to have an exploratory language program in the sixth grade and we do have some experience teaching FL language at that level I also had a very helpful conversation with David tster that I know without a doubt she has the best interest of our students in mind she has reminded me and reassured me excuse me she has reassured me about her excuse me m tster has reassured her me that implementing this program as proposed is doable one other aspect to me is the need to expand the Viewpoint of our students I believe that we as Americans are fairly insent we need to change that I've had the opportunity to travel overseas several times in the past few years and I'm always impressed by the number of people in other countries who speak at least two languages not three or four we're slow the bit because these language is usually English which makes it very easy for us overseas but it hamers small upon there RV sometimes is when a grocery Park in a remote area of Iceland speaks English German inter native language and two Americans with graduate degrees are Prov and only one shame on us at some point we have to change with all that said I'm still concerned I hear the concerns of every citizen and District teacher who sends a letter an email or call on the phone I'm sure that if this proposal passes there will be bumps on the road to to full impementation we as a board are fac with maintaining the status quo and moving forward with an opportunity for our students which carries great promise so again thank you to everyone who has taken the time to write who has come here tonight to express your opinion we do listen whether we agree on the rest on the conclusion or not I I would also like to Echo Mr Ray point at the tener of this conversation has been marvelous and I do appreciate that Mr Mr no Mr ner yes Mrs milel no Mrs Rand yes Mr ready yes Mrs Weber no Mr spe yes the next item on the agenda is the mon program proposal I Su we will reconvene at 9:00 the agenda is the superintendent section thank you it's recommended that the school board approve the of a long monory program for students of J J to be located at Fisher Building beginning in the 2011 2012 school year provided that there is sufficient Community interest to support the school specifically in order to open a classroom for a particular age grade level there must be at least 20 students registered to that classroom part to March 15th 2011 number and age groups for each classroom to be opened in the initial year shall be based on the age and distribution of students apping fors also recommended that the school board approve the following policies as presented and discussed at the January 10th 2011 meeting group one policy 1220 employment of the super intendent policy 4122 discrimination and equal emplo opportunity policies 3160 4160 physical examination policies 30 policy 3161 on requested medical Lees and absence policies 4362 employee anti grassing um group two of the policies 2414 human and development policy 44191 privacy protections of self funded Group Health Plans add new policies 4419 that2 privacy protection of fully insured Group Health Plans policy 1 443 51 Family and Medical Le of absence and policy Heth and is there a second second we take uh have separate discussion and separate action on each of those two items any objection to action none we proceed in that matter let's begin with the mon program proposal board members is there any discussion Mr con make a statement um I'll just state that I don't believe that uh elementary charter schools are the way to move education forward in our district um the data on several studies that came out are mixed even on charter schools in un City schools and one statement from an article in the Wall Street Journal that looked at three of these studies said that while there is some consensus among these studies researchers generally have found that charter schools and lwi income urban areas boost test scores while Suburban charter schools and Wealthy areas don't and so I understand that one of the goals is to give Parents Choice but I just don't think under the economic conditions that we're going to be in opening Elementary Charter Schools is the right way to the district to go I'd rather that they focus on Reading Writing and math for all the students in all the buildings rather than open up uh specialty elementary schools um I know that one of the arguments for doing this is to bring new students in the district but my belief is if you want a district that's bursting at the SS show that you teach reading and writing to Children better than any other District in the state we'll have more kids account so while I know that everyone has good intentions and I know that this is a well C up program it's just not a philosophy that I have to move in this dire clarification we are not talking about adopting Char school thank Mr R have a clarification with respect to the uh numbers that are indicated in the motion the numbers are specifically focused on number of stud stud that need to be registered uh in order for a classroom for a particular age or grade level um my question is what if we are in a circumstance for we Val 20 or more students at levels JK SK first grade third grade fourth grade fifth grade the one level that I didn't mention I can't remember was second grade I think we only had 15 um what what would that scenario mean for the program as a whole I think I understand intent question I think one of the the challenging things to keep in mind is that we really not talking about grade programs um because each classroom is multi-grade but yeah it is possible that we would have too few students in an age group that would defeat the purpose of having a multi-age classroom that's the effect of your question so for example if we look at the the what is Vol monor it lays out the intent to offer multi-age classrooms so students in the children's House classroom ages four and five lower elementary is ages 6 to 8 and Upper Elementary gr ages 9 to 11 if we didn't have an adequate distribution of students within a particular classroom that defeat the multi-age purpose and I think administratively would consider um that there wouldn't be sufficient interest to open a school so that 20 we that 20 um people guideline mandatory to also need to be somewhat equally distributed so that it's a sustainable school can I appreciate your clarification my PLP who got most a great LS classroom so I thank you for that reminder but that's that's what I I'm hoping to understand we one classroom that in which we would meet that uh numerical um a number of 20 students but we had a second classroom and that would be like a base classroom a first classroom or or a second classroom where we didn't uh that was your thought then that that would be an indication that we would not go forward with the program as they old sufficient number of STS I not so as a whole I think that we would anticipate that there a distinct possibility that the school might grow up from the bottom levels upward um there's sufficient reasons why Although our surveys indicate that there's a lot of interest why parent would choose not to switch schools for their fifth grader um for a lot of educational sound reasons not to do that um even though you think we're going to be offer attractive program and I would anticipate that it they very well be possible that we would be opening or two children's houses if that's where the demand is and growing School up from the bottom would you Mrs P you once more what we are looking in to begin a Mur school what grades are we looking at what will each classroom comprise of each classroom would it's um very similar to what Mr CH just described um it would be K4 which is a half day program and all day K5 and that would consist of the first M AG classroom there would be an offer of extended um supervision for those uh pay4 students because they will not be receiving a full day um they the model of their day would just be the morning session and um then you would continue on with 6 seven and 8y olds so it to put a grade level equivalency to that that would be your first second and some third graders and then 9 101 so um you're older third graders fourth graders and fifth graders and a multi-age classroom and I understand your question properly Mrs W yes the reason I wanted to review there was some concern uh Express that the strength of the program is beginning with threey old and we are not going in that direction we're starting with the foury old that's correct has any consideration been given or is it tally to what happens after the highest level of six the Upper Elementary 911 and you talked about extending it further than that at all I I believe that it's something that's um not unlike um the the earlier scenario that Mr jamman discussed where we might only have interests at the uh younger levels and eventually the program we have to build and grow that may also be the case if we if we have enough interest if it's feasible if there are students who want to continue on certainly we have to keep that foremost in our minds either we could extend the monory program up or we just need to be very careful in terms of making sure that those students are accommodated for if they choose to our district if we do not have a monitory program in other words transition into middle school thank you yes Mr um I did miss speak earlier when I was talking about Charter Schools um but I think clearly this is more than a program as the administration itself refers to it as a school so it is a specialty elting the school um one question I have though is just grants from the state for opening charter schools are s1,000 so could you explain why we aren't pursuing as a charter school where we can use the funding to help get it going couple of reasons one is the timeline for app for Char School GRS um they've changed that timeline and the other piece is that we in our discussions we don't