District 96 Board of Education Committee of the Whole Meeting 04-05-23

001foreign [Music] okay uh tonight is Wednesday April 5th 2023 this is the committee of the whole meeting for district 96. uh Kathy can you follow the rule okay Miss Gunn here miss kleiber here Mr marhold here Mr Moorhead here Miss Murphy here Mr Hunt here in a foreign all right our first item on the agenda is welcome to Blake Park School by principal kasmir Dorman [Laughter] good evening our members thank you for joining us at White um Welcome to our construction site it's very exciting a lot of the students have been asking a lot of questions the last couple days about what's going on and what are the containers therefore and what's all that noise that's happening um so it's been it's been exciting and fun for them but we're just excited to see the

002end result uh in addition to that this is just an exciting time of the year right before spring break we had our one school one book event um we have not been able to do that event in person since 2019. we actually shut down the day after our our one school one book event was scheduled in 2019 uh 2020 so we weren't able to do that this year we read the book wish tree uh it's just a beautiful novel about friendship and tolerance and acceptance and it's told through the voice of an old oak tree and we actually created our own wish tree if you go down to the main entrance and all of the students individual personal wishes are hanging from that tree so it's just a really sweet symbol of it and the

003students see it every day as they enter the school uh throughout April we are looking forward to our spring activities starting so Garden Club just started this week in a couple weeks we're going to start our cardio kids program so the students will start running again it's just we'll be doing a lot of work in the back with our sensory garden and our Prairie garden and that is with the Garden Club that's with all students as well as they all helped attend that those areas of our school so it's just a busy time um and we're just once again happy to see you here and uh joining us and even though that we are in the middle of construction and on that note I am going to hand it back over to you thanks thank

004you great to be here I've been a part of reading the uh the wish tree book too uh you know it's it the kids were a little uncertain at first it kind of started slow but then they kicked in in high gear yeah [Music] it's a great book I got to see the truth I didn't know about that all right uh next that brings us to public comment is there any public comment there is not all right are there any proposed changes to the agenda okay and next are their board member comments I guess I should have saved my talk about the the wish tree for now yeah had everybody spend their spring break any uh any good trips went to Mexico and it took me three days to get home so that's a story

005for another time wow I went to New York and it took me we were supposed to come back Friday night and we didn't get back till Sunday at like midnight so the storms Friday oh wow yeah I guess so I guess so the storm triggered a delay which triggered the pilots being over their time which canceled my flight which delayed me for my connection which just wow if you name it it happened it was like a bad comedy the food was bad too I bet um most of it yeah a bunch of fast food and everything but we made it we're back okay all right well hopefully you were at like a beach or something or yeah so for the first five days it was great all right and then kind of went South from

006there but yeah it was warm it was sunny it was good to kind of be away for a little bit so I was feeling refreshed and then we went through three days of emotions travel can be stressful yeah yeah sorry that uh it was rough yeah it's one to remember all right well Stephanie how about you do you just you enjoy you were able to enjoy your travel delay well yes yeah we became uh basically New Yorkers we moved to Brooklyn for two days thanks to some friends who have airbnbs out there so we just fully embraced life in uh in Bushwick specifically um in Brooklyn but it was it was a really nice age to take the kids you know Statue of Liberty Ellis Island Etc so um they've learned I mean this last

007year in fifth grade my daughter had learned about you know 911 Etc so it was you know it was nice to be able to share that moment with them also and but be able to use it as educational but also you know enjoying ourselves in New York so we'll let you climb up this statue anymore can you yeah you can go up to the crown but it's uh they book out in advance so like they were fully sold out we went in the pedestal but the crown you can go back in it yeah yeah cool so they were really great age for it good can you do like a good like I'm walking here I'm walking here I mean we we clocked I mean we clocked about seven to eight miles a day so the

008kids really kept up we just did the subway I mean you know being from Chicago didn't feel that overwhelming you know it was pretty pretty doable we won a Broadway lottery tickets uh really like every day so awesome the Harry Potter one oh nice um so three out three and a half hours but it was a matinee so it's really nice yep it was a great trip all right cool I hope others got a chance to enjoy and of course our Educators and staff and leaders some much deserved time off absolutely absolutely to inform everybody about yourself we do yes all right so that brings us to committee reports uh first off is facilities um well the big thing that we're talking about or we had a brief meeting last week A lot of it

009was discussing feedback from Planning and Zoning for the next conversation that we're having here and then also in the agendas in the board book and we really didn't discuss too much on the future considerations just because there was a lot of discussion on uh this plan that's in front of us this is the refined plan after um presenting to sorry my my thoughts are entirely disorganized at this very moment dla and WT engineering and the district brought the proposed plan at Central and Hauser in front of planning and zoning ultimately there was a fair amount of public comment uh concerns regarding various elements of the design legitimate you know a lot of it was perception and perspectives on change and um just thoughts on how this design did or did not fit within what people

010expected and or thought would fit Within um kind of how they see Riverside to be but ultimately the fact that we presented in front of Planning and Zoning in January and had a lot of very substantive feedback there and Incorporated that and had had a good conversation with planning and zoning LED them to approve all four of our variances which were items regarding parking fences um I forgot the other two but Ryan will remind me in a moment here trash enclosure honestly the trash enclosure is probably the least important and it is an essential element of planning and zoning but that was not what people were keying in on a major success I think of the presentation and planning and zoning this time around was the all the Landscaping that we'll be installing and noting

011that this is Landscaping that is intended to provide bright colors and an element throughout the various Seasons you can see some pictures of various landscape items in your board book colors that happen spring summer and fall and then in Winter you have other items of visual interest um but this screening and color helped a lot of people believe that this is not just a giant concrete parking lot that will interrupt The View shed um we will shortly so with those variances this lets us move forward with the plan the next discussion in front of us is going to be the natural grass versus the artificial turf we're intending to have that discussion here in the agenda I believe so I I should mention I guess there was a I'm not sure about when exactly you

012wanted to add that discussion have that discussion here dla is here to help answer questions and perhaps provide some better context than I've already provided so there was a proposal before before we got started here of we've definitely talked a lot about this up to date and definitely we can want to continue to hear everybody's thoughts and I don't know about you my opinions have been going back and forth repeatedly but uh that that said wondering if folks can be mindful of our audience and in our time as we're discussing if that makes sense that's really okay with that yes and uh sorry I like I said my thoughts aren't entirely organized well enough but can you see better with that I can I apologize yeah no worries um we need to provide guidance today

013to dla and WT ultimately about what our preference is with regards to a field because that significant that choice impacts the ultimate design that is provided to a contractor so that has both impacts to for obvious reasons what the contractor will be installing as well as some impacts to us the board in terms of what we will spend now for this plan and in the future is maintenance now is the first cost to install um the field ultimately the Planning and Zoning discussion if I didn't say it clearly enough already it went very well Planning and Zoning was that was a unanimous vote and um like I said having dla was there to present and answer questions and lead to a level of comfort of what we were looking at and planning on it's good

014that the vote went well it was definitely a lot of back and forth discussion at that that meeting and my understanding and thanks to you Joel and and Wes you were there as well Wesley was there also to provide some commentary from the board I for to avoid perception of conflict of interest needed to recuse myself from the Planning and Zoning discussion and also I really shouldn't be speaking on from a School perspective at that either well what uh what should we say we definitely had a lot of feedback from the community on this uh even just in the last few days I know there was one item that came up there was a discussion or a proposal without a wall or substituting a wall for the fence that was a substitute for the fence

015around the playground yes so at at the Planning and Zoning in January at least one of the Planning and Zoning members had noted that they really didn't have a lot of input on that because it was that fence is set far enough back into our property that it's not considered part of the street yard and a large part of planning and zoning's concerns or purview is in Riverside the street yard is considered rather sacrosanct which means you don't put things in it without a lot of thought and that's part of the reason we don't have any fences in front yards so typically in your usual residential front yard so that's why this fence around the Playfield had to have a variance because now we're you know we talked about this uh the last meeting that

016was in Hollywood it's it's a safety issue but to help fit within the general atmosphere of the village it's a four foot tall fence and it's wrought iron and it's got a more decorative feel look to it than chain link mm-hmm with I think additional cost for that upgrade as well I forget how much the difference was whatever it is I would want to say 40 000 but basically your ornamental fence will cost somewhere in the area of I'm looking for Ryan only to shake his head yes or no uh say sixty dollars seventy dollars a foot whereas chain link is probably more like thirty dollars a foot and that's foot of length so don't quote me on that because I'm going off memory close enough well so I and I think the the idea

017here is that we're definitely trying to be good neighbors and trying to follow through with the spirit of in uh Riverside and yes that Norm the norm might not be fences but we're trying to make our fences a little bit more visually pleasing than the typical chain link fence yes in this case the fence actually if you look at page six of your board book um the fence is set back 11 feet from the sidewalk along Aiken side sorry which attachment are you referring to um I have the whole thing as a PDF so it's immediately after the letter from Ryan to us talking about schedule it's called the final schematic design site plan okay I think we have a different I think Kathy broke this out front yeah okay it looks like this it's

018what's in front of us oh okay okay and dla is here as well to answer questions Dan so I feel like maybe we should just get on with the conversation that you know pending if that well let's see so we I don't know how much in depth we wanted to get into in regards to that wall proposal and or what was it announced yeah and then the other was the the idea of uh bollards I think was brought up is is that something we're needed those aren't in our plans those are things those are comments that came from community members correct so that's up to the board obviously the Dan and right I'll summarize very briefly and then perhaps point to Ryan give him a little bit more he can give a little bit more

019detail but basically there was an ask or request comment from through the village that perhaps the fence along Aiken side should be even more secure than just a wrought iron fence and by more securements to have some kind of bollards in front of it to prevent um vehicle intrusion and that is a concern borne out of the fact that a vehicle could potentially drive into the field when kids are there so bollards are an option Ryan noted that there's a strength super strengthened fence that's just it's meant to address that same issue but in probably more aesthetic version um can I ask a question can can you talk about the use of bollards in the village now like where do they I'm trying to think of where they exist and what they're like the easiest

