HUSD Governing Board Meeting November 18, 2020 Live Stream

001good evening i'm going to call this meeting to order dr foley roll call please moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance all right i move that we approve the agenda second any questions or comments all those in favor aye aye aye motion carries 4-0 next up is our superintendence report and some of our favorites going on with our awards and recognitions tonight president kaler members of the board we're going to start tonight with one of our favorite things which is honoring our amazing students employees and community members tonight we have the amazing centennial team in the house and we're going to start our our celebrations points of pride covid style social distance physical distance style so it looks a little different than we've historically done so we're going to start tonight by inviting

002the amazing administrator mrs rachel bradley over and rachel will be coming up here and she's going to call one group one recogni one recognition person at a time and we'll celebrate an honor and we will take a picture uh picture the board will stay on their diet and their place because we want to be able to social distance and see their faces all right perfect so good evening president taylor governing board i'm very honored to announce our points of pride for 2020 2021 and i'm going to invite my better half to come up here with me as well mr v so he can help me hand out these awards and we're just going to go we're going to start with miss brie unger so brie if you want to come on up brie is our

003volunteer and so now you get to hang up here for a minute while we talk about you so as everybody knows volunteering has been a bit limited as of now but bree was one of the first parents to step up and volunteer her assistants bri runs our teacher store and has been really creative this year on with the teacher store program and how she can support our teachers she's ensured the store is still up and running and that our teachers and students aren't going without um as far as parent volunteers go bri is a staple here at centennial and we are so grateful for her dedication and involvement so thank you brie [Applause] all right up next we have miss kelsey oh my goodness i'm like mixing your names together cassie halverson our teacher so

004cassie teaches fifth grade math and science cassie has continued to impress us this year um as the year progresses she has blossomed into an amazing leader among her peers as well as for the students cassie does an exceptional job oh sorry well i just lost my notes so little i'm trying to use my eyes or just like squinting all right cassie does an exceptional job servicing or serving as our stuco advisor and works diligently to spread school spirit in a very thoughtful and detailed way she often takes the lead on special projects and has gotten good at knowing when to say when or no which is very challenging for somebody who's as involved as she is she's definitely a yes ma'am type of person and this year she's done an exceptional job of maintaining that

005balance cassie is also vetted a very dedicated teacher who takes pride in connecting with students and parents as well as making learning relevant and engaging so congratulations cassie all right up next is miss aubry howard our students that we would like to recognize so come on up all right so aubry is in sixth grade at centennial and has been here since she started kindergarten aubry exemplifies the true definition of grit we've seen aubry grow as a student since she was in kindergarten and we are blown away at how much she has grown aubrey is known amongst the centennial staff for her dedication to her studies as well as her determination she pushes herself and is here to learn socializing takes a back seat to academics which isn't always seen is not very common in sixth

006grade girls so she is here to learn she's here to grow as an academic leader and um we're just so proud of her and all that she's accomplished all right and last but not least miss reyna battles our support staff miss rainis currently serves as a resource aid for us so ms raina has really impressed us this year she's not only becoming stronger in her day-to-day responsibilities but she is also one of the first people to step in when there is need rayna is quick to take additional responsibilities even when she isn't asked to do so her initiative and positive attitude are contagious and we've been amazed at her growth as a professional so [Applause] congratulations [Applause] so um thank you guys very much thank you for allowing me to present and show recognition for

007the people that are on our campus doing amazing things and centennial family if you guys want to head outside to take some pictures this would be the time now thank you all for coming tonight and supporting our points of pride winners president kaler members of the board i will continue with the superintendent's report tonight and i would like to start off following that beautiful celebration of our amazing student staff and community with just a little summary of a report and communication that was sent to our employees and to our community and is currently available on our website husd leadership is very aware and concerned that the maricopa and the arizona department of health services metrics continue to show that positive covid cases continue to rise in this state and the rates are trending in the

008wrong direction within our own community we are closely monitoring rhusd covet 19 dashboard very carefully this is updated monday through friday to reflect in real time all confirmed positive cases on each campus so that we know what has been confirmed each day confirmed and resolved each day husd is being diligent to follow every case with fidelity and track and account for each unique situation and is following all of our communication protocols we are working daily with the maricopa county and or arizona health department of public officials and it is important to know and remind everyone that these entities have the authority to direct schools to quarantine and or to close and have done so when necessary when we look at the husd covid19 dashboard our positive capacities on campus are not rising like what is

009happening on the state dashboards and we believe that this is due to the combination of several factors we are seeing little evidence of person to person spread on school campus and we attribute that to the mitigation strategies that we have implemented on our campuses these mitigation strategies do work and we need to stay vigilant with them we have seen that increased sanitation as well as wearing a face covering are effective ways to minimize the spread when we are examining our own positive husd cases we are finding that almost all of these situations are attributed to infected individuals involvement in off-campus activities such as parties sleepovers or attendance to events where preventative measures were not followed we also have had situations where individuals are coming to school when they're not feeling well or students or or

010work when they're not feeling well or students who have come to school when they are waiting for covid19 test results in our communication to our community and to our employees we stressed and indicated that if we have a site in which the percentage of positivity were to continue to rise that we would consider several options including return to remote learning at that site if it was necessary but we also wanted to stress to our community that safety is our top priority we end that we want to be able to keep our schools open however we really need help to do this as we enter into the holiday season we are asking people to please help us stay vigilant by staying home if they are experiencing any covid19 symptoms if they are awaiting covert 19 test

011results or if they have received a positive coven 19 test we also want to stress that it is important to remember that not all the information that is out there on social media is accurate we have investigated rumors and there is substantial misinformation on facebook and other social media outlets please know that every time you hear of a case that that not every case that you hear about is a confirmed case we have had students who have reported to their teachers that they are positive in order to be sent home when in fact they are not positive nor a confirmed case on campus our district administration would also like to stress that if you have a concern about a specific situation the best way to get accurate information is to direct your your directly contact

012your student school administration or district administrator so that we can help assist you in getting specific answers to your questions or concerns please know that we will diligently follow up on all situations that are brought to our attention i also want to assure at this time our higley community and our employees that we are concerned that we care about each and every one of you that we are working very hard to come up with thought to help us get you thoughtful answers and address all of your questions and concerns while our current plan already dictates the need to return to remote learning should active cases significantly rise on a particular campus we also recognize that with the recent substantial increases in community spread there is a need for specific protocols to be formally approved and

013to be communicated should we need to move a campus to remote learning thus we will we want to share that we will be adding a special governing board meeting on december 2nd at 5 o'clock in the evening for district administration to present our recommendation for site-by-site guidance when return to remote learning is or if and when is needed so with that little summary of that communication and update i'd like to talk about our upcoming events if you could pull it up okay so this friday we're pretty excited that we are having a superintendent's visit at williamsfield high school this week we learned that unfortunately vice mayor koprowski is unable to attend however mayor anderson is still planning to join us for those who can attend we're very excited mr tannenbaum is pretty ready with this

014agenda to show and share and highlight the fabulous things we have happening at williamsfield obviously we're going into thanksgiving holiday and we wish all of our of our community a happy holiday with their families again as we just shared we have our special board meeting on the um second and then we have another board meeting on the ninth um so those are our upcoming events and i just want to highlight a few uh updates about athletics as well so one of the things that we'll also share is that fall sports are finishing the season in fact the last regular football games are this friday again playoffs or potential playoffs are to be determined we want you to know that at this moment winter sports have been postponed there is a meeting tomorrow so obviously we

015will have more information tomorrow and updates at that point same thing with middle school they're finishing their season and obviously we'll follow all guidelines and updates also the meeting is tomorrow so i think we're nearing the end of that and and fall is postponed or winter is postponed at this time so that concludes superintendent update thank you so much for that communication and we're going to go on to board comments now and i will open up the floor to my board for comments mrs wilson i was able to attend um the veterans day celebration a few weeks back and mrs martin's was there and i just want to thank our junior rotc for their awesome reason of the colors and their just performance that night it was a very nice celebration i know the venue

016was moved from years past this was the first time i got to attend it but it was very nice so thank you to the town of gilbert thank you mr glover thank you president kaler i just have a few comments maybe more for uh people who are watching uh and our staff um so this may take a couple minutes but um three okay don't i would have all right anyway most of us hoped we would be in a better place uh by thanksgiving than we are and there is a lot of red on the maps that we use to guide us the infection rates at our school as dr foley said have remained low and the people in our schools are doing a good job and that is a tribute to the staff the front

