001thank you Mr Baker I'll bring them all in okay Mr Jester I don't know this far her yet I haven't seen there's a jacket there that I don't recognize oh that's that's somebody else there we go that's Bruce's oh okay oh oh there he is there he is he looks like the Purple Heart gentlemen you look like the metal no kidding okay that's the back stuff that you gave me first time okay thank you yeah okay we're going to call the meeting to order can everybody stand for the pledge please United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation of God indivisible liberty and justice for all thank you very much let's go to roll claw get your baloney here okay wow yeah Josh Feldman I'm here Brian libel here
002Scott Johnson I am here I'm drawn blank Marianne Marianne Jason is excused tonight here and Amy Bratayley I'm here um motion to approve the role so moved second all in favor aye move on to the approval for the of the agenda any questions I have a motion to approve the agenda we don't do that yet no next week yeah next week got it minutes of the previous meeting questions okay um Communications does anybody have any I do have one but I will wait till the superintendent's report okay anybody else already First Open Session as per board policy one five one two we hold two open sessions at each meeting the first session is limited to comments on the agenda items for tonight tonight's meeting the board welcomes attendance and participation by District residents persons having
003business within the boundaries of the school district and persons to do business with supportive education speakers must be at least 16 years of age and will be limited to three minutes please preface your comments with your name address and group affiliation if appropriate non-district residents must include the name of their business or how they do business with the voter of Education all speakers in this Open Session must state which agenda item they are speaking on one all right with that being said uh unfinished business but we don't have any so superintendo's report thank you Mrs Natalia um tonight we have some guests with us and I will just um call this up here Zoom room or apple Zoom room no uh Virgil's Apple TV yeah sure yep there you go you guys okay so first
004we would like to welcome um Russ Ward from uh Purple Heart Community here in um in our area to to our meeting and welcome him and uh really say thankful to him and and the group that is here tonight um I know that you have a presentation for for the board and we can be more grateful that you're here so thank you [Laughter] thank you very much for having us here and uh it's our pleasure to uh present a uh a Purple Heart metal plaque that'll be uh displayed in your uh I believe Veterans area and then along with that we will be presenting a flag and uh of course right now if I could ask principal Baker to come up and I'll I'll give you this here uh Proclamation that we've made up and
005uh I have a pen here if you could sign it to make it official and I'll send this forward to our national uh office and they're going to put this on our national highway of uh Purple Heart communities or schools so then if you sign this year like this I believe this time will work hopefully just sound like that foreign and I did my student teaching here before most of you were born [Laughter] no no uh Ryan hold a splack here and uh we actually had it inscribed with uh two special students that one here went to the school at one time and it's uh uh Kathleen Sherry and uh Wilbur Leroy mung and Denise aren't sprayed down here in memory up so then uh you know that'll be something that people can maybe relate
006to and uh you know that that'll be as I say displayed in the uh in the Veterans area there Amy move over a little bit you're worse than my parents they're not supposed to say that I know somebody's taking a picture if you want to get over here that's what bake if you want to get over here you know hold on here let's move this out of the way so it's a better picture is there something or we could just move in front of it that's all right there's a problem solver [Laughter] foreign basically what's on the overhead there and regards to uh the Purple Heart battle plaque we're hoping that uh that uh many people see the plaque and uh perhaps receive the messages that uh that we uh we feel as though that
007the plaque sends out by reading it and the thing is uh to start with is uh for the fact of uh honor uh further impressive students and adults to honor and respect our American way of life that is that an estimated one million American citizens were killed and billions more were wounded in many wars throughout our history to keep us free and uh Unity we hope that that would just send a message of unity and uh when the Purple Heart metal plaque is viewed on display it unites students and adults to know all Races religions ages genders National Origins and nationalities fought as one United people to keep America free encouragement we hope that sons of a message of encouragement the Purple Heart Medal plaque offers encouragement to students and adults experiencing problems or hardships
008to know millions of veterans who were wounded work their way through their problems until they could continue living full lives patriotism when students and adults see the Purple Heart plaque they are reminded of how important it is to patronize and respect the many sacrifices that have been made to keep our country strong and free to provide for all citizens to live in peace and finally uh faith when viewing the Purple Heart metal plaque young and old I reminded freedom is not free and if necessary all citizens of America will fight together as one America to keep our rights of Freedom We Are One America so then we hope that this uh will be a good addition to what you're displaying in your hallway out there and uh well I think that's about what would you
009say oh we have our flag though so then uh I don't know we'll open it up yeah maybe we'll open it up okay here we go this is our special Foundation rendition of a purple heart there's actually a Bill in Congress right now but by accident Higgins to actually pass a law that this will be flown all across the country so uh whatever pass their laws it's already been three years [Laughter] okay so just kind of like this Brad do you have anything more to add no I I just want to thank you for the opportunity for letting us uh be part of your community and let us enhancing your wall of uh honor with the Purple Heart decoration it is the America's oldest military decoration first established in uh 1782 and uh since they
010started keeping records in World War II over uh 1.8 million purple hearts have been awarded uh many of them posthumously to people who have been killed in action and uh anyone wounded it in combat so uh we appreciate uh you letting us take a few minutes of your time sharing uh this honor with you and uh we hope many of your students have the opportunity to pass by it look at it and reflect on its uh symbolism so to end with that we forgot to make the presentation today my pleasure to give that to you if you fly it out there we'd be very proud and many of the other uh uh Purple Heart recipients will be very appreciative of that and uh of course whoever drives by they'll see that line and they'll know
