001welcome to the freedon C School Board of Education meeting for Tuesday March 4 2025 We Begin each uh meeting with a pledge of allegiance and please join me Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under indivisible liy and justice for so before we uh approve the agenda for tonight um I'd like to ask for a moment of silence for Paula mili Paul was a retired prity speech language teacher she Rec join moment silence thank you um so uh tonight uh we have an agenda uh with consent that includes uh Personnel that excludes A1 and also consent under business it excludes G through J have a motion to bring that to the table so moved first and a second there we go is there
002anything that anyone would like hold up from the consent favor I post so that leads us to our um uh first hearing from the public the board has reserved this time to hear comments from the audience those wishing to address the board or asked to stand give their name and address please limit your comments to 5 minutes for or once concerns and comments during this session should be directly related to the items listed on the proposed agenda for this meeting is there anybody I would like to address the boam nice Full House sweet thank you for coming tonight try to be efficient all right we'll move on uh so the next next item is to approve the minutes from the facilities meeting on February 4th 2025 I have a motion for that to the table
003second second thank you any questions on the facilities meeting all in favor Clos also we have the regular meeting minutes February 18th 20125 a motion to bring that to the table Marshall second four the things any questions on the regular minut all in favor I opposed all right well before our financial Treasures report uh we have a special presentation uh we have a National Merit scholar final announcement so that's pretty exciting yeah I'm going to turn over to Mr paski momentarily but um you know part of what we do at board meetings is celebrate good news and good work and accomplishments of adult students um possibly even family members and tonight we have an opportunity to do that and uh I've got to know Ben a little bit over the course of the last couple
004years uh very intelligent um involved uh young man and uh really a great part of our school community so um I'm going to let Mr paski kind of lay out um what this is and why we're celebrating and uh maybe have a moment to snap a few pictures afterwards so good evening hello so the the National Merit uh scholarship is uh based on PSAT scores and uh Ben being a finalist is quite remarkable because out of out of the about 1.6 million students who take it fewer than 1% make it this far um so and in my memory I don't remember having a finalist at fonia um it may have happened a long time ago but not that I can remember so this is a a very distinct honor for for Ben so I I
005have a very short thing I'm going to read this I I'm taking some cold medicine I don't want to go sideways on this so U here here's what I wanted to say it is my great honor to recognize an outstanding student from fonia high school who is demonstr rated exceptional academic achievement dedication and intellect today we celebrate Ben fight who is earned the prestigious distinction of being named a National Merit Scholarship finalist the National Merit Scholarship program is one of the most competitive academic recognitions in the country with only a small percentage of students reaching the finalist stage this achievement is a testament to Ben's hard work perseverance and commitment to Excellence Ben success is not his alone it is also a reflection of the support and encouragement that he has received from his family
006I'd like to acknowledge his parents Neil feight and Julia Wilson for the role that they've played in fostering his love of learning and intellectual curiosity on behalf of fonia high school it is my privilege and honor to present the certificate recognizing Ben fight as a National Merit Scholarship finalist congratulations Ben we are incredibly proud of you and look forward to all of the great things that you will [Applause] do Ben has declined to comment congratulations thank you congratulations congrats um yeah congrats but um I have to say uh I I've watched him grow up since he was a little boy on Curtis place I'm proud to say he's my neighbor and one thing I take away is he walks with his dad a lot and I think it's pretty cool how they have a special
007relationship and now a day goes by I don't see them not the winter time summer time Fant so congratulations to have also all right moving into uh the financial uh piece here um we have to approve a 31-day emergency transportation contract second guess Mr this is a foster placement in Westfield and as you can imagine based on other conversations we've had the transportation for students is incredibly difficult we have a b at this rate high obviously all the other providers that are out there all the districts suffering from the same lack of drivers or unable to just adjust to these different placements it becomes difficult for the district when they're out of out of well out of the district fli so appreciate corvus taking taking us on for 31-day contract that we have in front
008of us with Foster placement that always taking a little bit slower and 31 day even a second 31 day to make that for questions all all in favor um okay now on to submits um we need to approve a standard form of agreement between owner and architect document B 132 2019 could have a motion second second things so Dr Zilo is this a prop um yeah so um we are moving forward again thanks to the community for supporting uh prop one again the cost involved is about $22.1 million and um in all of those estimates and figures from Young and right um includes their fee and will also um include as we get to the the next resolution also um a construction manager in Buffalo construction so all this is built into the cost this
