001uh good evening everyone we're going to get started here today is Tuesday March 18th 2025 uh we are here for the uh rever Board of Education uh board meeting Mr BD will you please call the role Mrs bracket here Mr haidu here Mr Malik here Mrs Ry here Mrs Stein here okay I believe we have Richfield elementary students here start our pledge sure it must be Richfield night tonight CU I see a lot of our Richfield students here which is awesome so um Ka Ella and Oliver if you're here why don't you come on up I think I might be missing one that I didn't see come in yet but perfect all right so tonight we have Kora dual who was in kindergarten um she is going to help lead us in the pledge and
002we also have Oliver Ori who is here um K he is a first grader cor shared that she loves calendar time at uh Richfield when she learns math and doing the calendar and loves crafts and I also had the privilege of seeing Oliver during a recent grandparents group and let me tell you what he is quite the artist um and he was here with our grandparents when we woke under our grandparents group and got to see some of his Arts talents too tonight our students are going to lead us in the pledge so at this time if you would please stand up put your hand on your heart and join us with our pledge [Music] leaders flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible
003with liy and justice for good job guys good job thank you and I have their certificates and then I also have some stickers here for them [Music] being take piure and parents if you want to come on up get make sure you're welcome to don't be shy guys [Music] Mr yes and then thank you Mrs keer and our two students now we have Bath Elementary Mr Fry and Mr Wilson to share about voices of bath all right good evening I like to have Mrs hetman please come up Mrs hetman is one of our fifth grade teachers and does a fantastic job in that role but does an even better job as our director producer of our voices of bath video announcements so I'd like to have her come and talk about her um program a
004little bit and introduce three of her Rising Stars Miss letman thank you a little tall here Mr sorry sorry could I ask uh bellaa Jones Vivian voder and Lucas could please come on up here so as they're coming up um I have the great honor of recognizing these three incredible students we have six video announcers but I wanted these three to come particularly first because not only do they do a fantastic job as our voices and faces of Bath Elementary School doing video announcements every morning for our school but in addition to that these three have given up their evenings and weekends to not only write their scripts as all of them do but they're also now editing and producing our videos which is a tremendous help to me um they do a great job
005they add images they trim down our videos where we make once in a while a blooper um they add some effect effects they add music and they really turn our announcements into something that not only looks good for the kids but quite honestly I think looks quite professional um if you've never seen them I do invite you to go to the bath page on our website and check them out because not only will you see their great faces but you'll see the work that they've done in producing them so bellaa Vivian Lucas I want to thank you for your time and effort that you definitely doesn't go unnoticed you are setting an example of responsibility teamwork and Leadership and we are very grateful for the energy that you bring to voice of [Applause] goding officially
006producers and then [Music] amaz here [Applause] all right Mr coning we don't have you on the agenda but are you coming to introduce thisand all we're here to do is introduce three students from the high school um it's weird that the Middle School principal introduced some high school kid but we need to say thank you to a couple and I'm going to bring up Mrs alesandro one of our sixth grade science teachers to tell us why we're at the middle school is introducing three high school students tonight I don't like microphones I'm pretty loud so I'm Miss and I teach science at the middle school and about four years ago we actually started science club we had two girls Elena sample SLE and um Kayla Lanza had come to me and um Mr Fletcher and
007said hey we would like to have an academic Club where kids didn't actually have to be academically h to be in it and we want them to like just have fun doing science after school we're like all right let's try it out so the first year we were doing it um you know we had about 10 to 15 kids I would say it was pretty easy and manageable and um then the next year we had um them back again in group a little bit more maybe about 20 uh then we had them graduate we had three new girls come in and they took over for a year and grew up to like about 2025 and so every year we were getting more and more and we were getting our sixth graders that come back for
008seventh grade and then for seventh grade now we have eighth graders and so this year we actually have on an average about 45 to 50 kids um I actually had to not only have my classroom Mrs comes is my partner teacher I opened up her classroom and I'm so excited to say that this club has went so well with the middle school kids that we're not just getting sixth graders we're actually getting the seventh and eighth graders enough where I feel one whole classroom was seventh and eighth grade and the other classroom with sixth graders um so I think that's pretty amazing that you've got kids who on a Friday afternoon where we can all go home and you know relax and have our own fun they're going to stay after school and we're going
009to do some science and so this year I would like to rec uh recognize three of the students that are volunteering their time once again these people are also busy as all get out and once again on a Friday afternoon they're staying after school they're they're helping kids learn science uh this year they've been concentrating mostly on chemistry type of topics we've also had physics uh topics and we also have had some earth science it's nice because sometimes they'll bring the actual topics that maybe all grades have had like density like on right now is this grade my seventh graders had it my eighth grade so they're getting like a repeat or they're getting something brand new that they have never heard of um before um introduced as well an extension of what we have