017office workers the attendance clerks nurses custodians who have been working basically doing two jobs with all the new cleaning protocols for low pay and our bus drivers our cafeteria workers our teachers our paras our admins so i wanted to thank them all for that and then i wanted to take a few minutes and address just a few things that i think i hope will all make us a little bit better and stronger and safer i quit facebook a few months ago i don't think you can govern on facebook it seems like these days all it's good for to me was for screaming and creating an us versus them mentality when i think this situation is screaming for a wee mentality we didn't win things like world war ii because half of us were rooting for

018the germans and the japanese there's also a really unhealthy mistrust of our government which is really dangerous to democracy and a lot of the people that i know that are in government are honest servants who do care about doing a good job and we have a lot of those here in higley if you think the numbers on our dashboards aren't accurate instead of riffing about it to the internet as dr foley said as an adult and as a resident of this community you got to try and follow the chain of command if you hear a kid saying that they have covet and hahaha they came to school anyway please let the school know do they have they do and they will follow up we have to get this right we have to and some kids

019are saying that they have coveted when they're just voluntarily quarantining some are ordered to quarantine because they were in close contact with a positive case for like 10 minutes or more but they may not have coveted but if something's not working in our processes like there was an instance instance where some teachers were not receiving notifications of positive cases in their class we will track it down and fix it but you have to make people aware that did happen it was fixed we're better we're more informed as a result so don't wait speak up appropriately and i was reminded as i was putting together some remarks of a situation in one of my first years of teaching i taught it in a new american style k-7 school in warsaw poland not too long after the

020fall of the iron curtain and some of some some of our students are not even i don't even know what the iron curtain was um but part of the way into the year we got a new kid in sixth grade named dominic and he was from indonesia and all the teachers tried to talk to him but he wouldn't talk he just gave us this really blank look so we kind of just all assumed he didn't speak english or polish so because we weren't getting any responses and obviously wasn't doing any school work we we called his grandma and who worked at the embassy and asked her to come in and talk we wanted to try to find out where he was academically and we explained that we were probably going to have to do something

021different to catch him up on his english as he was behind his fellow students and she looked at him and she looked at all of us and she said i don't know what you mean he speaks english fluently and dominic shrugged his shoulders smiled very uncomfortably and sunk way down in his chair he played all of us perfectly by pretending not to understand anything and he got away with not doing any work for an entire week and so i realized with some grudging admiration that that kid was an evil genius but the point of the story is that kids aren't always straightforward sometimes they bend the truth sometimes they don't always tell the full truth and that's why we classify kids versus adults since the beginning higley has had reports of kids bragging that they

022or someone else in their family has coveted we do call home we get in contact with the county we find out that maybe in fact no kid really no the kid really doesn't have coveted maybe they wanted a few days off maybe they wanted some street cred maybe someone in the family has coveted and they just have to quarantine maybe they had a symptom and they thought they had it but after telling everyone and getting tested maybe they didn't have covid so as adults if you're hearing these tales you have to let the school know so that we can work together and keep each other safe so that someday we can stop wearing these masks and interact and enjoy one another again like we used to don't just blast it out there on social media

023spread facts and not gossip just because you believe something doesn't make it true we have to all be part of the solution and we're not talking about like tweeting at the person who runs the social media account at wendy's because your drive-through order got messed up we were talking about the health and well-being of our loved ones and we would all prefer to keep working and learning in person but we have to work together to make that happen and there's things that we as a society have to acknowledge we're not going to be able to do this year most of us will remember down the road our very lonely coveted birthday celebrations we have to learn we could take this moment to learn to be resilient and deal with setbacks and get up afterwards and

024kids can learn really valuable lessons from not getting what they want all the time we could all learn from that and the same thing for teachers who are saying that they don't have hand wipes or senate hand sanitizer we have loads of all of this stuff i've seen the bills we have stockpiles if you don't have what you need don't tell your pals on facebook talk to your principal or your building manager and if they don't get what you want or what you need follow the chain up the command chain of command up the ladder until you do there's plenty of people in this room and in higley who do care i'm one of them these folks are all one of them and the same thing if cleaning protocols aren't being followed in your building

025be an adult we need you and we are all on the same team here and a simple reminder for everyone when you're posting online whether you're a kid or an adult ask yourself these three questions and the world will immediately be a better place is it kind is it helpful and is it demonstrably true and i hope that our community members are seeing the increasing numbers of red out there and understand that for in order for safe in-person learning to continue we are all going to have to do our part and i will reiterate all the things that we can do ask up don't wear that mask underneath your chin so that your nose and mouth are exposed you look stupid and it's not doing anybody any good wash your hands avoid large gatherings get

026tested regularly even if you're not feeling sick it's generally free easy and fast stay home if you're experiencing symptoms and get tested and if you get tested because you're feeling sick stay home until you get your results please you do that we can begin to rebuild you don't do that and we will have to make some drastic changes and not just in higley in this whole throughout the whole state in the nation to how we're living right now if we don't the county can will and has shut down schools when they feel the numbers and spread are too high they just did it to a charter school nearby and yeah you can look that up for yourself higley didn't develop hybrid plans which i thought would have been helpful as we transitioned but that moment

027has passed so we would have to decide it would if it would even be worth it to create a hybrid plan at this point and if it would even still have any kind of effect other than to delay what might be inevitable spacing in a hybrid would help but if you still you'd still have all the kids who cannot stay who can't stay home and you've got to find a place for them along with all these half full classroom and it would just be a lot of effort to try to make that happen and we just don't know if that would make anyone happy i guess we have time between now and december 2nd to try to to piece that together but those kids who can't stay home but were due to be in class

028they'd be on campus five days a week and so they'd have to be spaced out somebody would have to monitor them they're still gonna eat lunch so that would be a real real challenge and i'm not sure that we want to even really go down that road and look if if you told our teachers that they have to teach underwater they will find a way okay but you have to convince them that their efforts would be worthwhile and impactful and that's kind of where i feel like we are with hybrid so really if you're looking for numbers or percentages in my inbox email inbox says that you are at this point any numbers i think would have to be based upon when students would have to be sent back to remote learning and the plan

029when this started was to rely upon the county to direct that but other districts as we've seen are making their own plans so do we wait for the county which at times has been a little bit slower than we would like or do we make our own and i would rather defer to public health experts but i just wanted to let it be known that i am willing to do the work to make a decision if my colleagues see fit to do that so december 2nd is a big meeting and then i'm almost done i addressed a concern to a community member who shared that some people in our community we're feeling like we're only staying in school because the school gets money when kids are here first of all we are a public good

030and we are not for profit so that notion is relatively absurd in my mind but furthermore the governor and i applaud him for doing this he promised that he will use relief and other money to fund schools at least at 98 percent of what we got last year for the sole purpose really to avoid any situations where schools are forcing kids to attend for fear of lost funding so nobody is making your kids come to school at the risk of their health solely for the dollars that are attached to them it is a repugnant notion and please correct anyone you run into who is saying that or spreading that again it is not us versus them it should be we and surely we can do better and lastly to my fellow board members and future

031board members i hope that when husd starts to get some money from proposition 208 that our teachers understand that our classified staff deserve as much as we can possibly afford to give them for helping us through this and i hope that you guys advocate for that when the time comes you're always a tough act to follow mr glover and we will miss you mrs reece did you have anything um i too wanted to just echo thank you to everybody i want our staff and our teachers and everybody to know that we do care we are taught we i mean we eat sleep drink this every single day all the administrators here are working long hours and doing everything they possibly can so um and i've said this before and i'll keep saying i'll thank everybody

032except for doug ducey he did us no favors today and he continues to do us no favors so that's kind of been my motto and i i do appreciate his his funding for attendance but today was very disappointing in my opinion so with that said we are going to go on to request to speak and i have i'm going to say this correctly i hope giuliano de dabo did i do it right okay okay we'll come on up up to this podium here and i'm going to read something real quick before you do okay we value input input from our constituents this time has been set aside for anyone from the audience who wishes to address the board please remember this is not an appropriate venue to evaluate discuss or criticize district personnel policy keb

