001This regular meeting of the board of education is called to order. Please rise for the pledge. >> I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisibley and justice for all. >> Mr. Shaldi, please call the role. >> Mrs. Mahalis, >> here. Dr. Schneider >> here. >> Mrs. Click >> here. >> Mr. Aum is absent. >> Mrs. Fuller. >> All right, we'll begin tonight's meeting with special reports and recognitions. Tonight, the Aurora Board of Education is proud to recognize and congratulate the following students from Harmon for being selected by Rotary International as students of the month, and they are Kennedy Wear and Bla1 Feliz. May I please have a motion? Move. >> Second. >> Mr. Sheldy, please call the role.
002>> Dr. Schneider, >> yes. >> Mrs. Fuller, >> yes. >> Mrs. Mahalus, >> yes. >> Mrs. Click, >> yes. >> All right. Would the students please come forward and get your certificates? Mr. Go ahead. >> Thank you, Bor and Miss Mahales. Uh, two individuals that we have here today. Uh these names have been around for a while here in our district and I know it's like that in a lot of districts, but I just love it when you see a lot of the younger ones come on up and and the wares and the felices. Uh two outstanding families and these individuals just keep following suit. Uh Bla1 and Kennedy are individuals that in the classroom are leaders amongst leaders, but the best is the teachers always say no matter where we put them or who
003we put them with, they're always going to shine, always going to rise and bring everybody around them up. you know, they're the leaders by the ultimate leaders by example, but yet around the school, they're always looking to help out, always have a smile on their face, always willing to do whatever it takes. And and in the classroom, there's nothing any different with their academics. So, can't wait for you to hear more about them. We're going to start off with Kennedy Wear. Good evening. My name is Kennedy Wear. I'm an eighth grader at Harmon Middle School and I'm honored to be selected as Rotary Student of the Month. I would like to thank my teachers for nominating me because without their support, I'm able to be the best version of myself. To start, I would like
004to thank my family for the support they give me. Without my mom, dad, sister Kendall, and brother Elijah, I would not be where I am today. Because my family has always supported me through thick and thin, they have helped shape who I am today, especially when it comes to school. It's not only my family, but also the resources and support at school that have helped me grow and improve over the years. At school, I stay involved in many activities. I play the obo and band. I hope around the school through beta club. And on Wednesdays, I tutor school students in our school's media center. My favorite subjects are math, science, and French. Or as the French say, jele. Being involved has helped me feel connected and I always feel supported by my peers, teachers, and
005guidance counselors. Outside of school, I enjoy staying active. I have recently gotten into snowboarding and I also play club soccer. I love spending time with my friends, listening to music, and going on walks and runs when the weather is nice. Looking toward the future, I hope to complete college and go on to pursue a career in the medical field. Right now, anesthesiology is something that really interests me. Through research, I have learned that anesthesiologists play an important role in keeping patients safe and helping them through surgery, which is a stressful and uncertain time in their lives. That responsibility is what makes the field so meaningful to me and why I feel drawn to this career. I'm able to be successful with the support of the many influences in my life. My family, teachers, coaches, and
006friends have all pushed me to work hard, stay focused, and be the best version of myself. I'm very grateful for their support and guidance. I would like to end with a quote by Elanor Roosevelt. The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. Thank you. And now hear from Bla1 Feliz. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Blaze Feliz. I'm extremely honored to be chosen to receive this award. I would like to thank the board of education for awarding me the privilege of being here tonight. I would also like to thank all of the individuals who were involved in the entire process for their time and efforts. Last but not least, I'd like to thank my friends and family for everything they have they have done for me. To be
007honest, I had heard of Rotary Club but did not know much about it when I was first informed that I was awarded this. I did some research and realized why this is such a significant honor. The Rotary Club actively helps people around the world and this not only makes a huge or major impact on who they help directly, but also other organizations who might take inspiration. I am an active member of Beta Club. I help out when I can to deliver groceries to people who may need them with my mom. I also play football and run track. Sports have become a large part of my short life. Whether it was in kindergarten playing Wreck soccer or playing more the more competitive eighth grade football, I have always found motivation through sports. Sports have helped teach