feel that there's a need to have a governing board to run a monor school and back com that I know I made either the last meeting December that looking at just accepting federal funds or Charter School funds just for the sake of getting the money is flies in the face of what I certainly believe in what charer schools and what Char schools should be so I think that's that's the main reasons why we can the school thank you I have one more question Mrs pet would you also uh what is the enrollment interest to dat I I don't to have it in front of me although um Mr voice does and if if I can just refer you back to the initial presentation where we had the survey results and I'll try and do my best to just verbally go over that for you um when you look at a combination of all respondents we have approximately 99 of the respondents would consider ages 3 to six that number um drops slightly when um it it's a combined consideration from 3 to six and then also grades 1 through five but it's a very um favorable response in terms of at that point when we were just surveying the public they need more information which we have been providing but it appears that the strongest interest at least initially now is with those respondents considering ages 3 through six which refer to as the children's house and I would imagine based on the success of that Pro pardon me that program and as those students age and as um our school becomes uh more of um rather than just a I don't want to use the term experimental because it's been around for over 100 years but new to our district um I'm sure that as that proves itself to be successful that that entrance will continue to expand um that seems to be the indication of a lot of the anecdotal information that I'm getting from families um one of the other examples that they gave is especially with older children there's sometimes a reticence to remove them from their current educational setting mid year through what's considered to be their Elementary year so to begin Theory school this T must we have a balance throughout the three classrooms or could there be more at the lower level and not as high a number at the higher level to begin I think yes the answer that ask and is Shing great so that's what the survey results seem to indicate and that's what anecdotally has come back through conversations I that with interested be so do you have any summary uh or knowledge about where the interest is coming from is it resident yes is it is resident and I've also been receiving inquiries from families open enrollment families asking if once their children have obtained open enroll status and are considered students of the wild school district will they also be uh have the opportunity to apply so there have been questions from from all families that are involved in the Walk of the school district thank you I just want to say that I do struggle with this because of what I receive as a delusion of focus that said some people we really respect really believe in this so I plan to yes but I asked that we be vigilant that this program not b a focus in the other elementary schools I'm a little bit concerned about this in the administration building um I don't necessarily believe that's a good idea for various reasons it's probably a longer conversation so I just want to express my reservations so that's clear that's how I feel it's a little bit of a reach for me to V yes but as I said think well I I struggle with this idea of focus versus options in diversity and and so this is one that's right under water you the is there any commity comments on Mr Mr no Mr Meer yes Mrs mil yes Mrs R yes Mr R yes M Le yes yes motion pass that brings to the BR board discussion I'd like to amend uh the human growth and development policy 2414 and I have langage like I think everyone has to so the the amendment motion I make is to amend the policy to add a section J that reads include age and content appropriate instruction regarding the understanding of sexual orientation and gender identity provide resources for students who have additional questions about these issues and identify and discourage discriminatory and or bullying Behavior based on sexual orientation or gender identity is there a second to that motion second thank you Mr would you like to the discussion I would thank you um this came about to me because I went to talk by Jody BL who came to our district to talk about bowling and one thing I learned from her that I hadn't realized before is that bowling can be occur by Omission by not including people in and shortly after that received a pack of policiy that we're going to review tonight and the human growth and development was in that packet and I was looking through that packet and I didn't see anything let me back up a second based on that I was looking at our new bullying policy and in that policy it says that bullying includes things that occur based on age national origin race ethnicity religion gender gender identity sexual orientation physical attributes physical or mental ability or disability and social economic or family status and we had the human growth and development policy from the cours at the last meeting I looked through that and I noticed that it wasn't anywhere in the policy was there anything having to do with students learning about uh gender identity or sexual orientation and it occurred to me that if we don't educate our students about these things at least so they have an understanding of what they mean that we're not going to be very good at combating bullying that's facing those behaviors um I'm going to point out that on the last page of the buling policy under Education and Training uh it says in support of this policy the board promotes preventative educational measures to create greater awareness of bowling behavior and so I think the intent of the bowling policy is to do what we can to try to make sure that bowling doesn't occur in our schools and um in thinking about this I asked Mrs arber to uh because the um standards for the human growth and development are not on the internet asked her to look at those and she confirmed that um gender identity and sexual orientation are not topics in our human growth and development courses and there was also a human relations course taught in the high school and I inquired about that course and it's not taught there either in fact the response that I received was uh this course is for all students so we don't include that and so to me it was was a kind of an ironic statement that you know in order to include all students were going to Adit talking about something so it just didn't make sense to me so I I think this is an important policy to have um I think that it's something that needs to um I looked on the web I found uh the National Association of school psychologists have some information about this and they have a position statement on gay lesbian bisexual transgender and questioning you and I wasn't actually familiar with que or questioning but I I know now that many students in our middle schools and maybe high schools are undergoing development and may not be sure what's happening to them or not understanding how they're feeling and so people that are questioning this I think need to understand and maybe you learned some basic definations about what they may be going through and the recommendations from the school of psychologists if we're going to create safe schools for glbtq we need to they recommend establishing and enforcing non-discrimination policy that apply to all students and we have that and it includes those characteristics um education of students and staff that's what I think we're missing we're not education our students about these issues direct intervention with perpetrators of harassment and discrimination I think we have vigilent staff and I think they take action when these things happen direct intervation intervention and support for those students Ted for harassment and intimidation and those exploring the sexual G or identity um I don't know that we do that you know I don't know if kids feel safe coming forward and saying I'm being targeted because of this or people are picking on me because of that and I think that's something we need to work on creating environment in schools where kids feel comfortable doing them I think if a teacher they trust can talk to them about these issues so they feel more comfortable with what they know and they know someone that they can go to I think that will help people that are being harassed for Bully promoting societal and family attitudes and behaviors that affirm the dignity and rights with educational environments of gbt2 you so I think Mich p is trying to create an environment in schools to educate kids an understanding of what these terms mean that what how people can misunderstand these terms and use them as mechanisms for Ping other kids so I really have two two goals here one is to help help children understand what might be happening to them what they're going through that they have resources to go to for extra help if they have questions and third to educate students that might tend to bully other kids because of this so that they know that you know the simple thing that they might do might be really harmful to kids there there um in these groups and I'll just end by saying that under policy 3210 staff ethics the first point a is that the staff recognize basic dignities of all individuals with whom they interact in the performance of their duties and so I think this policy is even further support of this policy that we're recognizing the dign of work for all of these kids and making School a safer and a happier place of them is Bo discussion of the to amend the proposal for policy 244 Mr may I have a question which is what are we we agree to this what are we agreeing to do are we requiring a curriculum are we requiring um counseling support um is there um how big of a program is this is this a