010learned in classro um so we've had a really good time with them this year um we meet every other Friday um from about 2:45 to 3:20 um the kids come up with their own uh lesson plans uh I have I meet with them the the summer before over the summer they come up their lesson plans each of them took about three or four they come up with a slideshow they have a slideshow for about 5 to 10 minutes to introduce the actual uh topic and then it's play time it's all handson it's not school we're not doing paperwork or anything like that it's always Hands-On we actually um had uh Mr White actually came and um was shooting actually uh we had Chets that day we were making Chets out of popsicle sticks and we
011were trying to see how far they could shoot and how high you can make them so it's a pretty fun group so i' would like to uh recognize these three individuals um they are all seniors so we're going to have to replace them uh this year with some new people um so we have Anish chandron come on down Lily Fox and then we have Saia Sharm [Applause] thank you for doing it awesome app and obviously the kids seeing um high school kids you know like I can be excited about science but I'm a teacher and I get paid for that right but to see kids that are actually excited teaching other kids I think that really you know really is good role models for these kids that are in Middle School to see high school
012kids coming down so thank you [Applause] appreciate your time all right our high school principal Mr Ferris come in and talk to us about students and engaging with purpose he great thank you Mr White good evening everyone if I could have our amazing students who are being recognized tonight come on up and maybe stand over here so I need Jack Cooper sof Tyler Usher Riley and Stephanie Usher has been very excited about this all day as you can tell yeah so uh these incredible students are being recognized tonight by two new staff members to rev and um I just want to say I could not be more proud of Mrs Melody McDonald and Mrs Jordan Martin they are here to tell you all about how uh just in a short time they've developed this incredible
013culture within within Riv high school and our community with our amazing students so without further Ado they're going to tell you better than I can Mrs Melody M hi everyone so we have tons of exciting things to talk about these guys have done an amazing job this school year so the first exciting thing um is the snap cart and for those of you who don't know what snap cart is basically every Monday so we have 40 different food or drink options that we offer to staff every Monday we send out a survey staff they or they Place their order and then these guys work really hard all week long to fulfill those orders and then deliver them on Fridays um so they actually made little goodie bags for you guys just a sample of what
014we offer on our snapchart um we do some really good job skills and Vocational life skills um so they work on adding up the total cost we work on giving the change we're greeting with staff for communicating with staff we go shopping for all of our items um they restock the shelves they take inventory they do all those things and they do seriously an amazing job and they've gotten very independent with it but they almost don't even need our help anymore so they are doing amazing also we recently sold these Autism Awareness pins um just to kind of support some um some inclusion within our district and we sold them districtwide we sold over 300 pins which is amazing um and so staff they're going to end up wearing that to show their support all
015of April for Autism Awareness um I also want to mention we um usually average like 25 orders a week which is awesome and then um the staff they truly look forward to it saying hi to these guys every week and you guys look forward to it too I think is like their favorite thing they almost like fight over who's going to do it each Friday they love doing it so you guys are amazing with snack cart now Mrs Martin has some things she wants to talk about too hi in addition to the snack cart that has taken off this year the students are doing so well in the classroom they're being challenged every day um academically we've been working through Community engagement these guys go to lla therapy and Winking Lizard every other week and
016they work through job skills we go shopping every month to act meets who get groceries so we can do our cooking lessons in the classroom um through school engage ment many of these guys have done the life transitions course and they learn how to do laundry we work in the cafeteria we sort the mail every day for the office and we do all kinds of task related things um to make sure we're staying engaged in our class um and in the school environment um in addition to that we do minute Min Awards once a month in the high school and many of these guys I think four standing here tonight have been recognized by people in the school building that are not my myself for Mrs McDonald which I think speaks speaks volumes um it
017just shows good work ethic it shows that they're willing to participate in their school environment and volunteer where it's needed um so all in all I think these students are so deserving of recognition tonight and so we will do their [Music] Awards be quiet okay so we have Jack h [Applause] Sophia [Applause] Massa Tyler Nester Arthur clasm [Applause] Riley [Applause] Schultz and Stephanie [Applause] [Music] wer why are you being quiet also before we take our picture I wanted to recognize um something some other people in the room that we could not do this without and it's our three AIDs that came tonight we have aie Hendrickson um Anna hair and tyy H and then we have one other a that couldn't make it this war and then we have Jensen sharp which is our student
018teacher this semester [Applause] [Music] pop to a group so you better stay stay there for a bit FR Center one more two proud of you [Applause] [Music] guys that's awesome go okay I am up next for presentation on cell phone I want everybody to know you are welcome to stay and listen but parents also if you have to go we completely understand you are can feel free to take some time here and celebrate your the accomplishments of your children yes over our car [Music] find [Music] okay go ahead and get started so uh wanted to use this evening to just share with the board uh the presentation I've been giving to students staff community members as I've gone around met with different folks on our cell phone policy and listen to them to hear some
