001and for the pledge I pledge allegiance to the pride of the United States of America and to the Republic one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all welcome everyone um to our September meeting we're ready for item 3.03 our superintendent comments thank you Dr Powers welcome to tonight's Board of Education meeting it's already been a productive night with our tax rate hearing and our board work session uh board had a follow-up session uh this evening as well we are glad you have joined us either here in person or online we are three weeks into the school year and we are off to a great start our bond issue construction projects at Monroe and success are finishing up nicely and both buildings look amazing the work we are doing at and to our
002buildings slash facilities thanks to our community support is a real game changer and the buildings are looking fantastic as we settle into the school year uh we are doing so with regular school protocols we are keeping a close eye on the covet Community level status high medium low in St Charles County but are seeing the benefits to having our staff and students continuing the most normal setting as possible with that said I want to remind everyone to that each individual has the option of wearing a mask if when they feel they need to all SDS to buildings are optional masking as things progress I want to reiterate that everything we do centered around is a safety and continuity of the learning environment for our students and staff and as always I want to thank our
003Board of Education and our staff for all they have done to keep us moving far forward in the right direction our number one priority in this school district is Safety and Security our staff go through yearly video training and our students and staff participant in regular safe defense drills that are taking place uh this week and next that keep all of us in tune to what to do in case of an emergency threatening situation occurred we have partnered with the city of St Charles Police Department to offer more extensive safety training I mentioned this last month that was in the works and I'm happy to report that we are having three optional trainings next week and also we'll have two more in the month of October for staff to be a part of more uh
004safety training with our Police Department fall Sports and activity scene season has started seasons are going great warriors and Pirates actually squared off in softball this week and the Pirates prevailed in that game I also had a chance to go out and see cross-country teams this week our last Friday I should say St Charles High put on a great event I mean there were teams from all over here in both Warriors and Pirates did a great job and both football teams are in action this Friday as well the Warriors are at home and the Pirates are on the road at how Central actually playing Ohio North though next Thursday night 9 15. this is kind of a neat thing or a really neat thing at St Charles High they will be celebrating 50 years of
005pirate volleyball we have a proud grandma back here and uh and also Title IX during the match versus Orchard Farm we'll be recognizing Ruth Beardsley who taught and coached in our district as well as our our very own Julie Williams our principal at Lincoln and they're both getting inducted into the GAC Hall of Fame that should be a great night yeah you can clap for that [Applause] and I know this is going to be very exciting for all of you or you've been avoiding very patiently for this but the Benton podcast is coming back right Chris right Chris yes Ben podcast is coming back the people are really excited about it they can hardly contain themselves right now we're glad you're here this this evening we have prepared a great meeting for you you're going
006to hear some things on our Benefit Plan representations for 2023. we're also going to be talking about our policy chains technology planning program review also an instructional technology use in the district Mr Kevin Rich Miller is going to do a great job with that tonight right Kevin are you excited about that thumbs up to Kevin and then also our district financial report at the end I hope everyone has had a great start to the school year we are well on our way to making 22-23 our greatest year yet and together we will reach teach and Empower all students and I just want to say kudos to all of our staff support staff and certified staff you all know that this summer was a lot for us in terms of getting uh projects done on time
007transportation was a huge issue this summer uh with uh I would say pretty much a severe bus driver shortage and kudos to our team our staff and our transportation department for doing the best they can to service our kids and I know we're going to continue to work on that but just kudos to our whole staff for starting off on a great foot for this school year very proud of our efforts thank you forward boy Communications I have something to report it's unusual two weeks ago I was invited as part of Missouri retired Teachers Association to participate in an award ceremony at Monroe we as a group the Missouri Teachers Association presented uh Leah Bryson with a 500 Grant and uh by all accounts her application was spectacular Leah Bryson is um I think a
008third grade teacher a kindergarten okay um congratulations congratulations to Leah that was a neat presentation by the way I was able to be there it doesn't really need to see that so item 3.05 this is our time for audience uh comments and I have quite a few cards so if Heidi would read the disclaimer or whatever all regular and special meetings of the board shall be open to the public since the board desires to be a good listener and be responsive to the community persons Desiring to address the board may do so during the time so allotted on the agenda and according to established procedures during the audience portion of each board meeting patrons are invited by the president to speak for or against any proposal on the tentative agenda or on any other school
009concern the individual is asked to identify him or herself limit comments to a few minutes and avoid discussing personalities the president reserves the right to limit the number of presentations and or length of comments at the discretion of the president patrons may be recognized at other times during the board meeting the board is very interested in audience comments according to board policy members cannot respond during the actual meeting the board will listen to and research all audience comments if necessary additional follow-up will occur through District administrators okay thank you so we do have quite a few cards tonight uh Lauren we'll we'll get you can get us started good evening I'm Lauren Mertz and I'm speaking tonight on behalf of the Missouri Missouri State Teachers Association um just this week we asked our msta members
010if they had any celebrations they would like to share with you so I have a couple of comments um one teacher said I am loving my new job in scsd with my amazingly supportive building Administration co-workers and other support staff in the building this is such a huge improvement from what I faced the last couple of years in another District another teacher said I am celebrating the dedication kindness and outpouring of love and support from all our peer professionals the last three weeks their calm presence unwavering love and dedication to high expectations are just some of the traits that make them Irreplaceable one member said I'm celebrating getting paid for my online trainings another one said I am celebrating that even though it was stressful at the beginning of the of the year with construction