program is this a curriculum what will it cost just so you know I think we need to know what we're promising and what rights we're creating can somebody answer that question I think address that what the statute contemplates I guess starting that initial point is that if a board decides to offer human growth and development curriculum we could just op out entirely U but we're a district that hasn't done that and I would say probably most have not there are certain minimum State Standards uh this policy is a rewrite of that based on the statute and we're basically requiring that when we adopt CC it is going to meet these standards uh Mr Ker's amendment is really a um reminder that one of those CRI committees do that work as a reminder a directive they will now include this as a uh topic that should be included within our human growth curriculum and uh I would say that it's not something that is just simply Springs into action um without planning consideration both by the board and by the community uh and we not that on page three of the policy there's a Citizens advisory committee that is required to be established in reviewing periodically growth and development uh um curriculum then my assumption is that I something that we be working in tandem with through the student department so there's a process that process would be uh using the statutorily required citizens advisory committee by adopting this second Bo would be directing that advisory committee to come back with recommendations uh regarding curriculum age appropriate sequence that would include this topic and I think Mr C pointed out this topic is consistent with with many other board policies um which are also required by state law so I think this is a an integration in of our existing obligation so I'm I'm sorry I need more understanding that the policies as originally present for Action are sours from soola they are put us in compliance with the law correct so unless we want to buy into a dispute the C of or the federal government we we need to go guess on on on the original motion yeah I would say yes okay is there anything else is is there was there anything added to the policy stated in the original motion beyond what theola or present to us that J would be and a separate amendment that would be the only addtion so J is is the only addition so the first the original motion puts us in compliance with the law and please explain again or me a little slow than how does Jay extend this beyond what does Jay do to extend this beyond the original motion when we look at the policy I guess answer be the first paragraph the first paragraph of the proposed policy that the Board of Education directs that students receive instruction in the growth and development consistent with State Statute to include the following and it list a through I those are stat required that if we are going to offer growth and development um those are topics that must be included J is an ad in which our board would be saying we understand what the state minimum standards are and when we use the statutory required process of the citizens advisory committee the board is requiring that they also make recommendation with respect to J are the components of J available within the discretion of the mechanism set up by the regional motion could the could the the the the activities required under the original motion in it in their findings include the elements listed in j i I think it depends on both how broadly your um citizens advisory committee and how broadly the board when to hear those recommendations can true those I think if you look at a for for example it talks about the importance of communication about sexuality and decision making about sexual behavior uh I think just some of these some of these topics uh regarding understanding sexual orientation and gender identity I fairly fall within the scope of a I think those particular Topics by holding them out separately within this policy is to uh recognize that we have an antidiscrimination policy that speaks to those and that we want to affirmatively make sure that they're covered in the curriculum uh the issues regarding uh bullying and discriminatory Behavior I don't know that those are explicitly within the human growth and development they do talk about um responsible decision making and communicating um but I think that easily those topics that are outlined J AR necessarily required by a through I so I I think I understand the intentive of Mr scher's motion here which is to say we as a Bo while affirmatively make sure those things are included could they be included in the others I think they could assisting curriculum thank you m r um answer mr's question I would say covered G stereotypes if I'm understanding what I'm reading here from Mr coner is that he wants students to understand um that there are different sexual orientations and gender identities and they should understand that um and that would of course reinforce so I I don't think it's necessary in here number one number two um I don't have voting policy that was one of that mrman quoted already refer to that is not enough either the group right but you did quote that there is something in that policy already stating that um students can't now the last thing I can say is kind of I don't know unusual but there's something about um pulling out the uh topic of sexual orientation and gender identity that almost seems discriminatory um you know it feels to me like um it goes beyond you know gender whatever but we're going to talk specifically about students and I don't know that sense it almost it almosts something and I at maybe could be helpful with this or even back there but under that um statute for this instruction there's a sub instruction that says use instructional methods and materials that do not promote Vice against P of any Rel G religion sexual orientation or ethnic or cultural background or against sexual people children disabilities I'm just not sure that we want to allow any individual group of students um and I do thinke poliy I should would like to hear from thank you um this is right Bing policy that we do have in place with the bo the policy that the board um um adopted over the summer based on the the latest recommendations to the Department of Public construction so that was we the quite a bit withing policy and anti poliy this particular recommendation for adding to the to the policy that we're approving tonight this isn't being added to the bowling anti- Bing policy going be added I be more Artic on this human growth and development curriculum has to be reviewed periodically um ours has not g under review for a sign significant amount of time from um looking at it and um part of that typical view process is that um a representative group of people need to convene and at that time these kinds of things are discussed so like the kind of discuss you're having right now typically happens with that committee work um it's um then that has to be brought before the board of education for approval the health curriculum is under review is going to be um coming up under review with the science and um we have met with the Department of Public Instruction we met with John hison to talk with us about um the the committee work that need to be done for the human growth and development part of that Pur review as well as um our other health curriculum that particular piece of legislation also allows parents op out of human growth and development topics from you know the this vantage point it would seem that if you state it in the policy it becomes very explicit and the committee then the human growth and development committee that usually is directed to review curriculum and bring that before the Board of Education um would have a directive through policy that would let us know that that is um very explicitly being stated as part of our curriculum so uh that would be something that the committee normally might have some discussion on um if it was a policy I don't know that that discussion would be necessary just my final comment this I think this is already covered under section c question of the motion to add theage Mr I fear the ultimate in result will be to draw attention of activists to the district and make it actually more difficulty to help various people so I I I I worry the end result will be counterproductive to the int that's what I need to say Mr I just like to respond to the argument that it's already included in our policies I mean it's there are an unlimited number of topics that could be included based on our policies the way it's written it's very broad um the reason I brought this forward is that it's not included in any of our courses and if we just simply St here we think you should include it but we don't pass this we there's no enforcement there's no way to know that we're helping kids in now and I think there are a lot of kids in our district that are hurting they're alone they need help and I think this is the right way to go this is not I mean saying it's in C that's make it happen in the district and I think the kids I think the kids deserve the education that we say we're here to get them um regarding activist come in the district who cares I mean the goal the goal is to educate our students um I I can't believe that we would not give the students education they need because we're afraid someone's going to walk on the sidewalk of this time I mean I'm sorry that I don't find that hard um this is all about the kids um kids need proper education they need to know what's happening to them other kids need to know what's happening to their friends and to Tre them with respect and and to not degrade them or bully them in any way so I I'm offering this purely as as a way to help children in the district to make this a much more comfortable place for them both sides that I'm hearing um I think have very valid points I would like to ask Mrs Aron burer once more if she has any