019of the uh just to hear their thoughts potential recommendations and things of that nature so um behind me is a presentation I have it on my computer so I'll just navigate from here all right first thing we start off with with is why are we doing this right cuz we want to Stir It Up and I'm I'm joking that's a joke no that's a joke it is because of the state law that was passed that we have to have a policy in place by July 1st 2025 all right and the Heart of that policy the idea was to have cell phones be used as little as possible in the in schools they wanted to emphasize yes that cell phones be used limited as possible during school hours um questions have come up like what what
020devices count and you'll see a list behind me there on all the devices that count um questions arise such as well how are we going to navigate for example smart watches and my response to that or like an Apple Watch or any of those things is we're not for both the cell phones and the watches we're going to deal with it if it's an issue so for example like if if a student at their desk got long sleeves on and they're not messing with their phone there's no reason no staff members is going to go up hey show me your phone or your watch I want to see what it is that's not what this is about right if it's not an issue it won't be addressed it is if while they're in class if
021they should be focusing on what's being taught and then they're on their watch that kind of thing that's when it's going to be addressed and they shared very similarly with the cell phones themselves right we're not going to ask students to empty their pockets for no reason or something like that it's if it's an issue when they're not supposed to be on the phone they're on it then we work with we tell them you know put it away as you're supposed to follow the policy similar to that when I've worked with or talked with staff I've encouraged them that this is not to be a power struggle right if you're in the middle of teaching a class and a student has a cell phone out and you tell them to put the cell phone away
022they refuse to put it away at that point we don't want to stop instruction just to get into like a power struggle if you will instead what we're looking for is okay just make a note of it keep instructing and when you have a break send an email to Mr Ferris or Miss George and they can handle it later at their convenience okay real world impact of the benefits of no phones less distractions less cyber bullying right fewer fights and less social media drama increased engagement improved attendance boosted efficiency more reading time for reading and more vibrant lunchrooms um that question has come up about lunchrooms and our policy and what I've shared is you know the intent of this is not to be punitive I understand for our students who've had a practice of
023having their cell phones on them for years now especially our Juniors who'll be seniors next year it's three years or what they've always gotten to carry their cell phone with them it could feel punitive but that's really not the intent the intent is to focus on being present right and it's a challenge for all of us it's not just our students it's good adults as well I know our Administration team it's honestly something we probably should revisit our next meeting right but when we meet we talk about like we're not on our computers we put our cell phones away we focus on what we're doing when we're supposed to be doing it right and so that's the intent of here so just like our what we want as adults and the way we want to
024treat each other when our students are at lunch we want them focused on their peers focused on eating and being together put the cell phones to the side and talk with each other get to know each other better right that's the intent of it okay some other real world impact communication skills I was um just in my previous experiences have been a part of business advisory councils and I can share that during those meetings I heard from we heard from numerous employers their concerns about the communication skills of younger you know essentially younger people coming to them for their jobs that they had posted and they would talk about the inability to have good non-verbal communication eye contact UM tone volume all those kinds of things were often a concern for those employers and this
025was not just high school students right it was College University uh as a concern for them and it's been a concern like across our nation uh and part of the governor's research that he had shared in 20124 LinkedIn shared that communication was the skill that employers were most seeking in their new employees uh I think this past fall it was currently like adaptability or at that time adapt adaptability but we've heard from employers that communication is lacking and we need to improve it and so we're helping with our change to our policy we'll see improved L uh communication skills school safety this is another topic that has come up right there's an emergency at school what happens you know if I can't get in touch with my son daughter or my student I want to
026know right away that they are safe right the research that was shared is actually sometimes cell phones can be a hindrance to the safety of students in a time of an emergency right false information gets out uh the potential to cause people to panic get a lot of people com to school at times when maybe First Responders are trying to get here or we're trying to deal with other things it can add more confusion and more things to deal with in uh slowing down the process of just dealing with it with whatever that issue is recommendations so recognizing one we had to have a policy in place knowing though that cell phones are part of lives for our families our students all of us for communication um we looked at what schools were doing across
027the state Across the Nation with the law and the the new with their policies so in looking at districts that are very lenient the idea would be being the most would be students get to keep their phones with them all the time if they want to the strictest would be similar to what we've had at our middle school and at Bath Elementary where students put their cell phones in their lockers when they arrive at school and don't get them again again until the end of the day we recognize our parents and like families have to communicate especially with their high school students with you know uh usually transportation and picking people up and all those things so our policy allows students when they're at their locker to access their phones and get on their phones