011that you're a Purple Heart Community no football at school I appreciate it thank you okay so thank you very much and uh [Applause] foreign [Laughter] foreign [Laughter] oh um [Music] [Laughter] medical experiences [Laughter] yeah no problem [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] and I one of my buddies babies I don't know um thank you so much thank you again it's gonna get much closer to the school Monday Tuesday next week [Laughter] take care okay with that very cool and we're very happy to have Russ and his group here with us tonight so um we'll make sure this gets down uh in the wall it's beautiful and uh in its deserved spot so very very uh very nice gesture on their part so um we also have some other special guests with us tonight Mr Baker is here uh
012this is part of our um even though we're at our home base for board meetings this is part of our traveling board uh show and uh since our Auditorium was unavailable we moved it and we kept the meeting here in Virgil's Community Center and very happy to have Mr Baker here with us and uh to give us an update on what's happening at the high school um and I'll let them take it away yes but you can't see that picture but you know I'll explain it to you in a moment but first I want to just say thank you to miss the break who's sitting over here uh to my right your left can you see her [Laughter] she didn't hear me I know she didn't hear me I want to say thank you to
013her because when I talked to I talked to Russ about the Purple Heart and he was explaining all the information to me um he was we were just trying to get into some details and things of that nature and I said there is a military wall and because I'm new I didn't know that Mr brake was the person that was over with so I started asking a bunch of questions and it led me to her um and she just really did she picked up the manto she caught up Russ had some emails with him and they really set everything up so if you don't mind this if you can give her a nice round of applause [Applause] foreign update on the high school so I come in here you see me with my Facebook cap
014one you see me with this shirt on and so what I say that everything that I do I do it for the kids can I step out here real quick yes please okay everything that I Do I Do It um four hour students so the students from tell you we haven't stopped here while I love literally um I don't wear shirts and ties anymore like one day I came to school I have an HVAC uniform and I was walking around they said oh he's an auto mechanic you know it's it's like Senator it's a HVAC um and I teach them certain things so I'm walking Advertiser today was about HBCU schools one day I had UV hat on with a UB Hole shirt with a sweater on and then other days I wear Northland Workforce
015Training Center I have uh some seminelli shirts I have different things and what what I'm trying to do at our school is to teach kids that there is a place for every single person so when you see this picture it's really my group of boys um they were actually cheerleading and they became your whole routine it's unorthodox but I'll ran it past Mike I said might have done some things it's okay do what you have to do and what I realize is some of the things that I thought I had to have my shirt on my side and walk a certain way and act a certain way then the kids will respect you and listen to you I realize that they understand who you are and then really want to see people who you are
016as a person what kind of relationships do you build now I'm really proud to say that at sweet home we're really working on just climate culture that is our big theme yes we're working on academics but in that first year that's what we're trying to make about solid without primary culture so I sent you the wrong PowerPoint because I was trying to mess up so I can't okay thank you so so my dad said I'll give you just a couple of things to show you because I sent you the wrong PowerPoint okay um but first of all thank you you approved our pool table uh my seniors to get a chance to enjoy it I don't let the pool stuff stay there so they have to come over to the office they have to give
017a cell phone earpods if it's a book bag it has to have something important in it and what we do we swap it out and then we give it a full table this for our seniors we need to enjoy and they're having a good time while they're in there we have a foosball table too as well and it's the least that we can do for them we do have some bean bags um that they want to be back chairs so I said okay I'm gonna get something then I called themselves into office and say I don't know where I'm gonna put these shares at because we don't really have any room but I'm really thankful to show you about that to happen when we got that pool table win because you did approve it so
018I'm appreciative second thing I want to say is in our AAC you have an academic achievement Center um it's located in our 600 Wing I had a quick picture of it it's beautiful but what's more important about it beautiful with that up to date now the record is that we have 5 000 students that have been seen in the academic achievement Center Dr Coleman made two or three separate ways I would but that's not to ask today today is just me to tell you just thank you um just for that in the academic achievement Center when I say 5 000 people it means that 5 000 different lessons from people who came in there and sat down and said I need help with English math science and social studies and if you really go into
019that room I couldn't do it I couldn't do it justice by speaking about it if you go into the room now you will see our teachers names on the board with their specific subjects and what those those teachers are going to AAC is they say okay I know that in Global Studies they're doing seqs in U.S history they need to know this and they built those lessons and I was able to observe one where the teacher had two different groups that five year or five year and she was just teaching them giving them the background foundational skills of things they will be doing so I'm just letting you know that with that space over there they're really using it and I'm excited it was in the middle area that I'm not sure what to call
020it but it's a middle office area I'm not sure what to call it it's the old AAC room I don't know what it was called back in the days um but we have our enl students if you ever visit in the high school I would challenge you just to stop in you'll see these chairs and tables you know table slide uh I hate sliding chairs um for kids but the tables can slide and you will see them sitting in the half circle you would see the teacher teaching you will see different things from different cultures that's there if you walk down the middle of a hallway right now um soccer is the sport of choice and I've learned a lot about soccer because of the FIFA World Cup so I know everything that the kids
021know but the reason why I know it is because I well studied and you can read them between the lines so cheerful your favorite team and that's the part of it it's time to talk about just three things about our climate and culture so if you don't mind hitting slide and I'll be out your way in a moment um the first one is going to be gaggle I'm very thankful for Gaggle as it says it's a real-time student safety system and it monitors our children actually on their um their iPads but here's the big thing that is more important it helps us with the social emotional piece we're able to find out when it's a studio who needs some assistance who needs some help who's going through some family troubles they may write something down