further recommendation information for us no I don't um I think I kind of said what I can say on it um I do know it states here I'm trying it says to use instructional methods and materials that do not promote bias against students being race gender religion seual oration ethic or culture background um I think it's a matter of how explicit you you want to be you want to be explicit about that it does um it will influence the work of the committee the Review Committee and if that is the intent then um you're just being very explicit probably more explicit than you have to be um but at the same time um it depends on how exposive in that statement sorry this is a very sensitive subject do you feel the way it is written at this time it addresses any needs that might come up um there are certainly are guage CS would they be involved at all in if a young person had questions that they would have someone to V to to get some help absolutely I'm there one of the resources in our in our schools um I think that you know in addition to to the the curriculum that's being presented um daily to all students there's other there's also resources available at all our at all of our schools for students that struggle with issues um some now you say all the schools you mean at the secondary level well I think there's different resources at the elementary level but if I think the secondary level um some of our um we have different kinds of groups that occur and different kind of clubs and committees at both of our middle schools and both of our high schools some are more focused um some of them are just groups that are are for for example um over at to East they have um the I can't remember name my apologize right now but it's a radio club and it's it's intended to be inclusive so through clubs as well as through different support groups um available at all of our secondary schools there's opportunities for students that are struggling with these issues to connect and access resources get questions answered and um and and kind of help them work through that so in addition to the curriculum there's also some Direct Services for the kids with these issues does that answer your question Mrs Weber yes I'm just going to point out that it's not a topic covered in any of the course certificates that's the point of doing this and Dr I cl to you for a recommendation on this policy well I guess initially when when I looked at it I thought um it doesn't hurt through I guess I didn't quite understand until this talked about committee role in limiting that committee role and saying should be discussed personally I support that our kids learn this um whether it's policy to do it um but I think it's I don't think it's harmful but um I think as as a discussion has gone on I think it is a b decision about how they work back committee to operate and what parameters are going to be put in place I think think it's explained least for me a different sh that CH as well but overall I think it's it's an um it's an important piece anything further from the board we will I take a vote on the amendment to something I was just going to say that if this policy has passed that it would require us to look at our curriculum and um have to um make some adjustments in curriculum and make sure that we also um have our parent notification is you know also followed as well so but that would be whichever version of the whichever version so that's going to have to take place whether or not mr's proposal is adopted or not that's correct because that is a review that we are um Coming upon thank you for the board discussion we will take a vote on the um usually we do that proposals themselves but if there's any community and the request to modify the proposal for policy number 2414 to add the additional language hi I'm suselle Lynch and I at 7502 West um I'm going to speak in favor of including this proposal including this amendment to the proposed policy I'm the mother of a fifth grader at excuse me sixth grader at fell and what um there's a there's a you know the bullying the wonderful bullying speaker that Mr K referred to my daughter came home and talked a lot about that and I asked her whether there was anything in the buing presentation around um uh gender identity or sexual orientation and she said no and I asked her whether she's here whether what she hears from kids you know are they calling each other are they saying that so she said yeah there's tons of that sort of thing going on and her concern in her little 11-year-old heart is that that's creating a hostile environment for students around her who may be while she's having stirrings stirring feelings for boys that you know and other girl is having stirring feelings for girls and is experiencing this whole I can't say any of that there's no way for me to talk about those things you know that there's a completely hostile environment for kids who are EXP experiencing their budding sexuality as a gay or lesbian student okay so that's it's already there and the concern about the explicitness of it and whether that's actually going to cause more targeting um I can appreciate that except for that um I think when you feel invisible it's far more oppressive than when who you are is actually acknowledged and having it acknowledged in something like a curriculum where you're saying that this is one of the other possibilities for Being Human you know your autom your worth and dignity is much more respected um I know it's not a non-controversial issue clearly it is but I think if we're going to create a climate where all of our students are going to find themselves um reinforced and respected you really need to make this explicit um if you want to look at just some of what's been in the news in the past year um seven or eight n high-profile suicides of teenagers who were basically bullied because they were lesbian or gay usually it's young men or because they had the appearance of being lesbian or gay not necessarily that they were but that they seemed like they were issues with gender identity you know if you are outside the norm they're a whole lot more likely to be bullied in a way that leads you feeling isolated alone who for you to talk to I have been a speaker at the gay St Alliance at tosa East sometime in the far past and kids were really glad to see some caring adult from The Wider Community who was there to you know talk with them about whatever it was they asked me to talk with them about you know so there's there's a lot that we can do curriculum wise to create a CL that that's respectful all our students thanks thank you is there any further Community coun then you will take a roll call vote for um Mr in what course or courses that the um secondary level would the human growth and development important uh be uh delivered to students um there's an adolescent studies course at um school and there is um the health course that's required at high school the human relations course that Mr K was speaking about is an elective course that's offered at the high school level um we would possibly look to see if there was um I don't know the biology curriculum I'm not aware right now that we have um you know anywhere where that is addressed but um certainly the courses I just mentioned would definitely be included in that anything I will now take a roll call vote on the amendment to language J Mr yes Mr croner yes Mr Meer no Mrs mil yes Mrs Rand yes Mr Ray no Mrs Weber yes Mrs Ste yes so the motion to amend 244 add language J is passed that brings to the recommendation as read by earlier and the Amendments that discussed at the last meeting is there any discussion of theing amendments is there any Community comment seeing none this is going Ro Mr croner yes Mr Meer no Mrs mil yes Mrs Rand yes Mr R yes Mr Mrs Weber yes Mrs Ste yes just two report to the board will student this evening um Bill Anderson is here the supervisor of student learning bill is um the U individual from our department that works with the project leave away committee and the curriculum he's been doing this since um the first started the implementation so I'm going to turn the presentation over to him this evening good evening um I just out a a set of notes for you um so I'm just going to go through and share this proposal with you um going to share with you a kind of a journey before we get into the proposal but give you a little history um of where we kind of started our journey and looking at um project delay and a pre-engineering course pathway we created um in the high schol starting back in 20072 2008 school year we began this journey by uh looking into a rigorous curriculum in science technology engineering mathematics some somewhat called stem uh the project leway program in 2008 2009 we implemented our first project leway course in the high school and both East and West high schools of principles of Engineering in 2009 and 2010 we continue with that implementation of adding another course at each High School introduction to engineering and design in the 2010 2011 school year we've added our third project leadway course um Digital Electronics this year at both high schools for the past 3 years we service approximately 350 students in these courses five of our teachers have received extensive professional development during summer training for two weeks during MSO summer uh summer teacher training academy four of our secondary counselors have received one day project leadway counselor training and the district has uh again created a stem partnership team made up of community members administrators teachers who have been instrumental in helping us develop and move our stem Pathways along and brings us to today in terms of uh initiating uh a midle school proposal so let me give you a little overview of the project L program at the middle school which is called gateway to technology sometimes known we call it as GT gateway to two technology an act activity orientated program