033provides a process for complaints about personnel speakers should be aware that false statements about individuals may result in civil liability members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on the agenda therefore pursuant to ars 38-431.01 h action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for further consideration and decision at a later date please limit your remarks to three minutes thank you all right it's very nice to meet you guys it's nice to see you in person instead of on my on my computer so it's very cool so president keller members of the board before i begin this letter i'm reading was written one day after the board meeting on august 26th in

034which i used this as my base argument for a petition in which i asked that we not open our school yet the petition received 515 signatures i sent this petition via email to each one of you as well the only board member to reply and acknowledge that they received this was mr glover and i very much thank you for your direct communication with the higley community and i will truly miss you once your term is up to the rest of the board i hope you can listen today due to time constraints i will be reading an abbreviated version of my paper today my name is julianna didabo and i am a senior at higley high school and an avid supporter of our community health our communities health and safety it is with the heavy heart

035that i must inform you how the decision to return to live instruction was impulsive and wrong let me preface by saying that i absolutely love this community and everybody that i've met and i would not be the man i am today without the education and social interactions i've received in the higley community i too long to have a physical senior year but i am not selfish enough to jeopardize the health of others to attain that with that being said the decision made to open up was rushed disastrous and i believe it should be reverted the problem lies in the numbers according to the maricopa county dashboard as of today any schools within the zip code 85295 should be prepared for virtual virtual with online support and the overall risk is substantial meaning that we are

036in the red i hope you follow the dashboards advice as closely as you did on august 26th and make the decision to go virtual before risking more lives as of now i've had one teacher who has contracted kova 19 and at least three positive coven 19 cases that i know of all in one single class with the teachers only given a few days to prepare for in-person instruction there should be no problem in giving them a few days to prepare for online some think we should wait for thanksgiving or even winter break to close the lives of many and the maricopa county dashboard say otherwise i understand you have a meeting on december 2nd two weeks ago arizona's covet cases went from 1012 in a day to 4105 as of today there is no time

037to wait for two weeks as i write this new york has decided to close its schools again after the state had it after the state had a three percent positivity rate in which schools in the 85295 zip code have a 7.37 rate positivity rate and it's still growing the problem lies in the new reality students are forced to face i have personally heard had to take four classes online now the online program at higley is asynchronous which means no live instruction is given to students when students were remote learning they at least had their teachers two to three times a week instructing them on what what to study and how to study uh let's see higley oh in case you're wondering why the numbers were so high higley high school has become a breeding ground

038for coronavirus i've now witnessed that many students will take off their masks during passing period and no one walks on the right side of the hallway when entering or leaving i've seen masks taken off for extended amounts of times in classes or masks are just under the nose and it just keeps happening and students do congregate every single time in the passing period in the courtyard i'm almost done the problem lies with the impatience mr glover the only member who voted no in reopening mentioned that we do not want our school to be the next jl combs the board also agreed that we do not want to reopen just to have to close again as of today november 18th it seems the things you feared most on august 26th when you made the decision to

039reopen is now a harsh reality it is now winter and all of us can confidently say we are getting colds more often sneezing and coughing and allergies are all over the place more students are absent and we are in effect in a second wave which will be much much more dangerous than the first without proper precautions such as going online i leave you with this i send this message asking you to do everything in your power to allow all students at any higley campus a proper and safe education i call on you now more than i did after the board meeting on august 26th to not only allow higley students to have a proper education but to protect the lives of every single member of this community before it's too late thank you so much

040thank you so much i know it's not easy to get up in front of us and i appreciate your time tonight giuliano next up i have stacey abbarilla or abba ria avarilla thank you um so my name is stacy abbarella i am a parent in the district i have three kids in the district at two different schools i also have nieces and nephews in the district my sister used to teach in the district and doesn't any longer before i make my comments i want to commend you for showing up as a student i know that probably what you just said is going to be very unpopular on your campus and you're really courageous for speaking to your to your elected officials and i i just wanted to congratulate and commend you for doing that um

041because i think civic engagement is is really important and especially important for our young people so kudos i also want to thank dr foley for the update you gave i was actually a bit concerned in preparing uh for my comments today that i didn't see a specific item about a covet update on the agenda but i'm glad to see you did provide an update and i appreciate your comments also mr glover i came here to talk about covid but there's another topic that's easier to talk about that i noticed on the agenda so i'm going to make comments about that first and then i'll move to the harder thing agenda item 7.4 has to do with the course guides that are getting reviewed and i currently have a 7th grader who's a double advanced student

042at cooley and these course updates are too late for her and i had a hard time getting her academic needs met with respect to her science class after six months finally got resolved and i won't go over the details with you now but i just really want to encourage you to make sure that the double advanced track gets updated at cooley i don't even know what i'm going to do with my kids next year because i just found out a couple of weeks ago that my daughter who's a 7th grader in algebra won't have a math class available to her at on campus at cooley she has to go to williamsfield this was news to me nobody bothered to tell me that when i was registering uh my kids for school in the spring i

043also have a sixth grader who will be a seventh grader and will be double advanced and apparently the courses will be there for her next year so does that mean i'm going to have two middle schoolers at two different schools or it's it's just it was very challenging for my my kid and um and i don't think that that should be the case so i'll leave it at that and just let you know that i had problems for my daughter and i want to make sure that those are resolved for kids who come after her my comments regarding uh kovid again thank you dr foley for giving your update um i went to the dashboard today and just at the outset i'm not here to advocate closing schools or keeping them open or anything what

044i what i don't want to say though is that our case rate is going up and i went back and looked on the the public health website the county website for our case rate in higley and it's gone up 128 within our boundaries in the last few weeks that's significant thankfully it seems as though the the positivity rate on campus is relatively well controlled um which is great trouble is some parents are sending their kids as dr foley mentioned to school knowingly knowingly sending their kids to school knowing they'd either had a positive test but apparently if they have no symptoms then the rules don't apply to them or they think maybe their kid has it they have a few symptoms and they go and get a test and they send them to school while

045they're waiting for the results um upwards of 80 percent of the cases in the kids that have been in the district are from families whose parents frankly lied and hid that information from the school district and and you know we all want our kids to be in school we all want them to have a safe environment and nobody wants to have that to have their kid isolate or quarantine or be out of school for two weeks i certainly do not want my children to have to be out of school for two weeks because some other parents sent their kid to school with kovid and exposed my kid and now my kid has to miss school so i'm here to implore you to find a way a mechanism to hold those parents accountable we all signed

046an agreement when we sent our kids back to school i understand my child must be free of covet symptoms cannot return to school until 10 days have passed symptoms have to be resolved no fever for 24 hours i will immediately notify the school site if i become aware that my child etc all of the parents had to have signed that and they're not following through and our district health care staff is having to be private detectives and having to chase after families who think the rules don't apply to them guess what i don't agree with every rule but there's a mechanism a right way to tell you like i'm doing now what i think should be the rule or the case and and you make that decision and the best way that you can with

047the information you have available but just because i don't agree with the rule doesn't mean i i shouldn't follow it and i i want you to know that your health staff is struggling with chasing after these cases and to find a way that if a parent sends their kid to school knowingly then there needs to be a repercussions for that thank you so much for sharing appreciate it dr foley can we follow up with her on her student schedules please thank you so much president kayla was there anybody else that's it for tonight okay could i just say to uh these these two who who spoke there's two i find two really unsatisfying things being on a school board and one is open meeting law and not really being able to talk to more than

048one person on any votable item so i really have no idea sometimes what these guys are thinking that's really hard and then not being able to really respond to comments from the public i i wish that we could so i do thank you for coming in um i i support the first amendment fully i wish there was a better way we could exchange and and thank you for coming in and sharing whether i agree or not i i think it's important to speak up so thank you for coming in and participating i agree with you mr glover it's not easy to come up here and speak to us and so i commend you both thank you for coming in tonight and with that we are going to move on to our consent agenda items i

049move that we approve consent agenda item 6.1 to 6.9 second any questions or comments on consent all those in favor aye motion carries 4-0 i guess just a real quick comment i know that we are getting our booster clubs and ptos trained from mrs malloy and i've heard just positive feedback from that and so please send my regards to mrs malloy that she's done an amazing job in that role thank you okay we have some information items and this is going to be from mr gad 8.1 we have i'm sorry 7.1 we have our governing governing board monthly financial report any questions or comments for mr gatt on that then we are going to quickly move on to 7.2 and this will be a presentation for our early projections of our 2020 1 22 mmo