028get a quick text off to Mom or Dad or receive something they have a question do I need to pick up my brother or sister today yes or no if so where when that's the time to do those kind of texts so they can keep in touch with each other for those things it would be at their locker exemptions that's a question that's come up quite a bit of course students on 504 IEPs um for any kind of medical reason we would create an exemption where they could have their cell phones with I know with I've been I have learned that St people with diabetes will use their phones to help monitor that so of course we'd make an exception for that kind of thing and the Administration has the right to make exceptions to
029some of these rules so if a student has a special need that comes up without necessarily A 504 and IEP we can of course work with that student to if they need their phone for whatever specific situation they need timeline for implementation tonight is our first read next month would be our second and then August we would start with the new policy for the new school year okay these are some of the sources that were cited uh by the governor and his office that we also used couple other amendments from recommendations from families this policy will be Revisited every year so that way if we need to make an adjustment or anything of that nature we can do that um students will be allowed to have their cell phones on buses and mainly because of
030what are we going to do with those cell phones if we collected them or anything of that nature right so they can have them the bus the drivers will have the authority to tell students to put them away if they become an issue but otherwise especially then if students are on a trip or any kind of extracurricular where they need to communicate again with family to say I need to picked up at a certain time or anything of that nature they'll have the ability to do that one concern that came up from students with CCP courses so our college credit plus classes at the multiactor Authentication they will need cell phones to be able to address that MFA so that's something where I'll have to work with those teachers and Mr Ferris to create those
031exemptions to make sure they can get to their online courses as they need to um of course students with special Circumstances had another question about part of the policy in regards to if if students were homesick you know the idea that they couldn't have their phones off like board off property with the idea of like if you're at a trip and we said no or anything of that nature but again and working through that with uh if as long as Administration gives permission so if a student's homesick and they can use their phone for whatever they need to for their school work while they're homesick we have the right to say yes you can do that okay any questions does the I do so does the policy need to distinguish between like K through 8
032and 9 through 12 so it adjusted the policy for some of those things that it actually had a ation today with Union president asking the same question so for example at Bath Elementary School at different times they've had probably Mr frag could speak to this better if he was still here but at one point it was they could have their phones here in their locker just couldn't access them during the day but there were some issues coming up so they said you can't have your phones here at all and policy is written to give the principls that Authority where they could say both like either it's in your locker or keep them at home okay so then I assume the middle school policy would stay the same correct okay I have a quick question part
033of the policy um gives kind of an exception that states if that if a teacher administrator for purposes of student learning um says they can have them out are there examples just because I don't have high school maybe some of you know I have one that just recently happened um my daughter's in choir and as part of um Miss payon's assessments she has them record their voices singing she also then utilizes that recording for tryy outs for um Corral over symphonic so they're using it in class for that purpose so that she doesn't have to individually go and listen to each of the choir students do there uh they all have iPads I mean I was they have obviously School issued iPads but that's just an example something but those can record as well can't
034they I believe so yep okay I another question sorry sure how did you go back to the smart watches really quickly how did you come to the determination of letting the smart watches stay on right but the cell phones go in the locker am I is that correct in terms of the policy yeah I don't I'm just thinking through right the yeah I don't know if teachers or staff could look at a watch like mine's a Fitbit like if you could look at that and say that's clearly not an Apple Watch or it is an Apple Watch like how are they going to know and I don't want them using instructional time or other time trying to figure out what is it so that's where I landed on if it's an issue then we deal
035with it if it's not and they're just using it like a watch then leave it be does that make sense yeah thank you good question though can I ask one more sorry my head as we're sitting here what was it can you say what the the teacher feedback was just in general are you can you speak to that at all or sure um the teachers I was they were thankful for like a very clear expectation for how the phones should be utilized um and they support it and they like the idea of students having those phones put away thank you you're welcome would we have a similar polic would there be a policy in plac them for the teachers as well or is it just generally the same policy this is addressing students they wouldn't
036have it out class or whatever so it would look similar to teacher and student that could always like that could be addressed through other things means such as professionalism or instructional practices or anything of that nature so that if a teacher was on their cell phone when they're supposed to be instructing we could deal with that all right any other questions from the board thank you thank you Mr White thank you Mr you're welcome thank you thank you okay Mrs heg big Mrs Roach good evening nice to see all of you we are so fortunate to benefit from the generosity of others who believe in the positive impact that teachers have on the lives of students and families the power of teaching Grant provides opportunities to fund projects that our teachers value and believe in