008me to always try my best and never give up. The most important things sports have taught me this far are mental toughness, time management, and discipline. Mental toughness, we actually have very little control over the game of life. There will be twists and turns that we never expected or anticipated. We must continue to stay focused on the vision and goals we have established and keep moving forward. Life isn't fair. We must be able to overcome those instances. Time management. We have all only been given so much time to do things and what we choose to do with that time will directly result in our ability to impact others. If you want to excel at something, you must dedicate the necessary time to improve yourself accordingly. You must make choices with your time. Sometimes those choices
009are not fun or popular. Discipline. Being able to be disciplined even if you don't want to is vital to being successful. Discipline is not doing things well when you want to, but rather doing things well when you don't want to. I tried to apply this in school, for example, when doing homework. I've learned that if I get home and do my homework right away, that allows me to open up time to do more enjoyable things like going outside. School has always come first to me. School and learning will always contribute to making yourself better. I have come to appreciate that life itself is a continuous learning process. We are always learning something. Whether it be things we are told by others or if we watch others and how they handle situations. By simply observing, we
010can learn what and what not to do. Regardless, we are always learning if we choose to do so. Thank you again for the privilege and honor and enjoy the rest of your evening. Thank you students. Such wisdom from young people. Thanks for coming and thanks to the families. We'll take a minute for pictures in the back if you'd like and then feel free to leave if you choose to do so. All right. Well, while they're doing that, we can move on to the approval of minutes. We don't have any uh public speakers tonight. So, um could I please have a motion to approve the minutes from the regular meeting of February 23rd and then a second? >> Moved. >> Are there any comments or edits to those minutes? All right. Then, Mr. Shley, please call
011the role. >> Mrs. Click, >> yes. >> Mrs. Mahalos, >> yes. >> Dr. Schneider, >> yes. >> Mrs. Fuller, >> all right. Minutes are approved as written. Next, we move to the superintendent and assistant superintendent's report. And I know you're seating your time, so you can take it from your >> Yes. Correct. So, I am happy to have some special guests that are going to be taking my time up at the podium. Um, the I don't know if the board remembers this, but typically in August, we always have uh had to pass a resolution uh for a career tech waiver for seventh and eighth grade. Uh with some law changes, that was not going to be an option. uh but it was actually an opportunity and so Mr. Bovich with Dr. Roststein uh and Candace
012Minel who helped spearhead a transition to taking one of our uh programs the computer program uh and turning that into a career tech offering uh that we're proud to launch next year. So they are going to take some time to tell you a little bit about that program and and feel free to ask some questions. Okay. Okay. Mr. Brvet and Miss Smel the microphone is yours. >> Thank you Dr. Milstitch and board. Uh as Dr. Milstitch said, we were given the uh task of middle schools in the state of Ohio to adding to our curriculum. Uh Mrs. Mil, our new guidance, our new counselor at Harmon, her and I went to a meeting with a lot of other schools in our consortium and all the other schools had the exact same thinking as we're all
013together. We don't have the space. We don't have the time. We don't have the money. What can we do? So what we did is we delve deeper into what we already do at at Harmon. Um we were able to make with what we have at Harmon um fit into our career tech program. And it's not something like ah yeah this will do. Oh no, it was done and it is done with fidelity and is done very well. Um and you're going to see as we talk how we got to make this work um very smoothly. >> Okay. So, I'm going to start about what it actually means to offer the career tech in middle school, which um Dr. Milstitch already brought up some of the key points, but Ohio law now requires all districts in
014the state of Ohio to offer CTE curriculum to students in grades seven and eight. Um there was a waiver and the waiver was done away with and starting with the 26 27 school year. All districts will be mandated to offer the curriculum to all seventh and eighth grade students. Um that curriculum requires a minimum of 30 hours per course. So, seventh graders will have to take 30 hours and eighth graders will also need to take 30 hours. Um, we must provide access to all of our seventh and eighth graders. It's not mandatory to take, but we must be offered. And luckily, the way we're going to run it, all of our seventh and eighth graders will take it. Um, and it also must align with an Excel pathway. So, ExcelTech is our high school career
015technical program and there are around 30 different pathways and programs. So, we just have to align it with one of those. And the program we chose to do was interactive media. So, how the process worked, um, steps one, two, and three were basically us sitting down with ExcelTech and meeting with Nate Bishko and Diana Delsing and being able to talk about with other districts what they were doing, how they were implementing it, what courses they were going to use that they already were using, so not having to reinvent the wheel. So, we had discussed different options, but we um ultimately settled on using our computer programming class. And so we were able to sit down on February 24th and sit through the application process and get our um application submitted and approved through Excel Tech.