050budget mr gad the floor is yours thank you madam president members of the board uh the uh slide that you see um on the screen is what i will cover with you it's this step is in accordance with the with the budget calendar that you viewed at the last governing board meeting it is a projection of next year's m o budget and as i'm sure the board's aware that is the largest budget and contains primarily all of the staff and benefits district-wide we start out with this revenue control limit that's the first line that's it's a formula based uh calculation utilizing an estimated adm for next year average daily membership uh as of the 100th day so that will be roughly february of next year and we've assumed for purposes of this projection that the

051adm is flat we have no decrease we have no increase because we don't know especially with the online component we don't know how that's all going to come out with the count so i think that's a safe way to predict that it also includes a one percent inflation so it's assumed that that i think the last year or so it's been about 1.6 this is a reduced number from that primarily because of the economy and how it's been affected by the covet environment and so that is uh that is a projection of the new money for next year from the formula it's about 300 000 so it's not nearly enough to deal with probably what we want to do the second one is is the board's aware we're transferring annually six million dollars from mno

052to capital outlay it's primarily paying for lease of construction for two schools that amount is 4.4 of the 6 million we are listing here a continuation of that and the reason we're doing that is is we need to review with the board uh in the next couple of board meetings uh the capital budget and whether you want to do some things there that are different than what we have now but if you do if you don't want to make any changes it's here and it's planned to continue as it has in the past the district completed last year with a very high budget balance carry forward much of that is due to payroll positions that we were unable to fill for some period of time all of those kinds of things generate balance they're budgeted

053for the full year but we only spend a portion of that total we wound up the year with about eight percent uh excuse me about eight million dollars of budget balance carry forward that seems to me to be excessive given the base that we are coming from so that's uh that's this three million dollars is a an effort to reduce that balance it tightens up the difference between budget and expenditures for 2122. so what we are doing here is we're taking that difference that slack that's in the budget and actually assigning it to some purpose the board will will identify a continuation of prop 123 is a part of the total mmo general budget limit that is state trust land money you may remember that that that was the governor establish that the legislature passed

054it it's a 10 year commitment it ends in 25 so it's one of those like prop 301 it just sunsets it stops so as the as we get closer to 25 i'm sure that there'll be some efforts to figure out just as there was with prop 301 what to do with that termination so we are including a budget balance carry forward of about four percent rather than the higher level that i talked about earlier so we have a 3.7 million dollar reserve for that the m o override roughly the the you know the 15 is calculated at slightly over 12 million dollars the 1.6 million that you see on the last line is we think is a reasonable reduction of that capital that mno transfer that you see up on line two we would we

055would basically use that money as a transfer back to mno retain it in illinois the capital transfer then would be reduced to 4.4 which is the value of those annual lease payments and the rest we would make up through other sources of revenue but we feel comfortable that we can reduce that transfer at least by the 1.6 million you'll notice in footnote number four on this slide covid is will be one of the topics that we talk about at the next board meeting covet is a very large grant amount that the each district receives and in our case it's well above five million dollars annually and it's a one-time though you know a one-time payment to compensate for expenditures that the district made from its budget to deal with covet that then we need to

056you know we need to project how we're going to spend that we've already it's a reimbursement we've already paid it so then when this reimbursement comes back and it's a one-time only what's the best assignment of that money um and and that's where we'll get into that discussion with you at the next meeting regarding capital outlay so mr dad can i stop you there did you say it's a five million dollar one time it's plus it's plus five million at this point that is the application amount and we feel comfortable a portion a big portion of it is what's called an enrollment stabilization fund it's from the governor's office they have over 300 million dollars to assign it's calculated on a per student basis at this point of 500 a student and i and we

057assume the distribution then will be using that as the formula and if you you know calculate that into our student account you're you're in that 5 million plus and that's different than the cares money that's correct wow okay thank you for i i had not heard of that at all so thank you for bringing that to my attention quite welcome um we will have we're to be notified next week of the exact dollar amount from the governor's office uh for that statement did i have to take my words back what's that do i have to take my words back now no no i don't i wouldn't do it i wouldn't do it thank you for the money maybe too early so if you would you let us know um what that amount when that comes

058in yes we will thank you and hopefully before thanksgiving recess then we'll know the first three days of next week and soon as we do we'll let you know president kayla remembers the board the final amount has not been finalized thus this is why we once we have that figure we'll know we're just giving you estimates to know what the what the figures might be but we'll have a final number that's one time money hence why we brought that calendar to kind of show we have some unique things happening this year and we need to make some decisions um because sometimes it's one-time money and then there may be long-term commitments but we have some money to to do those things and to make some decisions so hence it's important to kind of bit by

059bit piece by piece and again we can get those final numbers so that you have that number in your head too i will tell you what i know about cares it is approximate six hundred thousand dollars it is not finalized but that's the neighborhood that that should be and of course then it leaves that very large amount uh that's that stabilization fund that's going to contribute the lion's share of that um covet effort so there are two pieces there and we'll probably know what the next board mean if not earlier what the dollar amounts are in each one well if you if you follow that down through then the scenario of how we've assigned some funds and how we've calculated the new money in next year's budget this is a pretty conservative view i believe

060of what we would have as additional money for next year we've been very careful about putting on this sheet only those things that appear fairly obvious and it totals a difference of 5.1 million from our current 90 million dollar mmo budget that's an approximate 5.6 increase at 5 million as it relates to the 90 million that's budgeted and your first column here for the current year so uh if if all of this uh comes true and we have no reason to believe that it won't because as i say it's a conservative estimate the district would be able to study then over the next several board meetings as we talked about in the budget calendar uh how the uses the assignment of that money and so that will be worth coming some at the december meeting

061and some and also at the january meeting so if you have any questions i will try to answer them for you very good thank you so much sir appreciate your time next up is we are going to have a high school media center update from dr fowler good evening president kaler members of the board tonight i'm going to present updates on the media center remodels at williamsfield and higley high and would you advance that slide for me please first we see the picture from higley high school and this first picture um it's outside the media center and it shows the new sign and the advertising for students there in the courtyard and the in the for the cafe portion of the media center and that second picture gives you kind of your first look when

062you come into the market cafe over at higley high you can see the video menu boards um and the view that students or staff see when they enter the cafe just to talk about um those items you may not if your eyesight's like mine you probably can't read that specifically so there's coffee items that are available latte espresso hot cocoa chai tea lemonade there's also drinks like water just regular cold tea energy drinks um and then um slushes i believe and then on the salty side which i don't think you should that shows up there but there's also um you know salty snacks like chips and chex mix sunflower seeds there's frozen yogurt um available and then also some sweet treats pop-tarts cookies cereal bars and the like um can you advance to the next

063slide please um here's here's a wider angle view of the market cafe showing of the variety of items that i just referenced and then the staff are available that available for staff and students um the next slide please this is the multi-purpose room or presentation room that's the view from kind of the back corner looking back and one other thing that you'll notice the the upgraded seating there one of the nice things about this this area well is it's tiered seating all the although the floor is one level the way that the seating in there it kind of creates some almost that presentation area view so and it's ideal for professional development other presentations uh next slide please in this picture the first we will see student tables for studying and for small groups and

064small group work and then and that's in front of the media center kind of in the transition area between the cafe and the multi-purpose room and then also in that picture you see the the esports rooms unfortunately the equipment that's the last piece that we're waiting on there but the first area is a is for what we call console gaming um you have an xbox or one of those games that students would would use there and then the second space you can't see as well but that's there's actually 12 stations there for the where the esport computers will go and those esport computers um as i've indicated in the past we're just waiting for the vendor to install those which should be happening early next week and uh and they'll be available for students to

065use uh next slide please wait can we go dr fowler um have i know i kind of talked with mr lotzenheiser about this but what is going to be the security on these two rooms what is that going to look like because obviously they can't just stay open correct well i think the security concern is a little different at higley than it is at williamsfield and so because of the location and the the door location at williamsfield and we'll get to that slide so we have some additional plans there um i'm not sure that we're as concerned here but the the vicinity of the esports lab and the excuse me the exit door um so i'll can i hold that question and come back and answer that for at williamsfield the next slide please and