022right alongside their iPad they may think that's for them but you will be surprised when we sit down and we pull up next to them and we have a conversation with them and ask them how they're doing or forget Dr Lucci in because she's our crisis counselor and other people actually get involved and I'm very thankful so I won't give all of the things because I have my own students sitting in this room but I'm so thankful for what it has done to us because it helped us cover a big big major safety piece so move on to the next one smart pass smart pass is what we have coming up um smartpass is going to change the way through this maneuver around our building currently we got all our teachers they have been uh
023trained they went through professional development taught how to do it take a long story short how smart pass works if a student has to use the restroom they would hit the button saying that they're saying that they have to use the restroom hits the button they will pick which bathroom they're going to so if you're in the hundreds wing and a student picks the 700 you just nicely say no on your computer and that student cannot go anywhere so what it does for us is it shows us where every student is traveling at in the school if you're in the hallway you're in the hallway for a purpose unless all of our Hall monitors know where you're at if you're like me and want to have a lot of fun and me and Mike like
024to hang out and have a great time Mr Genesis in the bathroom during the second period spell Mr Speaker might not want that to happen so I'll say there Mike cannot be out the room at the same time and what that does it helps us to now focus on more educational time and help kids to really stay inside their classrooms um our students will be getting some training they like looking at me like oh my goodness will be getting um taught how to do it coming up next week I believe it's uh the 22nd we're gonna do it periods one two three and four ninth 10th 11th and 12th grade to let them know how to do it they'll pick up on it faster than the teachers will which is really funny because they're really
025good with technology and we already ran some demos and some of the kids they really do like it because they can hit a button teacher hits it and they're gone about their business and then it times them so I'll be gone for three minutes after three minutes you're not there kind of gives you a little warning and then they'll cut down on your passes so the students will get all that information as well but that's something that I'm proud about um because it's it's going to the climate and culture of our school because as we're building all these fun things to do the reality is that we want them to get valuable education that's what we're working towards so that segues into the last thing that I'm about to say I don't have all the
026information but I took a couple of uh Snippets um for me I'm not sure when the last time that our high school did this but this year um we we found out that only a Remnant I call it a Remnant or a few students took the PSAT um at our school I talked to Miss Wilson um some other people Mr Catelli I'll talk to Mr harrigger and we all kind of sat down and ironed some things out talk to the teachers in The BLT committee said let's let's do it what we did at that point in time we had 217 Juniors and we said every single one of you are going to take the PSAT it did not sit well I had them all in the um the gymnasium and I said who want to
027go to college and they wave their hands and we were having a good time in the gym at first then I said everybody's gonna take the PSAT and they they booed me it's like it's amazing I'm dead serious they really did booby then we had what we call a moment I stopped for a second and I explained to them how much I care about them and the reason why we're going to do it I know it was tough during covert they haven't set for anything long to do it and I said you're going to take it whether you like it or not um and the kid's like I'm not taking it and we just laughed in charcoal but when that day did come up those students actually took that test they sat in those rooms
028and they worked really hard and it just takes so much endurance to sit here for a test when you're not so used to doing that from before so as a little snippet of it um the evidence-based reading and writing I looked at it real quick our Benchmark of those who met the girl was at um 46 um nine percent will they're approaching to hit that Benchmark um so we're a little stronger currently right now it looks like where our students came in in the writing and reading area um from the math we're at 24 and then students who got both so right now we're a little unevenly balanced we have more students that do well in the reading and writing than they did on the back 22 of those students were able to do both
029um so I'll just give you that as a bit of information I really gotta dive more into um the data I'll be talking with uh Miss Wilson who will really be spearheading it with me she helps me out a lot and I'm appreciative of somebody who has that knowledge and that background to be able to he stood the data just to help me out so that our school can be better so that's our highlight as it relates to our high school before I call these lovely young people up do you have any questions that you would like for me to answer I just have one yes um with the smart pass should you find that there's trouble and nobody's around can you figure out who or who was in the vicinity based on Smart pass
030uh yes you can um but we already figured that one out right now because that sweet home we have top of the not top top facilities of uh great cameras and everything else we it'll be a little faster this way but we've been doing really a good job of finding everything that goes around just you know you know gonna be a you know you're gone three minutes now you're gone five minutes I'm gonna track you down but also you know you got in a little bit of trouble on the bathroom with Mike over here I'm gonna track you down because I can find it so I just was curious you know that has been a good thing that will be a good thing we're going to run it and start it in January it has
031a side note and I will say this a side note um because we did we had a couple of people that I wear school and we're in high school so they did Vapes and um when we first sat down as a as a as an administrative staff what is the goal is that we ask one another what is what is our goal of helping our students yeah I can suspend you for having a baby and we can get rid of you we could do this and hopefully you come back and you'll be scared and fearful not to do it again but what we did we found a presentation from Stanford that was online um a kid goes in they put the email into it it goes through it takes about three and one kid took
032four and a half five hours but it takes about three to four hours or a half a day it goes into all the information about Vapes and vape awareness um it gives you a test too as well and what we have known thus far and maybe we haven't caught people but we have known thus far that any student that has baked and got caught um that went through that series of tests they don't even know this themselves but the ones that have done that they haven't done it a second time and so it's been very informative of helping us out it tells you the poisonous things that are inside of the actual High pin let alone and nicotine in there so just having that awareness is you know something that helped us out too as