016So that's already been submitted and approved. And then we were able to get um Jessica Matusk who is our teacher for the computer technology course. She was trained util utilizing our PD day on March 6th and she has already gotten the qualifications to be able to teach the CTE courses. And then next is just basically delivering the program and Mark is going to talk about how we will do that. So, it's really important to understand how in Harmon we're doing it. As Candace mentioned, Jessica Matusk, Jessica Matusk has been a longtime uh computer tech teacher at Harmon Middle School. We're going to leverage this and we're going to have this in our seventh and eighth grade rotations. to understand what that means. In our rotations at Harvard Middle School, let's think about uh a school
017year is 36 weeks split into 18 weeks and 18 weeks. This 18 is your PE and health. So, let's take that out. So, then this 18, all right, is a combination of art, industrial arts, and then computer tech. So, at the semester, and all you guys are the board members are a part of this now with their with with family members being in it. So, at the semester, they switch. So let's say if there's 250 kids in a class, 125 are in computer. The the rotation of the three classes, the other 125 are in PE health and at the semester they switch. And so we have those three classes, art, industrial arts, and computer tech split up into six weeks, three six week sessions, 666, which is 18 weeks. So that makes up our school
018year. So and then as we said, it takes minimum of 30 hours. So 6* 5 is our 30 hours to be able to do that and it flu passed without um without an issue by any means. Uh as C Candace said, we're going to go down the interactive media pathway. Other pathways, for instance, you know, you have like agriculture, engineering, law, public safety, and marketing, uh science, health science. We we entertain the idea of health science because we're a unique middle school that has three PE health teachers. Um but again, we came out with the best option is our is our um computer tech program. uh the courses must cover what they said is 25% of the standards. So it's one of those things that that our you take a look at the curriculum and
019we go okay we got to cover 25% of that. We are looking, we looked at it and right away we are we do that truly do that. But Jessica Batusk really was excited about this as well and she's like, "Oh my gosh, not only can we do more, but we're going to continue to take this and move it in depth and not only then take it to that level, but also use it to be flexible. Like three, four years ago, we have cyber security now in our in our high school. Three, four years ago, we weren't talking about cyber security. So like Jess said that what we could go forward and take what we have now to align with our accept tech but it also has the freedom to be able to move and continue
020to align with future possible courses or pathways. So which is which is really neat. She's really excited about it. Delved right into it on our March PD day and got the certification. Our seventh grade course in our EMIS coding is going to be creating and editing digital graphics. Our eighth grade course is video and sound. Um, again, this is this is something that is an exposure to it. It's not by any means the the you know, you're going off into the working, you know, into the job market after you take these courses. And then just again, when we take a look at some of the things that they're doing in those classes and according to the curriculum, but when you look at this and like you look at the the third, fourth one down, drag
021and drop, you're like, "Oh, geez, I would hope our kids know how to drag and drop." But when you look in terms of creating and editing digital graphics, we're talking about something a lot more um in depth and deeper. Um and then this actually with our high school obviously it houses the photography part of our consortium of our XLT and this also has like it opens up that ability of our kids to hey stay home, stay on campus and maybe look further into that as well. So it aligns with us in many different ways. Um, and so that's the creating and editing digital graphics and then the video and sound that our kids will get or will be exposed to. Um, you guys have this obviously the presentation um and so you could be able
022to go into these the websites. some middle school CTE programming info like you want to see how they were doing this in Ohio or why or how ODUP their presentation on the middle school CTE those are links that we added in there as well when you guys are bored you want to read up on that stuff you may do that um so with that do you have any questions for us since I was part of the planning process could you uh speak a little bit to the uh career connection and how you'll actually tie in with the high school program because I think that's a pretty cool opportunity for middle school students to have opportunity to learn from and interact with the high school exceltech program. >> You want to start? >> So, I think
023we had talked about too is like bringing some of those kids down and working with our middle school students and just showing them like what the opportunities are and just not with interactive media or the photography but all the Excel Tech programs. It's just bringing down those juniors and seniors to be able to explain to the middle school kids like what the offerings are and what they have the opportunity to do as they get older, especially since they don't really learn about it until their sophomore and junior year. but give them that exposure earlier on >> and then being with the interactive media uh kids are getting an idea and what what Jessica Matuski is going to be doing is making the connection throughout as far as how in the XLT program it is connected