066this is uh just the view another view of the state-of-the-art furniture in the seating it includes serpentine bookshelves all this furniture is movable including the bookshelves which makes this space very flexible for multiple school events next slide fleece and then this is another view kind of of from the other side looking at that furniture and the bookshelves that's containing all those media materials provided for students next slide is kind of a longer view from the back um and and seeing the also by the window cert some of those that open high top seating that looks out into the grassy amphitheater also the the restaurant style seating um or booths that um are adjacent um to the cafe and close for um prepar there for students for for their collaboration and real really creating an inviting

067area for students to connect next slide and this is the back area um our kind of our back window um right now is um and i'm sorry the picture i'm not the world's greatest photographer but that middle picture is where the media center director is seated at this time and um that um on either side there's the high top tables first for students to use there is an upcoming project that my very capable support service team is going to to engage in and that middle window that you see right there we're going to actually add double doors to allow students to to come in and out of that space and certainly when that occurs then we'll adjust the the media center person's station there so that that's higley high space i guess specifically for higley

068high if there's any questions about higley high space i could answer those right now president this obviously pertains to both as we've had conversations the seating is extremely close what and how are we managing [Music] people in this enclosed area regarding covid and trying to keep some distancing um it's closer than you can go to restaurants and so i mean are we trying to space that out is it i know it's helpful to space people because of our cafeteria and our outside eating places but we've added additional lunch periods so that we can try and space them out but this is this is cozy and it's uncomfortable for me right now on it's great but it's cozy and this was kind of one of my concerns when because we started this in the middle of

069covid and it was one of my concerns then it is a cozy space and i am concerned on how close people are president koehler board member rhys my understanding is that the media center director is in this space the entire time as well as staff specifically in the cafe and you know the expectation for students related to masks is certainly in place unless of course they're eating and and so i know that um they're they're utilizing that space um very similar to the they are elsewhere on campus um i know that um you know when i was in there the last few times there's multiple staff because also in this space there's collaboration areas where the career counseling areas as well so at any given time there's probably at least three staff members in in

070in some cases more um but but that will be again the the staff that use that to encourage um students to remember to practice physical distancing and to make sure they wear their masks just like they're doing everywhere else on campus i also fear to defer to mr lotnizer if he has anything else to add because i know he's working closely with the principals on the management side of those areas if i missed anything mr watson has president caleb board member reece yes we've had discussions about that monitoring and managing very similar to what we're doing in our cafeterias right now and so there is staff assigned there when it is open for them to go um and make sure they're spread out i was at the williams field one today during and right after

071lunch and they were making sure that people were spread out and when you go in there and what's kind of nice right now is because of the number of students that are spread out these at least if it wasn't today wasn't overcrowded when i was over there on campus and it's my understanding higley's is open all day long versus williams fields has specified times yes um board member taylor um sorry president killer remember race yes that vice president reece that is true right now um just with in terms of the rollout higley's cafe has actually been operating a little bit longer and and um they're more comfortable in terms of the space in terms of where it's located the location um and so it does open a little bit before um school and stays open

072throughout the day um at waynesfield however because of the the location um there there's some some just challenges um with that and so right now um [Music] they've limited it to before school during the lunch hour periods now remember there's three lunch periods now and then for a short time after school and that's that's um the the campus decision at this point at williamsfield and so um i know that they'll they'll have conversations and and um kind of um make adjustments as needed but that that's how williamsfield has rolled it out and they're newer to opening their space um then higley just because of the the way that some of the equipment was delivered and how those things opened up and what does the staff member i know we're not into williamsfield we're getting ready

073to get into the williams field but what does that staff member do all day when it's not open the the when i talk about being open i mean the the cafe i'm referring to the cafe being open right my understanding is that our food provider was providing that person so is that person only there three times or are they there all day long for the cafe um you know what i'd have to check on that um president taylor vice president reece um but i do know that certainly the media person is there and they're still using the media space throughout the day it's just that that cafe portion is only open at those times and i don't know how chartwells staffs that space so that that that would be a decision or a question that

074i have to ask and then follow up with you on thank you yes i have one quick question and i know again i'm kind of nitpicking on the door thing but so the staff door staff room door there's not a door is that correct are we going to work on getting a door so that there can still be a staff meeting going on while oh yes i'm sorry yes yes the in the collaboration space there's two there's two kind of areas the first area it's open by the front and the back area there is actually a door at the back and so in the design um not to to digress too much but if you recall when we looked at the project there were some some cost challenges i guess i will would say and

075so we had had some um value engineering to this project to to keep the total construction um at a million and so um like the the the um windows that are going to turn into doors at the back that the door to the pd room is also a project that that my very capable support services team is going to take care of that i'm sorry i'm sorry i think i had it in my notes but i didn't mention that thank you just a couple quick things um i really like the flooring i think it's going to be a much better cleanup i hope than the carpet that we used to have in there um and then i just want to encourage you to keep those marketplaces the hub because that's what i kind of saw

076when we voted on that like that would be a hub and the kids would want to come there and it's a big draw so to keep those markets open as much as we can and still have the obvious school aspect so i just want to encourage that thank you thank you continuing on to the next slide please and you will hopefully recognize waynesfield with um this is the outside of their market cafe um adjacent to the the driveway that leads to the back of the campus and the student parking lot i'm showing a similar sign then on the next slide there here's the wide angle view of the waynesfield market cafe and you can see it's it's very similar in design uh to the one at higley next slide please um their their restaurant seating

077and tables adjacent to the market cafe um you're kind of you're kind of showing you both because that space that kind of distorted the picture and there's also high-top seating on the back and on the sides included there is computer search stations along the back well but excuse me the back wall uh next slide please and then just another sample of the of the furniture that's in the middle um next to the um presentation wall excuse me those are some of the the new furniture and and spaces created to uh to allow students to collaborate and work together also you'll see along the windows there they have some additional high-top seating and there's also some some built-in seating next to that um you'll see the the uh next slide please you'll see the that's a

078little bit better picture um because higley's is similar but that's the esports area and this is the space um president kaler that we were referencing earlier because the door an exit door to the media center is very um close to there this is another area where we're going to add add some doors to this space just to help with the security we do know that the the um the the interest in those esports computers is going to be fairly high so we want to make sure that the security of those will be kept in place and so we're going to add that component there um and as you'll see the uh the video wall there is a is a very large uh tv that's gonna be um i'll help us in multiple ways could be

079used for presentations but also um one of the selling features for this space is is um esports was really a a team on both campuses that didn't really have a venue and now this really allows for a venue to take place and that big screen will have the ability to split screens and you can watch up to four screens happening at the same time and i know that um with the seating there and in that space can will be a popular um gathering place for students um appropriately massed in distance in that that area till we um as that process um continues dr fowler i know that like to mrs reese's concern you know there's x's on cafeteria chairs and i don't know if we have to go that far but that's what we need

080to do we could do that perhaps yes um the next slide please um again just a another view of that uh window and then you actually can see the built-in bench along that window and then just some more design of that that uh updated furniture and then you'll see there's a couple adjacent collaboration spaces there with chairs for students to work and then it screens where they can project their work on on those screens and and work collaboratively there next slide please in in this in this these this uh picture you'll see again some of that flexible uh bookshelves that includes that and some modern uh updated seating there with the media center directors area and then and the next slide as well uh shows the same thing and so they're working to to maximize

081that space and then finally in the last slide um you'll see the large conference area which again um this is the of the things that i've talked about this would be the last area where mr buholz and our our very skilled tradesman will will get in and we're going to actually build a conference room there with walls and and and windows to be able to allow a separate space there for for presentations and and uh really enhance what can happen in that that area so we appreciate the board's support um through through this process and uh kova did make um this event you know much more challenging but i look forward to uh to uh touring this space at winsfield on friday um with a superintendent visit and um just again i know that the

082students are very excited and uh principals are excited to finally have access to this space so i'll answer anything some of the staff loves a latte too in the morning is what i've heard so there's that mr glover dr fowler it looks nice congratulations um i am going to go see williamsville later this week but uh i was hoping maybe before i become a civilian that i could also see higley highs maybe after hours i don't like to add another you know another mouth breathing uh amongst everybody but i would love to do that um i remember distinctly when i first joined the board it was one of the very first things that i talked to dr thomason about was making these a more lively engaging space and i thought it was a real long