011when students got in the building it was a totally different feeling the first two weeks have been amazing and I'm looking forward to a great year so we were happy to share some of the celebrations with you just one little concern we had was that um the time is taking to fill unfilled paraprofessional positions and I know that's just something that we're all struggling with and so we hope that can be remedied soon and we're just so proud of the work that our teachers and support staff are doing this year thank you thank you Brendan good evening board members central office staff and members of the Saint Charles Community I'm Brendan Kearns and I'm the president of the St Charles Education Association the exclusive bargaining Organization for certified employees in the district we'd like to
012begin by welcoming all our returning members back for another year I'd also like to extend a warm welcome to all our new members who've signed up with the organization over the past few weeks um new Denver new employees have a choice and who they get to join and once again we are proud to say a majority of new teachers have joined scea um thank you for being a part of our organization we hope everybody enjoyed a long relaxing holiday weekend our members are back and working hard to make sure all our students can reach their fullest potential the start of each school year is an exciting time and we are looking forward to great things thank you good evening my name is Monique zubko and I'm an ell teacher at Monroe Elementary I'm also one
013of the district interpreters and I work very closely with our ell families that are Spanish speakers I'm here today on their behalf at the beginning of the school year many members from the Sunnydale trailer park came to me asking about why their students were no longer receiving bus service they were very concerned because they had always received this service some of these families have students that graduated our district and so they were very shocked and surprised that at the last minute their children would not be receiving bus service they asked me to come today and present their concerns and so I hear here I am dear board members we've recently been notified that specific locations in Sunnydale no longer qualify to receive transportation to and from Monroe Elementary this Academic Year while many other families
014in our community continue to be eligible for and receive transportation to and from school and the existing bus stop at Sunnydale at the Sunnydale entrance continues to be the same as in the past many of our children have been excluded from using utilizing this critically needed service we ask that the Board review this new policy and investigate how many students are actually on bus number 30. we've noted that there are at least five open seat benches on number on bus number 30 and many students are seated by themselves if students were paired and all currently empty seats were occupied many of us left without transportation could continue to benefit from bus service leaving us without bus service at the last minute has created hardships and increased stress this new school year additionally multiple families that
015have relied on bus service since kindergarten are now forced to try and find last minute Transportation Solutions exclusion from the service has exacerbated the already long car lines at the Monroe pickup Point some of us do not drive and must walk both our school children accompanied by our younger under school-aged children to and from Monroe with fall and winter weather conditions soon approaching these existing issues issues will be magnified and will preclude some parents from being able to escort their children to school we urgently ask that you re-examine this policy as it does not seem best for our children who are left with very few Transportation options thank you for your consideration and your assistance thank you Nancy delcor hi um I'm Nancy delcor I'm a district taxpayer and I'm a parent of Saint Charles
016West alum I'm addressing you tonight well first I wanted to thank everyone for their service um I appreciate you know everything that you guys do it's not easy to probably come and sit here and listen to people bring negative comments so appreciate you listening to my concern tonight um my concern is about the promotion of trans ideology in schools across our nation but as well it's seeping into our own District um I wanted to share an example at the elementary level of how trans ideology is you know here um there's a book in the Lincoln Elementary School called when Aiden became a brother this book the summary of This Book on Amazon says this book celebrates the changes in a transgender boy's life from his initial coming out to becoming a big brother when Aiden
017was born everyone thought he was a girl after he realized he was a trans boy Aiden and his parents fixed the parts of his life that didn't fit anymore and he settled happily into his new life um I don't think that this type of book is appropriate at an elementary school another example which may or may not be in our school district but is one of many examples of books like this in educational institutions Across America this is a children's picture book um targeted at ages four to eight this may or may not be available for our children to see I don't have proof of it some girls some um so what it here's some of the pages some people are girls some people are boys some people are neither some people are both what
018are some genders you know about it's okay to wonder am I a girl am I a boy am I both am I neither maybe you already know there's no right or wrong answer and it's okay if your answer changes um what are your what whatever your feelings are they are real and important you are the expert in being you and then there's this page that has these very young children and then a teenage boy and a woman um and they have the little bubbles coming out you know like they're speaking and one of them says I'm a girl another the teenage boy says today I feel like a boy and then another one a little girl says I'll be quick I'm a girl too I'm a woman I'm an in-betweener Nancy I'm trans thank you
019Nancy okay I have one statement to summarize just just one sentence yes with one sentence with the ever declining proficiency rates in English and math of our students I believe our children families and Nation would be better served if schools would get the ideologies out of the classroom and focus on Reading Writing and arithmetic thank you thank you Nancy uh Teresa hi I'm Theresa lindsnick my daughter just graduated from St Charles High I'm concerned um I wanted to tell you I did give all of you something so that you can see the sources I got these facts from um okay I am very concerned with the Biden administration's proposed rewrite of Title IX among other things they want to change the meaning of sexual harassment as far as gender identity is concerned although I am
020I am all for respective and every individual many of us are concerned with the ramifications of this rewrite would this infringe on the free speech and freedom of conscience of teachers and students meaning any school staff or student who does not affirm a child's gender choice would get consequences or government money would be taken away from the school the rewrite of Title IX would one remove parental rights to damage children three eliminate privacy for girls four include males in female sports five make School staff be the pronoun police six open up schools to lawsuits from parents and teachers did you know that the American Psychiatric association found that 98 of gender confused boys and 88 percent of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after naturally growing through puberty but if transitioned children will