024as well um going down the interactive media pathway or the technology pathway. >> Maybe you explained this and I missed it but and I understand how the 18 weeks thing works the nine night whatever. So what is being removed so that this can be offered? >> You know, that's a great question on that. And I actually have a note on this, Mr. Mahales, to to to say that to say something. I did not comment on that. And so what is nice about it is there's not really big things. It's not being removed. Um it's continually being added to or tweaked. Jessica every year in her computer tech programming uh class or computer tech class, not programming, um she's always tweaking and changing things around to add to things. you know, there's some things that are
025new now. It's like kids coming up in third grade already know it and she's like, "Oh, I'm not going to teach that." It's different than now what it was four years ago and two years ago. And so, she's excited at looking at the curriculum offerings of other things that she can add in as well. And for those that know, I cannot stand the the pet, it's a pet peeve of mine people go, "Oh, yeah, we do that. We do that." I we could have easily have sat there and looked at and go because Jessica and Candace and I we went through we hit as the minimum requirements of 25%. We easily had to 25% we said oh we could be just done with that now we want to see where as as Dr. Milst said
026how we continue to make it align better and then again where where we have seen the trends going and how like I said before Jessica will be able to be able to maneuver as time goes on to shift it if needs be but it's not as a matter of it's not a matter of kids are being taken out things for that they've learned already like there's things that kids have learned today they didn't learn five years ago it wasn't there or there's things that Jess taught five years ago that she's not teaching today because it's something that's not relevant or they have learned it at another point it's It's really we I appreciate her with her flexibility and making sure that what she's doing is really relevant to the learning and to like society and
027the job market and the XLT program. >> Okay. Thanks. >> Questions? >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you both uh for presenting. Uh and that is the end of my report and I'll turn over to Mr. Hayes who going to be introducing our next report >> which will just be uh Mrs. Good >> and Mr. Maglyico, right? >> Mrs. Barker was supposed to be here in six, so Mr. Maganico is going to jump in as well. >> Thank you, Dr. Milstati and the board of education for allowing us to present tonight about the earliest services that we have in the Aurora City Schools, which is our preschool services. Lauren Barker, who is our preschool director, could not be here this evening, so Mr. Magleanico and I will be your presenters for tonight. So, it's
028hard to believe a little over 20 years ago, our preschool program started out with about 8 to 10 children, and now that has grown to over 100 students that we have enrolled in our preschool program. We currently have six center-based classrooms at Miller Elementary. And we also go out to all of our preschools in our local area, which includes the Goddard School, Young Explorers, My First School, Hope, and Aurora Children's Early Learning Center, where we do go out and provide services to our preschoolers who are actually placed in our community preschool programs. Some of the services that we are providing to these preschoolers include speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy services, vision therapy, aiological services, as well as mobility services. So, you might be wondering, how do our youngest children actually come to our preschool
029program? And that actually starts off with us getting to know them as early as two years of age and 10 months where they are currently working with help me grow in our community programs to determine if their child had any developmental delays that they were working on to help close that gap. Then our school psychologist Aaron Bradic is meeting with Help Megrow to determine if any child still requires services through our school system. And so we complete an assessment to determine if the children qualify for additional services through the Aurora City Schools. If they do qualify for services, we have to determine what is the best way to provide that service. That could be in our general education preschool classrooms which are out in our community or at Miller. It could be in our itinerate
030service model where they are placed in a preschool classroom in our community and we're going out to them and providing speech therapy to them or one of our preschool teachers are going out to the school to provide any consultation on any area of domains of their development that might be delayed and they need some support with. What you might be most familiar with is our integrated preschool model, which we house at Miller Elementary, which is our inclusive program where 50% of the students have an identified area of need that we're targeting through an IEP. And the other 50% of the children are our community peers who we screen to make sure that they are great community role models, a good communication partner, a great turntaker, and someone who's going to thrive in our preschool curriculum.