037and fall outside of curriculum Cycles tonight's presentation is a project that includes programming and win a grant funds programming that becomes a curricular resource we need to follow the curriculum process as outlined in board policy um so tonight you'll also have a first read of an agenda item that will connect to this and I'm here really just to support my colleague Mrs Habig who has done a tremendous job to put together a grant proposal for the Richfield Elementary power of teaching book room you for having me um I worked with she a appearance and Jennifer scho Bey on this power teaching Grant and it's to develop a book room at Richfield Elementary School um we've actually been talking about um having a book room at Bridgefield for several years uh in the 2122 school year
038it really got brought up at uh building leadership team meetings the following year um we were having a professional book club that actually focused on book clubs for students and through that year as we talked about having students run book clubs we we said we could really use a book room that has a variety of books but not only a variety um popular titles so we also discussed meing um book text sets so one title but six or seven books of that title um last year we we talked even more about organizing cleaning the book room um I was fortunate to use PTA um money to purchase baskets for carrying books and we also talked a lot about where we can house a book room at Ridgefield um and so when the power teaching Grant
039came up we were excited to apply for it um so this is an example of small group set um this is a really neat Grant because these books can all be used in a variety of ways so for example this is the color Monster uh we would love to get six of these books so they're small group sets um we have several uh titles that we would want small group sets of they'd be great for small reading groups but also like we discussed those book clubs so a book club a small group of students could decide to read this book the color monster and then everyone could have their own title they can sit they can read they can enjoy it together and not just share one copy of that book um other books that
040we would love to purchase um really focus on the whole child so not just academically but thinking also in terms of emotions making good choices um this is an author Kevin Hanks very popular um he has written lots of books and they Encompass a lot of different things wly worry how do you how do you approach being a warrior what do you do um Chris anthom what do you do when you're feeling Lonesome or by yourself uh so we ordered one copy of for example of Kevin Hank's books there's one copy of each of these um that would allow for an author study so uh we could put all of those books in one basket um kids could talk about themes that that author focuses on like Kevin Hanks um and or lessons comparing and
041contrasting lessons that the author writes about in each of the different books um so it it all also allows a deep dive into the author's work so it sort of teaches the children that they can chase authors that they love um there's one other thing I wanted to mention about this oh I love I really love this with for example Kevin Hanks um because this can really be used across grade levels so in kindergarten a teacher can take this back to their room and read those books with their class all week long and enjoy those books together but then in second grade uh a group of kids can sit down with a basket and they can say you'll read this today I'll read it tomorrow by the end of the week they can all work
042together they can do a project on the author um they can make a poster there's there's so many things that they could do with it so we we are looking forward to um the addition of adding more books at Richfield and um thank thank for having me do you have any questions thank you sure I know that um space the premium at Richfield where would it physically we wondered about this last week where would it physically be located yeah so right now we are going to house it in the conference room okay um we have shelving and baskets to have it in there and then we feel like if too many books is always a good problem to have so when it becomes bigger we're going to take steps to find a different space thank
043you all right I'm curious about I I love this idea of the book clubs that you do so is this going to be more student Le or teacher-led if they're going to be in the conference room I assume the students aren't planning it but are they coming to you with an idea something they want to read and then you're or how does that work they could um we read a great book about running book clubs in classrooms um I it's sort of something that you would really sort of start slowly and gradually and as the year continues the kids start to understand what a book club is how they can run it themselves um most certainly having the conversation about books that are available to them is lovely but I also love the idea of
044book plugs because it teaches them that they're readers and um able to make choices about what they want to read um and I think it just supports them in that way and and helps them to grow as readers it's a fun thing to start it love it thank you so are all the teachers going to participate that yes so that completely open to all teachers um more conversation to be had in terms of like what titles we have and continuing I think to um add to our conversations that we've had in book clubs and how they can be utilized and having the time to collaborate and share ideas about how you need the book good do you anticipate um more grant money year to year I imagine you want to grow it right yes that
045would be the goal we would love that currently I do anticipate that the power of teaching Grant will be with us and that there will continue to be opportunities and we do have all of the books on display at the um in the conference room at central office so you're able to check those books out it's really open to anyone who wants to see the books that we're looking at right now I through then we were looking at them I have some of them at home for my kids they're they're cute it's a good selection in future years do you anticipate that maybe students will be able to bring titles to you that they want to add okay no that I mean that's yeah and it's great conversation because that's what readers do we share
046what we've read and and build on a repertoire together question no I love it thank you the appreciate the owner of these funds for the P teaching grants who requested to remain anonymous um has indicated that there are additional funds available based upon um utilization of the first round that we were given uh and I know they have money um endowed through the aan Community Foundation that was sent to us to establish this and I quickly got out of the way and uh Mara has taken over with Mickey to make sure sure it gets done right so I count the beans they do the real work they done a good job with it thank you that's great thank you [Applause] both public speaks to agenda items thank you good evening hi my name is Gabby
