001all right I will call the meeting to order at 61 I will note that a non-public session can be called at any time in accordance with chapter 91a section 32 a b CDE e or I uh at this time I will also open the meeting up to public input and instead of starting with the min we're going to move past that and go into committee reports and Heather has offered to come in and give us an update since I missed the deliberative session or missed the last meeting because of the deliberative session absolutely thank you so much for allowing me to be here um it's always great to see all of you so uh just uh you all received the packet um in your um inbox um I just wanted to let you know the
002the Title Nine is the biggest part of what you see most of the others are pretty short uh the only reason why you're seeing this again after you just saw it in October is because the um the regulations that were justifying the need to update in October was actually um black ofing it shot down in um in court um in Kentucky and so the um the things that we have to do is now go back to the previous regulations for Title 9 UM luckily we had a lot of that already in place before we haven't had this changed very long long and so we're just we are going back um to the previous uh uh policy that that we had with some updates based on you know just current practices and that kind of thing
003so you see that as a new policy in here instead of the track changes just because as we did last time the TR changes are so dramatic that it just would have been R in everywhere so um if you have any questions on that one um certainly both Renee and I can provide some support on that um otherwise I'll just take any questions on anything else that you have um in front of you today from my standpoint Heather everything looked pretty self-explanatory uh I thought the policy revision brief did an excellent job as always explaining the key points one question I had though with regard to any of the policies were were there certain points of discussion within the group that you know had a little bit more Focus than others well I can actually
004say that I wasn't at the meeting oh okay so we have a new person that came on I think we remember Alice yeah so she's she's her name's Olivia she's really great um and she's been helping us with this um she went into the policy committee um and um uh Works through the process but she did follow up with me afterwards to answer your question Josh and that was that it went really quickly they were done in less than an hour um some people had some just general questions um about reasons but nothing that um if if there was anything we put it into the summary but nothing that stood out okay perfect yeah and then second question I had uh when it comes to one of the policies to withdraw I noticed that there's
005the special observance days list is going to be replaced with a multicultural calendar and is that something that's going to be worked at at your level and then distributed out it's actually through our chief Equity officer she has been working um with a variety of folks around the state to try and come up with the Multicultural calendar won't be something that needs to be adoped Ed by the school board but certainly Rene will bring It Forward just so you know what that looks like um as you might recall previously this one that's being withdrawn listed out just four or five holidays um which didn't seem representative of our student population and so that we're going to withdraw this replace it with our religious neutrality um which is just a change in title um it's still
006the same basic concept of the of the policy um and um we'll bring the the um calendar forward once she's done working on that okay perfect not good okay great thanks Heather do we want to make a motion to yeah I'm going to Rattle off all of them including the withdrawals Perfect all right so I'm going to make a motion to adopt policy IHM policy IG G imda ACD EB CD IC AC AC that would be an adoption for those uh and then for withdrawals we will have ikf AC CD-R IA I lb AA do I have a second second all those in favor I I hi all right great thank you thank you heather thanks again Heather appreciate it thanks Heather oh thank you all right so let's go back up now to the
007meeting minutes so we have two we have the February 3rd public minutes and then the February 22nd or the 20th public minutes any comments on those or any edits um I just had a spelling on um page three number 10 Personnel um Miss last name p y esin while she's out on maternity and then um under the public hearing um there was a question about the number of um special education students and it was indicated there's 22 with two more in process um there's two more in the referral process not more not two more IEPs okay and I have something too um in the hearing note hearing minutes the it's Mrs McDon noted that the Cooperative budget is also affected no I think what Mrs McDon noted was that the Cooperative budget was not included
008in some of the figures that it wouldn't be affected by the tax cap on us Y how do you want that to restate I think that whatever way you do I just I wanted to it it's stated backwards I think I just want to make sure that the Caps tax cap is not going to impact anybody but K through okay all right so I'll make a motion to approve the February 3rd and February 20th meeting minutes as revised do I have a second second all those in favor I all right back to committee reports Cheryl goes over to you for Safety and Security uh well we haven't had a meeting and then they just rescheduled the meeting and I'm out of town yep so the meeting hasn't occurred and it's been rescheduled for a month
009out for because not all stakeholders could come okay so there's no update yet okay I I I missed one change in the February 20th here can I go back sorry I must have been very unclear Mrs Mrs McDon noted that the P student put forth and the article was genuine no I think what I told them was it was not reflective of what it actually cost us per student right here yes what page two okay you want I mean it's a genuine number but it's not the number that reflects what it cost to actually educate a child here right that's not what I said if I did I was I don't know okay thank you R yep I'm sorry I went back it's okay yeah I I have not been to a safety and um