031Some of the more intensive services that we could also provide is a special education preschool class where it's a more intensive class with students who have identified areas of need and aren't quite ready to be in a general education classroom yet. And we work to um help them close the gaps that they have so that they can get into a classroom very soon. The other services that we could provide would be a separate special education school or a program that a a family might decide to work through or we might determine is the best placement for them or a service provider home location where children might just come to Miller to get their therapy services and they go home. So their families might have decided that they're not quite ready for preschool services yet, but
032we do want to still continue with the services that you've identified are in need for our child. Same with the home services that we provide are for some of our more medically fragile children who might not be ready to come into our preschool setting and their health and safety is the most important thing at this time. So next I'm going to have Mr. Magalanico talk about how our preschool program has become one of the top rated gold programs in the area. Thank you Maria. Thank you board for allowing us to speak tonight. Um our preschool program is guided by two key systems. Step up the quality. Um, and the Department of Children and Youth Preschool Licensing. Step up the Quality is Ohio's quality rating system built on research-based practices that improve outcomes for students with
033uh students in preschool education. And it reflects Aurora's commitment to providing and delivering high quality early learning experiences for our students. The preschool program is licensed through the department of children and youth and preschool licensing program which sets strict requirements related to safety, staffing and early learning experiences. Um, our classrooms are intentionally staffed with one lead teacher and two assistant teachers and all preschool staff must attend uh yearly uh professional development focusing on preschool education. Um, so the requirements are up there 15 hours of training per year for administrators and then 10 hours of training per year for our teachers. And those trainings have to align with step up to quality standards. Um, Mrs. Goodman and I are really proud to share that during our annual step up to quality and licensing visit which happened
034on March 4th, uh we were informed that we met all of our preschool licensing expectations and maintained our gold rating which is the highest rating for step up to quality for our curriculum and preschool. Our curriculum team worked last year diligently and chose Frog Street prek curriculum. Uh Frog Street is aligned to researchbased practices and supports the whole child. Uh it focuses on academic, social, emotional, and developmental growth for our preschool students. There are several non-negotiables that we have to have in place for our curriculum implementation and those include a well ststructured classroom environment and pro appropriate curriculum materials. uh strong teacher student interactions and consistent routines, intentional lesson planning, assessment and data collection and learning centers and stations that uh provide high quality learning experiences for our students that are thoroughly planned out by
035our teachers as well as continuously displaying the student work uh for students and staff to see. Family engagement is a key component and critical component of our program. Uh we gather information through our family needs survey which happens yearly. We have a referral process that is in place that provides and connects families to our preschool services as well as community resources and follow-up services. We provide two parent event opportunities per year. You'll see on the picture on the left, uh this is our latest parent uh event which was preschool music and literacy night uh presented by music with Abby which we had a huge turnout of parents and students. It was it was amazing to see. Um all of our children participate in screenings uh on a on a regular basis. We provide conferences to
036parents so that they can receive updated information on student growth and our staff um reports on our approved curriculum and assessments on a regular basis and that information is shared out with our families. And then community collaboration. This was one of our goals this year, this past year for our preschool program was to enhance and create a strong emphasis on community collaboration. Uh this includes building partnerships with local preschool programs and organizations to better support our students in our preschool program. For example, up top you will see Aaron Bradock who is our school psychologist providing training to a variety of community preschool providers on our preschool special education evaluation process and referral process which helped to create an alignment between our expectations and and who they are sending to us from their preschools. We also
037partnered with the Ohio Early Childhood for Excellence. Um, we brought in Katie Des Smith to speak to uh several Portage County school districts as well as community preschool programs. Uh, we brought them together to enhance our collective understanding of preschool consultation, preschool resources, and educational coaching that can be provided to all the programs um, at free of cost, which was amazing. We had a nice turnout actually in this room with several people from the community. In closing, uh through our continuum of services, strong systems, high quality curriculum, meaningful g uh family engagement, and active community partnerships, we are ensuring that our preschool students and program provides a safe, compliant, and high quality foundation for student success. So, thank you for your time tonight and if you have any questions, we are open to them. >>
038How how young did do you start looking at children in the community? What age? >> So, they have to be screened by their third birthday if they are currently working in help me grow. So, that usually starts when they're two and a half years old. I thought you said >> I know when we're already starting to screen them to see if they still have any delays in their development and if they require services through the school district. >> So that seems really young, but we do have many two-year-olds visiting Miller and getting a screening um with all their emotions and how they feel about it. And that's what we're used to in at Miller. So, >> all right. Well, thank you for your report. All right. Does that conclude both reports then? >> Yes. >>