020place to imagine where this is is there was an accident many years ago in Robinson Park and a vehicle did intrude into a field and it sorry Harrington Harrington thank you and I misquoted Wesley I'm sorry uh three children were killed and this was about 30 years ago and so in response The Village moved the moved the field from having the backstop closer to the road to more towards the interior and they installed a bunch of wooden eight by eight vertical posts um to possibly address that issue I just don't go there very often okay I guess Robinson court if I'm thinking correctly that's right off of Harlem though yes yeah yeah no I know what you're talking about thank you I just don't go to that park right now I don't think those wood

021things are intended to stop a vehicle though are they I just assumed they were just preventative from people driving onto the field not to actually stop they are intent they used to snap off basically from what and I have never I am not an expert in these they would slow a vehicle down but the wood does not typically it you would need those posts uh we were well certain engineering requires those at like entrances of buildings and stuff like that so the vehicles can't drive through buildings but I don't see any need to discuss it further in my opinion on either one of those I'm not interested in pursuing either one I have my reasons for it and I can go through them but I'm not interested in getting into a big debate about it

022I don't it I don't think that needs to be board level discussion I think we can look at costs and if we really want uh the traffic engineer to give some thoughts on it we could ask dla to ask them about that um yeah I don't I don't see any to discuss it that much either okay the other element you you mentioned Dan was the wall around the uh play area that's the pink on the screen the only thing that intrigued me a little bit was that is it usable play Space obviously you'd have to be supervised yeah but I don't yeah obviously that's what we're going for yeah yeah well maybe maybe I mean if it's an opportunity to give them a different climbing experience maybe but yeah again that's a whole discussion was

023to keep them from going there and if you're encouraging them to climb up no I don't there's a specific kind of climbing you know climbing for exercise type wall one that's meant ones that prevent them from scaling the wall entirely it's meant for recreation you can do short concrete brick things that let kids climb and you know again that's more of a design detail I don't know if that's board level yeah I was the only thing that I was like oh well that could be cool it could be and it doesn't need to be decided right now there's there's times so we'll swap that out in a set of plans okay the real discussion for purposes of scheduling so that dla can continue to advance the plans so that we can go to bed is

024having Direction on what the field needs to be are we starting that conversation now yep sounds that way I believe we should yeah great does anybody want to start I'm happy to start go for it yeah um this is a topic that I have wavered a lot over the last I feel like we've been talking about this for years now uh years and I've ended up at a a position where I didn't think I was going to end up so I'm a little you know shocked at my own uh where I'm at um I clearly you know I my family is a sporting family we have played on Turf for years I'm not opposed to Turf in any way I think that the RB field is a great value a great asset to our community

025that is used all the time um so originally I thought I was going to be really uh leaning towards Turf and uh after thinking about it a lot I really think I'm leaning towards the natural grass route um I think the field we have back there right now is just there's nothing we've done nothing to it so for me I think the first step and I know it's hard to say we're going to spend money and then reassess in 10 years but I think that's the step we should go in um I think we should you know invest in a a very usable natural surface I understand that the usability percentage is going to go down because of that um but I do think for me it's that that feels like the right direction for

026me in our town I think this is a project that I mean I've been on the board for eight years we've been talking about doing something in the back of central prior to my tenure I'm concerned that if we do go a Turf route we're going to stall this process um possibly so that's another nagging thing in my head so for me I really want to get this project done I really think that we need to live within um you know the culture and climate of our community I'm not opposed to Turf I would be willing if I if I were on the board in 10 years I'd be willing to have that conversation I will not be but um yeah so I just wanted to start out I'm I'm leaning toward from for for

027me I think the direction I would like to go is natural grass anybody else want to chime in so you mentioned in terms that might stall the process I'm a little concerned that um if we try to go the turf route um I think there'll be some pushback from community members possibly or or I don't know how that Village process works I think there could be pushback from the village in a way and I just right now I just want to get this project done because I think it is a huge value add what we have planned here um like I said I've been on the board since my youngest was in third grade he is now a junior in high school and I really want the kids that go to Central and Hauser to

028have an outdoor play space that is that is useful and um I'm I just am worried about forestalling that any any any longer I want this to get done and I think a a really well-designed natural grass surface is going to achieve that I think there's always we know how this works there's always iterations if we do this and in 10 years it's like you know what we're just not being able to use this as much as we wanted then we can have that discussion later I know speaking from like a you know resource resource perspective you don't really want to do that but I I just that's where I'm at anyway that's how that's where my gut is lying um two years ago I would have said I would vote of her Turf immediately

029so I'm a little shocked at myself but I um I feel pretty comfortable with with that that's my feeling on the direction but we'd love to hear other people's well Linda to your point Yes actually the discussion on the field surface and its effect on pervious and impervious areas could have an impact because this plan still has to go in front of Planning and Zoning for their site review so the variations are approved but they will still have a discussion with us sorry they being Planning and Zoning we'll have a discussion with us on surface treatments and how we're addressing water and certainly if you look at some of those drawings that were provided the there's a significant there is a significantly greater need for pervious pavers in the parking lot if we use the

030artificial turf that area of approximately doubles so and one thing that speaking from experience on Planning and Zoning is that dealing with water and impervious areas and making sure we've got the right absorption is it's a goal of the village to reduce the amount of runoff in the world so I'm happy to chime in um Linda I felt very similar to you at yes I think we have all given it a lot more thought than I probably that I would ever be thinking about Turf versus uh natural grass in my life and a lot of research and and listening in on on some of the meetings happening at the at the Village level with Planning and Zoning but obviously like the number one priority is really the usability and of course either option is going

031to give us like 90 more usability probably than we're getting now and yes I know that Turf would ultimately give us 100 usability but I'm willing to concede the you know what what I understand the difference to be maybe I don't know 15 10 difference or so between natural grass it's not enough for me to offset to say Turf because I think it's still almost equally as usable to go with natural grass I know that there's there's a maintenance cost but even just based on some of our various 10-year like fiscal projections I think it's a it's an annual maintenance cost that we're able to to sustain obviously there's a higher cost up front with Turf and then you still need the replacement of it so I think over the life of turf it winds

032up being more expensive than the natural grass despite the the maintenance and I really did appreciate I think the um Joel thank you also for facilitating a lot of this the site visits really helped me better understand like the true nature and the usability and what what the true needs for us are right these aren't like high impact Fields High School level Collegiate level like athletes out there so I felt really comfortable with what it's being used for and seeing examples in our nearby surrounding communities that have been successful with well-drained natural grass and then I think I really appreciated you know I'm not a Riverside resident I reside in Brookfield obviously I have children that go to schools in Riverside but I really appreciated hearing from the community and understanding more about you know

033some of the the reasons for this so for for all of that I'm comfortable going with with natural grass I don't feel all you know immensely strongly about it the way I have other topics that this board has discussed but I'm I'm comfortable giving the direction of natural grass so can I go are we going down the line jump in I didn't know if we had a procedure okay um so I really did also appreciate um the information especially from like both The Architects and and Joel and everyone that provided those site visit and I you know having locations near an in proximity to us that actually function well with natural grass was kind of a hopeful moment for me and I've always supported the use of natural gas I think it's not gas grass

034sorry I have a I have a cold natural gas um natural grass yeah but um after looking at the plants and really looking at how much space we have to use I think using something that's natural that matches the C4 initiative that we've recently become partners with with the village is a teaching opportunity for our children I'm sure I mentioned this last time it's it's an opportunity to show leadership in a way that we use natural materials in a new way to kind of maintain our sustainability our resources the way that we divert water the way that we grow fireflies all those little things that you wouldn't get with a Turf surface and I do really appreciate though The Architects all the work that they did um and um so that's where I am yeah

035Joel you have an opinion at this table would you like to say it uh I think I was fairly clear in what I said last time around but I the advantage of turf is that you can use it all the time that's a clear Advantage it does cost another half a million more plus um but much like Stephanie I think that the um sacrifice of some amount of playing time on a natural grass field is worthwhile and valuable and I think that with good design which art design crew knows how to do this can be a high quality field that the kids can use a lot and I think also Linda said it does fit within the village in the forest or whatever the current uh Latin phrases for Riverside um and there's an article

036in the paper today about Nomo May and so more natural things are considered good and I I accept the sacrifice of some playing time for what I think he has a greater good in more natural out there now lawn grass isn't all that natural but I think it's better than plastic plastic carpet yeah [Music] I will ditto everything I will not repeat it the only thing I'll add is I also if you had just told me when we first started it I was like we're gonna have to go Turf we can talk about all we want but there's no other options I think the thing that sold me was the site visits that you guys did honestly in particular at River Forest and kind of talking about the usability there compared to the you trying

037to match that to the usability that we're going to have and I feel like if that seems to stand up it should stand up for us as well and then in addition to that I mean first and foremost it was usability that was my concern I'm I feel convinced that natural grass is going to be usable enough like you guys all said and looking at the cost component of it I was actually expecting the cost difference to be much greater between the turf and the grass but even so just looking you know just some high level looking at it if you compare the turf versus the grass there's about a eight hundred thousand dollar difference there if you divide that by the fifty thousand dollar grass maintenance that's 16 years of maintenance so we're basically

038equal so the thing that I really came down to there was what has been stated by the last three people is what community are we in and the the main the absolute main reason I moved to this Village is because of the schools and the second reason I moved here is because of the whole village in the forest concept and the uniqueness of this town and the vegetation and the trees and the age and the different architecture of the buildings and all that kind of stuff so with the feedback we've gotten from the community and feeling pretty convinced that other places have done really good engineered drainage and stuff like that I think this is the right way to go so I'm I'm on grass now I've gone back and forth like four times so

039I'm on I'm on grass [Laughter] down [Laughter] I'm boring him oh my God I did not have an opportunity to talk to David today we we missed chances I'm I think he's a little less thank you so I don't know if you he he shared with me um very similar very similar situation his number one concern is usability however he I think as Stephanie stated kind of is willing to sacrifice a little usability if we go the grass route I think the natural grass route um uh I don't want to speak for him I think just like all of us he was was speaking both in the conversation with him he was speaking on both sides could support both sides but he said that it was there was no no reason to uh bring up