021be less likely to reconnect with their sex sex reassignment surgeries have not been shown to reduce the extraordinary High rate of suicide attempts among people who identify as transgender and an overwhelming amount of kids who are not encouraged to go on puberty blockers and get their body parts mutilated are happy in their biological body in just a few years this tells me that so-called gender gender of affirmation surgery is not a solution but a way of making some of the Tran in the trans industry very wealthy at the detriment of our children the transgender industry estimates it will have a five billion dollar profit in 2030. this Monday September 12th is the deadline for public comment to the federal government about the rewrite of Title IX go to child parents rights .org that's child parent
022rights dot org to see more info and see how you can give your comment to our federal government Whose actions would destroy girls Sports destroy our freedom of speech and take away our freedom to exercise our conscience there are sample comment starters there at at that website again go to child parents parentrights.org for more info thank you Teresa that's the end of our of our audience comment section and at this time we we invite all of you to stay for the rest of this uh exciting meeting but this is also a very good opportunity for those of you who have other things that you'd be like to be doing this evening to make a break so we'll take a short few minutes to allow any of you who want to leave and then we'll start
023our meeting thank you for coming [Laughter] they understand okay um we're ready for item 3.06 do I have a motion to amend or approve the agenda is it a second a second all those in favor hi opposed the agenda is approved item 4.01 is our consent agenda for efficiency the school board utilizes a consent agenda items placed on the consent agenda are routine in nature are among the many decisions the board has already determined are in the domain of the administration do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda do it all those in favor hi opposed that passes item 6.01 this is a our benefits plan the recommendation for that is that Jeremy's that you I didn't look that's correct that's me thank you sorry Jeremy and we also have Eric file from
024cbiz that's going to be joining us that is joining us this evening so um he's here to answer any questions that the board may have regarding the changes for 2023. as you guys know inflationary practices are are skyrocketing and have skyrocketed for quite some time fortunately we're not feeling that as steeply in our insurance package for 2023 as you might expect so we've sea Biz has averaged for our district based on their recommendations of 4.8 percent increase over the time period since uh since they've been with us in 2013. if we did nothing moving forward and tried to keep the plan that we currently have it'd be a 6.57 percent increase going into next school year which would cost the District of approximately 657 thousand dollars uh something that we cannot absorb so there are
025going to be some slight changes to the premiums and to the employee paid and the Premium plan as well as employee spouse employee child employee family and the HSA and the base plan when I say slight changes we're talking five to thirteen dollars a month increases in those unless we are looking at the employee family under the Premium plan and then that would be 28 dollars for the premium core and then 30 dollars a month for the Premium plan that would impact six uh six families all together three for the core three for the Premium plan um we are able to have some savings on the dental side of things to a couple of dollars we're not talking uh an extravagant amount of savings that could offset some of those slight increases under the medical
026part and uh then we are also looking to change from Unum to Chubb for ancillary Services uh it is a very well recognized worldwide organization that is has a very very healthy Reserve that that they are able to um to offset and accommodate all of our members without any concerns so that in addition to that we will also receive employees will receive some savings by making that move and the district will also receive some savings by making that move in totality it looks like it would cost the district about a hundred and forty thousand dollars against our Insurance Fund next for the next school year this previous year we were estimating 200 000 hit better than expected and um we're going to probably take 165 000 hit against that fund so um there there is
027a silver lining for our employees in my opinion and that we certainly aren't getting into the 10 uh rise as you some might expect and as Eric could tell you he's seeing some as high as 14 I believe within the region um so we're not we're not looking at anything alarming with regards to that but we are seeing some slight increases for our employees again most employees will either have zero dollars if they're just employee only base and HSA anything beyond that is typically five to thirteen dollars and then of course what I said the employee family is 28 or 30 to 30 dollars a month so we do have with moving to chub we have benefits all in that we're looking to utilize benefits all in as uh honestly it's something I'm very excited
028about and that it can it has the ability to go to some of our higher uh claimants and educate them on resources outside of our benefit package not saying that they don't use our benefit package but it benefits them in giving them directing them towards some State and or federal resources for their particular needs so that could be in a cost saving not only for that family but it could also generate significant cost for the district we would enter in into that agreement with them for a six-month period in which case we would either go for one dollar per employee per month or five dollars and that's going to be based on the savings that they are providing for us by the time it rolls around in March uh additionally we have we will highly
029recommend every employee to go through open enrollment we haven't had that in about 10 years for our district we hope that that provides educational opportunities for our employees to choose the best package for them and for their family if they so desire and that we anticipate that would happen in the middle of October and be completed around mid-november I think that's what I can remember from it Eric um I have a question um uh how much would retirees pay that are not yet old enough to qualify for Medicare it would be dependent on um you have the cost um you know uh on the on the plan do they pay the full renewal cost or yeah you you'd be the full renewal okay yeah okay we talked about the premiums you said there was like
030three and three that they're affecting or like a total of six in different buckets is that just of active teachers or does that include that I don't know if that's active or retirees I don't know that information I just know the total amount okay and just a quick note to a uh Jeremy led a committee of uh great staff members from different aspects of our our staff and I thought they did a great job as well and we thought the increase is going to be a little bit higher than they were and understandably too as an Administration we we do not want to see any increases at all we just don't and so that's why you see would you say during 165 on ahead for us once for last year we're anticipating 140. 140 this
031year so we're certainly going to take a hit of that fund because we want to make sure we're keeping that increase down as as low as we can so and uh obviously when we're talking about numbers like that in anticipation on what um we're looking at as far as balances are concerned cbiz is heavily involved with us in helping direct our sales with that yeah Eric's done a great job of again guiding us through all the processes and I I'm really excited too about just me personally to be able to sit down with somebody and go over my my choices just to see if I can do something different that matter for myself and my family as well and I think like you said Jeremy we haven't done that in a while so that would