039So, we'll move to Mr. Schwey. >> Unfortunately, I don't have anybody to present for me, but nope. Um, okay. For these are the financial reports for February 2026. Um, for the general fund for the month of February, revenues exceeded expenditures by $4.9 million. This increases the general fund cash balance to 15.4 million to end February 2026. Uh for the year year-to- date through the month of February, re revenues were uh 8.7% less than the previous year while expenditures were 3% greater. Um and I'm going to talk about revenues to kind of explain why that that variance is there. Uh so for revenues for the month of February, revenue is down 4.2 2 million compared to last year, a year-over-year change of 32.1%. Uh year-to- date revenue is down 3 million um compared to last year,
040which is again the change of 8.7. So these variances are mainly caused from lower property tax collection this year. Um across the state, every school district kind of experienced advances coming in lower and slower than they typically have. Um, so there was kind of a lot of a lot of shock when those advances started, that first advance came in and it wasn't wasn't the amounts that we're used to seeing. Um, that's due to, you know, a lot of the legislation that's going on with the state and different things like that. Um, the good news is after the advances come in, the county does a final settlement. So they, you know, calculate out the rest of their collections, any fees, subtract out the advances they gave and provide the final settlement for your collection for that
041half of the settlement year. Um, so in March, we just received that. So that variance should um kind of dissipate once once we see March's figures in those year-to-year comparisons. So I know that's a big number and some high percentages variance, but it's mostly a timing issue. We're not really receiving that much less money than we did last year or anything like that. So, um, revenue received through February totals 35 million of the annual budgeted 52.8 million and the amount remaining we expect to receive is about 17.7 million. Uh for expenditures for the month of February, expenditures are up 109,000 compared to last year, a year-over-year change of 2.9% in year to date uh kind of goes right in line with that. They're up a million compared to last year, uh which is a year-over-year
042change of 3%. Um the month-to-month and year-to-year date increases again are driven by uh some salary and benefits increases with some offsets through uh other expenditures that uh has had a fairly significant decrease this year. Um expenditures through February total 34 million uh 34.2 million of the annual budgeted total of 52.6 6 and the amount of budget expenses remaining is 18.4 million. The total cash balance for all funds is 16,953,452 with the general fund having a cash balance of 15.4 million. This overall cash balance is 4.9 million more than that at the end of January as we started collecting tax advances in February. uh which is our main source of revenue. Um expenditures of course remain about the same every month um except for when we have like three payments or something you know some
043type of emergency repair or something. But uh and then like I said tax collections are going to continue into March when we just got our final settlement. So we'll see those revenues kind of level out compared to what our projections and um what it's compared to last year. >> Okay. Right. Thank you for that. Exhibit D1 is a resolution to approve financial statements and reports. May I please have a motion. >> Chair seconds. Are there any comments or questions? Right. Mr. Shy, please call the RO. >> Mrs. Mahales? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Click? >> Yes. >> Dr. Schneder? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Holler? >> Yes. >> All right. Thank you. Moving on to new business, we have exhibit E1A, which is a resolution to accept gifts and contributions. May I have a motion, please? >>
044Moved. Second. >> Um, I'd like to start by um saying that most of these donations on the list are from the Aurora Schools Foundation. Um and there are several more um the financial ro the Rotary Club VFW and the Aurora Elementary PTO who are donating to um the Leighton Amphitheater. Is that a renovation of that? >> Yeah, it's it's a renovation, but it's um I would say it's more than that since it's not really usable right now. So it's yeah it goes beyond a simple renovation and it's it'll be an exciting outdoor learning space when we're done with it here this safe >> and it is very exciting and we want to thank the Aurora Schools Foundation for the way that they have helped our students over I think it's been more than 30 years
045um in ways that go beyond what the school can budget for many of these projects which are innovative and creative and imaginative. So we thank the Aurora Schools Foundation for that. Did you want to say anything else? >> That's exactly what I would have said. I see Rachel's out there from the Aurora Schools Foundation so we want to thank her. Yes. >> Um for making this happen. Mr. Warders too and his team and all the staff members and then all these other you know donors that you mentioned that contributed from the you know the the PTO to to um V Financial and the others VFW. So grateful for the support and cannot wait to see the project come to fruition and open it up and go enjoy the learning space with some of our some
046of our students. So thank you. >> Thank you. I also want to make mention that there's a donation of $8,100 which was um given to the Aurora special ed department in Cindy Kekin's name and um hope I can get through this. Cindy was a very dear friend of mine and of Mary's for almost 40 years for me. Um her three boys graduated from Aurora and she has several grandchildren in the school system now. one of whom is Charlie who has special needs and um over the years Cindy always told me that she was so thankful to Mr. Maganico and the entire um special department for all the ways that Charlie has benefited from your services and so I know that she would be glad to know that um this money was donated in honor of
047her memory. So I thank the donors for that. >> Did we vote on that? >> Okay. We need >> um Mrs. Click. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Mahalis. >> Yes. >> Dr. Schneider. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Forward. >> Okay. Moving on to personnel resolutions. I'm going to take the first three individually, then we'll take the rest together. Uh exhibit E1 B1 is a resolution to accept resignations and a retirement. May I have a motion, please? >> Second. >> Um, we thank everyone for their service, but I would be remiss if I didn't make mention of the first three who have served over 20 years in the district. We have Dr. Gretchen Jessel who served 26 years, Barb Cuddley, Molly's mom, um, 25 years of service to the district, and Pamela Alman for 21 years of service.