009is not anything new we're unexpected um nothing on top of that amount um so this is all part of the plan and we're excited to be moving forward uh with all the work uh covered under prop one um that we shared with the community leading up to the vote so yeah any questions all on that concerns in favor I opposed so that was young and right we also have one for Buffalo construction U they did approve the standard form of agreement between owner and construction manager as advisor document one SE 13229 motion to bring that to the table Mr Marshall a second second Miss H sorry second thank you um Dr Z anything on this yeah so just to differentiate a little bit so young and Wright is involved in the the planning the designing
010um what things will look like um and then um the construction manager is really involved in the execution um and the actual work getting done on a day-to-day basis um part of this contract will be having somebody who um oversees the entire project somebody who will be on site for the vast majority of that time um and really the um group that's involved in the day-today um construction work that's done um throughout the length of the project so we're happy to have Buffalo construction um on board we have worked with them in the past um have a good great relationship they did a very nice job in the last uh Capital project and uh between young and Wright and buffalo construction we feel like we have a really good team uh to get this work
011done and an efficient and timely way so we're moving forward moving forward any questions all in favor I oppos uh we have a third bid uh to approve the bid from stole environmental for the pre-renovation survey required for the 2024 Capital Improvement project have a motion to bring that to the table Miss go thank you a second second thanks um Dr Z this is a little different right this isn't right uh correct correct this is um connecting um back to the work um you know what I'm where are we with this one John sto environmental does the construction testing make sure there's no hazardous materials or speci those kinds of things we do have annual reports that pretty much indicate there shouldn't be but this just confirms before we take anything down that there's not
012a problem this for the summmer project okay this is actually from the oh this is from this is okay sorry any questions all thank you Mr Forbes we have in the have a great relationship well all in favor I opposed all right that's it for financial on to Personnel um actually one item under Personnel tonight um but it's to approve the reservation with regret of David Winchell head custodian for the purpose of retirement effect of August 9th 2025 have a motion Mr Marshall a second second thank you um Dr Z yeah as we've talked about in several meetings now um you know always Bittersweet when someone uh leads the district for the purpose of retirement um we're happy to see them move on and really reap the benefits of other hard work over time at
013the same time they will be missed um in the district and Dave is um no exception long time uh employe of the district I think right after high school he started working for the district and uh if you know Dave um in fact I just had a situation the other day where I was home I needed something from school and without even asking him he showed up at my door and was like Hey here here you go um type of guy who will just do anything for you very helpful um um you know just a polite friendly man who uh comes to work every day and gets the job done Mr Forbes overseas uh facilities anything you'd want to say about Dave CH yeah Dave uh actually has worked he's in his 41st year with
014us one of our longest 10ar employees and between his resignation and Randy P haro's last meeting we lost 71 years of experience in our buildings and ground so obviously there'll be a big gap there for us to fill and as Brad mentioned Dave is very dedicated to the district started at we loock school early this career moved up here and then became eventually the head custodian and I'm very willing to help at any point in time appreciate all those efforts and wish big shoes to fill two two spots there and positions and he always delivers my packet on on a Friday afternoon so he's he's always there with it so that's we wish him well in his retirement um any questions all all in favor osed and that's with regret uh okay well we move
015into new business normally we know that much of it's not consent of new business but tonight we've got quite a few um so let's see the first is to approve a request to take students to Saratoga Springs New York April 26 27th 2025 to attend the New York Press Association awards for The Spectator so that's pretty cool um have a motion to bring that to the table Miss h a second for thank you Dr zilia point an honor yeah we keep winning it and we've mentioned this a couple times Mr pashy has brought this up at I think the last two board meetings um and just a real opportunity to celebrate that's the main reason it's out of consent tonight and uh Mr pash's always been nice enough to accompany the group uh on the
016trip and uh we hope that they have a great time well deserved and uh kind of icing on the cake to be able to go to Saratoga and participate in the ceremony and uh get in touch with a network people who are are in the field of Journalism and uh you know really a nice a nice event I don't know if there's anything else Mr P you would you would add there just I can't stress enough how cool it is to be there with professional journalists that you know they're doing this and and big names and and people that that reach out to our kids they G them their cards like look me up we' be happy to work with you you know internships those types of things so this a great opportunity for our