032be a good service to have for everybody how do they handle that it's been such a long time how do they handle the uh well we discussed that of being in person or virtual or just uh telephone company and I think we're going to offer the um the virtual and telephone more than anything else we are highly encouraging everybody sit down on you know we're not making a mandatory I don't think highly encouraged but we are I believe if I'm not mistaken Jeremy we are making it mandatory for everybody to at least sign in correct and enroll online yes of all the buildings and they will uh uh schedule and there's a online scheduler we would just go in and schedule a certain their needs and at that point it's up to the enroller doesn't
033call that or on a virtual visit or in person visit with that right so you've always had it down to a to an arc but it is a online process of these science really two to three weeks Jeremy you're also working on a plan making sure the information gets out to the staff before that happens correct correct we are going to I am going to offer to meet at buildings uh but I'm letting the principals make that decision on what that looks like and their leadership team obviously within those buildings make the decision on what that looks like rather it could be a faculty meeting that I attend or it could just be here's a time I'm going to be here show up if you'd like to just discuss what we're what we're recommending and
034any other discussion do I have a motion to approve the recommendations for the benefit plan I move to approve the recommendations for the benefit plan for 2023 as presented do I have a second all those in favor I opposed that passes item 6.02 this is a policy change uh thank you this is a policy change that um that we are going to be looking at for first reading although I think some of us we've been talking about it at our board work session so this is just your first reading if you have any questions about it otherwise we'll be voting on it next month okay item 7.01 this is our technology planning program review and it's going to be Kevin that's Kevin come on so this is the technology department program review um the general
035program description is the technology department is charged with obtaining deploying and maintaining the equipment software and physical connections that enable our electronic communications and services both in the classroom and among the Personnel who support the educational process Additionally the department seeks to expand its capability to improve teacher access to an understanding of the powerful electronic resources the district provides to improve education so for the two-year review I'm just going to go over the major projects that the department did and how they align to our current five-year csip program so the first one is just explore and Implement an expansion of the safe defend notification system to all classrooms in the district so the Intruder system has been installed in all buildings and all regular classrooms except for Lincoln Elementary School that was put on hold
036because of future construction because we're looking at moving the networking closet that's there because all of the safe defend equipment is networked uh together on the internet so because we're looking at moving things we didn't want to Cable all of it have to pull it all out and re-cable at a large expense to the district so that's the only one that currently does it have it hopefully with the next renovation of Lincoln we'll be able to get that done investigate use of visitor management or identification and badging system for schools the district is currently implemented the Raptor visitor management system uh and all of the schools so what the Raptor system does is you have to provide an ID in order to get into a school building and then the system checks against the national
037sex offender registry to make sure that that person is not on that list before they're allowed into the building consider enhanced uh video surveillance building access systems and building modifications when renovation of buildings is undertaken so basically as renovations to buildings have been completed the district has increased or adjusted building access and security to meet the needs of the renovations investigate purchase and Implement a GPS tracking system to allow real-time tracking of the District bus fleet so this is currently in process we have been awaiting equipment since last spring we were hoping to get it in this summer and get it installed on the buses before school started unfortunately because of issues with supply chain that hasn't come in yet um I think it's scheduled for October or November do you remember October that the
038equipment will come in and we will train so basically what that does is um it's it's multifaceted so one it provides a parent app where you will have a special code for your kids so that you can load your kids bus route into the app and you can actually track where the kit is real time in comparison to the bus route so say the bus is running five ten minutes late you can just look up on the app and be like oh it's two stops down the road they'll be here soon um hopefully that will cut down on phone calls to the transportation department uh another one is is with the GPS capabilities the dispatch will be better able to track their Fleet and know exactly where their buses are at all times so if
039they do get a phone call they can also say hey the bus is over here that'll be there you know three minutes and the last thing that's being added is is basically it's like a tablet device that will be mounted onto Close to the dashboard and so what that will do it will really help the sub bus drivers so it'll have all the route information for them like on a display so like right now unfortunately if they have a route they have to print out sheets that says your stops here here and here and then they have to study that go to the next stop and then kind of go back and forth this will allow them to um actually see all their routes yes ma'am I can tell you have a question yes because
040it'll get past me but does it also does the bus driver have on that uh clipboard the names of the students that are supposed to be on that bus I that I can't tell you I would like to say yes but I I didn't think I would have asked soon I should yeah yeah it didn't occur to me just now um I do know the the GPS tracking software will so I think the the Drive software should I think have that option so I will say one of the options that they had was that you could have a scan system where they have to scan their like the students have to have a badge that they scan in so that we could tell who's on the bus but at this point in time we we
041did not go for forward with that because um and talking with Charles Brazil at the time last spring when we did it we didn't feel like it was cost effective and that kids would be responsible to always remember their their badge to scan in and it would it wouldn't be worth the cost annually reviewed District Safety and Security policies and procedures for any necessary revisions or additions so the technology department annually reviews the safe defense Intruder drills and processes we we review it with the safe defense company and discuss best practices and how we can improve our processes the technology department also reviews our cyber security processes to ensure the district is keeping up with industry best practices investigate further use of student device monitoring software or other methods methods to achieve this goal So