047iser and I'm currently a junior at Rivier High School I recently founded a club called Rivier student voices with the purpose of advocating for issues that are important to the student body when the revised phone policy came out I sent a survey to the entire High School analyzing the general opinion of the student body on this issue of the 300 30 students who responded or about a third of the student population 95% of them do not support the revised policy on behalf of the student body I would like to present a few key reasons and a proposed compromise while we understand the intentions and benefits of this policy we believe it overlooks the important and legitimate ways that phones are used in the modern classroom to begin as young adults we use phones for more
048than just social media we use them for communication education and organization in our everyday lives allow me to read you a student response to my survey quote Beyond social media and online methods of connecting with friends phones provide important lifelines to the outside world as an adult doctor offices Banks and more all contact me directly and without access to a phone I have no way of receiving these very important Communications furthermore having contact with my family is extremely important to me recently my mom traveled internationally and with access to my phone she was able to update me when she boarded the flight and whether she landed safely I remember once in elementary school my sister had undergone eye surgery and with access to my phone my mom was able to update me on how the
049surgery went well today in school I noted the various times I used my phone and whether I could eliminate this usage at the beginning of the day I texted a friend who had a difficult weekend mentally and was also suffering from a cold I texted a friend I made sure she knew that she could rely on me and encourage her to prioritize her well-being I do not have classes with this friend and could not have shown my concern otherwise in choir we learned the date of and time of our Oma adjudicated event I immediately added this to my family calendar making them aware of this important event when planning the next students Demand Action meeting I contacted our group chat to know what times would work best for officers and the topics we were looking
050to focus on in the upcoming weeks in rev players directors send out the actors needed for rehearsal through the remind app which sends text messages and push notifications to cell phones I had an interview immediately after school today and many friends wished me Good Luck these encouraging words bolstered my confidence and helped me calm my nerves these are just some examples of the ways my phone assists me in my daily life I have spoken to teachers about their frustrations with seeing phones in the classroom but many teachers have found success in using phone Pockets to distance students from personal electronics during class this prevents distractions and cheating but still allows students to reap the benefits of having a phone in between classes unquote instead of banning phones altogether many students emphasize their support for using
051the phone caddies that each class room already has we emphasize the we understand the dangers of students being on their phones non-stop but we live in a world where phones are essential to our lives another extremely important Point students mentioned is the use of phones in college credit classes phones are required to complete the two-factor authentication in CCP classes and having to leave class to get your phone would be very disruptive to the classroom environment in my CCP Spanish class for example we use the phone caddies to minimize unnecessary distractions while maintaining easy access to phones to help us log in with the phone caddy system students would still be required to put their phones away when it's time to focus on the lesson and they wouldn't be a distraction during class this compromise keeps
052students fully organized ensures effective communication and allows for Educational Tools to be fully utilized to summarize student opinion using phone caddies finds a balance that allows us to use our phones in ways that support our learning safety and personal responsibilities while still maintaining a productive School environment thank you for listening to our concerns thank you thank you thank thank [Applause] you hi everyone my name is Erica bogs and I'm a junior at Rivier High School um I'm going to be giving a speech on this but I'm not going to be as eloquent as Gabby so you'll have to forgive me for that um I'm on the board of reviewer student voices and believe it or not students care so much about this issue that we have enough reasons to fill two speeches to begin I
053would like to reiterate that 95% of the student body does not support the re revised phone policy the following reasons are representative of students responses to Gabby survey let's start with an important Point our current phone policy is already compliant with state law schools are required to have policies that limit cell phone usage in school and our current policy already includes language that legally limits phone usage however as students we understand the need for a uniform policy throughout the school mandating the use of phone caddies throughout the school creates a student mind policy that elates sorry that limits phone cell phone usage while still accounting for student needs another major reason that we should use phone CES and said it is for safety and communication last year when students had to evacuate due to an
054explosive substance in the science Wing students needed to quickly reach their parents or coordinate rides having phones accessible during that emergency was a vital safety measure if phones had been locked in lockers students would have no way to Comm to communicate with their students or make necessary arrangements to get home safely by allowing phones to be kept in caddies students can retrieve them when needed to prevent unnecessary panic or confusion next let's address the reality of the situation if phones are banned outright and locked in lockers students are just going to be sneaker technology and creativity go hand inand when students need to communicate or check their phones they will find a way if phones are locked away students will likely sneak around to check M messages during bathroom breaks undermining the very purpose of