033well so and that's more my thought process is you know right but thank you yes thank you so that ends my presentation any other questions before all right now I wouldn't be able to do Injustice to introduce this lovely team and I have a person who speaks much better than I do I'm gonna call Miss Manziel up and a beautiful drill team is going to come forward they're going to knock this out of the park and I chose them because of the fact that it's another thing that helps us in our school that helps our students become a part of the school Community um we practice and have their auditions we need to have the auditions was it after school we had our auditions during school and we explained to them that there's a criteria
034you gotta you got to have your work done you got to do this you have to do that so we expect you to keep up with it but I really want to Champion them because a lot of people don't see our drill team I'm not sure how long it's been in existence because I only seen it last year I believe I've seen it once and then I seen them this year and what I'm trying to do is hopefully get them some I'm pushing some UPS so the team actually grows and then this man has a ton of more students to work with she's like leave that alone hi guys I'm Becky Mansell I was here with the ready group a month ago is that what it was Tom yes a month ago so I just
035wanted to say thank you for allowing us to do this we um practice actually in here as well as we practice once a week and we practice for three hours once a week because sadly there are no late buses there isn't time that I can stay three different days we all know the practicing individual days is easier but we decided that one day and Mr Baker was kind enough to give us an in-school field trip in um early October like September is that what it was and um the kids their grades were all passing so we got them out of classes they did integral field trip that came here in the morning they learned the drills we all ate lunch together and then the afternoon they tried out by eighth period they all left two
036of the ones who were returning from last year who are my captains they stayed and we selected a team I also have a returning girl who was on the team last year who is present at all of our practices each week when we're practicing so that's pretty cool she's going to ECC now and she comes back to us for our practices to be here with us so our first actual performance was supposed to be at the chef basketball game and then you know Mother Nature decided to dump seven feet on my house um we all had a good time up here but you know I just shoveled for four days and then and then I got a message saying can you come back I'm like no not yet still thinking um so we we've never
037performed in front of anybody yet until tonight so it's their first time so there are some Jitters going on tomorrow night we are performing in front of the girls basketball game at the varsity halftime of the girls of varsity game so we chose a girls game first because there is less of a crowd um for our first time on the floor and then Mr Baker said would you come and of course you don't say no to the principal you can try but I don't so um what we're going to do is we're going to do there's five of the eight people on the team right now some could not make it with a little bit of short notice plus two nights in a row of a responsibility for the team so thank you for putting
038the thing up for now and um do you have the remote for that that we could just hit it to make a blank screen black screen uh we have a remote yeah we do I would tell you the bottom left but not it it just says like and it'll make it black so it's not shining in the right we have a fancy fancy uh but we don't have a remote yeah right I think we finally put batteries in it okay um tonight for you we have um sophomores juniors performing for you we do not have um any questions because our freshmen are involved in about 80 other things and then one is also same so we have just a mattering of different grade levels for you and they're just gonna do a couple drills similar
039to what they're going through tomorrow yes no you're not allowed thank you foreign [Music] I'll mess up move [Music] [Applause] foreign [Applause] foreign [Applause] foreign [Laughter] foreign [Applause] great man is a junior [Applause] team has been in existence we used to have the old-fashioned drilled team with the guns and the you know marching thing way way way back when if you remember Linda Caulfield she shared a lot of pictures with me she was an employee years longer than I was alive and Linda shared with me pictures that she was on the original film scene with the guys I do know and I've looked into the history that in 1983 majority of this nature so we kind of did a culture shift a little bit into this site and there were times that we didn't have
040one for one for me so it didn't have um sometimes one specific adults liaison for it and um one of the benefits that we have is because we're a suburbance tool with pharmacist Urban relation it's super fun to have that and uh 12 years ago yeah 12 years ago I started Multicultural night because I wanted to start to show but we've got going on in the suburbs to everybody else so Multicultural night was started because it's a variety show for the community for even our community and it's always been run at the middle school real team runs in any funds from it on the real team so we're a club not considered it might say team on our shirts but we're a club so we're just like an extracurricular club like a you know games
041club or whatever else so anybody we have we've earned through our own show Multicultural night has students from Middle Eastern descent doing cultural dances we've had students like instruments from their own Heritage cultures we've had students sing native songs from their homelands in their own song it's so cool to watch and then we've had kids just go out and hip-hop dance we've had kids to um and then kind of Pentax in class all day long like this and did it on stage for like three years and now she's actually a really popular Barber get online so we've done it and mixed it up we're going to do it again this year we're coming back to school Thursday night and um we're gonna come back and have the kids participate I'm excited for that but this
042is what the money that we raised goes to the shirts the shirts are excited up throughout the season that's a whole year commitment any new participate of other things all right what else are you in cheer and Musical hi are you doing track right now I'm from track you'll do it at your track right now and then Reagan does a bunch of stuff outside of school that you can fly well and other stuff and that rating is also in it and I are both in music self and they're both also included in going supposed ly so it's great for thanks for kids which is what I expect more than anything well do you guys have any questions for us I just have to look up with pen tapping is I mean I think I know