017kids to to do that and attend workshops that the professionals are attending to learn about advances in the field of Journalism so it's it's a great opportunity last year they had two really fantastic presentations on AI and how it's used in journalism and some of the the controversy with it and the problems that that they're seeing with it and how it's difficult um to to even own your own stuff because it gets scraped off the internet by these AI machines that take it and it becomes theirs it's just it's pretty wild so kids were interested in it I was very interested so um excuse me for not knowing but do you drive every year yeah yes so we've we've uh used all sorts of vehicles we used B Vehicles they no longer have those last
018year we rented uh a vehicle and uh this year I think there are only three kids that are going to be attending with us so we might just uh Drive in my Jeep So Lisa and me in the front and three kids in the back prob don't even need Google Maps anymore no no there we know the good restaurants and great coffee place there with Bagels that are out of this world it's a great town it's a great town to go to um any questions all in favor oppos great um all right um so we need to next um resend the Motions made to accept the f policies um policy from February 4th 2025 uh equal equal educational opportunities and a policy February 18 2025 Title 9 and sex discrimination have a motion to bring
019that to the table second second let's go so Dr Z can I on this a little bit yeah a little Ione hear that over the last few meetings we've approved both of these policies and uh you know standard practice uh the title9 policy is about 20 pages so our policy committee spent significant amount of time um looking and being thoughtful about uh some of the areas in which you have some Choice as a district of to set some time parameters and whatnot um but literally on the day that um it was approved uh the following day um I found out that uh the federal court in Kentucky vacated um these regulations which means that um it reverts back to the policy that was in place prior which is the policy that we had in place
020up until a couple weeks ago um so this resolution um corrects that and takes us back to the policy that was in place prior um in my mind um you know either one uh certainly protects the rights of individuals in the workplace and uh C certainly um outlines a stand against any type of discrimination in the workplace so there's not really a loss here in my mind um you know I think the district is still still in a good place but we're adhering to the information we're getting from the courts and making those adjustments okay any questions all in favor opposed uh next uh we have a resolution issu SRA seq negative declaration for proposed emergency Capital project look like this has to do with a telephone system could have a motion to bring this
021to the table Mr Marshall thank you a second second call thanks Dr zil yes so there's been some struggles with our phone system uh that our tech department has put some time and energy into and we're starting to get this under under control and we were moving in the right direction I think we're up to about 75% our phones back online and moving towards 100 um and then you might recall a couple weeks ago uh we had a bit of a windstorm then the Transformer blew right down the road here um and that caused some disconnect in our system that took us all the way back to down to about 25% of our forms being online um we continue to work on that however we had now re recognize um that we really need to
022scrap our old system and imp Implement and install something that is up to date in state-ofthe-art and we'll really just correct this problem now and moving forward um with an upgraded system more robust um and I think just overall more helpful to the district so there's a few different ways that you could do this you could build this into a capital project you could just pay for it outright um out of a general fund um but in this case young and Wright suggested since there was an act of nature involved sort of similar to the lightning that struck our chimney at Wheelock a couple years ago um that project I believe was about2 $250,000 um that did qualify through State and the state does need to approve this um and the advantage of doing that
023is although we need to front them money um we do get that 82% state aid that um is part of a capital project and that would also come back to us in the following year um instead of being spread out in a longer duration so we are pursuing that we're applying uh to the state um for their approval and this resolution just indicates that there are no environmental concerns um this project would be indoors and within this building um so this is a negative decaration okay yeah unfortunate that we got it close stop and running and then the Windstorm comes along so hopefully we can get the positive outcome out of this any questions at all from the board for insurance or is it be similar to the KY where we really don't get that
024much out compared to what we what our rates would go up yeah I think there's a few different factors John I don't know if you have any additional information um but at least the recommendation from Young and right is this is the way to go the next resolution will set a Max cost which is pretty substantial and I don't think that was anything that insurance as Dr Z said the the key component of this is the emergency aspect if you don't get the emergency designation then state gets paid back over 15 years so you're essentially running the full cost and again getting it back over 15 years as supposed to pay it now within 68 months of the subsequent year you get it back so it's a key designation but it's obviously unexpected any other