083shot so very pleased to come to fruition you must be very relieved it's almost at the very end of this this big project but i'm very proud um that we've that we've converted this space i think the community and the and the students will will really like it and thrive president keller board member glover yes thank you for that and some of the feedback that we've been getting um just from other people that have used this space and have seen the space that it has almost a a college student union type feel and and really one that like and this is like a college campus and drawing wanting to draw kids in there and uh you know we do feel that way too with the esports computers and once those get in there we do

084really feel like um that's going to be a draw for for students and uh we'd much rather have a safe place for them to be be on campus and so we're looking forward to seeing that to come to fruition and and we we are hearing that the the market cafes at both campuses are being utilized well by students and staff which is a nice um perk for sure and so uh thank you for your support on that and i am i am relieved to see this finally i haven't you know completely knocked on wood yet maybe i should a little bit we're waiting for those computers but uh but we are close and uh thank you for to to the board again for all of your support through this process thank you dr fowler maybe

085they'll even read a book while there in there which would be amazing at least read the cover um but i love the colors i love how it just ties into the school campus and it just really accentuates each of their own colors and it's beautiful design so again thank you and president keller i'd be remiss to not um thank um both principal fields and principal tannenbaum because um they were very involved in the especially the selection of colors and the furniture and i really felt that space um needed those principles inputs because that's the space that they were really going to use and and they they knew their campus the best and so i do think in this process that was the piece that kind of helped it all come together and i really appreciate

086both of those gentlemen for their their efforts and their patience with with the process they come decorate my house next they did a great job thank you any other comments from dr fowler thank you appreciate your time thank you next up we have mr lotzenheiser is going to give us a update i'm going to recommend that the board i make a motion to recommend that the board review the requested changes to the 20 21 20 22 course guides for middle school and high school as well as the new course guide for hba and provide feedback second yes you're on president kaler members of the board just waiting for the powerpoint i guess you know what i didn't have to make a motion on this one because this is the first time we're seeing this so

087it's coming back sorry we'll be returning on december we are going to return this is our first uh read per se so my apologies so tonight i have the pleasure presenting the process and the outcomes of the process for the course guides for the 2021-2022 school year next so in the presentation we're going to talk about the committees and i need to give credit where credit is due so we'll talk about who's the members of our committees talk to you about the process that we use to make the decisions about the courses that we're going to offer and or the revisions that we're going to do we'll touch base on a few of the different changes within the high school course guide a few within the middle's course guide and then we put a very

088very preliminary higley virtual academy course guide in front of you that is still very much a work in progress but we wanted to show you that we are working toward the opening of the higley virtual academy so the course guide committees and before i jump into that this is a process that was started last year by dr foley and it's a really involved process that includes a lot of different voices when we look at that and i want to say thank you to all of the people that are involved from both the high school the middle school and the district office perspective if you'll notice the high school committees we had our principals we had our assistant principals of curriculums and we had our head counselors and then from the district perspective we had our

089director of cte we had our instructional coaches we had student support information systems we had online and then i need to give a huge shout out to virginia sanchez our ed services assistant who does such a wonderful job preparing and presenting this information for us to make our decisions the middle school once again we had our our principals we had our assistant principal of curriculum and our lead counselors as well as the same team from the district and then with higley virtual academy dr sue borges is really helping us out as the director of achievement and assessment not only did overlooking the catalog but she's also developing the student handbook that we'll be presenting to you later and then laura collins our online coordinator has been helping put this together for us so just to

090talk you through the process and the timeline starting on september 21st we did our call for course of just additions and revisions went out to all teachers and administrators and coaches with the expectations that by october 14th they gave recommendations to us we reviewed within ed services and used our coaches and directors to complete that by the 21st and then we had our first course guide review meeting on october 27th and what's really important about these meetings is we can get together and not just talk about courses we want to change but if they have questions about processes or procedures with that are kind of outlined within the course guide we could have those discussions sometimes we realize we're not going to change what happens in the course guide but we do need to strengthen

091perhaps a process or a procedure behind it for instance we're having a testing out committee because of some questions that came from this group so it kind of has led to other different pieces that we can firm up and make more consistent as we go along and i think that's the great beauty in collaborating and seeing it from not just a district perspective but from a site perspective about how we're trying to do our schedules so on the 27th we had our first course guide meeting we did a bunch of recommendations we put it together then we met again on november 9th and to fine tooth comb it and go through it again and once again it's great to have another set of eyes that we looked at this had to make decisions about should

092we change things should we not it gave us time to go back and look at specific situations once again to determine do we change what's in the book or do we leave it there and then work on our processes on the other end tonight we're presenting to you the rough drafts and then asking we'll come back on the ninth after your feedback for final approval the reason why we've got to get it done in december is because we hit the ground running in january with registration we need to have this out for people to be able to view and to help them make decisions as they register for courses in january next slide please so just thought process that goes through when we take a look at how do we consider should we add a

093new course or not because it's not just as easy as writing up something and then giving to and say put in the course catalog let's see what sticks so the first thing we looked is how does it fit in in our current offerings where does it fit and so for instance we we take a look and say is this adding to something that we're doing or is this going to competing with something else that we're doing and those are the discussions we have within members from both schools talking about it the second one is kind of big is this teacher dependent or program dependent course meaning is the course sustainable sometimes we have very very passionate teachers who have an idea about a course and it's a great course and we put it in and

094then after a year they leave and we don't have anyone to take their place and now we're struggling and we might have put something forth for kids that we really think is a great option that now we're going to have to pull back off the table and that has to be a consideration when you look at it what is the sustainability of adding a course because we don't want to have people as freshmen not really have the opportunities to see those things through completion as as a senior then we look at the proposal itself and say is this comprehensive do we have enough information on what the providing is where does the curriculum alignment that's where we use our coaches to be able to look at and say how does this curriculum align to the

095standards and does it fit and meet the needs of what our students are and do we have enough information and then finally as with most things we have today are there costs associated with this are they appropriate are they manageable to be able to be able to add the new course when we look at revisions we look and say are we looking at content what's written or are we looking at process and so like i've referenced earlier sometimes we don't change what's written but we change how we do it on the back end and those are great discussions for us to have what's the big picture of this impact what's the implication you try to look for hidden implications and i'll give an example at the high school level electives are there's competition for electives

096okay because kids you have the same group of kids going and trying to they all choose different electric core classes they got to take them but with electives they have to choose so sometimes when you're looking at electives are you thinning the opportunity so am i giving to one program while taking from another and those are some of those hidden implications that you have to look at and try to try to understand when we look at what the revision is we want to know why it's necessary what's the driving force and is the revision going to be consistent with what we've continued to do and as long as consistent meets these parameters then we go ahead and make the revision so if you look for our high school courses i've just outlined a few of

097them that are jumping up actually we're only looking at adding two new courses this year first course is in advanced topics in criminal justice this is a continuation of a program this is the third year cte program there is high demand and we feel like that we will be able to sustain this as well as provide an opportunity for the students who have already finished that second year course and so this is in our cte program funding is available for we have the teaching staff available for them we think it is very viable the second new course is we already offer earth science we're adding honors earth science and so we have a staff on both campuses are able to fill it and we look for you know an additional option for students who are

098seeking a weighted course and are seeking uh and this can be a dual credit option with the teachers who are dual credit as well and so once again it's it's adding to the science program but we don't think that it's going to be in direct competition that is simply another option for kids as they're looking with the science program um we last year maybe two years ago we got to tour i believe higley high and got to see the criminal justice program and how they were doing like was it last year okay i'm like i can't remember the years all merge and it was just very exciting to see how excited those kids were and to add on another course is really exciting because i do know they have that room if those who toured

099they had a separate room that got they got to investigate and it was just such a cool experience for them so i'm excited to see that we get to add to that so thank you all right thank you when we talk about revisions i just threw a couple of examples i know that you've gotten a more complete list that if you want to go very specific because sometimes it's literally changing one word or we had something misspelled i know that happens sometimes so we try to catch all of that but our air force junior rotc just updated what they wanted within their descriptions when we went through they wanted to be more specific so when kids came in they knew what the expectations so those were small little changes that happen within a description i