042currently the district utilizes a program called go Guardian for student monitoring in the classroom and when student devices are brought home so this allows us to filter the students and make sure they're not getting to things that they're not supposed to it also allows the teachers to see what the kids are doing in class and either lock the their Chromebooks down or open them up you know the teachers can actually push specific websites to all the Chromebooks or make it so they can't get to only one site and things like that consider how to utilize Google team drive or other similar resources to create and maintain disrequired repositories of resources and documents several departments have started using Google team Drive which allows access to documents anytime anywhere so even when they're at home or on
043the beach they can access their documents as opposed to sharing them on what's called Z drive or home drive where they can only access it when they're in the building or on our Network uh continue to investigate and Implement strategies to ensure that the district considers digital equity for all students So currently the district provides wireless hotspots for students without internet access at home the district also provides students with Chromebooks from fifth grade through 12th grade that can be taken home as part of the one-to-one program investigate expansion of the one-to-one device Initiative for grades pre-k through eight one to one was expanded to Jefferson before the 2021-2022 school year the district now offers one-to-one devices for all grades fifth through 12th that means the kids have a Chromebook that's assigned to them they get
044to take it home every day and bring it back the district also provides classroom sets of Chromebooks at all the elementary schools develop and Implement a replacement cycle for all student use computers and other devices So currently with the way the one to one program works is students in fifth grade have provided a brand new Chromebook they have that same Chromebook for 5th 6th 7th and eighth grade and then in ninth grade they get another brand new Chromebook and they have that Chromebook for 9th 10th and 11th and 12th grade and then when they graduate they are they're offered the chance to buy that Chromebook for 25 dollars um since they've been using it and most likely we're going to end up surplusing it anyway after four years so we give them an opportunity to
045to purchase it if they want it I'd say about 40 50 purchase it at the end when they graduate uh develop and Implement a device replacement schedule for computers and other technology used by instructional staff uh teacher laptops are on a four-year replacement cycle right now all 7th through 12th grade teachers will receive new laptops before the 2023-2024 school year and I'll pre-k through sixth grade teachers will get will receive a new laptops before the 24-25 school year foreign next item is Implement a maintenance and replacement schedule for internet switches servers and other networking equipment the technology department utilized bond funds from the 2021 bond issue and e-rate funding from the federal government to replace all wireless access points on all Network switches in the district during the summer of 2021 so these networking upgrades
046increase networking capabilities within the district uh 50-fold so we went from one gig to 50 gig connections between closets so that's it's a huge increase the district currently has one of the fastest most efficient networks in the state as far as public education uh continue to partner with the city of St Charles to maintain our shared fiber Network so the network fiber infrastructure so the way the buildings are connected to each other uh that was a bond issue project in summer of 2017. uh that was a 15-year lease agreement with the city so it's we're currently in year 5 of 15. again that increased our connectivity between buildings from one gig to 50 gigs the next one is consider cell phone booster systems strategies as needed um in the building so there's some buildings that
047have poor cell phone coverage just if it's the basement of say St Charles High or uh you know when you build a brand new building that has a FEMA shelter that's all cement all the way around you get poor reception in those areas the technology department reached out to companies to inquire about costs for cell phone boosters and school buildings known for having poor areas it was ultimately decided that the phone boosters were not feasible solution at this time uh then one of the last ones is investigate possibility and benefits of centralized enrollment uh summer of 2021 the technology department began taking over enrollments district-wide or Central enrollments for K-12 students to help streamline the process as of Summer 2022 the technology department started processing the enrollments for parents as teachers uh special ed parochial
048special ed JJC and and parochial gifted all enrollments will be centralized through the technology department moving forward this will help to ensure that students are promptly enrolled in our student information system and reduced A reduced redundant data entries at the school uh and the most recent thing that has occurred is ours uh research choose and Implement a new student information system so in August uh Tyler Technologies the parent company for our student information system decided that they were no longer going to be in the student information system business and uh 250 some districts in the state now have to find a new student information system so we are starting committing work next week to look at demonstrations of a couple different products uh the the committee is composed of teachers administrators office staff and parents
049uh once we select a product my goal is to have it brought to you guys to the board to approve next board meeting so that we can start migrating data into the new system and be ready for the start of the 23 24 school year so it's a lot of stuff we have to do in the next nine months nine to ten months and just in summary the primary evaluation process used to determine the technology Department's Effectiveness will be the district's implementation of the current five-year comprehensive School Improvement plan or cset the c-site will be reviewed and updated as needed on an annual basis also regular review of data departmental meetings and discussions and ongoing evaluation of Industry Trends are constantly necessary to adapt to changing Technologies and the department conducts these types of reviews
050on a weekly basis any questions wow yeah okay I think you can have a motion on that last years but I will say um and I'm sure Jeremy will say the same thing not only do we have probably the best director you can find anywhere uh but our tech tech department is second to none I mean it really is so Kevin thanks for all that you do and your staff uh the credit goes to all them not me well we have no other questions on that do I have a motion to approve the technology planning program as presented uh move to approve the technology planning program review was presented oh second all those in favor aye passes item 7.02 instructional technology used in the district you're still standing I I will I will start and
051then I will I will pass it off to this amazing curriculum ladies over here okay um and Earl yes it's amazing ladies and Earl we got this team Anna so and during the uh it was either the April or May board meeting I I do I do not recall which one uh there were some concerns that were brought up and then uh a board member asked some questions of how technology is being used or implemented uh into the classroom so the the there were specific questions that were asked of us so we are going to attempt to answer those questions to best of our ability and that is where these lovely ladies come in because they have all those answers hi all right so actually I'll get started so we're we're just sharing a brief