043what pen tapping is but I gotta look up what pen tapping is that's what I'm thinking the cool part was um and it was really fun and then I always drink half a glass bottle and one of her performances actually if you set the microphone up parkour and she was actually pen tapping on the table and then she started so it was so much amazing then she brought her big brother back who's also a graduated well if London came back and did it with her and they were almost cities that's cool so we incorporate and we try to get all the kids at the different backgrounds to help me part of it because that's one of the treasures that it really is we figure out that there are 39 different languages that kids have woken
044up two in the morning so um [Laughter] you guys should be really confident going into tomorrow night's game you guys are gonna do great you pulled it off seriously well it was amazing good job you guys did a great job I wanted to mention that when my High School uh there was a drill team when I was a freshman about 10 students in the drill team four years later they had 30 students that really took took Holden and uh the reason I'm I'm remember the drill team so well is because they practice in the basement in front of my locker and I would be coming from math club and they would surround me to get to my locker and do the drill and I was in the middle of their drill every uh at least
045once a week so uh uh but it was it was a great um you know having them and I think you guys will do a great job and bring a lot of spirit to school so it's really nice to see you um bringing this to the school larger numbers because the larger the number the more people have to know and have to know all the different girls [Laughter] but uh there's a bunch of stuff that goes into it together but I will say this three people perform together no longer on the team right now and they perform three people in front of over a thousand people are called that rally and it was amazing and they were amazing and that strength of self and that self-esteem to walk out there and do it in the
046building yeah [Applause] holy crap so we also have um one other thing I want to put a plug in for us we have international night is also going to be the first week so Multicultural night is the variety show it's the second off March the next week is foreign language I'm also a Spanish teacher support language because it's actually a good sweet home you tried that ball at night you know World Language we're all involved in it and that next week with the student government we're going to do some other things throughout that week but one of the things we're going to have international life which is we're going to bring some of our favorite dishes in and then you get a chance to try just a little bit of each food and do that
047and that's interesting because we show up at it we drill a little bit like this and then we say hey you want to get up and learn some stuff and we have kids come up and stand with us and learn just love face right face about face and maybe a little bit of a drill some teachers awesome foreign [Music] [Applause] [Laughter] [Music] so um speaking of Multicultural and language nights and everything we have going on we are very excited to announce and I know Miss Wilson has more details that through our Title One Grant we requested over the summer when we wrote the grant um for in in supporting community and family engagement that our LL population as you know is growing and our biggest ell population is our arabic speaking families and so we're
048excited to announce that um our our grant request was approved through title one and I don't know Miss Wilson if you want to talk about it uh our arabic speaking family liaison yes we're very excited about this position um we're looking at this position being someone who will support All Families um specifically our arabic speaking Community 43 of our students who are multilingual Learners are arabic speaking and so we felt like it was necessary to make sure that we had that support in place that support will flow through the summer through home visits and and supporting transitions for students who are transitioning to us over the summer which we know that's a big transition point for us um this person will also continue to make connections through the placements the student placement center as well
049as that cultural connection and helping to build trust um knowing the culture and helping families make a smooth transition to Sweet Home is something that we know is very important to many families um and so the biggest transition happens mostly at the secondary school we have a number of students who join us in elementary school and when they do our students are very successful they transition through the process of all of the testing that comes along with the supports that are provided to multilingual Learners and they they test out and they go on to be what we call former Ells um and the support then looks like it's very heavy at the high school because when students transition to us at seventh grade or at ninth grade they have a shorter time with us and
050so this person will be located at the high school but will support the entire District um we see this person as a huge connection to families as they as they come in which is about any questions thank you we're also excited to um bring back to you then and thank you for your support um Miss Wilson I uh John palato our assistant principal at the high school and Steve Shepherd our teacher on special assignment over at our ready Academy attended the big picture National Conference last week in San Diego um and it was it was a fantastic conference to talk um on a national perspective of what they're doing uh with big picture learning I learned a lot more about the philosophies of big picture um and and the mission and vision of the programs
051um and and I know you know at ready we're putting our spin on it but there's a lot of the philosophies that ready that have already they've already adopted through big picture whether it be advisory or uh the the internship program we got to see we got to go to a school um to see big picture in action um where the it was all student-led uh um sessions which was really fascinating to see um as well and so we know our our program is doing a lot of the is great work already and I know from district office point of view it was great to go and learn and what other schools are doing when it comes to big picture and talk to all the bigwigs of the big picture program so it was great
052and uh just really thankful for the board support and learning more about big picture and bringing that back and I know um you know Steve is just um you know he could not be more in I don't know Sheila if you want to say anything but that but the the it was just a great few days over in San Diego and we got to learn a lot so um I just want to thank Ford because I can say that this is our fifth year at Dexter Terrace the sex year that uh ready Academy has existed and I can tell you in the first year we were at Dexter Terrace when we spent time a group of teachers putting together ideas of what we had in a million years I would never have guessed that people
053at district office or let's start with we attended Big Bang last summer but I also never thought people from district office would attend the National Conference and be able to speak to what big picture is and be able to share about it and have station about it and um and it is amazing to be with other people who are Big Picture People and hear about how everyone does differently but there are a lot of the same threads that go throughout and um so uh we are extremely grateful the fact that you guys thank you for sure no uh we also wanted to update the board on where we are with our strategic plan so Miss Wilson you're out again the excitement continues we have our second meeting actually tomorrow um we have 14 Folks at