100think the biggest revision we have on the high school side is the um in our vernacular the blend one blend two and blend three courses i don't think we're going to change calling them that but for the ncaa clearinghouse they need them not to include the word blend and so what happens is the title of the course is what happens on the transcript and so we need to change the title of the course to make sure that the transit fits the credits that they're getting so blend instead of calling it blend 2 on the transcripts they would now say ap united states history and ap language and composition and so we made that change internally we'll still call them blend one blend two and blend three but in the course book and on their transcript

101it's gonna say that especially to help with ncaa clearinghouse for any of our athletes that are taking that so they won't have a question about that course and then another revision we we no longer use that genuity and so we've taken those courses out of it so those won't be available for people to see fees i know everyone loves to talk about money so fees is is we have new fees and we have revised fees and so people bring them forward and then we talk about the need and and are we being consistent with what we're offering for all of our courses obviously our new advanced topics in criminal justice course um there it's brand new we need to have a fee associated with it the fifty dollars per year is very much the consistent

102fee that we charge additionally it was brought forth that our intermediate acting concert orchestra and sports med the lab class did not have fees assigned however there was a need for fees for supplies and so we want to add that in those levels once again are consistent with all the other levels within the performing arts and or within sports medicine we were revising the fees chamber choir and jazz band had been at 25 per year removing them to be consistent with all of the rest of the fine arts courses once again because there was a need because of the supplies that we're going to have too and especially with those i want to say songs but that's not the right term i'll think about it as soon as i leave but the chamber choir and

103the music right purchasing the music and making sure that we have the appropriate things for that i think the biggest one that we had the most discussion on was the instrument rental okay and and really what's happening is i will say that the higley unified school district is doing an outstanding job of providing opportunities for instruments for our kids who want to play at a very reduced cost we are charging 75 dollars per year where for some instruments it's 60 dollars per month if i'm going outside where we're doing 75 for a year with the low cost however comes an issue that it's hard for us to pay for the reconditioning of them and this is a concern that we've definitely have and so we're asking tonight is that we raise the fee from 75

104a year to a hundred dollars per year to help increase the reconditioning and help us recoup some of the cost of reconditioning those instruments there's a big broader plan that we have at looking at replacing our instruments and how we're getting those fixed this is a small step within it and um you know i was given information that really even to get an instrument assessed right now it's a hundred and fifty dollars just to get it assessed and then when you see where the issues lie it just starts tagging on more and more money to it we've been paying for it out of different accounts that we have right now but we just need a little bit of help and we felt like that we're asking for an additional 25 per year uh to do

105that when we did the math and if you're running it from an outside source once again it's sixty dollars for the eighth months you're looking at about four hundred and eighty dollars as opposed to the a hundred dollars per year mr lotson hi sir if i may i i should have given you a heads up on this question but as i reflect and think about um people maybe being out of work and things like that can you just talk so we all hear uh i would hate to to see a student not pursue their interest in music or whatever because of money so what happens if what would a parent do if they were seeking if they were having some financial trouble could you just tell yes and this would not just go for instruments

106but go to any kind of fee that they have the first thing i think would be to talk to the instructor and let them know please confidentially this is not something that we're going to share and administrators have ways that we can cover these fees and so i would ask that they go toward the toward the teacher and then the teacher go with the administrator and we can figure out we don't ever want to exclude anyone from any opportunity they have because of financial especially difficulties right now so hopefully that clarified mr glover can i just tag on to and because people will be selecting these courses in january where they're not they don't have a teacher to talk to about the fees and what mr glover was saying if they're going through the course

107guide and they're like you know we really you can't take that class we're not going to sign up for it because it has a 50 fee we can't afford it if they're currently at the high school have them contact their counselor and have that discussion the counselor or the principal yeah in the principal's office because because so if they're not in the class and they want to sign up but they're concerned about being able to pay for that future yes to either talk to their counselor or the principal or that like mr glover said don't don't not choose a course because it has a fee associated with it that we can if there is a need we can help yeah if there's a need we will find a way okay so when we look at

108middle school and the revisions once again i i need to go back to the last couple there was so much work that was done in this process last year that our revisions are kind of small this year but what i want to do is highlight for us we're adding new courses mandarin 1a and mandarin 1b at coulee middle school it's helping with the continuation of mandarin immersion program as well as allowing the one a and one b if it's very similar to the spanish one a and one b where they take mandarin one spread out over two years as long as they get a c or above in both of those classes they're actually able to earn high school credit and so it can be a continuation of the immersion program or a starting point

109for people who are interested in learning mandarin and so that's going to be added for us at coulee middle school another read just a quick question sorry i didn't mean to interrupt you um is that no offense here is that course mandarin a really going to be an appropriate place for someone who spent six years in an immersion program we we i've already offered mandarin one and then mandarin two this is actually another option in case they were struggling in that that they can drop down and go a little bit slower but already within the course guide that was approved for last year is mandarin one in mandarin okay so it's an it's with the continuation of the mandarin immersion i was like wait that's usually a slower pace some of these kids could probably

110teach that if they've spent the last six years in an immersion program so thank you for clarifying okay president taylor vice president reece one of the things that we're using is the stamp language assessment that gives us a proficiency target for each kid that we're using in our mandarin program to make sure we're staying on track with those standards and making sure that we're at the right level and we the best fit for our language acquisition so the great news is we have a nice tool that helps us make sure we're uh proficiency and on target in the standard in the target language quick question follow-up to that um is that test are you able to then place the student in span either mandarin one or mandarin two is that does that kind of place

111them it's a proficiency test basically what it is it tells us the level of language and proficiency there's a beautiful chart for every one of the languages that allows us to identify where you are in your language acquisition so it allows us to do a couple things in a mandarin program it would allow you to ensure that we were mastering the standards at the level that we had aligned it to or two if it was the best fit for you for placement so it confirms placement for recommendation and then also confirms a confirms proficiency for credit bearing so it's a it's a great tool for instruction and for confirmation and it's used in our seal by literacy which we had had in place but refined our processes for that you have to have to prove

112proficiency for that seal thank you know one of the revisions and a big revision that we're doing right now is with the elast humanities seven and humanities aced uh traditionally these were only taught at sussman now we are adding coulee starting in the seventh grade year and what we did is we changed the verbiage in there to make sure the parents know for that this elas class is a block class so this is two periods there are two teachers in there but this is the compliment combination of the english language arts and social studies so when you have the elos humanities you will also have the advanced social studies 7 course we have traditionally not had it at cooley middle school as this was the kind of the path that was taken for the h-pal

113students coming out of bridges however with the increase of our gate program at the elementary schools there's definitely a need for it to be at cooley and so we are starting with the seventh grade and having those courses so then the next year you when i come to you i'll be saying that we're adding the eighth grade course to accommodate those students and so right now we are working on the process for students to get into these once again it goes back to those programmatic things what is our testing in and what are we looking at to make sure that we have a best fit for our students to be able to take these courses because we already have some advanced courses but this is a more a little bit more advanced and we want

114to give those parents the opportunities to apply for this program and then there will be a process that will work on consistent at both schools for making sure that kids are placed appropriately in the courses i just want to jump in and say thank you again for that whole process and making sure that our north and our south schools are equitable but also when looking at these it's not even just our sixth graders moving up to seventh and eighth but like from the sixth grade all the way through the high school to have that plan and to make sure that they know what if you take these classes in seventh and eighth this is going to be kind of your plan for 9th 10th and 11th and 12th and so just making sure that we

115are doing that full communication i do apologize that we have you know an honors geometry kiddo probably still going to williams field that's been happening over cooley now for a few years but i look forward to when we have a full class of those geometry students over at cooley and it's going to happen it's just going to take a little bit of time as we navigate through this new change so thank you for doing it i know it's just going to be our growing pain for right now and i apologize to our um sweet mama that was here and so um if we can just check in on her that would be great thank you so you stole my thunder on the next one so we've changing geometry that's okay we're changing geometry to honors

116geometry to match because both campuses yes the ones from coulee were going to williams field but the same content was being taught as hossman by assassin and teacher so we wanted to be consistent with both and so when we looked at what they were doing within their courses we changed geometry to be labeled honors geometry so the hva guide and i know when you looked at it looked very rough because it is very rough there's some highlights there's lots of different things there's courses and really what we want to show you this is very preliminary we are looking at courses that we have the opportunity to offer through the florida virtual curriculum as well and and for this course catalog this course guide it's going to be 7 through 12 and so we're looking at