040his position unless it seemed like there was a contest you know that we were split so he said to you know he he support he would support you know he supports the national grass I think he could be convinced of the turf I think but you know yeah I think how we all feel essentially so I wish I could have uh been on the visit to River Forest it definitely was very impressed with the fields at Schaumburg but in an agreement that we're not as high use the situation is there uh that said it hasn't been mentioned so far tonight I think I think I'm okay to mention this though we did receive a an email from PE staff which definitely outlines some concerns and outlined some benefits on the turf side I definitely think

041that that's something we should should bring up and acknowledge and and um I I hear what folks are saying and yes the village in the forest I didn't know there was a Latin phrase for it I'm sure we could any Latin experts here because like that I don't remember Dan so yeah it um I definitely understand that appeal um I was also surprised in the estimates coming out a lot closer than to a final total and then yeah with annual maintenance maintenance essentially being a wash uh I I am a little concerned that I guess we know right now the fields are in bad shape the maintenance is essentially not much if any uh so we're hoping that when we have a properly drained and graded field that will be in a better place for

042that I am concerned uh for the future I guess if we're 10 years down the road uh that if we have an unusable field again I I I would I would feel pretty bad about my role in uh approving something like that that um where the village where we spend a lot of money and and got little for it I guess I I do have some concerns on that um but again it sounds like there's a consensus in general amongst the board for grass versus uh versus versus Turf is that basically what I'm hearing I believe so yes yeah it's been 10 years 10 years I'll have to replace the plastic anyway absolutely absolutely yeah it's a conversation that can happen in the future but either either way they're they're making some replacement issues and

043yet you cannot just let grass it has to be done properly that's why I really did appreciate the information about the other the other locations that it can be done well leaves me to be hopeful at least but to your point though um the that's what I was trying to look at earlier today actually so maybe some validation from you guys the if I'm looking at the line items on the estimates it'd be these it would be the cool play with olive Court infill which is six and a half units for 200 roughly 250 000 grass installation and from scratch grass topsoil would be a hundred twelve thousand roughly we do need to install an irrigation system which is another 120. so those those things are kind of a wash but the everything else in

044this proposal applies to both from what I can tell I mean the drainage the all the stuff that goes into the drainage the back stops the maintenance like all that stuff looks equal to me so I think it I might have I don't know if I talked to you guys offline after the PCC meeting or if it was at our last board meeting but if in five years or something like that we need to Pivot would it be as simple as saying we just carve all that dirt and grass out of there and we lay a 250 000 piece of plastic on top of it or is it a little bit more than that or extensively more than that so we'd have to go back and like tear up the parking lot and everything yeah

045okay good all right future a little more excavation that you do for a synthetic field versus the grass but you're right everything else somewhere else to make up the difference in the drainage is that correct essentially okay because of the village requirements for an MDR yeah well on some of what how those regulations change in the future so I don't think though that there's the cost estimates that we saw I don't think that would include the difference in permeable papers does it it no oh well I wasn't including that because we wouldn't install them with grass right I didn't think about that we would have to install them if need yeah so there would be an added cost that is a bit of a savings I guess assuming we are the additional paver well it's

046in the total cost play which is 39 5 and then for grass here at 19440. so it's less impressive the the grad the grass option costs the prop approximately five hundred thousand dollars less of permeable pavers yeah that's what I calculated is roughly uh so that's where a lot of the cost difference comes from so let's just say theoretically it would cost us a million to a million to to move in a different direction who knows what an inflation will be it wouldn't surprise me if it was a million to if this did not work out in 10 years or five years or what whatever that board is deciding at the time that to dig it up and replace it with the plastic rug that you talked about plus another half million dollars in Pavers

047yeah probably is a million or a million too and then plus inflation when you say the excavation is different so do we need to take all the stuff out of the ground re-excavate put it back in okay it sort of has a deeper excavation than a natural grass field so you'd be a sense of Excavating out of all the natural grass field along with the drainage instructions okay so even though the drainage appears to be the same on the line item it is different in how it's actually it is different analysis installed yeah okay so it's not as easy as just taking off the grass and rolling out the plastic but it's do it is doable but there will be a very fairly significant cost to it decided to go yeah I'm still good with

048natural grass but I just that's it's a good point Dean it's a potential future cost that we would potentially be putting that burden on because I probably won't be on this board in 10 years either so say your answers 10 years some other people who are let's see if I have any more kids but I mean it everything everything is is risk versus value and I've seen schools that had to rip up their entire Turf because it was installed improperly because of some some issue that they had nothing is nothing is guaranteed no but I think we have an opportunity to use something that's natural and actually breathes and grows things and gives our children at least some type of kind of Riverside appropriate venue that makes sense yeah it works yeah any more to

049be said you got your direction is there anything that you gentlemen want to add with regards to some of the other changes that we made or anything I'm good I just wanted to add a comment uh to Joel thank you for navigating this process um yeah being a member of the planning and zoning committee and the school board had to be a you know a tricky line to draw and uh I I you did it with such um professionalism so I just wanted to say thank you thank you for that yeah yeah especially the way you have to wear it kind of two hats yes yeah and you did a hat sometimes at the other meeting so I appreciate that yeah and one of the things I said at PCC was this is by far

050our most challenging piece of the prod of like the bigger school thing that we had like this has just been insane so thank you for navigating it and bringing us along with you so that we didn't have to do all this intense work yeah and yes and things to do I will have to say being a partner in person like like I'm finishing up and I will have to say having been here for my eight years seeing all these projects kind of counter completion is very very exciting I don't know about Linda I'm going to speak for you but this is the one that I want this was my biggest this was the thing you know I I had students at Central and go to the others but I was so excited to see them

051happen and um and my kid may or may not use this one and that's okay too but it's very exciting so to see to see what's been accomplished that's the campus that my family is only going to in District 96 and uh it was something when I moved into town I thought was lacking greatly and I'm so excited to see this moving along like like yeah my children are not going to be recipients I'm excited for the community I think it's just going to be a really great addition to the community outside of the school as well so yeah Traders at Central yesterday did promise them that they would have a playground after their second grade here but I really hope that this is going to happen it'll be nice that this new generation will

052not have the stories of whose car they hit in kickball and who ran you know like that'll be a good thing no she's exactly right you know like my both my children they had pavement their entire their entire experience and it's you know it's it's something you're Outdoors but it's not nearly the same so it's exciting we're living in this district and paying the taxes that we do we that we've had we have some I I I hesitate to insert the word great old buildings but they were old buildings we're getting them to a place of being great and and it takes a lot of investment and uh and I definitely am appreciative of the work the Administration has put in on getting this done as well as as dla uh I think we've made

053some great changes over the years to a lot of schools would be good to see this continue at Central as well as we talk in the midst of a construction project here yeah so just um understand next steps either from facilities committee or from dla so now that you have Direction here what what happens next what happens April 6th um I know the zoning and planes that's a recommendation to the Village so if you could just kind of walk me through what next steps or no uh I for the I'll how about I do the village part and then you I'll do the village process part and then you'll do the design part um basically as you just noted planning and we talked about before Planning and Zoning approve the floor zoning variations so those

054very the Planning and Zoning is a recommending body only in the village that all everything ultimately goes to the village board for approval and so there is a village board meeting of trustees meeting tomorrow that will vote on these recommendations typically when Planning and Zoning is unanimous that's a good omen for village board so and any of you should come and attend and voice your support at the public comment those meetings work similarly to here um and then as as Ryan notes in his letter there's a site plan review meeting in the end of this month and that addresses things that are not variations that it but that is approval for the general site layout so there will be a substantial discussion on what we are providing for impervious area and storm water storage because

055as I noted before that's been a significant uh emphasis on the planning side of the village just because too much water too much water in too quick a time is a bad thing is the really short version um and then I think I'll turn it over to Ryan for some of the design schedule items and when we'll be able to go to bid en plans process it's directly then tandem with construction documents we'll see those being ready in Fall of this year at the end of the year or in January 24 and then started construction into March as soon as we agency does that answer your question you think further for facilities I do not thank you all for your comments and compliment Linda definitely thank you Joel I had a time limit internally of

0568 PM for this conversation and so we are 10 minutes at 8pm I was going to say all right it's my role on the board I got four more weeks to do it so that said the time at this by nine minutes is that nope nope let's move all right so there really is another meeting tomorrow night on our behalf yeah I'm sure they have things to do all right thank you so much yeah thank you thank you thanks all right well then I guess that moves us to the education committee okay let's invite Angela Angela yeah we're gonna pass stanza because there are several goals obviously about living the plan whether it's achievement or culture or climate or all these things so we're gonna let Angela go through this like um I'm gonna kick

057off our update on the Strategic plan with the goal one areas and then pass it along to all of my wonderful colleagues so I'm going to start with full day kindergarten under goal one goal one being about um rigorous learning for all students full day kindergarten was one of the strategies under gold wine and so we are in our first year full day kindergarten uh 97 of our kindergarten students are full day kindergarten students so three percent are attending at a half day um time frame we've noticed the prominent benefits of the gift of time which I've talked about many times here at the board table which have shown us that extra time having full day versus half day the extra time has provided us with opportunities to see growth in writing much quicker than

058we were seeing it in a half day program and just the more opportunities for students to demonstrate success in all academic areas and social emotional areas as well um the key performance indicator originally with the Strategic plan was originally going to be looking at kids data three times a year and as we know I've talked at the portable before about how that was actually not the best key performance indicator for full day kindergarten and that I was going to switch it to fast Bridge which is an assessment we've been using in our district for um for about five years now and so I've been working on determining the goal that we would use with fast bridge and I've been working with Don White who's been working with us on our data pieces of the Strategic

059plan working with him to set realistic goals using fast bridge and what we notice with our data for fast bridge is that we have from the 1920 year which was the first year of using fast Bridge we um do not have spring data so we can't use that year of data from the 2021 year that was our hybrid year of instruction so that data is inconsistent we didn't have all students in attendance some were um attending school at home we had switches from the students who are learning at home remotely versus students who are learning in person some students had moved between the two programs so that data Don and I discussed is not really valid data to use when we're talking about Trends and growth so the first year of data we'd be able

060to use is last year's data which is one full year of data before our full day kindergarten program and then we'll have this year's data as well but before setting a goal done suggestions that we wait for three years because that shows a trend so there actually won't be a goal for this key performance indicator until spring of next year because we'll wait until we have next year's data also to show trends that's full day kindergarten and I'm just going to interject all of our goals gold because we had done this living the plan Workshop which I know the board is aware of and we were all challenged to create elevator speeches are very short succinct overview updates on progress toward our goals that we would share with the community at large we would share