055the policy Mr way at the phone policy Q&A a few weeks ago uh you were asked how do you plan to prevent students from using bathroom braks to check their phones without restricting bathroom access the current revised policy provides no easy answer to that question however we have over 300 responses expressing support for Pham caddies which would eliminate this problem altogether by implementing phone caddies teachers can ensure that students don't have to leave class to go on their phones additionally the new policy is going to be incredibly difficult to enforce and it will only lead to more students getting in trouble if phones are locked away in lockers students will inevitably leave class to retrieve their phones increasing tardiness and more students going to the bathroom if you don't believe me I have a multitude
056of survey responses of students saying quote good luck to any adult that thinks students won't still keep their phones on them and find ways to engage with them in class phone caddies provide a simple practical solution that reduces the chances of dishonesty and increase the classroom efficiency another point to consider is that we need to learn how to manage our eles as adults one of the most important skills students can develop in school is self-discipline by implementing phone caddies we are giving students the opportunity to practice the skill instead of taking away the resource of a phone entirely we provide students with clear boundaries and guidelines for when it's appropriate to use their phones it's an important lesson being able to manage our own time and resources effectively is still a skill that will be
057crucial long after graduation lastly many students use their phones until listen to music during study halls for some music is a critical tool for focus and productivity especially during independent work or study Time by allowing students to keep their phones in caddies they can retrieve their phones during these periods to use music in conclusion the revised phone policy that restricts phones to lockers creates more problems than it solves with phone caddies we can ensure that students have access to their phones when needed for safety Communication in organization it provides a balanced solution that helps students learn responsibility avoid sneakiness and reduces disruptions in class we can manage our phones like adults and use them effectively without compromising the learning environment on behalf of the reviewer student body I hope you will consider our compromise and
058revise the policy to be more in tune with reviewer students to make our school a safer more responsible place thank you thank you thank you thank you um I just want to comment on a couple of things so first of all um you said you wanted to practice more self-discipline part of self-discipline is adhering to the rules and agreeing that you're not going to break them so when I hear you say no matter what the rules are we're going to break them that's not a good practice of self-discipline I would also say that if we put a um a survey together that said you know we want to have a curfew at 11 o'clock on the weekends 98% of the schools students would say we don't want to have a uh you know we don't
059want curfew to be at 11:00 so I I understand your resistance but when I hear that students are saying good luck trying to take the cell phone away from me we're not going to pay attention to it we want to be adults we should be treated as adults and we want to have self-discipline those two things don't really align together right because in in the real world we all have rules we all have laws and we all have things that we had to adhere to whether we like it or we don't so um I appreciate what you said but I think you know part of being an adult is having to have some rules and regulations that you don't always agree with but you you know you try to adhere to those rules and regulations
060thank you I just want to say thank thank you for speaking it's not easy to get up there and do that so thank you for doing that and also just to I think everyone knows this but all five of us are parents of rier students so things like safety it's all all those things are always in the back of our mind when we have to make tough decisions so thank you for coming you guys did a great job thank you very much you guys did do a good job you did good job and one last thing I have three boys that are probably not going to talk to me because of this so I understand I get it so thank you good job nice okay next we have Koga Valley Career Center Mrs Burke good
061evening everybody good evening um at our last meeting the board approved the 25 26 school year calendar uh we also reviewed the first semester bullying and harassment report of which there were zero incidents I think there was also zero incidents for second semester of last year so that's a really good um data to report I like reporting that one uh we also received the high school retention report um where they are doing kind of a deeper dive into surveying Why students um have reasons for leaving and so I've got the full report that shows all the various reasons but just for our information we did have six Juniors that did not return for their senior year which is about 17% of the student that Rivier Suns over there U Mike Hall who's the principal presented
062the 5-year academic plan and customized training and then uh we also heard that um if you're familiar with Senate bill one and the state budget it does call for a $250,000 shortage over two years for cbcc and as a result the parks and environmental resources program that I've spoken about a few times is going to be put on hold it's not a not it's not a never it's just a not now uh we also approved approved a revision or repair nine of 10 of the roof um so the roof project is uh continuing to go along and then we also approved funds for construction of a 60-foot telecom tower for the Telecommunications training the adult program that I had shared and then I wanted to share this little snippet from um the newsletter that we