052overview of how technology is used instructionally throughout our district uh and so uh Chris can you go to the next slide please Chris uh so um so universally so when we talk about universally we're talking about across all grade levels technology is intentionally used in our classrooms to enhance student learning and their experiences it allows our students to interact with curriculum through a variety of resources that include things like online textbooks multimedia tools um and I'm sorry multimedia tools and learning management systems and so with that you can also do things like research there's a lot of things that we can do research-wise when it comes to instructional technology in the classroom it also allows our teachers to be able to assess student learning and get results a lot faster than when I taught you
053know 15 16 years ago it's also used to provide interventions for our students so when we talk about our big rocks which is RTI we use a lot of instructional technology to help us be able to provide those interventions to our students and so our instructional Specialists are going to just talk about what it looks like at the different levels the elementary level versus the secondary levels next slide please so at the elementary level looking through those lenses that Dr Draper explained interacting with content through online resources our students use Google workspace through like Google Classroom Google Docs and presentations we use zearn BrainPOP connect ed Mystery Science and epic those are all online resources that we've purchased through curriculum adoptions a lot of students in grades four and up do research for um whether
054it's science or social studies or even our Ela curriculum where they will use websites such as facts for me learn360 Discovery Education and even YouTube when we are assessing student learning at the elementary level we will primarily use three platforms Galileo as you know Google forms where we have district-wide assessments created on Google forms that are shared across gray levels or teacher created Google forms as well as Quizlet standardized test prep we do use the DRC online tools training as well as Galileo to prepare our students for those big tests in the spring and then as Dr Draper explained for RTI interventions we have a few programs that we use as well that students can cycle through those skills to practice and reinforce such as IXL Zurn do the math and reading a to z
055hi um at the secondary level it looks a little bit different because it is more content based so our students are using online databases more often for research instead of using Google or other research things so we have online databases at the middle and the high school levels they also use Google workspace for edu just like they do at the elementary level but they use it in a different way almost all of our secondary classrooms are using Google Classroom as their learning management system and using every different tool that's in there Google Google Docs Google Slides Google Sheets and of course YouTube is also within that workspace um in some of our business classes where and our art classes as well we're using those Adobe Digital tools and um going down one more those certifications
056kind of go along with that adobe where they're getting certified and bringing that right out into the workplace and we also added certifications in our fax classes as well and then vendor-specific online tools so those are more like our textbooks every textbook that we purchase content wise has a set of online tools so most recently they got the science tools so they all got science textbooks but then there's embedded online tools that go along with those and then just like at the elementary and intermediate levels there is interventions that are used online such as IXL read 180 and math 180. oh and that's me too okay benefits I was going to step away but no all right benefits of instructional technology so it increases student engagement students like to be on the computer and we
057use that for distance learning so we have the Ami days where you know we can count that as a day instead of having a snow day and obviously we had to do that when we were in covet lockdown but using things like the Google classroom and our teachers create these amazing online lessons that are engaging for our students so that they can do learning at a distance and we do also um have distance learning through launch program for some of our students and some other ones where they're taking courses that we don't actually even offer so we actually have we had a high school student taking a mandarin class online he would sit in the library during one hour of the day and that that was the distance learning we don't offer that course but
058that student needed to to take that class so that is the distance learning It prepares students for the real world um and that's what I mean they're getting out there they're going to need to have those technology skills so and improve student collaboration especially through our Google program we everything is shareable and the students get on they hit that share button they collaborate with with their peers they create group projects and it also allows our opportunities for differentiation um one of the things that some of our teachers use with the Google forms like Nicole said you can use it for assessing you can also put a differentiation thing in there so like if the student gets it wrong it automatically brings them to like a YouTube video or a Khan Academy video or something that
059then reteaches it to them and then they can go back and and try again so it's it's differentiation practice it encourages an environment to practice digital citizenship so in all of our classes we are encouraging good digital citizenship it's in our in our curriculum for computer technology and it gives them an opportunity to do that and reinforced by our our instructors so the last thing before we get to any questions that you guys may have is just what measures and safeguards are in place to ensure that student safety so when the students are on our Network here at school we have what's called a Palo Alto PA 5220 next-gen firewall it's actually one of the highest rated and high high-end professional firewalls that are out there um I'll call it the Cadillac of firewalls in
060my opinion um then we have goguardia what you kind of talked about before it it also filters them when they're on our Network and it also filters them when they take their Chromebooks home uh so all of the both of these firewalls are filtering is done by what's called category based filtering so it it blocks by certain categories like gaming or drugs pornography and so on so everything is just based off of categories and then the system as new sites come up they get categorized they get filtered and then they get through so unfortunately no firewall is completely perfect there's hundreds thousands of new sites coming up daily so sometimes it takes a while for you know some random gaming site to get flagged and blocked you know if teachers or anyone points them out
061to us they send it to us and then we quickly are able to get it blocked on our side um then there's YouTube uh YouTube has what's called safe search feature that we have enabled so with the safe search feature it's it's very similar with the category base it it's blocking things that are inappropriate for kids so they can't get to like videos on fortnite or gaming um you know if they try to look up videos on guns they're not going to get them uh we are now blocking the word Nerf because Nerf itself was not blocked but now Nerf is blocked for YouTube so kids can no longer get to Nerf videos um it does it does a lot of keyword blocking so it's blocking on specific terms and things like that both the