061with a colleague and obviously want to share them with all of you thank you I shouldn't say that in the beginning thank you standard space grading and Reporting is the second goal under goal one we are on track for currently on track for a 25-26 implementation but that's a flexible schedule we continue to educate our committee our committee continues to educate itself as well as this year we are working on educating our staff too on why standards-based grading is uh useful and preferred and also uh how standards-based grading should work and so we continue to educate the staff this year on that part of the education for the committee is also Consulting with other districts we're actually meeting with District 95 next week to talk with Ryan Evans who's currently the principal of Essie gross

062and will be moving into the superintendent position of District 95. um he led he helped lead the charge for standards-based reporting in District 95 so we're meeting with him and Mike counterpart in District 95 Kathy Cannon to discuss their path towards standards-based reporting which will help continue to educate us on our path can I ask so can you elaborate a little bit more on what you mean by standard based reporting absolutely so all of when we're teaching we're teaching to the Common Core State Standards and um everything we do should be aligned to the Common Core State Standards in mathematics and reading Next Generation science standards for Science and then the state's actually working on C3 standards for social studies and then all of our Encore areas also have standards from the state as well

063that they were that they teach to so right now when students receive marks on for report cards or marks on their papers or assignments or assessments it is more number based you got three out of four correct or you got 15 out of 17 correct um for fourth and fifth graders those numbers then turn into grades for certain subject areas reading math and no math science and social studies and then for junior high they get grades in all areas based off of those number assessments standards based what standards-based reporting does is it tells you more than just you've got 15 out of 17 right it says Angela knew this standard on multiplying fractions and meets the grade level requirement for multiplying fractions or exceeds the grade level requirement for multiplying fractions or is approaching it

064or not yet meeting it so it looks at the actual content a student is learning and talks more about where they're at with their learning on that standard versus on this math test I got 95 percent does that well so for for the older kids I mean are we saying are we still retaining letter grades or so that's what our committee is working on right now and that's going to be part of our conversation with uh Ryan Evans and Kathy cannon that will be that's conversations we're having with other districts as well some districts will do standards-based reporting and Grading for just their Elementary grades some districts do do it k through eight some districts do k-7 so there's different ways we can handle it different ways we can do it and the committee hasn't

065come up with a decision yet that's part of our education process and then once we have that then we'll start to communicate that with parents as well like I said I know it's not the same and and we're talking different districts I'm just I'm thinking back to the uh well I guess it's Lions Township The Experience there on how they had made some changes to their grading and more prominently their homework assignments and wondering how what our plan or what we're talking about here how that would really so we're still in a lot of planning and information gathering stages before I can give you answers to like what our plan is on that we don't have a plan yet because we're still gathering information because we want to do what's best for Riverside District 96.

066what we have learned not just from Lions but from other districts as well and Ryan Evans is going to talk to us a little bit about this too are some of the pitfalls districts have fallen into and how can we avoid that one of the things that's going to be very important is communication and communicating with our families and our parents so that they have a full understanding of what this looks like and what this means and how students are impacted by it to do that we have to has to we have to make sure our teachers have a full understanding first so that when parents come to them the teachers are able to answer questions and so then to do that we have to help educate them but make sure we're educated as a

067committee first so that's why we're not looking at implementation until 25 26 because there's still a lot of work to do and that's also why I say it's a flexible plan because we may need to put it out past 25 26 depending on how our process is going and how the educating of all stakeholders is going right I definitely appreciate what's what you're saying in terms of taking time taking evaluating what's best for our district uh in emphasizing communication I I personally would feel a little better if we were saying we weren't going to do away with letter grades for the older kids I can't say that yet though without us talking to the other districts and really working towards what's best for district 96. and If part of it's about educating families which I

068think is where some districts have haven't may not have done that full their full due diligence there we might be we might be able to go to scanners-based reporting for our older kids where parents to understand how that relates to their students learning we might not um you know there are different voices on our committee our committee has representation from all schools and all grade levels Kim Heffner is one of the co-leaders of the action team and Katie Casa who is the student coordinator at Hauser is the other co-leader Todd gearman myself and Chris harvalis are the administrators on the team so there's a lot of voices in this and we're going to listen to all those voices and we're going to also talk to the other districts and we're going to like I said

069we're going to do what we think is best for district 96 students and families and I will keep you guys abreast along the whole way but right now I don't want to say we are definitely not going to do grades for older kids because we are still in the information gathering stage yeah and I'm sorry I won't be here when you make this choice but I will say having taught at a secondary education institution there should be talk about transition if you do if you do decide to go with standards and if I was a parent my recommendation would be not to make it 5 million pages of standards that they will not be able to to navigate and I know you we've had that discussion education committee something that's doable it It's Tricky when

070I first started Teaching Standards just became more defined and so it is important that we know that that child knows measurement versus how to graph and how to analyze things and those are important so the standards issue is is really It's Tricky it's very very useful but as Dan is saying I totally understand it has to be something that people understand and how do they transition to their high school if they're currently using letter grades so no matter what you guys decide now you're still learning there should be a transition moment from that eighth grade and Sherry we have talked about this at the education yeah maybe planning meetings so you're absolutely right and you know that well site for the whole board I am fully in agreement that there does need to be a

071transition um I have personal experienced a child who went from standards-based reporting in elementary school to grades in junior high and she had no clue that a d is not a great thing because she was so used to the standards way of looking at things and so it wasn't a geofs were bad but wasn't enough so she was fine so there was a lot of conversation at our house about her transition so yes whether we do just Elementary standards and then go to grades at the junior high we're gonna need a transition from elementary junior high whether we do standards k through eight we're in need a transition from the junior high to what high school grades look like no matter where we how we go with standards-based reporting there has to be a transition

072plan so that students and families understand the change right and I appreciate that you're looking at all those things like I know I went to graduate school we had talks 20 years ago about what does assessment mean what does learning mean how do we know they learned it and these are still happening today and so the standards are helpful but it's still an ongoing mm-hmm it's just tricky is there not a discussion at the high school level to contemplate this type of a change because I feel like this is popping up everywhere it is I don't know I can't speak to where RV is I don't think they're talking about standard space reporting um I know Lions did do it most high schools a lot of high schools don't look to standards-based grading and Reporting

073because of the transition then to college and how that translates to college applications and gpas and all of that right now with colleges changing how they're doing applications I don't know if that will change things for high schools or not but a lot of high schools don't look at standards based reporting they still stick with a lot of letter grades I will as we get further in the process I will talk with RB throughout this process to see where they're at with things and just keep an ear to the ground but right now I haven't heard them talking about this kind of thing there's one who's participated in a lot of uh or helped out with uh with college applications I would think recently it's been more of an emphasis on GPA and grade point

074average and less emphasis on testing on standardized testing like SAT and ACT now that was somewhat for the pandemic and I've heard that some schools are switching back after I think they're going next year but for this year definitely I know my daughter uh put a big emphasis on GPA as opposed to SATs okay that's good to know yeah it's also think continuing the conversation with always having like I know you partner with people and this curriculum that I forget her name now the curriculum person at RB but all those all what whatever we feed into all those other high schools they just keep that partnership because then you'll have that growing kind of relationship and I know you already do that so I appreciate that yeah okay Angela and I might have misquoted you

075here but you said something about better understanding of how the kids are impacted is the thought that and it does this get back to the idea of we're teaching to the tests so the kids are only learning the test thing not that we're doing that but that's you know an idea out there or when we talk about standards based that we're focusing on only those standards that are in the Illinois State Standards to the detriment of something else am I totally off well I won't say you're totally off yeah kind of you can say kind of though what it it so it's not teaching to tests it is refining and focusing our instruction so I think about our previous math curriculum math and focus there were things being taught that were not developmentally appropriate at

076certain grade levels we found that fourth grade especially that there were Concepts that were fifth and sixth grade mathematical Concepts being taught in math and focus but the kids weren't developmentally ready for that and didn't have some of the prior prerequisite knowledge so by looking at by by ensuring we're teaching the standards at each grade level then we are ensuring we're looking at vertical alignment so that students have the prerequisite knowledge they need so that they're able to build on that knowledge whether it's in mathematics English language arts science or social studies they're able to continue to build on that knowledge as they grow so it's focusing instruction not really teaching to tests so that we are focused and deliberate about what we're teaching and we're able to communicate not just the exact thing we're

077teaching but how students are mastering what we're teaching so it's not just you got 95 right on this math test that covers six different concepts it's you've mastered these three specific standards that were assessed on this assessment we are aligning our assessments to standards we're making sure that what we teach is what we're assessing so if I'm going to teach three specific standards in mathematics that's what the assessment is going to cover it's not going to throw extra things in that I didn't teach so right now what we're actually doing this year is we're working on ensuring our classroom assessments are aligned to standards our common assessments are aligned to the standards so that we know this is what we're going to assess our students on so we need to make sure we're giving them

078the opportunity to succeed by teaching the standards that we're planning to assess on thank you that's that helps a lot in my understanding okay thank you and I will say something about access skills you know how in order to do harder math you have to have certain capabilities like you have to be able to move variables and things like that so if we're able to pin down whether a child learned that access skills they're able to identify a variable and be able to transition that then we at least know that they'll be ready to transition to eighth grade or house or whenever they're going to do those things so part of that is really really important and same thing with reading if they know that they have those pieces of early reading strategies then they'll

079be able to do the critical analysis so we ask them later when they analyze the story so it's it's yeah it's an interesting challenge I think it'll be really interesting to see what you guys do I always think about it like if my son took a math test and he gets an 85 his mind he's like yeah I got 85 I'm good well if every question you got wrong is about one concept you are going to continually have trouble exactly and as a parent there have been many times even with him in high school like go get your test and figure this out and so it's like that I think would be very helpful as a parent to know like this is what you're struggling you know like like you're struggling here because of this