048Are there any other comments about that? >> I just want to say congrats to my mom. I'm sure her retirement just as sure. >> All right, Mr. Shreddy, please call the role. >> Dr. Schneider, >> yes. >> Minutes say abstain. >> Mrs. Mahalis, >> yes. >> Mrs. Click, >> yes. >> Mrs. Forward. >> Exhibit E1B2 is a resolution to employ licensed substitute teachers for this school year. May I have a motion, please? >> Moved. >> Second. >> Uh, Mr. Sheldy, please call the role. >> Mrs. Fuller, >> yes. >> Dr. Schneider, >> yes. >> Mrs. Mahalis, >> yes. >> Mrs. Click, >> yes. >> And exhibit E1B3 is a resolution to award new administrator contracts. Um, one is to Mr. Jeff Willard as the director of um, what is it? Facility >> Maintenance and operations.
049Yes. >> And, uh, to doc or Mr. Maganico because of some contracts language. May I have a motion, please? >> Uh, m uh, Mr. Shaldy, would you please call the role? >> Dr. Schneider, >> yes. >> Mrs. Mahalis, >> yes. >> Mrs. Click, >> yes. And who didn't call? Mrs. F. >> Okay, we got that. >> So, um, we welcome Mr. Jeff Ward to the district and look forward to working with you. Is there anything you'd like to say? >> Let me just say it's a real pleasure. Look forward to working with the team here and helping staff and students and administration community. school district. A lot of lot of things happening here. Very progressive and I'm excited to be a part of this. Thank you so much. It's really pleas. Um, is that okay
050with everyone? I'll take them together. So E1B4 is a resolution to approve the introductory appointment of support staff. Exhibit E1B5 is a resolution to employ support staff. Exhibit E1B6 is a resolution to award supplemental contracts. Exhibit E1B7 is a resolution to terminate the employment of a support staff member. Exhibit E1B8, a resolution to increase extended time contracts for this school year. Exhibit E1B9 is a resolution to employ licensed substitute teachers for next school year. Exhibit E1B10, a resolution to employ substitute support staff substitutes for this school year. And exhibit E1B11 is a resolution to award supplemental contract to a non-district person. May I have a motion, please? >> Moved. Second. >> Are there any comments or questions about any of those? All right, then. Mr. Shabby, please call the role. >> Mrs. Fuller. >> Yes.
051>> Dr. Schneder. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Click. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Mahomes. >> Yes. >> All right. All those resolutions are approved. Next is exhibit E1C, which is a resolution approving a memorandum of understanding with the with the A.E.A. It regards matters relating to retiring employees insurance premium costs. May I have a motion for approval? >> Second. >> Are there any comments or questions about that? All right. Mr. Sheldy, please call the role. >> Mrs. Mahalis, >> yes. >> Mrs. Click, >> yes. >> Mrs. Fuller, >> yes. >> Dr. Schneider, >> yes. >> Next, exhibit E1D is a resolution to update policies. We have three policies before us. Um, EFD was regarding misbranded foods and cultivated protein food products. J EB uh regards K uh the entrance age for kindergarteners and EBDE is regarding the
052procurement and administration of overdose reversal drugs. May I have a motion please? >> Second. >> Any comments or questions? >> Do you mind if I just comment briefly? >> Yeah. >> Um so as I communicate with the board, these are all simple just required changes. So no need for discussion like the uh last one on AI. So the first one missed branded foods was obviously just a recommended change with legislation. Same with kindergarten age entrance. We've been waiting on that one uh because we had actually we were going to go with August 1st. We changed that but then they changed the legislation to be the first day of school. So that'll be the first day of school moving forward uh which is a requirement. And then we had already updated the other policy on uh
053the procurement administration of overdose reversal drugs. The only difference with this one is it just mentions some uh potential professional development topics for staff. So other than that, pretty simple and all required changes. >> Okay, Mr. Shley, please call the role. >> Mrs. Mahalis, >> yes. >> Mrs. Fuller, >> yes. >> Dr. Schneider, >> yes. >> Mrs. Click, >> yes. >> All right, those policy updates are approved. Exhibit E1E is a resolution to accept uh bids and then award a bid for the replacement of a package chiller air handler unit to Erie affiliates. May I have a motion for approval, please? >> Move. Second. >> Uh what exactly is a package chiller air handler unit? >> Yeah. So, I was hoping to have the opportunity to comment on this one. So, essentially what this is
054is it's just a air air handler unit um on the back of the high school. This is infamously known as air handler number nine. Um it essentially supports eight classrooms uh that were uh part of the addition predominantly social studies and English classrooms on the backside there near the stadium. Um passed its useful life cycle. It failed as has been happening with a number of things. Uh which is obviously why we're looking at the uh essential plan. Uh we had to bid this out for our board policy. Uh we're hopeful it was going to be closer to 250,000. You can see it was not. Uh per best practice, we are actually moving it up to the roof versus being on the ground, which is not recommended as another addition. So, we're working to get this