010a safety committee meeting it's been rescheduled my my Able Body assistant Renee will be going to the Safety Committee in my stad because I will be out of state again and I'll report out okay sounds good thank you for that superintendent Val committee um no update at this time School study no update there okay General correspondence we don't have any nothing do we have anything I don't have no nothing that came to the board nope all right Community News submission why am I drawing a blank on the I mean I think it's always on there right yeah once we talk about a date last time though like it happens every in terms of when the board when we do something or no in terms of when like sub deadlines are yeah I think I asked
011you that Josh cuz I said I was willing to take that over if you could give me the parameters yeah which you have not done and don't think you're going to leave before you've done um Becky do you have the deadlines for the community news um yeah she usually emails a couple weeks prior so okay okay I'll I'll send her are you okay with me taking that I think that's I love that no I don't mind doing that that's writing it's fun I just write okay so I'm going to take that over for Josh back so when I get the email reminder of the deadline coming I'll send it to you okay perfect for for what it's worth to Cheryl in the past few years we haven't been too active in contributing to that Forum
012I know that each year we've generally done something around the budget but not to say that we shouldn't I think for refence just for discussion a little bit I think if we've learned anything we have to find every way in the world to invite world so I will probably try to do at least as many as I can because I think we need to talk we need to do that yeah yeah agreed great all right well I will send you her contact info you uh strategic plan committee okay I missed the meeting because I was here for our hearing MH okay um but the next step is they just went over the the information from the surveys which is the most fun part so I missed that but it's fun um the next step is
013the actual Summit which is March 27th 28th and 29th they have sent out information about that to parents and students and it's also open to the community it is 27th and the 28th That's Thursday and Friday from 5: to 8: and then on Saturday it's from 9 to 12 so it's going to be like small group workshops going over the themes that people are looking for to be in the Strategic plan and there is there will be meals and child care so is anybody from this board going I will be there okay cuz I'm I'm out of state again that's fine yeah no I will be there um and yeah it's I mean it's open to the the public so I'll probably try to post about it in the in the um Facebook group for
014the town excellent so that um just if anyone is able to go and yeah that's that all right perfect thank you for that um business and financials I think Renee you're covering for Michelle there questions I don't know if you have any questions on the financials that she put in your packet and we also have the auditor here for your request yeah we can do that then we can just then you may be better off just staying here actually asking to go to bed oh we just got back from Brazil so Bo literally like one: so all delious um the audit this year you guys got a copy of the report I don't know if you can read my handwriting in STL um basically one of the things we have to do is to ask
015whether or not the banks ties to the bank treasur bank reconciliation um for the end of the year the signed one for June does not it's off by about $300,000 when I said oh and it was finished up pretty quickly usually they leave the Books open for a long time at the end of the year to try to get some more stuff in so I said oh you know this one signed fairly close to the end of the school year so or the end of the fiscal year so where's like your more updated one and she looks and she's like oh I don't have it we just like rolled that into July as like an adjust an adjustment um and I'm like well that's not appropriate like you you issued funds out of that fiscal
016year and like they did another check basically and so the June reconciliation for the end of the year is off by like $300,000 um so that's red um so what they should have done was updated the G Recon and had a new version of it which is what they typically do yeah and it's been rectified in the business office moving yeah she had to fix um and have that one signed and dated by the treasurer and then the other issue was that one of the questions is that are the bank reconciliations prepared within a month of the statement date for the cash accounts and I don't know because they're not dated so and I I feel like this was a finding last year also and possibly the year before too since I've started doing the
017audit I feel like this has been an issue and I said all you really need to do is add a date line right next to the signature and make sure that he signs and dat it when he does it the only one that was dated for this year was the June one which not going to lie looked like the date was thrown on there as an afterthought by someone not the person who signed it um but either way it wasn't even accurate anyways so the fact that it was dated great but it didn't have the right balances in it so that's really that yeah that stood out to me too P when I read through the report like I feel like we need to do a better job of having these be reviewed and signed