080that's the whole that's sort of the impetus behinding is that kids then can become conversant in the piece that they don't understand as opposed to I got 85. no you're really struggling with this little it's good but like there's there's something you do but if you don't get this you're going to struggle in the next section yeah and it's going to steamroll yeah any other standard space questions did you think that was going to be a topic like a Hot Topic I didn't [Laughter] mean so that's okay um so we talked a little bit about some of the other things we've been working on right there common assessments and making sure assessments are aligned to our grade level standards that they're not including standards from a grade level or two above or a grade level

081or two below um we are as we move forward we are going to continue to work to align our our assessments uh currently Elementary is working on mathematics uh we did not start with English language arts because we knew that was going into a review so knowing that the assessment pieces might change if we utilize a new curricular resource we wanted to work with what we know is solid which is i-Ready mathematics right now and then the junior high teachers are all working within their core or Encore subjects to ensure alignment of Assessments but then they're also putting together unit plans with those assessments that talk about what's the concept being taught in that unit what's the pre-assessment to see the prior knowledge students have before the lesson is taught or the unit is taught

082what are the assessments that will be given um the formative assessments that will be given throughout the unit and then that unit plan also includes that summative assessment that will show growth from the pre-assessment to the summative as well as show how the formative assessments inform their instruction to the end so that's what our junior high is working on right now um and then we will next year continue that standards work but we also and we'll continue to educate the committee and the staff but then we'll also towards Spring start to educate families on exactly the conversation we're having at this table the purpose of Standards what are standards why standards all of those pieces and then 24 25 again flexible plan but right now 24.25 we're slated to continue education of all stakeholders and

083um exploring and finalizing the reporting tool we'll be using because as Sherry mentioned like you we don't want to have 50 standards that we're trying to teach and 50 standards we're trying to report and I don't want to read that in a package exactly so so we'll be working on that as well over the course of these next couple of years the third goal under goal one is equity and opportunities which is actually a goal that we've talked about is spread out throughout all five goals in the Strategic plan uh but it does rest in goal one and so one of the things that we're beginning to do as we continue to work on equity and opportunity is that our administrative team is going to participate in equity and anti-bias professional learning series that series

084will be with Dr Yvette dubiel we'll have five two-hour sessions over the course of September through January and it's really a chance for us as a leadership team to level set and make sure we have a common understanding before we go on to work on like goal two has culturally responsive pedagogy so before we go on to work on professional learning under Equity opportunities culturally responsive pedagogy all those pieces we want to make sure our leadership team is on the same page with our understandings and that's what this professional learning series is going to begin to do put us on the same page so we were actually talking about it today at our leadership team meeting and all the building principals we're very excited about that felt that it is a need for us to

085make sure we're on the same page before we start working with staff members on certain pieces um and then a science quick science curriculum update and This falls under goal one because of goal one being about student growth and achievement and high level of learning for all students it took some time to secure the materials for our pilot I know that I plan to Pilot this spring and we'd make a decision and adopt a new curriculum if or we'd adopt a new curriculum it took some time to secure the materials for the pilot so rather than Rush a pilot within a two-month process we are going to Pilot the first series in September and October pilot the second series in October November or I'm sorry in November December and January and then we'll work as

086a committee to rate the resources the piloting team will rate the resources as well as we'll get student ratings from our older students and then we'll make a determination in February on which resource that would be and we'll bring that recommendation to the board that's it for goal one any other questions for me I would be curious to hear how your anti-bias stuff goes because I've been we started a journey in our organ is very you know 40 000 people going through and it started very very basic and it's gotten a lot more um more intense I don't know it's probably not the right word but personally I find this stuff fascinating because it's all about the human brain and just like being aware of what you're not aware of is is absolutely fascinating and

087I love this stuff some of it's really bad but most of it is really good so I'm curious to see what what the staff thinks about it because it it's very interesting it's a very interesting concept and I think just being more self-aware gets you thinking differently and with the different you know that your classroom is made up of so many different students it does feel like a really good fit for them just have a little bit of that awareness and it's not about any one person or how you think or how you behave it's more of just that Collective knowledge and and how humans think and how your own brain works and stuff like that so I personally enjoy this stuff and most of it's been pretty good in helping you kind of just

088be better people so to speak so I'm curious to hear how this rolls out when you actually have the training I appreciate those thoughts because they're right on their spot on and so that self-reflection and looking at how each of us view things um within ourselves and just within our circles and then within our professional circles as well I'm also excited for this work and just to see where we go with this as a leadership team and as a district yeah and the woman that we're planning to work with is the same consultant that's been working with Riverside Brookfield High School who has worked with South Berwyn where we're sort of closely you know I know that leadership to you we know that leadership team well they've they've spoken very highly and positively um but

089just in this in this area we know a number of school districts that have worked with the same person so it seems like a good fit yeah I was going to ask a question how did you find the right provider to because this is obviously starting to delve into some hot button topics that I'm slightly concerned about but it's how do you find the right the right consultant or provider to give you and the whole point is an unvarnished look at things but how do you find one who's coming at it very truthfully and not not flavor of the month versus really we're trying to growth and I've been talking about this for a while um and just in our own circles Martha with the other superintends myself with my camera Parts have been ear

090to the ground listening to how other people have been how other districts have been working through this and handling it and we ended up coming together and both had had this particular name Dr dubiel's name in mind and when I had mentioned it from work I'm doing with the cohort I'm involved in through Isa um I heard of Dr bego through that and she had talked about some of the districts she was working with and when I brought the name up with Martha she said oh I've heard this person also and these are districts I've heard and so um Martha had reached out to those superintendents I talked to my counterparts and um in those conversations realize that this is probably the best person to move forward with and we had a couple of other

091names but felt that especially given that we feed into RB and they're using her and they've developed an action plan that they've published on their website and that they're moving forward with and you can see the progress we knew that this was probably the right person because she's already engulfed in our community organizations who worked with some extensive work with Lancey which is which is Angela described it well sort of a coming together of yeah RB has a yeah it's pretty well laid out about the topics they looked at yeah yeah all right thank you thank you okay we're still under education for um for an action team that is dedicated to social emotional learning there are a bunch of rule followers on our um our action team so when they were told we're going

092to create one slide that's what they created um don't do more than you have to yeah well it was it was actually a challenge to distill the conversation that we had um again given the directions of what is the work that we've done today and what are the next steps if we're gonna um distill it into a quick summary um I don't know if I'll hit quick but I will do my best um so and a lot of this all of this really should sound familiar to you because it's again the work that we've been updating throughout the year but in terms of the accomplishments that really stood out to the team they are feeling proud about the consistent positive feedback they've gotten about the district-wide professional development sessions that we've LED after school for

093some of those 75-minute professional development professional learning sessions that have been about classroom practices teacher language creating classroom communities really building those pieces into teacher practice it is ongoing work it is work that is um as engaging for a first year teacher as a third year teacher because there are always things you can be thinking about differently um even as we just referenced with regard to culturally cultural awareness and just understanding the world around you um they were excited to share that we are this year piloting both the SEL screener and curriculum options for next year so the second administration of our SEL screener the past screener will be after the conclusion of iar testing in the next couple of weeks the students participated in that in October and so this will be the second

094time that we'll be taking kind of a um a temperature of how our students are feeling about themselves as learners and then the subset of our SEL action team is the week after next gonna start the second all the teachers start working on the second SEL curriculum package fly five they've spent the last seven weeks with second step in their students and they're gonna move into fly five with the goal of being able to come to a decision about which one of those to move forward with for our K5 classrooms in the fall looking at the overall goal they also wanted to highlight the equity work that adults have started doing um it hasn't been as consistent in every building every building is kind of doing a little bit different work with this but facing

095history in ourselves is at the junior high and that's the program that's used in the social studies classes and with the teachers at the junior high to really look at how are we telling the stories that we um you know how are we teaching history to our students how are we understanding these events that have happened in the world and then many um sorry I just lost myself building Facebook Studies have also been an issue or been a way that some of our communities are looking at some of that Equity work and some of the um again just kind of increasing perspective of what does it mean to be a teacher of a diverse classroom and then the action team themselves has been doing a book study of power of our words which um has

096to do with promoting Effective Teacher language and classroom strategies which again ties back into some of our PD sessions in terms of next steps um there's a lot of excitement and energy around the idea of starting off in the fall with a K5 SEL curriculum that's consistent across buildings and classrooms um so that's an exciting step for everyone develop and determine a realistic plan to have all staff trained in responsive classrooms so this summer we have I think 12 more right around there across K-8 teachers going to that responsive classroom training which is a week in August that they're giving up to go and participate in a really intensive um you know five full days of learning about this responsive classroom model which again is um really focused on those teacher and classroom practices that

097promote student voice that create a solid Community where kids know that it's okay to take risks where they understand that if um you know that there are different ways of learning things that there are different ways of demonstrating knowledge and that those kinds of flexibilities are are built in and and respected it's not I'll just sit and do everything the same way um so the if everyone who's come back from that training universally has had just really concrete things to put into action and has had very positive things to say it is a very big ask though um to and it's always in August in Chicago the chicago-based training um you know it's always generally the same week so it just it's it's it's hard to get everyone able to participate in that and so

098there are also questions staff had about you know how is this related to maybe the contract are there ways to take the PD days during the year and do some responsive classroom training during those times responsive classroom and the center for responsive schools is pretty prescriptive and how they will allow this training to be given so it's going to take some more work on the part of the action team the admin team to really put into a place a plan to get everyone trained I think one thing we're starting with is really saving some spots for any new hires this year and encouraging um that as a possibility if if they do that before they start with us or what's the career within the next two years I'm sorry what is the barrier the barrier

099is just a is a week in August not during the school year not it's not offered during the school year people can't attend or like I don't understand it's yeah to basically give up four weeks four days of four and a half days yeah no time we pay the registration we don't pay people but it's not like they're going really great yeah right no I understand so it's during their time off to attendance if people are home you know their kids are home in the summer Child Care is a bear you know there's a lot of if they're if that's the one period that their family can go on vacation it's hard to give that up as great as the training is I will admit it's not maybe we've talked about them coming to the

100school district using our Institute days they for being a great model and great framework for schools they do not have a school friendly model yeah to bring to the schools now maybe it just really works for them to offer these August workshops maybe their trainers are also Educators that don't that is the case there's a lot to it um but it's it's a great framework and we'll we'll keep at it yeah but it's the same week every year it's generally within the same you know they have um they have trainings across the country but they're the trainers are Educators and so they're Limited in the numbers that they can offer and for the last three years at least it's always been the same two-week window in August um this year actually that they have an