025questions or I just wanted to know what is there a certain fund we have to pay it out of or how do you pay how do we it comes out of general fund if you did not get the emergency designation you'd have to go through the same process we did with the building project skate that approval and the whole thing so this allows you to go around there are specific strict criteria that state uses to designate emergency and we don't know where we land with that exactly hopeful that the Transformer being part of kind of thing would be helpful okay any other questions what's the process is there involved how does that work who determines what the system is yeah once you got to uh through the approval process you'd have to look at whether
026the phone system that we could put in place State contract in which case you don't have to bid or if it would be something that's outside of that in which case you would have to bid the other problem there is there AR very many vendors that would be able to do that so somewhat Li in that regard okay any other questions just to understand we commit to paying the money then we find out if the state's willing to give us the aid and if they aren't then we pay the money and don't get reimbursed it's kind of all simultaneous we need this is going to the state to get approval we get getting quotes to see and then at some point we'll have to make a decision that we're going move forward or okay this
027doesn't lock you into anything other than that part other questions all in favor oppos um think backing on that another uh resolution dealing with the emergency with forance resolution declaring the existence of an emergency situation have a motion a second Mr Marshall Dr ZX anything further to add or uh no this just gives a little more specificity uh around the work and does set a maximum amount that we could spend um this is you know probably worst case scenario that would be at at 425,000 um we hoping that it's not that much but um with variables in the mix and uh some of the um things are a little bit of unknowns in terms of um running wire um through ceilings and through different parts of the building not exactly sure fully what you might
028encounter so um this is a number to make sure we wouldn't be short but we're hoping that it would be less than that just for informational purposes part of the project would be running all the wire all new uh cabinets and stuff because the wire that is currently in there is not supported under the new system so you have to I forget if it's going from copper two copper whatever is right any other questions from the board favor I opposed okay well that leads us to our second round of public comment um is there anybody would like to speak tonight uh to the board brings us to our superintendent report uh so Dr Z on the superintendent report tonight uh yeah so you know I appreciate it was Mr patki who brought the idea up
029of having been uh here for you know some celebration and you know particularly at this time of year it's a little bit cold it's a little bit dark um you know it's often gray not a whole lot of sun but until recently um and sometimes these winter months you have people feeling a little bit down but it's also nice to remember um especially at this time of the year all the good things that happened across um the district on um a daily basis or as part of a yearly celebration I just want to outline a couple things that have happened um recently um you know starting with Ben again congrats to him and his family and uh Mr pashy thanks for bringing that forward um our most recent round of School concerts was fantastic everyone
030did a great job uh band chorus Orchestra as well as the other ensembles um thanks to everybody involved our high school chamber choir also performed this past weekend um at a festival at Sunni fonia and also did a fantastic job I think there's a video in your weekly uh communication if you'd like to take a look at that also courtesy of Mr paski so thanks for that um our winter sports season was also um successful on multiple levels um we definitely had some big wins along the way and also some pretty disappointing losses um every time I attend a game um I'm reminded of the value of sports and how it really goes beyond the wins and the losses when you see our teams play you absolutely notice the teamwork the work EIC the commitment
031um the ability to overcome adversity um winning with class losing with some Grace um and also really giving maximum effort and having um you know a bit of grit in those moments uh when the game's end doubt or when things are down and I really appreciate um both our student athletes and our coaches exhibiting that um over the course of the Season we also had some specific things happen within that season that word notable uh Ryan Kelly qualified for uh the states and bowling which is a great accomplishment um our Steeler hockey team had a big win against oan in a playoff game congrats to them uh both the boys and girls basketball team swept dunker which never hurts this year um you know and I'm also uh really appreciate the those games since I
032have been here and just had some real good positive energy about them and although the Rivalry can be intense I think it's been friendly or maybe more friendly than it's been in the past um we appreciate that you might have noticed on our social media there was a picture from our boys basketball game in Dunkirk of our cheerleaders and their cheerleaders together which was just a nice a nice moment for everybody Trent krenzer uh did very well in boy swimming this year eventually um placing sixth in the section in his event um in terms of indoor track we had Jordan Morris uh Kaylee drag Elizabeth Sanders Marilla Russo all place at the section six meet again remember that fonia and Westfield combined for a team um we also had two girls wrestlers qualifi for States