117combining and how we how we look through that process there's still so much work that we have to do on hva throughout the year including how we're going to staff it and you know all of these different decisions that have to be made but kind of our thought process is we're going to tell you these are some of the courses that could be offered and we would rather have them in a guide and up front and then if we had to backtrack instead of trying to add one at the end and say oh now we want to do this one there are some different ones that are happening in there because of the hva sorry the florida virtual curriculum and i know that some were pointed out whether it was latin or i don't know

118if we're going to truly offer those but i want us to give us that opportunity that if it arises and there is a need that you have been able to see that these are one of the possibilities that we do have so i'm going to continue to work on this we'll continue to update you on this process as well as the entire establishment of the higley virtual academy including the principal who we're looking to to move forward with a little sooner than later to help us lead through this process thank you mr lotzenheiser i have two things um one i still think it needs to be a discussion that we come forward with um having that eighth grade honors geometry count towards the high school math credit that's been a conversation we've had in the

119past and i'm not sure if it's this year next year maybe before i retire mr glover because the other thing i would love to see before i retire as well is american sign language and i've already had this discussion with dr foley but i want it to be heard across the the district that that is a priority for us eventually it is on the table to be discussed and talked kobe kind of put some things in our way this year but we're hoping to add that as well so um good things to come for higley any other comments or questions president kayla yes i just want as we're continuing to look at our virtual academy um similar to the mom that was here um i have had doc conversations with dr thomason about a virtual

120academy for several years now that if we can look at some of our one-off students and i say one-off students but we have a lot of one-off students that i can tell you i had to seek out my own virtual classes for one of my students because it was either choose a class or a passion and because the class was only offered both of her passion and the class was only offered one class period and so we were able to find a virtual high school that met our needs i had to pay for it on my own which was fine i mean it was the right thing for my student but we have several of those students and if we can keep that within our own district i had to pay california school you know

121to meet her need and so but i know she's not she was not alone it was many many other students that we have that have that issue so that is what's really for me as we look forward for these virtual academies that we are able to handle those students who need just a one-off class because maybe there's two classes that they need but they're both only offered the same class period which we run into often so i know it's just a draft but i definitely want that to be something in the back of our mind the mom who got up and spoke she's going to run into the same issue as her children progress through high school that there's more of those advanced classes and then they have a passion or an interest and i

122don't think a student should have to choose taking a lower academic class to pursue a passion and i don't think they should have to give a passion or an interest to pursue an appropriate level class for them so um just and i know it's very rough right now but let's just try and keep some of that in mind as we're determining these classes okay yes and i think the idea with hva is that it does incorporate with our sites so that we don't have people having to make a choice to go someplace else and allow us some flexibility it is so hard with those singleton courses when you get at the high schools and where to try to do them and the principals and i are having lots of discussions about how can we think

123outside of the box about when we offer different things and maybe changing some paradigms in terms of master scheduling that will allow us to fit the needs of as many kids as possible having written a former mess and formerly written a master schedules out of high school as fun as it is it's huge puzzle it's a big spreadsheet and i love spreadsheets but ultimately we have to get down and say how can we meet the needs of the most kids and it is hard when you have those singleton ones that come out but then it's great when we have this option behind it thank you and thank you for all the staff that put all the time into this because i can see the work that was done especially i read the florida virtual or

124i'm sorry the hbca academy the course guide i read every page it was enlightening one night it was very fun um this was kind of a big package it was it was it was enjoyable i actually liked it um so i did read it and i really enjoy it and i just want to thank all the staff that put a lot of time and energy into this thank you thank you mr lotzenheiser lots of nicer you did great for your first course guide bringing it to us well done sir thank you okay now we're doing our action items so we've already had our work studies on the next three topics which we greatly appreciate having those work studies when we have to come back for a vote so with that i move that the governing

125board approves the facility rental rate increases as presented second questions or comments all those in favor aye aye motion carries 4-0 next up we have president kayla real quick on this one oh yes i you're going because i'm not going to leave the room because we've had the presentation but i am abstaining from the vote thank you very much so i move that the governing board approve the proposed school preschool tuition rate increase for beginning with the 2021-2022 school year second all those in favor aye aye motion carries 3-0 can i just say miss gleason thank you thank you for staying another evening so 30 seconds anywhere but you've been here an hour and a half but i'm probably not going to get a chance to see you again and you're one of my favorite

126people in all of higley so please take care you're killing us small okay we don't have tears at board meetings so now we're going on to 8.3 i move that the governing board approves the proposal form or cut winslow to prepare a facility condition index study second i think this is very timely knowing that there is some extra funds coming our way and knowing exactly where they should go first so um any other comments with all of that um all those in favor aye aye aye motion carries four zero items for our future agenda you can see what is still coming our way we still have an athletic coming our way a athletic handbook and eligibility eligibility we have technology and some other items but we're still trying to just swim our way through covid

127along the same time anything else that the governing board would like to see come forward president yes mrs reese not anything new but i just want to take a moment just real quick um while we're in the midst of covid people who have watched can see the work that you guys are still doing like covet's still going on and we're still dealing with all the cases and our nurse is handling a lot of that and you guys are being pulled into all of that you guys have been gracious and and so appreciative of working with our community meeting with our community and not a short 10 minute phone call these things are are going long because people are very passionate and there's a lot that they want to know course guide that's a huge thing

128within a school district and you guys are still getting that done when you look at our future agenda items we're still working on an athletic handbook and that's coming to us we have budgets we've got to do um and then you see that we still have some other things that don't have dates they're important and you guys have still prioritized them and you're still working on it in the midst of covet as well so i just want people to recognize and it's not just here in the district office it's our our schools and our principals are being part of this and they're trying to handle their students and they're trying to handle their teachers and their staff that are concerned and they're handling their community and then they're having to come and sit on committees

129and so i mean this year we are totally totally asking so so much from everybody because kovid but our district doesn't stop all this other stuff doesn't stop so i just wanted to take a moment to to recognize that with these things that are coming up and with tonight our course guides these are big things that you guys are doing that are very time consuming so i appreciate it as important to me as our things without dates right now can stay things without dates right now because you guys are have so much on your plate so i just wanted to kind of throw that in there it's still on here it's still important but when we get to those is when we can get to those because you guys are still doing so so much

130work so thank you president kaler thank you i appreciate those comments mrs reese that's um you know anytime we can simplify things this is a year that we really if we don't need to do it we should pull back and so i'm going to mention just a couple things they're really not maybe on an agenda but things maybe to think about one i really have been thinking a lot about um the anxiety that some of our kids are feeling i have seen them you know when kids are like coughing or sniffling and sometimes i'll see them walking up to the office and crying thinking they have coveted when it's just really they're just allergic to grass but like i've been thinking about like the lockdown drills and i don't i know there's probably a requirement

131but maybe we could ask if there's a waiver this year that these kids i just don't want these kids to be running around thinking that the whole world is always a terrible horrible place so maybe we can talk about that privately and then prop 208 i think we should start thinking about people uh and talking about where those that dollars are going to go you've got certified money classified money uh cte money it's not a rush but we should start to think about it because it's a good thing and when people actually have money to spend that might actually make us feel a little better of things we can offer and then lastly maybe you could um oh uh before i had some people ask about uh whether they should come here and make comments

132or if they could put them online and we could read them maybe that's a discussion you guys can have if we want to offer both for people as we get more and more red it might be you know more people might feel more comfortable just sending us in for board comments i don't know and then lastly maybe a superintendent's report i'm just wondering about florida virtual if we're getting our money's worth for the people who are using it not for not for the virtual academy but for for uh for for our in-person teachers if they're using it if you just fill us in thank you thank you mr glover i was going to end the night with a very heartfelt thank you to everybody it's thanksgiving i pray that everybody can go and be safe

133i pray that you are with your families and that you share your thankfuls with those that you love i love this place and i know that's weird for a lot of people my husband still wonders why amy [Laughter] many times but i'm thankful i'm thankful for all the people and everybody that does so much to make higley what it is today so thank you enjoy your thanksgiving and we'll be back on december 2nd with all that i hope that we adjourn yeah all those in favor all right hi motion carries have a good evening you