101elementary and a junior high training and last year they were only offered one each week this year they are offering both both weeks so they're they are getting some some flexibility they're hearing some of our feedback that like you know it's really tough to just thread that needle but it's it's they also have various um you know one day trainings and and pieces of it that that we've toyed with you know do we bring this in but then the cost of that or not really getting the full impact of the program it's and they would come and train 150 staff members anyway they would require they would do it in they would come and train a group of 30. yeah uh for you know a cost equivalent to a 30 people went to the workshop

102but they don't have a model they don't have the numbers of trainers available to do an entire District at one time in one week so we're it's just I I do think it's a solvable problem it won't be something that happens in one year you know it'll be a process of um having some flexibility for new hires or thinking about it in terms of our Mentor um teacher Mentor plan of thinking about okay if you commit to this then the second summer that's a part of our part of the plan I mean if you can plan a year or two years out right in some of these reasons for not going kind of go away so yeah so I just I I'm just curious because uh talking to a number of teachers it AIMS in

103different capacities I can hear this whether it's explicit or not just like being at the board table kind of understanding what this is like sure coming out like unsolicited very favorable um to the point of like changed the way I teach my classroom favorable so I am I guess I'm struggling a little bit of why somebody isn't like begging to go to this thing and there are people who are very eager to go and have said I wish I could go I cannot go like that just doesn't work gotcha um but I do think part of it also is right now there are maybe one or two or three teachers at Ames or one teacher in Hollywood has gone I think as more teachers go and that becomes more of like yeah it changed the

104way I teach a lot of people in the district I was thinking maybe maybe I'm thinking it's more widespread than it actually it's it's decently widespread you know there's there's a good number I don't have that number on the top of my head but um but it's not I don't know if we're at the Tipping Point yet where everyone is like you got to go to responsibility yeah okay um it's not a majority it's definitely not a majority yeah um part of the it is a majority I think of teachers who are on our sale action team or they're very well represented and that has been a lot of the work of these professional development sessions this year too is highlighting the fact that these are all responsive classroom techniques and ideas and this is

105just a taste of it and this is one thing you can take away but there's a lot more that's out there and available well and that uh you just something you just said clicked with me if a lot of the people on this committee have gone through it and believe in it that explains why you have that as an action plan to get everybody trained on it so well it wasn't um it was before I started I think in the in the last school year the action team and the um maybe even the Strategic plan team made that as a commitment that that was the um you know approach and the philosophy that we wanted to have guiding our work which like I said yes the training is the Hallmark of it but there are

106components of it that can shape and guide our work even in the absence of having everything the after school trained or okay supporting others to bring those practices it's probably not the same as going through that four day right very immersive professional learning opportunity um The Next Step Angela kind of touched on this a little bit as well but developing that deeper understanding of culturally responsive teaching what it looks like and what it sounds like in practice that's work that we are really um as she mentioned beginning at our admin level but it's something that the team members are committed to not letting it fall off the radar um and so that remains a goal and an idea that is important to keep in the Forefront continue to build capacity structures tools to embed SEL

107throughout instruction again the um if this team could achieve nothing else I think they would be happy to hear if every one of our teachers in the district understood and really believed that SEL yes having direct instruction having this curriculum is one component of it but that it is so essential that it's these practices and this knowledge and this ability to Foster student ownership and build in opportunities for students to make challenging decisions and scaffold that with them and to have good experiences working out minor conflicts with their peers all those things are important that that they're happening throughout your instruction throughout your day they're just part of your classroom community and then continuing to highlight and Foster student ownership of learning and this one really dovetails with the standards-based grading we talked about it

108in our goal 2 meeting or in our goal to group that that standard space grading really lends itself to so much more student ownership of learning because of exactly the things you guys were just talking about of knowing I got an 85 on a test versus knowing I still can't figure out how to cross multiply I still that's just I need to figure out a different strategy or figure out a different way of understanding it um how to kind of where do they want to devote their energy and where they should be devoting the energy rather than just saying I got 85 I don't know how else to study for this I don't know how else to learn this but here's what I want to tackle here's what I know I need to work on

109Dad I'm gonna do goal four um before before goal three um felt Paul's best under the education committee sorry okay [Music] it's up there and I haven't you got it there okay okay there's the projector okay all right um so the goal four is family and Community Partnerships as you know I facilitate that action team with Sarah hickey who's a wonderful partner there and when we were you know really trying to distill down into this succinct way of like what is this committee really all about as you know last year I think I believe I shared a vision for the committee we did the family engagement survey this this mid mid-year this school year and then we looked at some research behind the doc from Dr Karen Mapp a woman that had developed the survey

110I mean she really kind of put it into sort of a flowchart right that you the reason we want to have um strong Partnerships with families is ultimately to build trust build relationships and overall build that capability and confidence both for the educator as well as for the parent that everybody is ultimately there to help and support the child so we kind of were able to kind of distill down all of our work is about building trust building relationships and building capability and Conference confidence with families so then we looked at what are the actionable pieces that we would like to accomplish here as we move forward as you know our action team is made up of Educators as well as parents and it's really been a great experience to be able to just have

111that dialogue in an ongoing way one of the things that we're really looking at this came up through both the parent leadership team our ptas and ptos as well as the family Community Partnerships action team is is some method to better pair parents with new families that are coming into the district both our new kindergarten families but also families that move in whether it's beginning of the year mid-year some kind of parent Ambassador parent Mentor parent partnership so I think it really takes both pta's ptos as well as the district working together to make that happen there's just even issues of permission and allowing that kind of thing to happen so that's an actionable step that we've started talking about we'd love to have that in place for the new school year I think it

112may still be a daunting task I know some of the different ptas and ptos have already tried that let's say one Ambassador for all new families we'd really like to create kind of a direct one-on-one parent partnership the other thing we've talked about is really focusing in on the transition to Hauser we know that that's a significant time and the life of families the life of children that that moved to Hauser is a big deal and there's been a lot and we we took sort of a deep dive and looked at the outdoor education program that's been sort of lovingly known as Laredo Taft because that's the camp that the kids go to for an overnight it's a program that really fell fell away because of the pandemic and it's been difficult to put it

113back together now just some of these camps are not available doing the same kind of work so looking at some kind of option we also looked at like a Hands-On steam or stem building project there's a hovercraft project where an organization brings you literally like the materials and makings for hovercrafts and small groups of kids get together and create these I think you really get to move up and above the ground we weren't sure because I think we kind of started leaning toward maybe the Outdoor Ed is really still more the love and the tradition in this community so looking to working with the Hauser team to find a way to bring that back if not Laredo Taft a different outdoor education experience and then you even heard kesmira talk tonight about a one book

114one school most of our schools are doing that most of our elementary schools it's a it's a big task it's a big undertaking one thought came up that should it be a one book one District kind of event and another nice way to align the schools bring families together schools could still do their own kind of unique and specific things but that the whole District would be reading a great piece of children's literature together so some something else we're looking at so again one book one District I'm also bringing back and it's kind of a bringing back but enhancing this year it's going to be a family math night that's going to happen on April 13th again just a huge thank you to Sarah hickey for making this happen it looks like it's going to

115be a great event it is a family event it's a bring your child and work with Educators to create Math Games things to take home we're going to do it in partnership with the bilingual parent Advisory Group group so that Alex Cabello Lopez our EL support person is going to make sure that families that are Spanish-speaking that may feel uncomfortable coming to an event like that will also have Spanish-speaking groups and opportunities so just really excited about bringing all that together and you should all come even if you don't have young children that want to do math that night you might want to you might want to join us and then we continue to talk about family information night so we've done everything from helping your child navigate social media sort of anti-bullying understanding bullying

116and social what's normal social conflict we did some other things on just sort of understanding what children can encounter on the internet so we did a presentation on just understanding anxiety in children so there have been a lot of different topics but again using this group to really sort of plan for topics that may be of greatest interest to our family so these are actionable steps not not everything happening immediately and right away but it starts to feel again from this group that it's there's a nice opportunity to to make some very specific things happen that we think can really benefit our families our students specifically and bring our staff in closer partnership with everybody so any questions about that is Laredo Taft still available or we're still figured and they're not sure they can

117take the numbers it's all very loose iffy yeah yeah but it does seem to be this great tradition when you talk about like kids love it parents who were kids here love it like it just has this great love and but even pretty covid we got too big to go as one group so then I also lost that feeling of community um so so yeah and to hear um so Meredith Harvey is the teacher that coordinates it at Hauser and she came in and she's actually on the family Community Partnerships action team and she came and sort of sort of broke down the purpose and some of it is Outdoor Ed but it really starts as this sixth grade experience fall of sixth grade year because all the children have come from four different elementary

118schools so it's it's really designed to be kind of transition team building relationship building so I think when we take those Concepts like what else could we do instead if we can't get back to Laredo attack and I know the kids did love it mine did yeah how that's why I was asking about what what the hiccups at Laredo tap yeah and then the other thing that came police are has n't about an overnight and so this idea of also like talking to other districts that are doing um a day long like maybe you go early and you don't get back till night time but maybe it's not a sleepover experience if would that help you know all families really feel connected so um just things that are we're looking at we have a lot

119of families concerned about overnights so I'm just thinking like I send my kids to summer camp for two weeks every year and stuff like that not that everybody does more than you might think I don't have the exact numbers I've looked at them we've like April and Chris have carefully looked at it and we want to make sure that it's not money that's a barrier some families just are not comfortable letting their child go away yeah for an overnight so and then some families who are hesitant and they are strongly encouraged then end up feeling pretty good about it but yeah it's for what you're describing though would that be an option so like some kids would stay over and others would you know back or not with not with Laredo Taft um what the

120families that chose not to have their children go for an overnight did um the go Apes the go go ape tours of course they tried to create sort of a similar opportunity that would take sort of just the school day um so is this just a one night or is it a multi it's a one night and then they go the eighth graders go to a place called Bradford Woods that also is gone it's in Indianapolis and that was a two night overnight I think when April said she started maybe it was even a three night does that helps if you're gonna go all the way down yeah yeah I think the Laredo Taft used to be a two night and it got switched to one night one group and then the next group that's