018timely I think that would catch or it has the ability to catch some of the issues that we've seen over the past couple of years that are the headline Grabbers that everybody wants to know more about right so it goes back to those fundamental basics of making sure you're timely making sure the signature is there to evidence the review and balancing it sooner not well it's not even balancing it sooner it's more it's just kind of carelessness kind of like I don't know I feel like almost like since K is so small that they're kind of like oh they're easy and quick we'll just do them later like it's not a priority kind of thing for them I don't know it just it's really easy stuff that they're getting wrong year over year and it's
019just kind of like come on so you know like I said I've been doing the audit for a few years now so it is it's just it's just getting to be where you're like are you trying like Michelle when she did it there was never an issue but then as soon as Michelle moved up and other people started doing it is when it's become like I don't know if they're underst staffed or you know I mean I'm not sure the situation there but it just seems like like because KES is small it's just kind of like they're just winging it together because other things are taking their priority I mean there's a lot of assumptions in that statement you just made and I I don't know if that's fair um but I think you're the
020auditor you provided the feedback um unfortunately Michelle could not be here today to respond and Molly it was already scheduled at another board meeting because Michelle covers this so um if the board would like the business office can respond to this feedback and give you answers I don't want to speak for them yeah so I don't think it would be appropriate but I think this if there's certain questions for the business office or if you want them to just watch the tape and respond to pants comments you can be prepared to do that at at next month and I will say again when Michelle was doing it like everything took a tide she had all the support everything was beautiful so she's still there so maybe they need she needs to train someone to yeah
021there there wasn't an entire review after your last audit in the office and um I attended that meeting on steps and process and how to prevent this from happening um so there there was some internal mechanism after I there was Improvement year yeah so I I think it would be great to have somebody come and speak at our next meeting so that we have a record yeah of I think we really need to have that record I agree okay 100% And I know that I know that Molly and Michelle were thinking about it when the report came out and and I had talked to them so yep yeah it would be great to hear from then to close the loop great okay so we'll put it on the agenda for next month and then I
022can submit it to the state yeah I don't like does it shouldn't it already be submitted to the state or have to be submitted by now what is what what is the date it's I'm not sure what the date is I just never submitted until the board approves into yeah um let I to change it right so let's have um I'll double check with Molly about the submitting it and if the the board can approve it in April do they sign the board's the one it's not up to Molly whether not it's submitted it's up to the board whether it's submitted I think so I guess that's a question for the board so it's just the board just okay me submitting it and I well I don't see I never even hear yeah I mean
023I don't I don't know why we wouldn't I mean I think what we do is we talk about the recommendations and the submission itself is the requirement so the submission to evidence that it was completed we talk through the recommendation so I don't think that's any reason not to no I don't so I'll send that and I'll C see you guys when I email that out great okay all right any other question thank you all right thanks Pam back uh principal's report yes right I wrote about a few things this month first under positive Community culture I just highlighted the culmination of our cultural passport program with our 21st year of that program which is a really lovely long-standing tradition here at KES um we um honored the country of Brazil this year and a
024couple of our local families have connections um and braan Heritage um so they were um great about sharing sharing their family with us and some of their customs and that sort of thing um we had our closing ceremonies just before vacation and the kids could really just showcase everything that they've been immersed in over the last month in their specials and art and library music they're just learning dances and songs and literature and food and it's really it's a really lovely tradition um all the flags that you see that hang in our um multi-purpose room are represent all the different countries that KES students have visited um in the last 21 years so even though we are a small little town we do have a lot of families that that bring a real richness um
025and diversity to our little community and it's nice to celebrate them the kids have get little p in kindergarten and every year they have their passport stamped and they get a little pin on their lanyard of the flag of the country so that by the time they're fifth graders they have six stamps in their p in their passports and six pins on their lanyards and then they get those when they leave us worldly Travelers they are when they leave us so one of one of my neighbors had kids that went to the school years ago and I believe was part of this whole process starting up yeah the initial the initial years ago yeah and she was asking me if the program still exists they still do it do they have the passports and I
026just thought it was kind of cool to say it sure does it's still going on it is one of those memories I think if you're a Kensington kid even when like you're graduating from ex high school and you do a reflection I'm like what do you remember about your kada 12 Journey like cultural tospt often comes up for 10 kids as something that they remember years and years later so yeah that jump rope um they're part of the thread of the school yeah um under meaningful learning I was highlighting what some of our student council is going to be embarking here in the next few months they going to be super busy um with some of the things that uh that they have planned um they're looking to coordinate Poes again um because that was