designed to challenge engage middle school students the curriculum adds a various Trier to our curriculum at the middle school level for our experience of our students um it provides us a early entry pathway into the science technology engineering and mathematic career pathway uh this curriculum develops students 21st century skills of innovation collaboration cooperation robins and initial studies and NPS over the last 3 years um of implementing their initial Gateway program um is sh SE and signs to help close the achievement Gap um in MPS and that study is ongoing so that brings us to the proposal our current technology education courses uh in the sixth grade would remain the same this is a 9we course in the wheel rotation that's daily contact with students um it would remain with our current utilized curriculum our standards and benchmarks that course is uh um titled introduction technology what we're recommending for seventh grade next year is a course entitled introduction to engineering robotics this course will utilize two units of the gway to technology ology which is design modeling and Automation and Robotics this would replace the current cor curriculum of exploring manufacturing and engering at the seventh grade level that would be a semester course to 9 we modules that would run concurrently daily at the 8ighth grade next year we would also propose that we continue to offer we would offer the same course but delivered a little bit differently based upon the current structure of the schedule we would offer the introduction to engineering and Robotics this course to our eighth graders in an every other day contact again an 18we um contact over the year every other day in year two we would ask that again we look at our sixth grade introduction to technology current course and look at bringing some of the concepts that we begin to find in our seventh grade curriculum down into the sixth grade some of the things that might happen was looking at student portfolios engineering uh notebooks and like some other um engineering aspects in seventh grade again we would keep our introduction to engineering and Robotics and then the eth grade in year 2 which would be an dat course would be engineering flight and the environment this would utilize two GT courses or Gateway courses of space and flight energy in the environment some of the projected costs for this program startup materials for the two for the two buildings that both uh Whitman and longell been found approximately $15,000 for kits and equipment we will use continue we will use Grant funds at this point for those expenditures some additional computers will needed to be added to our technology education classrooms and some cing in this will be approximately about $25,000 our initial teacher professional development cost for those two courses for two teachers um at msle msle this summer it's going to cost approximately hours uh no school counselor training um again for our middle school counselor is approximately $500 this would uh we would not ask for any uh extended FTE we would use existing current FTE allocated as this would be uh at the seventh and eth grade a replacement ccum oh yes CR would cover our existing teacher professional development and uh counselor try so that's is a proposal uh before you tonight um questions yes the question about implementation in your uh for sixth grade you uh bring up the concept of incorporating what was done in seventh grade previous year the first year of and doing that implementing that in the current course curriculum where where that Happ in sixth grade for that second grade in sixth grade some of the concepts some of the overarching concepts of design um would be brought into and looked at if there's a really good fit such as um begin need to help build the pathway of you know students creating portfolios what they look like what are the base components of a good portfolio um it could be put into our current curriculum that we offer in the sixth grade but that would all be done in that 9 introduction to technology course as opposed to building an into what's happening in the science portion of the the uh the well it's something I mean again if we go and look at our science curriculum some of those aspects of um that help uh students in terms of their organization and how to collect evidence of their work and progress certainly may lend themselves to looking at those things brought into to our science curriculum at some point do we look at our sence another question can I just say though that um this curriculum is tied to technical education as well as science and our technical education teachers have been involved in numerous conversations and in ways to bring their curriculum to the 21st century they've been supportive of making adaptations in their sixth grade curriculum and the seventh and eighth grade ccul in order to to make the technology curriculum more viable um for students so I just want to mention that they actually have been very um you know open-minded to finding uh different ways to inove students of Technology at the M School level and want I do believe that they would like to have some ownership with that for do another question has to do with the uh schedule if I'm a seventh grade student at the middle school and I am an orchestra I don't want to stop being an orchestra and if I'm taking forign language and I don't want to stop foreign language is this going to be an option to me or is this not going to be an option if given the current U given the current constraints of our our schedule um probably not one of the things that we we talked about that we have talked about is possible offering it maybe as a zero hour at the middle school maybe 8th hour at the middle school um for initial implementation that first year um we didn't think that that's something to jump into right away and knowing that the work of the uh secretary or the scheduling committee is ongoing um you know that that's another conversation that's going to be brought into the next final question has to do with some of the budgetary um when you're talking about adding uh cost for adding computers is that an addition to money that is already budgeted or targeted or is that a part of what's already budgeted or targeted with the technology of computer replacement cost or computer purchasing that would be that would be part of our current technology education budget for Tech um for for computers um I talk with Jamie price um so um it would be part of uh this budgetary expenditures so basically whatever his budgetary uh amount is for uh replacing or adding computer technology that $25,000 is built into that number it's not an add op yes this is yes it's developing you know the pathways the pre-engineering pathways integrating math science curriculum and um are we still getting um Grant support or partnership support project Le financially this this past year was our last year for our grant um that we received from the current Family Foundation um so from this point forward um part of our partnership team is looking at um again forming Partners within the community and looking at um how do we allocate resources and share resources to help those programs continue so the dollars in here are our money money until you confirm Partnerships that will assist the current the the current um the current material cost and C of funds we have allocated years Grant funds that we're going to use currently so that's not going to be above and beyond we have um and that St about that and where is that Grant M coming from um part of that is Perkins part of that is um from uh the current Foundation okay Mr thank you this an interesting proposal um one I want to ask about I know in the current classes in 7th and eth grade students build things then build Locker shell in the build Cs and we kind of acknowledge that that that's a good and interesting thing to do because we have a trade high school so if we move in this direction which I think is a good way to go will we be able to offer some kind of a class where kids can still build those kind of things either a Zer hour after school I mean we maintain the equipment and still offer some kids yes um currently that's the the sixth grade portion is to kind of continue to offer that the building using tools those kind of things um you know part of uh part of the Gateway program too is um as we move forward your your end product and machines that you use to um do some of your projects um may change a bit it might be the big high powered you know machines that we used in the past but nonetheless we still use tools and equipment um to um build and produce so kind of going from the seventh grade looking at um a systematic design process how to take a design process take some ideas um put it into practice and then look at how that affects and looking at automation robotics um so one thing I did not mention is the project leway Gateway curriculum is currently already written it's part of um it's part of the program The Stance and benchmarks are there and are mapped out um it will be AA ailable um in the C office for the next 2 weeks for viewing um for both the seventh and 8th grade um so we'll have that available than when I was much younger as in um 7th and eth grade I could take Spanish and and work conru and shop and S and history but I was in a Jun High School I was not in a middle school so let's put that shot out there right now and um we need to start looking at these things to say is the Paradigm using that keeping options for the kids um in much of the time in my it career some of the best it people I've worked with were music so the idea that somehow participation in music excludes some children from this program seems unwi said do right now but I just need a suggest I put the idea out there if we want more opportunities for more kids the adults should start to unhook themselves from Comfort model I also in favor of this type of