033this year Mela hodkin and also brilin wits um they are both eighth graders so that is a definite accomplishment uh Mela defeated the second ranked wrestler um in uh our area uh to go to States and brilin actually defeated a senior from another school so for two eighth graders um very promising uh congrats to them um our boys wrestling team had a great season um part of being successful as a wrestling team is just being able to field a full roster which we were able to do this year our numbers really in increase so congrats um to our coaches and wrestlers on that we also had coach Brando earn his H hundredth Victory as a varsity head coach with our district and uh congrats to him um we had a number of teachers kind of
034moving on from the schools are earned tenure um over the last few months and also some uh people announced retirements again like Dave winshield like Mr paski who have been here for a number of years so um you know this also gives us a moment to celebrate um look back on people's careers and really thank them for all the hard work that they've done um we um have already mentioned the success of The Spectator but I had it in here as well um we had a middle school activity night while we attended uh this past Friday um we continue to make progress uh in I ready um with that beginning middle and end of the year um assessments at both the elementary and middle school levels um we also continue um to recognize students of
035the month at each of our schools and recognize the good work that's happening on our daily basis and as Mr drowner shared last meeting the golden tray uh to encourage positive behavior in the cafeteria is underway and uh what Friday will be the first the first ceremony okay so good stuff and nice job on the videos that you're sharing um well done couple other things that are just ongoing in the district uh we are working on negotiations with the FTA and the sssa and we look forward to moving forward and having a productive uh negotiations with each of those associations um we are gearing up for our budget process there'll be more to follow right here at our board meetings in public session um on the budget for next school year um we are planning
036um upcoming facilities project as was mentioned again the $100,000 project this summer we'll focus on the playground uh here on the main campus and part of the prop one Capital project will also be the playground at wheel loock so again upgrading both of those playgrounds especially thinking about accessibility for all students um and safety as well we have a half day coming up on Friday that features professional development uh for our adults in the afternoon uh we continue to work uh at the building reel level around leader in me and how we will eventually um roll out the idea of the seven habits to our students and hopefully eventually get to the place where all students and adults in our district are implementing uh those habits and mindset we have parent teacher conferences coming up
037next week uh spring Sports will get underway here uh in about two weeks our High School Musical is coming up March 21 and 22 and also 28 and 29 we've had a number of fonia Pride events and assemblies across the district over the last few weeks we continue to ask students and adults if they see something that doesn't look right or catches their attention or they think is negative please say something reach out to an adult an administrator a teacher an aid anybody um if you have some concerns and also uh continuing with our Focus On Wellness we also continue to make progress in the areas of literacy curriculum review intervention um those are key components in our long-term plan along with leader and me social emotional learning and also the facilities work so regardless
038of the time of the year the temperature the amount of snow the amount of sunlight the real feel that might be out there on a certain day um how long until spring there are always good things happening across the district and I just wanted to recognize some of those things tonight and absolutely thank everybody um faculty staff Administration students themselves Board of Education families for all their hard work and dedication to really helping our students be their best possible selves so we keep moving forward and uh we look forward to uh a good spring and a great end of the school year sounds like a very busy place any uh comments from the board at all on the superintendency report thank you for that yeah thank you a lot being done um you know we
039we play so much attention on the capital project over the year it's consumed us that we forget there's a lot of other good things going on a lot of these so thanks for that superintendent report uh the next regular Board of Education meeting will be Tuesday March 18th um 2025 at 6m here in the high school library uh are there any other General comments from the board before we hear from our we're good all right well Mr Pas you first off as usual um Wednesday next week we have our faculty meeting and uh we're going to be focusing most of our time on leader and Le topics where um we're going to be leading into really really kicking this off with our extracurricular groups um and tapping into the genius of each group so what's
040kind of neat the way that we're going to approach is we already have a lot of cool groups that with a bunch of leaders we want to also include kids that are not necessarily in those groups to become better leaders as well so what we're going to look at is we're going to have a team uh with two adults and a few students that are going to kind of uh be a leadership team so as we come up with ideas and things to to move in leadership in our school we're going to start tapping so for example maybe they'll they'll reach out to the student council for some of their genius and then maybe they'll go to the game club for some of their genius and the Art Club for some of their genius and