121correct yeah yeah and then they would overlap one of those days where everybody was there right I think yeah like the bus would come and a bus would go I know like yeah when the principal would go on and the assistant principal they would sort of wave crossing paths I think so yeah I mean it's a great opportunity I did start to ask other superintendents too if they're still doing outdoor education we heard about some other camps that might be worth looking at some that might be just a day camp opportunity so bringing kids together and just that pretty unique experience non-non-academic non-classroom I'm gonna say I would just hope that if there's a certain amount and I guess you said it's more than you would think I I would would hate for all kids

122not to have an overnight opportunity if it's for a question of a few or some are uncomfortable with it yeah yeah it's hard to talk about inclusivity you know it's like you want you want it to work for everybody and that that can be a tall order sometimes yeah well you give everybody the opportunity whether they choose that opportunity is up to them but everybody has the opportunity if you're not comfortable with it don't participate but I don't think you take the opportunity away because some people might be uncomfortable that's your your choice you don't have the opportunity I think those are two very different things so although It's tricky because then how do you give the child that doesn't go that experience where they have that that community that it's really community building exercise

123so it you know if your parent chooses not to have them participate I'm not sure there's much we can do about them well I'm just saying there's a difference between not providing somebody an opportunity and somebody choosing not to take the opportunity they were given I think I think the day camp seems like a reasonable alternative to at least give them something off campus that is fun and exciting and they'll remember but I think it's a challenge fun and exciting but the day camp seems a far cry from an overnight I guess yeah anyway one night I I don't know I guess one night isn't it one night to me seems like okay that's a lot of trouble for one night but because it used to be a lot longer it was because it would

124be exciting they can be yeah we're scary I understand that I've done the Girl Scout mom and we did all that it I Know It's Tricky so yeah well thanks because these are exactly the conversations that have happened in the family Community Partnerships actually came too so the one thing I might throw in for you Martha is um being with the PTO PTA liaison we meet monthly we're meeting Monday actually I think the last at least the last three months that we've met I know you've woven some of these topics into the PTA presence or whoever the representative for the PTA is at that particular meeting looking for feedback from them and there's been a lot of good conversation people that have been around in the community for quite some time and have some of

125these same dialogues of like past experiences that either they had if they grew up here or their kids are having now or had depending on where their kids are at so just a lot of collaboration with a lot of different groups trying to figure some of this family Community Partnership stuff out so just um calling that out kind of what you're doing to try to tackle some of these in my opinion I think this is the hardest goal really because it's just so blue sky all right now I think we ship gear sorry I think now we shift gears to the next we organize this under the different committee topics so I think that finished up education yes finished up education now we go to personnel we could go 300 Personnel just to keep it

126all really confused we need to talk about this professional learning proposal that's what Angela talked about that's with the oh okay yeah okay well I'm the gold Champion over a goal area three which is high quality staff and the focus of high quality staff is to focus on recruiting developing and retaining exceptional Personnel for for all positions the the goal area actually has comprised of two action teams the diverse Workforce action team which I'm the action team leader of and then we also have the professional learning action team which Angela oversees and so she's probably going to come up here in a minute after I'm done okay yes okay so the diverse Workforce action team what we've really been looking at is we've been trying to to as it states are developing uh and implementing

127strategies designed to recruit and retain exceptional Talent from diverse backgrounds so while the goal area is recruit develop and routine recruit and routine has really been our our Focus as we've looked at our existing uh practices and as we look to you know make recommendations for change um we are trying to look through everything through the lens of diversity Equity inclusion and belonging um I do want to say this we we have a a great team it's a really good group of staff that are on the team and I know that some teams have seen uh contraction and we've actually expanded uh over the past year and there's really good energy a lot of the work a lot of the things that you know the ideas it's it's a lot of it's a very much

128a warm fuzzy it's a lot of it is that belonging how do we um Everybody enjoys working in the district part of it is how do we promote ourselves how do we make people understand what it's like to work here and want to be a part of this so as we've been looking at the different areas like with our vacancy postings how do we make our basic vacancy postings uh more lively really reflect who we are as a district as opposed to this is the position you know first grade eight you know 180 days and and really try to say who we are as a district as people are applying um also looking at um we we've identified area universities that have really strong diversity equity and inclusion programs and we've targeted those and have

129begun to create relationships with them in not only from the standpoint of uh from the recruiting aspect in getting our vacancies out to them and part of their graduate and alumni newsletters but also starting the uh the process of establishing um relationships from an internship student teacher type relationship with those universities as well um additionally we've begun looking at our application process and Martha knows that we've talked a lot about you know this is an area that uh I you know it's not an area that I oversee it's been very much a a year of discovery of really looking at okay what are we doing okay what does this okay let's look at kind of what is research or best practice says we should be doing but let's look at what other school districts are

130doing and we don't have to reinvent the wheel but we could look at things that help to make the the application process uh maybe more enjoyable we're looking at the like the what are the questions we're asking the number of questions we're asking how difficult is a process to actually just fill out an application um and so that is something that is going to be evaluated this summer by the principals and looking at the questions that we ask and and maybe what we try to do is really streamline the process really make sure that maybe we're asking fewer questions but we're getting the information we really want out of those questions so it's also a good time to we probably need to make sure that we're doing this on a you know on a regular

131basis every few years let's take a look at our questions we also want to make sure that we incorporate um a DI related question within that process let's make sure that we we add a question for that um also we're looking at our entire interview uh process and and making sure that there is a level of consistency that from uh no matter what administrator or whoever is conducting an interview that there are some some some some guidelines some parameters are we asking the same questions for the same positions uh for that consistency um a big part of it has also been just looking at our internal and external Communications that is how we promote ourselves and that is how we can attract people but it's also how we can retain people how we can through

132our Communications and making letting even people within the district you know really see what we're doing from school to school um and and making the staff members that are here they can even feel more a part of being here I know that we're doing some work with West 40 and and working to promote the district um and I think those will be excellent resources they'll be great recruiting tools as well because this is also a way for us to show external candidates what we're what it's like to work or be a part of District 96. um and then also just a professional looking at uh options or opportunities for professional development for our Administration potentially our staff related to diversity equity and inclusion on the retention side we began focusing on really what is that

133first year experience because we've all been first-year employees somewhere and we know like how critical that is you know it's it's how are you welcomed into the environment what is your first year experience do you you know we have an excellent mentoring uh Mentor mentee process in place for our certified staff and making sure that not only are they being supported they're they're that they're getting the professional development they need but also that we're getting feedback from them um and and so in looking at that first year experience are they getting the PD mentoring monitoring feedback and expanding it even beyond the certified staff of you know in in each like I in in my department I've had two brand new people that with with really very limited Tech experience so that was up you

134know PD and training was very important and and they've really um uh they've assimilated into the environment everybody I mean you can just tell that's that's kind of that warm fuzzy of making sure that people are supported they have what you they need you're they're being checked in with and then you can continue to support them so just looking at those those first year and looking at our onboarding process again that internal external communication of you know we're looking at things that we do have new staff uh you know how are we walking them in to the district even with inner Communications making sure that people know who they are can put a face with a name um uh and and not only from the standpoint of uh you know internal Communications but I think

135we're going to start to see some changes to our website and and again more of that student-centered a little bit more of a warm fuzzy to our our web presence as well um one of the areas that we are going to be developing a goal we're looking at some of the data that we're getting back from the work with the Nate echolenza Consulting Group vital networks and and looking at that as a source for looking at overall staff satisfaction and being able to just use since since that is data that we're actually collecting um regularly that we can identify possibly some data points to to see how we're making progress in that area as well and then just establishing an exit interview process that when people are leaving the district volunteering voluntarily just making sure

136that we're understanding why they're leaving so that we know that you know we can always continually improve if for some reason it's it's if it's if it was somebody's leaving for a reason that perhaps we would have had some level of control over just to be able to know what we could possibly do better so so before I jump to the next section I can say do you have any questions about this just a 30-second question sure have we considered partnering with the certification and endorsement officers at universities either to advertise or to ask for those highly qualified teachers that have multiple endorsements whether it's bilingual or reading or if you're a type 9 secondary teacher who can teach Junior High science like those might be I'm just suggest it might be a neat place

137to advertise no that would be because those are the people that have a lot of um extra skills that we might really want in our schools because they have they might have a technology endorsement or something and that officer goes through each exiting teacher and has to help them figure out what their qualifications are and if you either advertise through that office or receive tips from that person oh we've got a lot of people with this coming in it might be useful um that's an area we could definitely focus on what is our current process to collect data with regards to like staff satisfaction is this a survey where I remember Nate Eklund and he was doing the climate and and teacher climate and like care back in whatever 21 and there was a large

138scale survey then but since that time like what is our routine surveying process of so we follow doing it each year so that was 21 this is the so this is the second year that we've been working with them so far we were beginning of the year and an end of the year and we do two mid-year what we call Pulse check so there's four data points that we gather from staff the beginning of the year and the end of year and they're called beginning of year and end of year surveys um are essentially the same taking at different times the pulse check is meant to be more how are you as an individual doing it's more of a they call it their hope and vitality scale so um we just we actually just met

139with Nate today during our district leadership team to look at our district pulse check data so we now have two years why am I like because the the year is compressed on me and I you know there was also wasn't there a minor chain there's some changes in the survey they've changed yes they've changed their survey some they've changed their platform they've gone to an all online system so our the Baseline data could you know I think that's where like from the first year because there were some changes so sometimes tough to establish that Baseline for kind of this year I think would probably be our Baseline data then moving forward because I would consider last year our Baseline data I don't think it changed that much that much I think we've been able to

140look at like last fall to this fall um and so we have a what we anticipate will be an ongoing contract we would move into next year with them also we have high response raiser 100 like is it because we do it during an easy two days I mean if somebody's um like a waste like I mean they're like your response rate is really consistent yes all staff are present yeah wait that's a great idea and we've done that at work Taylor if you have if you have teams that struggle it's like you know what just give up 10 minutes of your meeting and say go do it and that's what it is and our um the like the RC is really appreciated that they were really very much behind kind of the initial part