programing I think it's very beneficial but I do think this is another indication of need to put the scheduling process we've been talking about secondary schal changes for 3 years very Comm and these sorts of program changes program changes we talked about tonight it has to so I program proposal but I do think it reiterates or reinforces that we need to get right on the schedule Mission because we're going to was actually doing all these things address that I think at one of the future board meetings we can have U Mr chairman and M P who are lead the efforts for to give an update that process is there any commity comments on the rept do i d myself unfortunately you do okay I am Mary Johnson um first of all I think this is great that we are bringing technology to the Middle School um I started a legal leag robotic team um this year at well with M students and there's uh kids started hearing about it and I'm going to try to start two teams next year because there's so much demand from our students that want to do itics they want to do technology and so there is um definitely a need to provide that for our students uh that being said I also um want to Echo Mr Myer's comment about scheduling because my fifth grader is in myo he is Symphony Orchestra and in order to be in that you have to play in your school's Orchestra on your instruments I've already said before ear that I do value foreign language um that being said if my son wants to continue in ISO and he wants to takeen foreign language he is currently doing a robotics team but he will not be able to have access to any these science and technology wonderful programs that we're bringing to our students so um I know that um this isn't the time that that that I appreciate that that's been mentioned and I hope that that is um addressed because when I again like Mr H when I was in and I guess it wasn't junior high school but I took Orchestra I took French head and B every day I was in science and technology I did we did we even did Art did a third year we did Pac Arts industrial Arts all the way through nth grade and I um I guess my son hasn't started middle school yet but I'm very surprised to hear that my son would be able to to have all those things baffled how that fit into my curriculum and it doesn't fit in um inosa so thank you very much what do you the next St back to approval and the meeting in weeks thank you very much to the serves report Mr I would like to compliment you on your choice of time good evening um um at previous board meeting the school board did vote on the guidelines that we'll use M St for determining safe available for students um to enter the to the open enrollment program a new recommendation that come forth from the Department of Public Instruction is that in addition to determining space available in the district that school boards also identify the process that will be used for deter for determining whether or not there is space space in special education programs so when we um start calling students off the waiting list when a family applies for open enrollment they do need to ident ify if the student has an IEP and if we student is um on a waiting list that has an IEP we have the authority to review that IEP and a cherman of space is available or not previous this is new recommendation from the Department of Public Instruction it's not something that they've suggested in the past it's based on the appeal process so if for example I would deny um um an applicant based on the fact that they have an IP we would determine that there's not space available if the family would appeal it to the Department of Public Instruction Department would ask did I have board approved guidelines for the chiming why or not that space exist therefore um we're making a recommendation for determining sa available in our special education programs we're looking at um a special education teacher to uh teacher Cas of 1 to five in our schools and for spe language their is a 1 to 15 for spe langy use those numbers for determining spat I'm sorry did you repeat that for special education teachers we're looking at space available um special education space available in AB builing to establish a case Lo of 1 to 5 for special education teachers and 1 to 15 for speaking L pathologist of science building does that a change from what we currently do as far as case loads or is it we we've never defined through policy through board policy what the case would be for open enrollment applicant are current case holds for special education teachers and Stage Pathologists are high this so this will reduce the number of special education students this essentially would um essentially if there was for example a fourth grade seat open in a building and student had an i there most likely would be space available for that student via open enrollment so it's essentially limiting the amount of space available for open enrollment special vcation students all members have any question is there any comment on this report thank you much I this correct last item is the superintendent's report I believe Mr will reporting on the thank you I attended the delegate assembly 18 resolutions were addressed two resolutions were defeet and one was referred to committee back committee all of the other resolutions passed I believe there he correct my please correct me um the resolutions that were defeated were um number eight which was the um wasby supports allowing local school districts discretion to use up to 50% of their allow of the library Aid and proceeds com School fund to preserve our increase the number of certified school that was defeated um about 47 in favor 52% CL the um to me the really interesting discussion came on the um resolution 11 Was Defeated and that was the resolution to um limit open enrollment to um 3% of Resident District membership I was educated during the session to learn that great many rural districts support open and that resolution was defeated 77.2% opposed 2271 in favor so it was a pretty stunning push back um the I think the not have the delegate assembly is that and I don't know the exact deta but it seems that every school district has one v um excepting maybe Milwaukee and I don't know whether other districts have more votes than than one so it's not a proportionate representation of students in the state it's it's a a vote by District so a district with 180 students who have the same one V so it it's kind of hard to gauge what what the sentiment is by population around State um with my school district definely there was strong support of open enrollment and the um the third resolution that we some pretty intense conversation was number 12 and um that resolution States the wasby supports limiting open enrollment into virtual charter schools there was a motion to change the word supports to opposes and um there was a a question to the parliamentarian whether that was okay and the answer to the Parliamentary was yes could change the word supports to opposes and there was a technical reason for that so the the amendment passed to change the resolution from wasby supports to the wasby proposes limiting into virtual charter schools and then the resolution was referred to committee so it didn't get it up or down vote and my perception wise that there was a little discomfort with reversing the in resolution and therefore maybe I should send it back and I don't know if that was Mrs new what was your take on that I may spontaneously asking for your inut here well because I served on the policy and resolutions committee for this I I understood a little bit beforehand what was going to happen and the school district that proposed this particular resolution had some specific language for doing so and they were unhappy with the resolution that came forward by the committee however when the membership went to vote on it there was there was a lot of support for the opposition part of it so obviously there there needed to be a lot more discussion of how this should be coming forward to the delegate and um and they ref back to policy it was a very to be so and um and also there was a situation where one of the resolutions being one delegate from District SP in favor to resolution and then another delegate from the same district moved to s the resolution back to committee and it it did appear that the the representatives of that particular District somehow weren't on the same page and it it just reminded me that our image that we project we send people out of the district need to be careful because it certainly did look silly and perhaps they had a reason for that but the strategy wasn't apparent so um I'll leave it at that um and so Mrs do you have any other observations I know you have quite an inside perspective CU you were on the resolutions committee um well that that interesting one that you spoke about was um parental Choice resolution 11.3 parental Choice students with disabilities and that was initially meant to be proposed only by Milwaukee um but what ended up happening during the pre delegate meeting is um the board member that proposed that from Milwaukee understanding that the new govern governorship that we have in the state is very open to other parental Choice programs um and and wanted to change that so this is where it gets very interesting with the deleg assembly because then in committee they actually made that change and that was prior to the delegate assembly so the actual motion a resolution was adjusted from what was sent to the board packets based on commentary at the pre delegate meeting then changed in the policy and res committee meeting prior to the larger Deli assembly um and the board member from Milwaukee that wanted to refer it back was not there that evening for thee pre- delegate assembly nor the nor the committee so um it was it was a a very uh interesting read on what can possibly be coming down mon parental Choice programs not just for Milwaukee but it is suspected that other districts will have SS of programs any questions for Mr thank you very much for attending and thank you for I happy to hear that thank you is there any Community comment on that report seeing then there is one other opportunity for public comment on that agenda items is there any public comments on next agenda and at this time a school boardin to Executive session to consider whether notic certain administrators to automatic contact this discussion will include consideration of financial political social profal history of disciplinary data which discuss in public would be likely to have a substantial effort effect on a of any person referred to such history or data the exemption meeting laws containing 19.5 I would note that following this discussion we will recen to open session to take action on the proposal to give members to specified administrators to is there a motion to session Mr CR yes Mr yes Mr yes Mr Mr yes Mrs letter Mrs St yes we meet in the um career session is that correct yep rolling recording it is now 11:07 p.m.