027that had been on a big Hiatus for many years after Co we kind of brought it back a little smaller last year and I think student council had some Visions to kind of back in its fullest um and they're also getting a lot of feedback from students that they would like the school store back so there's a lot of work that goes into getting the school store running again so um student council members will be busy in the next few months with Foles and our school support um and then under health and well-being I was highlighting um the connection that our kindergarteners and our Kensington seniors have been making this year it's something that we had started and um we're trying to do even more of now and inviting them in and making those connections
028between our young and old members of our community there is a lot for there's a lot of benefit for both groups being together um and so on Valentine's Day we had another special morning with them and some great conversation and some themes and during that time there was also conversation about starting a a walking club for our seniors to be able to come and use our gym um in the colder months when they can't get out to walk and we actually started today and we had a couple members show up at 10:15 to walk um in the gym so um and I'm coming with my senior friends on Thursday there you go so we've opened the gym on on Mondays and Thursdays from 10:15 to 11: Mr shaml doesn't have a class at that time
029um so we've invited our seniors to come and use the great yeah great awesome well thanks Becky all right next item on the agenda under new business is something that I put on here uh remote days versus snow days I simply wanted to just discuss the topic of remote learning considering we had a remote learning day not too long ago and if I recall correctly we had one snow day y so this was our first remote learning day and I'm interested in feedback on maybe how everybody in the room feels like the remote learning days are going um and I say this from my standpoint as a parent of a fourth grader and a first grader and maybe just kind of starting with a concern that I have is that it's a short day it
030seems pretty hard to keep their attention spans at a level that I think would be not comparable to what they get in the classroom and then at the end of the year as I understand it that counts as a full school day y so that's simply my concern and again I just want to talk things through maybe better understand how remote learning works and maybe get feedback from others I I mean I don't have a problem with the whole seat time thing because I think those of us who work in the classrooms know that seat time's kind of but it's it depends on how it's used and how to parents feel about it and how do teachers feel about it that's really what I would like to know you know and if parents aren't home
031I just there's a lot that goes into it that I don't have any knowledge of because we didn't have a computer when my kids went to school so um but I a seat time I I really don't think I worry about that as much do you guys on the seat time thing no no good with the Competency Based education we really don't look at se time um and just for the board to keep think about or frame this conversation is um this is discussed at the Joint board so that everyone can have the same calendar and one of the reasons for that besides that was a lot of parent feedback about having a kiddo at the middle of the high school and one of our elementary schools and having three different calendars drove them berserk
032so they really wanted a consistent calendar also um when we do remote days or not remote days if Kensington was to Bear off which is well within your perview if you decided the Kenington School Board decided they didn't want to do remote days you would endure the cost of Transportation all by yourself and you did not budget for that for next year because you would be paying for single runs opposed to sharing the cost with the other districts because you'd be paying for that bus company just to come and do your kiddos so that's something to think about um also Becky and I did have a conversation about how we can support the building or the teachers in terms of planning for remote days if it's going to be something that is in SAU or
033public education's future how does she give time to her teachers before they're in the middle of teaching to what is remote what is remote teaching look like how do we have our students practice logging on and off the computers before we get to winter so it's something more automatic and how do we use the curriculum that we P we spent money and time buying curriculum that integrates with technology yeah but we haven't necessarily provided the teachers with the PD in the time to integrate it and learn about it and use the tool so there's there's areas where we could do a better job at an SAU and doors of planning to support our teachers so that they can do remote instruction in a in a different a different way and I don't know what it
034was like in Kenyan because I don't have a I don't have a little kiddo here I have little kiddos that do remote days as well so I I see both sides of it with a six-year-old or a 10-year-old or with a kid with an i it looks very different but just to just to think about it would be an additional cost for you if you didn't follow the remote days and so it's really worth the board if they really care about this also bringing this up at the Joint board in dece in September and say how does everyone else feel how is your remote Day last year do we want to do remote days in sau6 or do we not and some districts might have decided that they don't so it's just framing it and