063get that was specific to r on February 21st there were about 150 Rivier High School physics and engineering students uh that had an opportunity to explore the biomedical engineering field uh during a program that was led by faculty from the University of arran's biomedical engineering department so they got to do really cool things like Hands-On activities with designing prosthetic prototypes to restore hand function and creating a polymer to understand how drugs break down in the body and all of that was put together by Nancy vondra who is our career specialist I thought that was a really really cool program that they got to do thank you thank you thank you thanks Jen all right Mr Bine Treasures agenda I would propose we take Roman numeral 8 items a through e as one action item please
064okay so moved second item a the minutes from the three meetings that uh were held during the month of February Item B the financial report which um for February is it looks very favorable and it's just truly uh timing of tax receipts compared to Prior years and they come in when they Comm In Sum County was much delayed the last two years with some transitions they had in their offices uh this year they're coming in um sooner than before so that's really the bulk of the there's lots of variables within but the bulk of the difference is in that tax distribution time frame the asset deletions are some Library materials uh outdated Library materials from the Middle School we would attempt to recycle repurpose those before we just um discard um donations there were five
065this month we had $1,500 to rever middle school for the Washington DC trip um bath that's from Bath volunteers for service they had two others they're not in order on the sheet but $1,000 for our active mines program also from bvs and a $200 for the girls with grit program from BBS um and we had $2,500 for the Carson Higgins scholarship fund that we have from the Carson strong foundation and then a $2,500 grant for superintendent white to attend the AI show that is upcoming I think next month and that's from the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation um purchase and then purchase orders we have nine this month we keep working on that uh to get folks to get those in before they make purchases when they don't they re $3,000 by high Revised Code we
066need to bring them for your approval okay any questions from Mr berdine I just want to thank our wonderful donors um that's always awesome uh to hear so thank you to them uh go ahead and call the role Mr berine Mr Malik yes Mrs Stein yes Mrs bracket yes Mr haidu yes Mrs Rainey yes thank you all very much thank you thank you okay uh Mr White your agenda please sure under Ro Roman numeral 91 uh letters a through C I recommend we to do as consent motion second thank you so first one we have the resignation of Wade vanest for uh retirement purposes and then we have Katie flu Jerry's re U resignation from the r players band director and then Montana is going to replace her that's right back there and then we
067have the athletic supplemental contracts for boys track girls track and on the next page you see a combined track for the Middle School assistant coach any questions on any of those I just want to thank Wade for his Decades of service to our students both in the classroom and on the field yes Richfield will do a different place without him we all we all thank him yeah yes I've heard it's been considered off and on for a number of years now sure's the real deal we miss all right any other questions no okay Mr BD Mrs Stein yes Mrs bracket yes Mr haidu yes Mr Malik yes Mrs rainy yes okay and then number two letters a through e as a consent as my recommendation I'll make the motion second okay and similarly we're dealing
068with hires there a new custodian for high school step one Nick and then resignation for for retirement Katherine or school bus driver and then the uh Donna there for a substitute bus driver she is going from a permanent guarantee to just like a regular bus driver for a substitute bus driver for us all right and then we have game workers Seth Apple any questions on any of those R oh yeah goad okay I often step out of line I'm trying not to uh Mrs bracket yes Mr haidu yes Mr Malik yes Mrs Rainey yes Mrs Stein yes thanks okay I recommend three and a and b is consent motion second all right you just have two contracts there for students with uh disabilities and some special needs there that we want to meet any questions
069okay Mr Bine Mr haidu yes Mrs bracket yes Mr Malik yes Mrs Rainey yes Mrs Stein yes okay and then other business we have the student handbooks for next school year our second and final reading all right so we're going to take 4 a on its own yeah yes yes yes sir so I'll give a motion second are there any questions okay Mr uh Bine Mr Malik yes Mr haidu yes Mrs bracket yes Mrs rainy yes Mrs Stein yes okay then four B and C are first readings only so uh presentation tonight and then the um revised electronic communications and then yeah Mrs he this is RO H's uh first reading for their books are you going to take d and e separate or then yes let's do we don't need to we can do
070four d and e together as consent MH so we a motion for four four D and four e d and d and d and e motion second all right and we have the U Middle School New course introduction of personal finance was the second and final reading and then the honors high school music Ensemble proposal second and final reading any questions go ahead Mr Mrs Stein yes Mrs R yes Mrs Brackett yes Mr haidu yes Mr Malik yes all right last letter F was the first reading for the district calendar for the 26 27 school year is that just a question on that is it posted on our website for people to see or is it just part of the uh under the board have to look and see yeah yeah it would be with
071the board of attachments for our meeting tonight Y no but it won't be until it's approved right yeah until we approve it we probably now you say that so they're just part of our attachments it's part of the attachments okay yeah all right all right some informational items uh our April work session will be held Tuesday April 8th 2025 beginning at 5:30 in the Rivera admin building our regular April meeting will be on Tuesday April 15th uh beginning at 5:30 here in the media center uh at this time we do open up for concerns of the public and Community announcements okay uh we do have a need to go into executive session uh regarding preparing for and conducting reviewing negotiations or bargaining sessions with employees so I have a motion in a second please motion
072second M rainy seconded yep all right Mr Mr bracket yes Mrs Ry yes Mr haidu yes Mr Malik yes Mrs Stein yes there'll be no action when we come out of executive session and we'll adjourn at that time thank you everyone have a good evening thank you enjoy spring break in the executive session have a great spring break