we are back in session calling our executive session uh may I please have a motion the school board authorized Dr to issue notices to specify administrators as discussed in Clos session that the ch9 2011 contract will not be automatically extended thank you Mrs Rand second you will take a roll call vote Mr coner yes Mrs are you abstaining yes Mr Ray yes Mrs R yes Mrs milel yes Mr Meer yes myself yes the motion carries 6 to1 I believe that that concludes our business is there a motion toour Mo take a call Mr carer yes yes mray yes Mr yes yes and Mr yes myself yes we

foreign 's agenda seven second I was in support of this motions this collaboration to write him take this opportunity also to welcome those in attendance uh this year's members of the press members of the central office staff and anyone else that might be here we appreciate you taking the time to uh attend this morning's session I left at this time by Mr Milner to deliver the morning's implication and his Flanagan will follow that with the Pledge of Allegiance thank you again kind of public schools we pray to the Lord that you'll allow us to take the best decision possible concerning our children and I stand in the past bless us to the Lord he shall be blessed send your sons made me pray amen 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 ah this morning recognition started good morning today I have the honor of presenting an award to Rich Acres Elementary School as you may have already heard Chris Acres was selected to receive the 2015 tiger one distinguished School award this recognition is based on student achievement during the 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 school years the School receives this distinguished award for achieving a mean score at the 60th percentile for both English and Mathematics for meeting full accreditation for a minimum of two consecutive years and for meeting or exceeding the federal accountability benchmarks for all students and for each subgroup for the current year and for the previous year and we are very proud to acknowledge and recognize for chakers elementary school today for that achievement we have with us Ms Beth holster principal and Ms Sean of Hilson here to accept award from Dr Duvall and Dr thank you house outstanding achievement for the young people who attend that we did appreciate what you guys a few ladies and guys tonight are we doing out there and urge you to keep it up whatever it is we know it's good thank you um even more I do I also have the pleasure today of acknowledging each of you for an achievements at your speed you have a certificate and some of you also have a pen um through the Virginia school boards Association Academy the vsba offers individualized professional development activities designed for Virginia school board the association recognizes board members for their dedication time and hard work in improving boardmanship skills through vsba meetings conferences board development and training and active involvement in the association the FBA members earn credits for Academy Awards which are based on participation from July 1st to June 30th of each year there are five levels of awards with certificates and pins awarded for particular levels the vsba Academy Awards are presented annually to school board members who meet the requirements and this year within our board we are pleased to say that Mr auger and Dr Stambaugh have earned the certificate of recognition Miss Flanagan and Mr zayer have earned the award of achievement and they get a bronze pin with that award Dr Duvall and Ms Maddox have earned the Award of Excellence and they on the silver pin with their award and Mr Milner and Dr cotton have earned the award of Distinction and with their certificate they on a starfish pin some thank you for the things that you do for our school board and through the association congratulations on your Awards thank you we'll move on to the information you've done at this time Australia you're going to present to us to deliver us yes sir good morning Dr davold and members of the board since they began the warrior Tech Academy at Magna Vista we've had several presentations where we have referenced being members of the new tech Network so today we have Mrs black and Mrs pervera here and they are going to share with us some of the benefits of being a member of the new tech tech Network good morning so we're going to start with our presentation discussing um Warrior Tech Academy and the membership with new tech Network as a new tech Network School the warrior Tech Academy follows three guiding principals teaching that engages technology that enables and a culture that empowers the professional development and support offered by the new tech Network includes 600 hours plus of professional development directors and facilitators have 24-hour access to a wealth of resources tools documents collaborative groups and cohorts along with training modules and quick guides to make professional development relevance convenience and easy to return to again and again at the top we have this is some examples for you to see of some of the professional development that the new tech Network provides one of the things we want to highlight is our school development coach that makes a visit to us and it's raised from seven days to six days a year and also that includes remote coaching that has planning with our team follow-up and one-on-one support Echo is a learning management system through the new tech Network it is designed specifically to support project-based learning as well as problem-based learning to facilitate collaboration and communication and to improve teacher practice Echo is used daily to access courses assignments unit resources project plans a multi-dimensional grade book online groups discussion boards and an extensive library of instructional resources for our teachers Google Apps is for education is integrated into Echo as well the new tech Network schools have immediate access to this communication and Pub to the communication and Publishing tools including Gmail Google Docs and Google sites Echo is built on the new tech Network's deep experience with technology enhanced project-based learning instruction and assessment practices it includes access to hundreds of exemplary projects that can easily be customized and implemented by our facilitators within the network as a result Echo is an integral part and components of the new tech networks professional development programs we provided with you some examples of the tools that we have available for our school-wide project learning and this is specifically for our teaching and learning process we have course agendas project management tools outcome based gradebook student journals and discussion forms some more tools that we have pure feedback tool our Behavior tracker tool tools to reward and encourage our school and network-wide groups along with our community directory some additional school and instructional resources we have available and if you notice with your reading it follows right along with our four C's that we Embrace with the Henry County public school system that includes training materials for our principals teachers and support staff searchable library of standard-based projects developed by teachers in the new tech Network sample rubrics sample school policies and procedures we also have sample parent handbook examples staff handbook examples and digital portfolio guidelines to continue on we also have within our resources some staff Recruitment and training tools student recruitment samples partnership development materials master schedule and calendar samples Cashland a College Planning materials technology infrastructure and support guidelines along with software tutorials here is an example of the echo homepage this is not for our particular Warrior Tech Academy this is we might consider a stock photo but this is a student homepage example the home page is actually customized by the director's view a facilitator's view a parent view and also a student view so this is an example of the student view it features personalized content um if you look to the left you'll see this example student is enrolled in AP Government chemistry and a pre-calculus course so there is easy and immediate access to the Daily agenda along with the current project resources and materials for the particular courses the student is enrolled in if you look towards the right you can see their access to their Google rather Gmail account as well as some network-wide events and information because the students are part of the network as well next is a sample or a stock photo of a facilitator's grade book the facilitator view of course would show all of the students enrolled in a course a student view which showed just for that particular student the parent view would show just for their particular child at the top of the