054that on the adult side four of which are administrators five teachers and five parents and then we have five students one from ready and four from the high school through our student government program and so we have the quite the range of folks who will be digging into our topics for the next meeting so this meeting will be focused in we always anchor in on our mission and vision we're going to dig into the portrait of a sweet home graduate those attributes we talked about that briefly in one of our presentations earlier and this committee is going to really unpack that work and what other attributes we want to see in a Sweet Home graduate as they transition off into the world and they graduate from from sweet home um we're gonna dig into the
055existing state in our desired State using the thought exchange data so we're going to spend a lot of time unpacking that data tomorrow and then hear from the committee what are the other data points they wanna they really want to dig into to continue this work um the the we have focus groups that are also in full swing so we're we're going deeper the focus group is the the opportunity to take a smaller group of folks and take some of that information from thought exchange and go deeper so we had a middle school and a high school focus group last week uh tomorrow running at about the same time as the um teaching and learning subcommittee we have a parent group that will that will run we have administrators next week along with teachers and
056the Four elementary schools so by the end of next week we will have had all of those focus groups so that that will be a part of our next meeting the third meeting so as we unpack what we're doing with the strategic plan we started off with the rationale why have this committee established Norms established the purpose we're at the point where we are reviewing the committee feedback or the data feedback from thought exchange and from some of the focus groups that would flow into the next meeting we're going to be developing our big Focus areas in our next meeting and then we have three meetings where we'll be really going deep into goals how we're measuring those goals how we're monitoring and that takes us right into May where we'll be looking at a
057draft plan so we've got a lot of work ahead of us but we had an amazing first meeting we had a great they were we had that meeting the day before the big storm so of course everybody else was at Wegmans but um they were there um you know braving the opportunity to go to Wegmans they were they were there and really digging into this work and we had some really great feedback from the first from the first session so we're looking forward to another great meeting tomorrow we also have our second meeting of our building use committee um and we're going to focus tomorrow's meeting on Transportation uh we're we've talked about a few ideas in our first meeting revolving around everything from staggered start times to walking radius um things like that and
058Scott Kennedy is going to be there to present some data to the to the team uh and then kind of talk about what his ideas might be or what the impact of those ideas might have um on our our transportation shortage our driver shortage um to uh to address that first we also need to start talking about upk um and the next evolution of our plan I know um the board support to uh Implement full day Pre-K here and um bring it to Sweet Home has been hugely successful we want to continue with that momentum and try and talk to our principals a cabinet this week but also talk to the building news committee about the impact of bringing more sections to sweet home and if that's even possible based on our spacing issues so
059a lot of work to go with this committee but our two main focus areas tomorrow night will be transportation and um uh upk and our first I should also report that our first early probably February um we'll we'd like to come to the board and make a report on our recommendations findings or just report out on the work that we've been doing in that committee I also wanted to put in concert season here at sweet home um I put it out to families this week but it's December and there's a lot of great things going on uh in our in our music department um and so just wanted to put it on the record uh all of our families got in the Friday memo got the got the schedule of events for December and so
060if anybody's listening online tonight um we'd love to have you on campus and and witness the great work of our students and the music department also happy to report that driver education through the New York State education department has been approved at sweet home um 60 students 16 years and older with a driver's permit are eligible um and classes will start at sweet home at or around the February break um yeah I I did have some communication okay um questions asked me about the driver ed and eligibility um I know we said sweet home students um the question was is that a sweet home resident who is a non-sweetome high school student would they give priority registration as well such as the Catholic school or if they attended and how to program a school like
061a BOCES school or something like that or is it actually physical Sweet Home high school students so our students would get our sweet home registered students would get priority over that and then if there are open seats I would go through a waiting list uh first come first serve basis so that's traditionally how we've done it before we last did driver ed free pandemic so it was 2019 um so uh the slots would go Sweet Home high school students Sweet Home District residents Auto District um so I have just to kind of piggyback off of the slide up there uh you approved last month the vendor is AAA of Western New York um so I have a proposed class schedule uh two AAA um that we would start probably the first week of February the
062first full week of February uh and be done shortly around or just after the April break it would run Monday and Wednesdays after school um and uh Peter to your point Mr uh Blondie to your point rather um we have to see how many cars we actually get from AAA So based on upon that I'm hopeful that we'll get five cars which means that we'll have 20 slots in each session total of 40 kids uh I believe it's going to be around um 500 in costs uh which is uh less than uh you would pay for individual driving lessons uh with driver education students that pass driver education and earn their certificate of completion can drive after nine o'clock at the age of 17 as opposed to waiting till the age of 18. and is
063there still um one way back when when I did it uh it also helped with uh insurance premiums for uh yeah there is a slight Insurance reduction I don't it depends on your age on your insurance company it's generally in the five to ten percent range any other questions um so I also um issued this week and let let families know um just a quick heads up that on December 5th the New York State Health Department New York State education department released a joint letter around uh cold and flu season there's been a lot of reports in the media about the impact of flu and RSVP RSV um and um and some covet as well they included some precautions in there and they didn't mention masks but um you know that's not something that you