062YouTube and the the the go guarding and the Palo Alto and then go Guardian also provides uh explicit and self-harm reports for administrators so say um Johnny at the middle school is looking up inappropriate material it gets flagged instantly a message just sent uh if it's explicit a message is sent to my department we look at it and and then we send it to the principal and then the principal contacts that parent and they deal with that situation or they I guess Jeremy could probably explain more how as a principal that would work yeah because we've think this has been going on for uh at least eight years probably in my opinion I think it was an administrative role for 10 years and yes we would get an email it'd be a screenshot and an
063image or just give us a term or a link uh that we could address a parent call the parent and then address the parent to let them know exactly what their child was looking up um obviously if it violated the code of conduct which in most cases it did there could be disciplinary action depending on when and how it was searched so administrators do have uh that responsibility on them especially we we've designated a time frame from 6 a.m to 6 p.m that they're responsible Beyond 6 PM we get these reports the administrator follows up the next morning with a parent the parent will receive an email Beyond 6 PM we want the them to have that responsibility if that child is using the technology in their home one other thing about goguardian is that
064it also allows teachers to be able to see what's on the student screens so if they are working on independently they're supposed to be working independently the teachers at their desk or walking around they can look on the their screen as a teacher and be able to see what their students are working on and if they're where they're supposed to be sorry Jeremy didn't mean to put you on the spot I know you weren't ready for that um and the other thing with the explicit is also the self-harm reports so unfortunately there are times when kids searched how to commit suicide or I don't want to live those also get flagged and sent straight to the principal to handle so overall there's plenty of safeguards in my opinion in place between the filtering and the
065alerts that we receive to help try to keep kids as safe as possible um like I said no system is perfect so when we find things like Nerf videos that have things that that get through as soon as we're made aware of it we block them and try to keep kids safe as possible and Kevin if a parent did not want their child on the internet individually they have that right to opt yeah so just so every building should have a YouTube and internet opt-out form on their website uh that the parent can fill out and then we can uh either put them in in a category where they can't get to YouTube at all or or what we call the Penalty Box and is what it's called in go Guardian where they can only
066get to specific like curriculum-based stuff like hmh textbooks and they can't do outside research or anything like that that is on the individual schools website because I couldn't find an opt-in and opt out on the district website I looked so I will have to get with Chris on making sure that's up there I don't I don't remember if I shared it with him I'm gonna say I probably didn't okay so that's my my fault okay okay that's something we'll get on there yeah we've been Jeremy and I've been talking about that actually even today because I wanted to make sure I didn't see it either but we do know did you share it with the principals I shared it with the building text and I asked them to make sure that they had it on
067all their building websites I I don't think uh Mr Bennett was included on that email so that's it I'm sure we get it on the website on the District page as well so we can get that done absolutely if um and I'm assuming your parents would probably look at their their school uh website to opt in out but having a district so on on the on the building website it should be under the parent section is where I asked the text to put it will if if a parent decides they want to opt out completely how does that can they opt out completely how does that the child then handle I I would refer to teachers earlier Nicole or so that we work with the teachers too it's not like they have to have the
068online yeah but as Tina says it's more engaging for the students to be able to do it online than the traditional textbooks okay what other questions do you have walk me through the computer technology classes at what you know I tutor at null so I'm aware of the the students take computer class um what grade level does that start and um uh how frequently and how many hours a week they get 30 minutes a week and it starts at kindergarten at kindergarten yes so it is um they they have a computer teacher at all elementary schools and then at Jefferson it is an elective they get it for um they get it for a semester either first semester or second semester and then in starting at Hardin again um there's they have to take one
069computer class while they are there so in fifth and sixth grade they take it a semester each year and then it hardened it becomes an elective that they take either 7th or eighth grade they don't have to take a both but they have to take it at least once in their seventh and eighth grade okay we wrote it in 2018-19 school year or 2017 18 school year it still references like Microsoft word is like that of uh on at the Harden level they do use um and at the business um they're more doing the business classes so they do have they use the Microsoft Suite at that level so they're moving them they're transitioning them from Google Sheets Google presentations all of that they are transitioning them more into the work world and trying to
070get them into the Microsoft Suite so and then that continues at the high school level as well 20 2017 did you say um I'm not for sure I think it's the 2017-18 school years when we rewrote it and when is it due for a rewrite every seven years seven years ago okay well um technology changes so fast is there a procedure in place to um update we have had to replace um several things already okay um their tablets went out of um out of life three years after we purchased them so we did um I didn't Kevin bought them all new tablets um they um they do use Chromebooks at the elementary and Jefferson levels they bring their Chromebooks to um the computer lab with them and um and then they have uh actual computer
071labs once they get to harden and above and that's when they start um that's when they start transitioning again to the Microsoft products when they actually have a Windows computer okay and um about fourth grade um actually they're they're creating slideshows and stuff starting in in second grade multimedia adding adding audio videos all that kind of stuff so but yeah they're learning how to just log on in kindergarten what's you know how how do I use a password why do I have why do I use a password that kind of thing starting in kindergarten and a lot of kindergarten is learning how to spell out their whole email address so and it's even longer this year thanks Kevin um so they are learning how to type and do one-to-one correspondence with the letter so that
072does take a lot of out of the computer teachers time the very first couple months with kindergarten is just having them learn how to log on to a computer okay so uh uh kindergarten teacher has a classroom set in their classroom or they haven't done it yeah and that's district-wide and um and uh I guess you answered one of my questions um in an off hand way uh it was uh what go Guardian products do you have um I I know there's teacher and there's admin and there's Beacon and I bet I guess that was the one you Jeremy was talking about Beacon yeah so we have we have all three of those products the beacon is the one that gives the self-harm alerts yeah okay and um are the the regular classroom teachers trained