041bring these things together and uh and and create new things by tapping into the genius of different groups um so I I think that's that's a really cool next step for us we want to do it with something that we've already established as as a I think we're very strong in our extracurricular offerings and and clubs and uh so we're going to kind of ground it there and uh then then in future Years bring it into the classrooms uh with with the teachers and and once you've established that language with with our students I think it's going to be a lot easier for our teachers to uh to incorporate that into their daily lessons and it's not like hey we're just going to start teaching a bunch of new stuff it's just those seven habits
042that are important that uh that everybody needs to be using the same language and and practicing those seven habits and they're they're very simple and the one we're going to be focusing on at the beginning is uh change begins with me so that's that's where the change begins as we all have to be open to to some new ideas and and be the change that we want to see so that's exciting um Brad you mentioned the uh the parent teacher conferences so I want to talk about that um kind of a a cool thing I put out an email to our our uh shab County principal group um you know in our admin meetings we've been talking about efficiencies and wanting to do you know things that are smart with with our money and one
043of one of our bigger costs is bosies and so I put something out and this included the Bose's principles that you know we we have aose 2.4 miles from our school um but we also have to send kids to the carrier Center and we're sending kids out to the Hughes Center and we're sending kids to cassad and we're sending kids to Sho Lake and you know I I don't know that there's a vehicle where um there there's input from the component districts of bosis to say like hey these are the things that we would like to see at our local bosis um so I just put it out to the to that group of people to see where what people thought and I got quite a bit of feedback and you know that would be
044helpful because we're all experiencing issues with transportation and you know we we might not have any kids that are participating in some of the programs that bosis offers and you if we could look at tweaking some of those things that would be neat so that kind of filtered up in the bosis uh up to uh Leo file and Robin Brown who are who are in charge of the CTE parts of bosis and the special ed parts of bosis and we're going to meet on March 17th just to start brainstorming some ideas and see what might come of that so I thought that was kind of an exciting uh piece to look at and hopefully we'll find some good opportunities for our kids that you know bring good things to them and are economical for our
045school great yeah thanks um it'll be good to hear the follow that meeting where it takes you where it takes us yeah I think you know as a group if all the schools are involved in this it would be helpful and and that was a a strong comment back to me was that like yeah you know we we love our bosis this is not a kick or not nothing against bosies but you know it would be neat just instead of them just offering this menu of items that maybe we could have some input on what the menu is feedbacks important you thank you for that good this yes I mean Dr zil is very comprehensive in his report touched on a number of the things I was going to share um certainly encouraging to have
046Spring right around the corner and that means spring is sports so this morning at arrival I saw lot of bats coming out of the the cars on bat bags and the cleats on the top of them so I thought oh my gosh it's time for softball and baseball so that was exciting our girls are very excited with the modified flag football opportunity so that will be starting here shortly um Friday although there was a shift in our in service day we still have an opportunity to look um have some data team meetings with AOS expert around our I data and the growth that we can um gauge from the fall to winter Diagnostic and um align to the leader in me some of our next steps have included um incorporating some leadership opportunities with our
047students in the form of greeters so they have strategic posts within our building that they are greeting students and staff complimenting them welcoming them to the building you can identify them with a official B um lanyard and badge so it's very official and we're hoping to expand that too but um they are feeling very motivated and excited about it we had a status check last week to see how it was going so we could get some feedback from them um so yeah we're we're excited to expand that opportunity for them too that's great thank you yeah I ready I mean at some point hopefully we'll get to see some of the results you have and ab be great to great to see that and uh has a nice leader in me it's you know so
048many programs come and go but it seems like it's it's persisting and uh so that's fantastic yeah Mr drer yep um let's see this Thursday our English is a new language department is running a culture Fair it's an all day event in the um Elementary Gym where the kids get a little uh passport and they go from table to table and they learn about different countries uh currency food culture uh there's a lot to do so um it would be a good event so if you're in the building swing by the elementary uh cafeteria but it's open to all buildings I believe right yeah so it's a big big event this year is kind of fun I want to thank Dan Syracuse from the United Way he called me up and through some grants um
049he's coming in week and every student in the elementary school is getting a free picture book so they're going to do a little presentation in all the classrooms and pass these uh picture books out um so we're pretty excited about that kids don't know yet that's okay and then uh next week Monday we've got the Irish dance team from the college coming in to get the kids ready for St Patrick's Day which is a really big holiday in the elementary school it's a big deal so we're kicking it off on Monday and then lastly uh this is read Across America week in conjunction with Dr Seuss's birthday so we do have some parents coming in and out of the building but I also want to publicly thank uh mayor Ferguson he's coming in tomorrow to