064know any any District or or we are considering obviously um our numbers have been steady as far as attendance rates go uh and not out of the norm for this time of year pre-covet numbers so um we're very happy with where we are with our health and well-being as if in in terms of attendance um and we want to keep the course of a stay the course of what we've been doing um with normal things washing hands not coughing or sneezing and especially staying home if you're not feeling well um but um you know this is the first time I think I've mentioned covid in months and it's only because this letter came out really that's all and I just wanted to make sure because it was in the media and I wanted to make
065sure that you know our families knew that we were on top of it that's all I have for tonight if there's any other questions okay thank you everybody all right let's see we have some upcoming events some PTA meetings some district office stuff lots of music [Music] and great um new business special ed placements classroom placements and preschool placements I assume that's goes to Marianne still yeah close to me too I actually have a time to read it this time this is you and I had no questions about it all made sense perfect first time in a while Financial reports will come out later this week or early next week um revised policies looks like we have six policies where during the first reading on High School course planning guide any questions on any of
066this the high school course plan again we've talked about this in the past you know if there was any changes no changes um no additions no subtractions uh same okay several years back they tried to stake some changes in it to get people up in arms and it was a nasty surprise for us when um and we were uh definitely reminded of that so we double checked and made sure that uh that there are no changes and of course if there are or were we would right now it's okay absolutely and then we have an overnight field trip request anybody have any questions then anything right informational items for sale you can go first okay uh thank you so um these past couple of weeks our committees have been going into full swing um we've
067been kind of like breaking off into committees and each committee has been working separately on their specific goals um our chairs have been doing a really great job of holding committee meetings and getting people together and keeping us updated on what's going on so just going down the list the academics and Student Life committee um they're working on a couple of different exciting projects so they held a kindness campaign um right before Thanksgiving where they [Music] um one of our chairs Fatima Hassan she bought a bunch of Sour Patch Kids packets and she attached little notes to them saying Happy Thanksgiving and we taped them together and we handed it out throughout the school day right before the break and so that's just in addition to what we did last year where we handed out
068lollipops and stuff um like that and it was really just um like brightening the atmosphere at the high school before a Break um and some things to look forward to from the committee is um a bake sale they're working with Mr Baker on that bake sale and um kind of getting that set up and um we're trying to bring back the peer Tutoring Club that we had last year where uh we were working in conjunction with the um NH with NHS and um the AAC trying to get um students to help other students in their classes and um things of that nature the Athletics committee um has worked with has met with the new ad and we're talking about getting a winter pep rally and trying to get that in the works um probably not
069before break but um hopefully soon after um and we're trying to think about um painting the panther pit um trying to get that um to be more panther-like and trying to really separate the student section from the rest of the pit to make a really special feel to it uh the environmental action committee and the food and nutrition committee are working together currently to schedule a meeting with Central Kitchen and schedule a meeting with Miss Sajak uh kind of uh revisit what we did last year in our meeting and also talk about what we want to see this year we have a couple of items that we didn't quite get to accomplish last year that we want to accomplish this year such as bringing back recycling bins and um kind of establishing where we are
070on halal food and um just really making sure that everyone is on the same page and so we're trying to get back in Central Kitchen the amount the environmental action committee is also beginning planning for Earth Day and and I know that's a long time away but last year we had a small celebration we can't we want to make it a lot bigger this year um so we we're trying to you know really hone in on what we want to do and set our goals early so that we have enough time to plan and execute and um the diversity equity and inclusion committee um hosted the World Cup spare week which is currently going on at the high school um this week and yesterday was black and white day and today is FIFA day and
071you get to choose your team and dress up in that color and so that's happening right now and that's um there's like soccer balloons hung up around the hallways and um it's just a really fun time because you know the World Cup is the finals or this weekend so that's definitely exciting and then next week um so that our high school students don't miss out on a winter spirit week as well um your the yearbook Club is hosting the holiday spirit week with um various holiday themed activities and stuff like that the music and arts committee is working on is working with the Athletics committee to try to figure out how to paint the panther pit to make it more um exclude student exclusive and they're also working on organizing live music in the halls
072for the upcoming holidays trying to get caroling back which um was something that happened uh before kovid and so trying to bring that back and they're working with the music department to see how that would fit into schedules and you know when we can do it and how that would work they're also working on um getting recommendations for the music playlist in the morning because I remember I don't remember if that was pre-coveted or during um when we came back but um teachers would give recommendations on like songs and like genres and there would be music playing from that so we're working on trying to see if we can bring that back the recommendations and try to also incorporate students to it obviously it would be school appropriate music but just try to uh accommodate
073everyone's music tastes uh the student Safety Committee has been working on with Mrs Bayless on um various different things we met with Mrs Bayless a couple of weeks back and we talked about um safety at the district level as well as at the high school level um and some of the things that we were talking about is um for students for high school students themselves we were trying to Rebrand what safety means because I mean safety obviously includes like physical safety but we're also thinking about like mental safety and um just having students want to be at school and be at the places at the places they need to be at the right times and on time so one of the ideas we came up with was positively incentivizing good behavior and so our idea