035it's an interesting debate it's a really interesting debate yeah let scheduling component is probably the biggest hurdle to get over because even if we said okay we just won't do remote learning at elementary school level we're and we would go later if we go later compared to everybody else we're still going to eat the bus cost yep I guess and I I think that you could have parents who take their elementary school kids out two days earlier anyway yeah cuz the other the middle and high school kids are outter right now yeah yeah but I do think it's worth taking a look at it at the Joint board and maybe finding out how people feel about it yeah yeah I guess it's just you know I I can see it from maybe a middle school
036level maybe a high school level but like my six-year-old with headphones on like well I sit on Zoom for most of my day and I know that adults have a hard time muting and you know knowing when to talk and you know I listen into those classrooms and I like I feel for the teachers trying to control the the cha chos that exists on your Hollywood Square screen well when when we had Co I had to supervise my 5-year-old granddaughter in kindergart from Guilford and it started and I almost started crying now we're going to do just morning meeting guys let's all talk and they're like oh you're here so pretty today I'm like oh my God the cutest things I've ever seen oh they were so cute yeah it was during Co and we
037were doing it every day it was it was a little different and we had different skills kids had different skills to be able to access learning when it was what we were doing every day so to pop in and out of remote learning once or twice a year we're just it's just not easy to make that shi as it as it once was years ago um I think the other piece to think about in this it's really it's really complicated um is that there are some teachers on remote days that have very young children at home and so if they can't get children to daycare because roads are bad or dayare CL it's it's difficult for me to try to figure out how to help support them teach on screen while they have a two-year-old
038that you're they're trying to take care of and so it's a student thing to think about it's a parent thing to think about it's a staffing thing to think about it's a whole there really is a lot of moving parts to a remote day to and around the Staffing thing those teachers do have the right to take a day like they could take the day off and and other schools have subs or pars jump in and join so I just the staff is not forced to work they do have a right to take a day there's a remote day and they have young kids at home and they don't think they can teach it they can take a day I just want to make sure that you know that we support the staff in that
039way and Becky supports and stuff in that way but they're so dedicated they're dedicated and they want to do it so it's true yeah I I know it's a difficult yeah one of those things that could have two right answers like depending on who you talk to I mean I was even thinking before this meeting how we would cover it and what we would talk about and initially I was thinking about a survey that we could submit to the public you know maybe if we were all behind it but I wouldn't know I wouldn't know what solutions to propose because with every option that we put out there or every item for feedback we could get something that maybe isn't helpful I just I don't oh and I think if possible if we bring it
040to the sa board then we would talk maybe to people across the sa get a feeling um I I don't know what you would ask I think you would have to keep it simple and say would you prefer remote day or snow day I mean I think and then from there we take it on yeah but but even then though you're going to have to I would think you would want to section it off into Elementary School versus Middle School versus high school and I don't know that that's going to help us all right then let's not just do anything no I no I'm I'm just I no I'm I'm not even but I'm just thinking to start with yes or no and then you are are you the parent of an elementary child I
041think there's a way to do a survey but I think that you're right we need to do it's sa you thing yeah I think it's a great conversation for the joint board and if the joint board wanted to send out a survey that would make a lot of sense yeah maybe that isn't that right the way maybe sectioning sectioning it off isn't the right way to think about it and there's a well I think we could do grade level and then we would be able to build data by that that's true because that's one of the things we can take to the Joint board because it doesn't have anything to do with our budget right yeah yeah okay okay that makes sense mhm cool great all right uh any old business that's kind of a
042loaded question yeah uh pupil related matters no Personnel um all right oh before we finish I'm I'm making a statement Cheryl and I would like to thank you for your service on the and we're sad to miss you yeah thank you I'm still a little bit mad at you though you didn't even ask like you just did it I know no I'll have something we all have something for you Josh we expect played behind all your zooms thank you very much this is from the K staff they just wanted to say um how much we appreciate all of the time that you have given this board it is so much more than one meeting a month yes we know that is right policy meetings and budget meetings and engaging with the community and it's really
043um it is a lot of time and we really appreciate the years that you've been on this board well thank you and I've really enjoyed my time here this has been a great learning experience for me and was really happy to you know to to learn the things that I have and to support the school and to learn you know the the more about it and the things I have so has been felt and I hope you continue to support the school of course I'm not going anywhere I'm still around well thank you all very much very thoughtful thank you all right I will call the meeting to close at 6:34 do I have a second second all those in favor I I