055done into the summer uh so that it's open, you know, with the air conditioning for next year. Um but it's $321,000 and our, you know, annual PI is $880,000. So, you know, just wanted to that's over a third if you're doing the math. So, uh, very expensive, uh, and obviously, uh, had no choice and it, uh, takes up a large part of our, uh, PI funds that were set aside for facilities. >> Okay, any questions? >> All right, please call the RO. >> Mrs. Mahalis, >> yes. >> Mrs. Click, >> yes. >> Mrs. Schneider, >> yes. >> Sorry, Dr. Schneider. >> Mrs. Fuller, >> all right, so that passes. And next we have a discussion item about a policy regarding artificial intelligence. Dr. Mitch, would you like to >> I would love to have the
056opportunity to talk about this. Also put this in your weekly update. So um we received as we normally do the OSBA policy sample policy on artificial intelligence. Uh we had created one previously. We revised it. We were really um not pleased with what they put together for this one. So instead of trying to revise what they gave us, we essentially uh just got rid of it uh started from scratch and looked at what the legal requirements are. Uh we do need to have an artificial intelligence policy. We need to make sure it covers specific things which this one does. Student data privacy um compliance with existing policies, administrative guidance. So this is a legally compliant AI policy which we believe internally in the district um is a good policy in a sense that it attacks
057the policy issue and doesn't over interfere with practices or make things so inflexible that we can't innovate within the district. And so that's why uh we wrote we wrote it and are recommending this one but we want you to have more time to look at it comment whatever and we can uh you know look at approving it at the next board meeting in April. >> Okay. and we appreciate that we have a month to look at this, but are there any questions tonight? >> Yes. >> There's nothing on citation in here. Is that purposely? >> Yeah, it is. Um because it's not necessarily a a requirement in the law. Not that we don't want to teach best practice to our students. So, there are certain things we might teach and talk about, but it's not
058necessarily required in the policy. So, we have guidelines. We have at the high school they spend a lot of time putting together sort of like a spectrum of what's appropriate use, not appropriate use, when you site it, how you use it. We think that's great, but those are guidelines and best left to be guidelines and not put in policy. >> Can you just kind of give like a general overview of why this policy would be over? Yeah, basically what I said at the end, it was very restrictive in in a sense that every single type of AI that were we were to use in the district would first need to be sort of sought approval um from maybe potentially Mr. Hayes and gone through a policy trying to keep an updated list which is really
059almost impossible at this point in time because of how embedded AI is in everything that we do including email, Google, you know, so that's it's not really practical and doing that um probably would interfere with actually our effective use of it. Um because sometimes we're piloting things, we're trying things um and we don't necessarily have um just one school sponsored AI. We do use Gemini. it's a part of enterprise. Um, you know, there are other staff members using Brisk and different, you know, I mean, there's a whole bunch of them. So, we do spend time on professional development. We believe in that. We believe in training. We believe in vetting. Uh, but we think again that's best to administrative guidance and ever evolving policy versus uh, excuse me, a practice versus putting that in our
060board policy. >> Anything else for now? Okay. So, we will look to vote on this next one. Okay, under board items, um we all have this in front of us. This is um a notice about the openhouse meetings regarding the essential plan uh the the the bond issue coming up in November. And I would ask that each of you email me and let me know if you can attend which of these meetings you can attend and if any you definitely cannot attend so that I can try to get the two of us. We can't have more than two of us at each of these. So, I'd appreciate that if you do that this week and then I'll hand out assignments. Okay. Any other board items? All right. Then, um, next we have an an executive
061session. We're going to go into an executive session to consider the purchase of property property for public purposes. So, I'll give everyone a few minutes to clear the room and then we'll I'll get a motion in a second to do that. Thank you all for coming and we do not expect to take any action when we come out of executive session other than to adjourn. >> I'm going to wait till the room clears and I'm going to do that for you. >> Oh, I will. Yes. >> Um Wednesday and then I'll get that to you. And then I asked S to actually stay for executive session since he's got a lot of perspective on the property selling. Is that okay? >> Thanks for coming, sir. Glad you got to see your daughter's speech. >> Thank
062you. >> Oh, I'm sure I know you're naive, but not that naive. >> Thanks. See you later. I drew a blank on what FMO stands for? >> We can uh >> do we want to get the motions and approvals now? Then we can get set up to talk. >> Oh, okay. Could I have a motion, please, to go into executive session? >> Let's say you're coming back in here. Can you turn off the >> Oh, yeah. >> We can turn it on. Wait one second. >> Yeah. >> Yep. move. >> Second.