074which is not in place yet but because it's still being worked on but our idea was that every time every time a student would be in class on time they would get like a tally next to their name and after they earn a certain amount of tallies they would be able to cash it in for like a candy bar or something of that nature and it would basically just be like um a way to reward students for being um on in class on time and like um hopefully encourage more punctuality and things of that like and um that is what's going on with student government and um going back to the concert season uh the concert Chorale had their concert with Buff State um last Thursday that went really well and we also have um
075our concert on December 19th next week which is at Amherst Baptist Church and so that's exciting and like Mr Baker said we got the pool table in the senior Lounge so thank you very much for that it's definitely um fun because you know we wanted a senior lounge and we appreciate you guys helping us get as much as we can so thank you very good I'm sure Glendale had their PTA meeting last night it was basically to set up for their merry moose which was going on this week um they did have a roller skating party last week that went very well um that's about it um just wanted to congratulate all of our sweet home student athletes who earned all ecic Western New York All-State and our especially our Scholastic athlete Award winners so
076congratulations to them thank you Haley things that I attend were canceled during our huge storms um the the legislative breakfast has been rescheduled for January 20 something it's in my schedule but I'll be there whenever it is um the high school PTSA does not meet in December so I will uh follow up with them in January after the holidays wonderful Mr Feldman uh the only thing I have to report on is uh Chef so they just did their fall round of mini grants and it was quite successful there was a big applicant pool and from what I understand I'm not part of the community that reviews them but they were very strong candidates and there were some tough choices that had to be made of course it's on the schedule that the uh fact the
077basketball game has been rescheduled for January 6th and then a little out of order because it's not informational item but I meant to say it during the superintendence report Kudos uh to the central office for that uh arabic speaking liaison just as a board member first of all it's a great program but it's always refreshing when I see central office staff looking for additional resources outside of the budget you know there's so much out there so when you're able to tap into it and bring additional no cost essentially resources to students it's awesome thank you Mr liable a couple of things uh one is um attended the chorus um for Maple mirror and Willow Ridge at the middle school on December 6th um a uh so the school department brought that together from both schools
078and so they were able to work together on some of the songs which was really neat from two different grade schools um you know one side would do one part of the song and another side would do another part of the song and they had um three songs all together somehow three songs took an hour but um but when you're getting you know a few dozen grades grade school students on on the risers and their parents and grandparents there um that takes a little bit of time um also attended the policy committee meeting last week and we had those on the uh the informational agenda probably the most noteworthy one of those is um the change I felt was um the policy where um uh there's no longer the re um weekend the boardwick can
079designate extraordinary circumstances where um it would permit the board member to participate uh remotely without having the location open to the public so that's a change that I think you know can benefit us if there is a need to be part of the meeting remotely um also attend a parent teacher conference I wanted to mention um at that the conference I um at Willow Ridge I ran into a handful of teachers not only my uh kids uh teachers and and I will say they were um consistently appreciative of the smaller classrooms and the additional resources um uh you know the the reading specialist and and they felt that it has really made a big difference and um the ability to spend the one-on-one time with the students and that so I you know I just
080wanted to mention that that was brought up to me specifically um and then teaching and learning committee tomorrow um so I look forward to that and um a few other items but I'll save those for for next week okay thanks my um I went to the ecasb speed boarding thing a couple weeks ago and it's in my other notebook so I can't tell you the details I'll bring that next week uh also with Brian to the policy committee meeting and the one you brought up was one that had the biggest concern on I know part of it we're going to need to hold a public meeting to our public hearing to do and we talked about doing that with the bear organization meeting in July just to make the details work out to make a
081trip to Everybody Do It um we have 30 policies all together that came out of the audit that we need to deal with over the course of the year um and I attended the safety committee meeting today um we've said we've added two student members one of them is the chair of their student Safety Committee Hunter trailer Gazette I'm sorry I'm trying to remember his last name and I'm sorry I didn't remember the lady's name Erica Chan thank you um it's good to hear that we've got two of those um Mass notification systems were talked about there um you completed it at Dexter Willow Ridge is coming up I'm sorry that's not Heritage is in progress the rest of them should be done before the end of the summer and we actually talked about Gaggle
082a little bit here which Mr Baker talked about and I'll skip over the rest of it okay that's it for me can I just add real quick I forgot I actually did a Time the legislative meeting that was the night that everything was shutting down it was on Zoom um so it was a fairly brief meeting and really all I want to um say is that the ecasb takes a stand which lists all of ecasbs um which which uh legislative actions they're in support of which was a collection from Member feedback from all the districts is on their website that's up and running anybody is concerned and we also we have our postcards and we should send them as soon as there are bills that we should be supporting but I don't believe there were
083any as of that meeting so we're working on starting pre-filing some of their stuff for the next legislative session right now okay for me I I Middle School PTSA doesn't meet in December so I will report on that next month um the only meeting I have is tomorrow or the transportation uh building use committee other than that I don't have anything else so moving on to open session okay I just saved her a lot of reading thank you um and then you know there's a bunch of different Personnel items teaching and administrative service and such um can I have a motion to adjourn to Executive session for most matters of personnel and negotiations so moved second all in favor aye