screen you can see the bar graph referencing the school-wide learning outcomes and how the entire class is performing at each outcome and if you look towards the bottom you would see the individual students and how they're performing in in each category this allows students parents facilitators and directors to have immediate 24 7 access to how the teaching and learning is being recorded there in Echo another sample is an example of a discussion group or a club this is an example of a drama club again it's a stock photo but students facilitators directors and network-wide groups can be created students facilitators parents Etc can join groups and then you have what looks like a Facebook wall sort of where you can post links and make comments and reference various things and be sort of together in a digital or virtual community or group so we have examples of that that can happen within schools and also within the entire network so what we'd like to share with you next is a new tech Network production of a welcome to Echo student tour so it's just a short video clip where they have a student taking you through the features of Echo and it's used from a student perspective and Echo is a huge deal at my school I use it all of the time every morning before my first class starts I quickly check out any upcoming events of the school the latest activity in my groups or Singapore this is how we stay connected to everyone else in my school and see what other mutant kids from around the country today at the beginning of class I've jumped into my course start page to see what we're doing that day on the agenda but a lot of days for us to answer a quick Journal question related to what we're studying so I usually take a few minutes to respond before diving into my project task in the project briefcase sometimes we have to read an article or watch a video but usually we're working on specific tasks with our project teams planning research presentations stuff like that communication and teamwork are a big part of what we do with new tech so I'm always emailing or eyeing my team creating docs sites discussing idea groups and even sending kudos to my teammates who know something awesome oh check it out my future discoveries in Kudos too and if I find a website or video but the whole end I quickly share it on the class homepage where others can comment or like it which is cool the end of my project I use Echo to turn in my work and my teacher is really good about granting it and giving me feedback on specific outcomes for each assignment this helps me a lot because I can see how I'm doing in all these different areas it's so much better than getting a single lettergram I even get feedback from my peers on workout time around collaborating on my project teams every once in a while I checked my overall grades so I know how I'm doing across all my classes and see where I need to improve that I need to work on collaboration my parents also log in with their own accounts every couple of weeks to check on my grade see the work I've created it which helps them know how I'm doing without always mad eating so that is Echo it helps me get my work done anywhere anytime and it really prepares me pretty cool huh so there we have an example of a student sort of touring you through Echo um but again membership in the new tech network does include more than just access to Echo so as Mrs black referenced the over 600 hours of professional development in that 24 7 web-based service where you can make that professional development easily accessible convenient and personalized for the adult learner as well so um we are excited to share that in the at the December meetings some Warrior Tech students will be here to share some of their work with you all in the form of public service announcements so we um are excited to send them your way and we thank you so much for the opportunity to share what Warrior Tech Academy and new tech network is um is doing thank you very much you don't have any questions or comments regarding this presentation the last one of the last things you showed us we can see way through students are doing do we have any way of determining how many you're doing that or if they're doing that parents are really checking and using this like the students are yes um I I think PowerSchool might have a similar feature but there's a management feature where you can see um if you know when the most recent login was for a particular parent you can actually see it for the student as well so you would be able to note how many times they've logged in I believe that also would show the extent of you know duration of minutes or or whatnot for how long they were actually in there or if they were not in there come in about a person coming to to school to kind of evaluate or to update or to teach has that been a good process absolutely yes um I think that is one of the greatest benefits of belonging to new tech network is that we have that um coaching service we could say available um because even when she's not on site with us she is just an email or a phone call away in fact twice this week already um I had like kind of like teleconferences with her um once earlier this week with myself and her and our School advocate one of our facilitators serves the role as new tech Network advocate for our schools so the three of us convened earlier this week and then just yesterday she and I conducted what she calls a balcony walk where we take sort of a directors and administrative View and uh you know everything happening within our programming and she offers support like that so it's really a huge benefit that we have that support from the facilitator and the teaching and learning standpoint but also from the administrative standpoint um we had a visit from a group from Florida recently and but I was so impressed by is we were recommended as a site visit for this group from Florida even though we're only in second year of implementation and one of you want to share with the person said about our Pro well they were extremely excited um about the organization of our our Academy as well as to see how articulate our students were and as well as the excitement that they were able to see from our students and I think that was The Shining point for this particular group or as well as any group that visits our Academy is to we allow our students to take lead in this aspect and that's the direction that they would like to take in the following points to make sure that they established their Academy to to do the same things that we also we have this these things in place but we're also able to demonstrate in our students show what they're learning versus just constantly talking about it yeah absolutely that just uh you know because in our mind we're still learning and developing we're only in the second year but but to have the director of new tech recommend Far Side is is a nice complement privilege to meet with with her earlier this week and one of the I guess she visited the program out there she's from Pennsylvania congratulations Steve to you ladies and thank you to all of the people who were involved in that program thank you and I wish that we as before and expanding this to all students of Henry County all those schools in account figure some way to include Ambassador if not figure out some way of include the best of students in it but I think that we should take advantage of it all those coming in and saying well we've got they won't take advantage of it let's make sure of all our hospitals Mr Miller I appreciate you saying that um we we do have a couple students to attend Oregon but um we are meeting with the principal with Mr Kenneth's Ambassador because I have set the expectation that we need to develop an academy program there as well and uh whether it's new tech or not it needs to be it needs to have many of the same principles in place that we've been talking about an I.T Academy for fasted high school and we're still having those discussions and my expectations that we're going to implement something next year of course with board approval and support but we're still working on that and we'll come back to you but but that's one of the challenges that we have we want all of our students that have access to the same opportunities and things continues to be a challenge for us here thank you so much thank you okay if annually you all approve the program of studies is a list of our course descriptions as well as other points and as far as instruction is concerned this is the first reading uh next month we'll bring it back for approval uh the changes in the program studies and the high school program studies are noted in red and they're very minor changes this year actually they're only course description changes in a few areas such as business and information technology there's a government AP government change Sports Medicine there are changes to foreign language descriptions as well as the AET curriculum that's offered at new College the basically the changes are like verbiage and as far as maybe adding rigor to the course from the state department which is basically changed to their version so very minor updates for the high school program of studies if you have any questions and the high school program of studies no but as Dr cotton said you know that's something that we are working on we do have to get the book out you know we were first reading this month the next month will be the final reading and then we'll go to publisher in the month of December so that our students will have it in their hands in January so they can start registration and and typically what we do is we did not put these specifics so hopefully a factor cotton has mentioned back to high school we'll have an academy and that course is not in the program studies but before that would be started we come to you for approval and our students would have that available for them as an option for the fall of 2015.