141of the process and we weren't sure we should do two pulse checks because even the principal's like I feel like we're just giving out another survey again and we just did it and the teacher's like no we want to take it again like because it's short it's fast it's pretty painless so that was good feedback to get right and then the second area and focuses on the develop aspect with the personalized professional first size learning planning team and here I have this one right here thank you oh you can go it's okay yeah so um also under goal three is the strategy of the uh the professional learning planning team or plpt and the professional learning planning team is about providing professional it was developed to provide professional learning to help provide the professional learning

142that our staff members receive it was something we developed through contract negotiations a team that's been going since the the conclusion of contract negotiations has started this new contract and the original goals were to give voice to staff members to be able to help plan professional learning however over the course of time there's been a shift in focus of this planning team because our professional learning is now mostly planned through our action teams so it's strategic plan related in our district leadership teams to meet staff needs based on input from various staff groups like the building leadership teams are all district leadership team and so forth so because we have professional learning happening and being developed through a different entity we've begun to ship the focus of the plpt and so now they are focused

143more on the personalized learning of Staff members that aspect of professional learning and working on structures and strategies for staff members to have ownership of their personalized learning so looking at different ways that staff members can personalize their learning whether it's through book studies workshops or other entities so that's what the plpt is focused on now is the personalized learning piece rather than the whole District professional learning because we've restructured the way we plan our professional learning so that it's more in line with what our district our whole District goals are with the Strategic plan and building focused goals based off of Staff input any questions about plpt all right now it's Finance is a stewardship of resources and uh as a reminder I put it up there develop and sustain effective efficient and Equitable

144use of all resources in order to optimize operations for improved student achievement and fiscal responsibilities oh there we go that's kind of small from here but the uh kind of the sub goals that we have under this goal five is to maintain our is be Financial recognition of 4.0 which when you saw the audit a couple months ago we did get uh 4.0 in that category we're going to be working on budgets here soon and um number two there is for expenditures to not exceed CPI and that we're on track for that the CPI was very high last year so that shouldn't really be an issue we'll have a tentative budget for next year to look at during the June board meeting the facility maintenance repair and Improvement projects are on schedule and within budget

145and you know at this point some of these are really estimates and you saw ramesh's update today on one of them so that's flexible but we're making decisions on the flexibility on those numbers our maintenance work order system we're able to respond automatically within one business day and actually close out quite a few of the work orders as they come in within a couple days or at least reply to the person who put the work order in and let them know what what the holdup is and what the plan is um another financial planning one is that technology Five-Year Plan and to keep our cost increases under CPI and I believe that one of the next meetings Don's going to give us a presentation on A Five-Year Plan and we'll be sure that it's kept

146under CPI and also on the we've combined the work order system with the maintenance work order system with the technology work order system and they are also able to respond within a business day and actually close out a lot of the work orders very quickly so we're on track with Goal five Jim I wonder you mentioned a couple times some goals where we're going lower than CPI and as you mentioned CPI has been pretty through the roof recently um does it make sense or would it make sense I know it's kind of hard to foresee with inflation being what it is but it is there would it make sense to have a stretch goal of being lower than CPI up to the degree that we are comfortable doing that because I guess you said it's

147it interested me when you said that that it shouldn't be a trouble to get below a seven percent CPI right would would that make sense to try to Peg it a little lower than that then to something that like pick a number instead of CVS four percent is kind of what you're saying or or like you know CPI if CPI is above this level then we're trying for one percent below or something like that whatever is obtainable or whatever is realistic without you know causing issues for staff or or for students right so overall we've been able to keep our expenditures within CPI so far and and since I've been here it's you know two percent at the most um I would try to keep going the same way or if there should be a

148reason what something we're purchasing that pushes it over in one category I think overall we should be able to maintain closer to two percent yeah and that that's fantastic and I guess it's it it's great that um I don't know that you want to commit to the to that being the goal of saying we're going to keep expenses to two percent or or maybe you would I guess it's just I guess I'm wondering rather than saying CPI if we're feeling comfortable hitting less than CPI would that make sense to incorporate it in the goal sure we could do that I I guess when we wrote this we didn't really expect a seven percent sure yeah yeah definitely um look we should expect you know the five percent on the revenue side so um I guess

149uh it's an obvious an adjustment might be to change it to what the CPI is being applied to for tax revenues um that really makes more sense okay so yeah I I mean I I mean I'd be here but as a board member it needs to be something that's easily understood you know CPI is very easy into I think to change it all the time becomes a little confusing so whatever you do keep it consistent um yeah I don't think you're going to have seven percent forever but who knows you know we don't know right but um we have I have never known as not to keep it to that in recent years so I think that's doable an Unwritten goal has been to make sure it's always at least balance so we're not looking

150to spend more than is coming in and that's been attainable yeah I think it's a valid point Dan because if seven percent is I mean this is like an anomaly type hopefully right here so I think CPI generally speaking you know five years ago for the last five years per se like that probably would just be the easy thing to do but since it is an anomaly you're probably picking a number because I would also say on the inverse of yours it's not okay to spend an additional seven percent right just because we can just because it's less than CPI so having maybe a more targeted Benchmark for this I mean we're almost done with this year but if it if the inflationary stuff bleeds into next year and CPI seems like it's still going

151to be a little high maybe pegging more of like a three or a four or whatever realistic number you think we can maintain in and it's just a goal if we need to go over by a half a percent or something like that like as long as there's a reason for it like you know that's okay too it's just a Target so I think it's a valid comment Dan I'd support that if we want to make a change but to your point I wouldn't want to keep changing it all the time either yeah I don't think it's functional if it constantly waivers that's the point of CPI is that it keeps us on you know something we can follow and something that follows what we're going to pay providers that give us things and what

152we're going to pay for materials it's easy to you know as you well you know better than anybody and why we use it but there was uh a year with point one since I've been doing this not here but yeah so I'm basically zero and you know we'll have to zero on that one comes or better well and maybe that one we might need a different type of adjustment on it like just whatever makes sense for what we're trying to achieve that year yeah I I think that if I came with a budget it was uh five and a half percent we're probably going to do a lot of talking yeah so yeah I understand and I just I'm thinking but I don't remember when it was but you would specifically called out things like

153grocery costs and gasoline costs a lot of the things that are driving the high inflation are not directly embedded into our operations right but when you go down to zero that might be the opposite where maybe we'd need two percent because whatever it is that whatever goods and services we need might not be at zero um so yeah yeah to that point Leslie our contracts often have do have a escalator that is yeah percentage and it sure as heck is not zero yeah um I think revenue or an average of three years or something like that that's a little bit more consistent because two plus two plus seven eleven so that's like a three percent or three and a half whatever not doing math in my head right now um it's too late we need

154to wrap this up having done goals at work recently I guess my own thought is if I'm presenting something to my boss like yeah that's an easy one to obtain he would come back to me and say well then you haven't eaten yeah yeah I would get the same response yeah that's why I think that's a valid comment and we don't have to solve it tonight but I I mean just kind of looking at it and saying what is something that's realistic and maybe slightly challenging move your floor in the ceiling yeah two and four of them any other questions all right the uh election report in the board book is the Amendment for the current Year's budget and just a couple of changes and the grants revenue or adjusting it down by seventy six

155thousand dollars and that's on both sides revenue and the spending because um we had uh budgeted at a higher level that it happened the last couple years kind of optimistically thinking that even if the pandemic were over that they would keep the higher levels but it didn't happen number two there we applied for another maintenance Grant and got it and so we've got fifty thousand dollars that came in for uh we're putting towards the new lockers at Hauser so both sides of Revenue and expenditures will go up and then I want to transfer five hundred thousand dollars from basically from our savings account the working cash into imrf the Monies the property tax revenue has been coming in a little slower as you know they delayed the deadline on tax bills so it'll be nice

156to have that cushion it sits in working cash where you can't spawn debt and this is the kind of reason you save it there if one of the funds that needs it you transfer it so those are the big changes and why we want to amend the budget transferring and not necessarily saying that's a deficit none that we'd expect it by the end of the year to equal out essentially yeah it would be a straight transfer like all the most of the time we're transferring from say o m to Capital this is just from working cash into I Am rough to give us a a question if the money isn't coming in fast enough so Jim for this and you've said it but maybe I'm not getting it so this is just because our revenues

157from property taxes are a little bit slower than expected and there's some kind of minimum threshold that we need to maintain in that account yes it's nice to have you know half a year maybe and maybe a little more we don't want four or five years worth and so how is that that's paid out to Future retirees or uh it's our uh it's our liability with the retire eventually it gets paid out to retirees so we pay into the fund thank you okay we'll put the notice in the paper and come back in May and have a hearing and and ask you to approve the amendment so you're going to make us work on May 17th I thought we were supposed to just come and do all the ceremonial stuff right no there's business and

158it'll make us work nice try why are you here if not to do business it's on hand at the district office in case anyone wants to come in and see you and that's the notice sudden if it gets crowded I can print out more copies thank you all right policy committee okay I feel a little left out I don't have a cool living the plan goal but I have something better no um believe it or not the next press update came out it's a lot smaller um this is press 111 that was just issued March of uh 2023 so literally hot off the presses there is a a zoom meeting that happens that really helps kind of break down what some of the bigger updates are related to and the kind of bundles um that's

159happening April 11th so I'll be attending that um via Zoom I believe Martha and I are both registered for that the deadline to submit these is July 31st and again there's not that many it appears just at a quick glance about 10 that have some updates again not sure how sizable or significant they might just be you know Footers and then three that fall under are what we know as five year review or review and monitoring which is the new the new language they use so likely we'll probably have it in the may cow but I will chat more with them Martha after the April 11th meeting all right that's good that brings us back around to public comment there is none okay uh in our future meeting dates April 19th 2023 regular business meeting

1607 PM in the Hauser Learning Resource Center board will enter into closed session at 6 15 PM if necessary and return to open session at 7 pm a third Committee of the whole meeting 7 p.m and the multi-purpose remed Central School May 17th as was mentioned public hearing regular business meeting biennial organizational meeting 7 PM in the Hauser Learning Resource Center Ford will enter into closed session at 6 15 PM if necessary and return to open session at 7 pm and if there is nothing else this meeting is adjourned foreign [Music]