050read uh assembly man Andrew Muller he's coming in to read and taking some pictures and assistant district attorney Emily Woodard and these people are from the community who wanted to come into the building so that's what we got going on school would you Circle back at cafeteria country what date or okay so it's Thursday it's Thursday THS this Thursday in the the big Elementary cafeteria or or gym I don't know what time it starts though 9 to 3 I think it's 9 to3 9 to3 9 to3 93 come on in you get a passport and you go to each little country and you get a little stamp and you learn um along the way so all of our kids have signed up and there's like a schedule but that room very cost effective way to
051visit country okay great thank you thank you m f oh thanks sorry a board member well it's read Across America week it's also National School social worker week um so just an opportunity for us to recognize um the really great work that our school social workers do cire Cassie Carell and El wigers we are Beyond fortunate to have those ladies in our district so I just wanted to mention that and then um in the future March 21st is National Down syndrome oh no actually it's Global Down syndrome day so it is a world event um we will plan some special activities for students really just to to highlight the wonderful diversity of our Global and school culture um and communities and recognize our friends with Down syndrome in our area this a good great initiative
052yeah yeah Dr right okay thank you um to build on what Mr Jinger was saying about the culture fair I really just want to give huge shout out to our enl team they just work so hard across the district um Bonnie berett is the instructional leader for that but her team with Suzanne Nolton and Shannon Marsh and in lamp um along with Albert Ramirez our hispan Outreach coordinator and beatric Rosario who is an enl teacher Aid um who really does so much to support our students who are learning the English language in the school in the elementary school so um they have they have worked tirelessly on on this culture Fair um last year was really the first time again since covid that they were able to have it and have people in and do
053it so it's really an amazing thing and one of the um funding sources we get through uh the federal government through Essa with the title grants is title 3 and title 3 money is specific to enl students and depending on the percentage of enl students that your district has either you keep the money in District or the money goes to the Bose Consortium and our case the money goes to the bosis Consortium and what that allows us to do is they pull the money and then they're able to really get things that are reduced rate you know for funding and things like that but you say you share with them what you're dedicating it to so um this year um we're using it for some summer enl um salaries for summer school and our enl
054teachers over the last few years have really morphed it into a summer camp experience and they um have it very targeted to the age groups so for our high school what they do is um they pre-teach the courses the students will be experiencing so they already come in with some background knowledge and some vocabulary before ever entering into the classroom um and then it's a little bit different for Middle School it's kind of a combination that in elementary school they're really hitting those literacy and math skills so we have that going um planning for that for next year I know it's just turning a nice warm day but we're thinking about summer school um and then they're also going to be able to do some of that money for um some after school this current
055school year some after school support for enl students along with adding to our curriculum for summer school and after school so each year we dedicate a little bit to curriculum and over the years we've been building and building and building with this um really it's from the American reading company it's this one summer series where they are immersed and it's it's really neat because the way enl works it depends on where they are in their English language acquisition and so it allows a topic and the topic itself is is differentiated into all of those areas so the students can work together on it regardless of where their language acquisition might be um and it really pulls it so for example um this will be for the Elementary grades but it's working with um early biology
056language and early biology Concepts so it's a really amazing program um curriculum program that we've been able to build each year so that's just I want to give a shout out to them the team their collaboration for this that we keep building in a way that just adds to um uh creating a richer and richer program for our students great thank you Dr you're welcome very very good very interesting yeah Mr Forbes anything else toight no you're good more um just one quick word for board members underneath your agendas you'll see that the Sha County School Board Association um has released their legislative points that they're looking at this year um there's nothing that has to be specifically dealt with with the meeting format but this just seems like the most efficient way to get
057you guys what their priorities are so thank you thank you thank you anything else or no and anything from the student perspective tonight I don't think so good ready for spring Sports warm weather there you go there you go more days like today so um okay so um that's basically it uh we anticipate the need to enter into executive session tonight we discuss matters pertaining uh to Collective negotiations have a motion to enter executive session second thank you all favor post thank you everyone drive safe uh students thank you for coming thank you we appreciate it and if you can come out come on up and anybody can sign