073in the use of goguardian we have offered them go Guardian training it has been optional so that was one of our things that we are are contemplating whether or not to make it mandatory training on go guardian we have we have not come up with a plan for that yet okay go Guardian also has a lot on their website on their teacher section they have a lot of short videos that literally say this is how you do this this is how you do this is how you do this so teachers can go in on their own time and just watch these short 30 second two minute videos and see how to do things yeah but we have not made it mandatory for teachers to use at this time and um how does the district ensure
074that uh students are especially young students are on task and not watching you know the incident that I was referring to not watching videos um was you know I mean I think it goes back to back to classroom management honestly we have the tools set up for teachers to be able to do that go Guardian is certainly able to help teachers monitor students while they're online in some cases you know if teachers pull in a small group and they're working with a small group of students and another group is working online on something that's that's a back to a management piece and um is there are there any plans to uh I guess go Guardian can tell um are there any plans to to audit uh the on task behavior of like the third graders
075um so so obviously we have a small sample size for this school year so we only have two weeks but after the first week of school we um the guys and I downstairs are my network admins we we randomly pulled some kids just to kind of see what what what we're seeing um I think we pulled a couple kids from Harris and and the middle school and stuff and for the most part I don't know if it was just so new into the school year there was there really wasn't that much activity yet to be honest okay okay thank you just to follow up and clarify that scsc internet slash YouTube opt-out form is underneath the parent section in the district website Chris just made sure it was on there and I when we talked
076about Kevin sending out this uh text to put it on their websites their school websites just remember the school websites are part of the district website so and I did find it on St Charles West and a couple other and and but now Chris has clearly happened on is that where it is Chris under parents that's where okay yeah that's where I'm that's where I'm yeah District parental forms you should it's it's a bit it's all it's access for everybody but I think you said Chris just added it right to The District page so it was not there earlier when you look clear clear yeah but but it's but it was on I did look up like St Charles West just to see if it was on one of the on their school page and
077it was I didn't get a chance to look at all but now it's clearly on there for everybody so backers had it so and again just the school web pages are on the District web page but now it's on if you go to the parents it's right there on the District web page and I think I referenced that in a letter at the beginning of the year too or in this summer about what we were doing for uh Internet safety yeah so we did talk at the administrators reviewed over the summer we did talk about that it was coming I believe we told principals that it was coming any other uh discussion on this topic this is an information discussion so there's no motion here any so anything else for the good of the cause
078thank you guys thank you thank you yeah great job guys thank you we're ready for item 8.01 our district financial report Jeremy all right me again my apologies real quick you guys know we've been and they transitioned from e-finance to alio uh for several months now and what you'll initially see on there is the old e-finance report what Lavinia is having to do though in order to duplicate that as as calculate and and put these numbers by by hand so what we're wanting to do is Chris if you could transition to the August 2022 year-to-date revenues and expenditures by fund um we're wanting to start using a report that looks like this but would obviously give you some more breakdown of the numbers that we would be seeing and um I think if if we
079go to this we'll be able to do a more of a side-by-side comparison from 21 to 22 to 22 to 23 and give you visuals rather than numbers which I think is very beneficial for all of us as we're looking at at times at some very complicated material especially when we're just giving it a few minutes to look at so in this particular report you'll see the revenues and the expenditures all projected on uh on a budget that we just agreed upon from a tax rate and then how that's calculating out as we get to December and on the left side you'll see the revenues on the right side expenditures and you'll see at the bottom under the like the general fund for example you take the adjusted budget for the revenues subtract the adjusted
080Budget on the expenditures and that gets you that 15 million balance there and that's what we would use typically to do the fund balance as what you guys will see is being reduced uh month to month to month until probably the middle of December when we start seeing that personal property income rolling in that we know is going to be considerable more than what we previously experienced so and if you see if you see a lower number two and that percentage just just a couple of differences typically in the years past we have showed a projected percentage and Jeremy's probably going to show you exactly where we're at because it does go it does lower it and so the yeah until the revenues come in yeah it's still projected because we're still operating off of
081uh numbers that were really that were accepted in the board report for the budget all anticipated and as you guys know with state and federal funding everything is anticipated with Federal funding until it actually shows up and that's not a knock on the state or the federal government that's just how it goes so um we're comfortable where we sit right now and you will see on this too just to be clear I wanted to make sure I pointed this out with The Debt Service fund and the bond issue fund we already have a significant amount of that Revenue in a code in a line item so as you look at the revenues for just say the bond issue a hundred thousand nine hundred and fifty dollars um that's the revenue that we've experienced this year
082but if you look to the right the budget is actually at 16 million so don't be alarmed on that that's just how it has to be coded um in that particular area that service fund is is very similar to that that's the 75 75 um that we we take out to pay the debt service which is typically paid principal and interest in March and then an interest-only payment in September the state ensures that we have enough in that fund but based on our calculations to cover that principle and interest payment specifically in March which that's why we keep it at 75 cents and that's why we're able to keep it at 75 cents and we need that in order to do so um in four or three four years it won't be 75 cents unless
083we agree to do another uh bond issue in which case if we don't it could lower down in numbers probably around that 40 Cent range so that's kind of the the board report does anyone have any questions on that foreign that's wonderful okay well then do I have a motion to accept the financial report do I have a second I second all those in favor hi opposed that passes thank you Jeremy uh we are now at item 9.01 do I have a motion to adjourn I move we adjourn by the second Jesus all those in favor aye opposed we are adjourned thank you all right