001evening everyone would like to reconvene the Thursday February 13th meeting of the Lake Forest Board of Education uh as always if you would join me for pledge of allegiance followed by I Ali to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you all right thanks to everyone who has joined here in person as well as those who have joined online just a reminder that we are streaming tonight's meeting across the internet uh and that recording as welle minutes will be available once they are we'll start this evening with roll call of board members Dr pres Mrs mlsky sure Mr R here vice president sari here and Earl Dempsey president uh is here as well serving
002as chair thank you all for joining 2.4 approval of agenda Mr start make a motion we approve the agenda as presented second have motion on floor properly seconded any questions or discussion on that motion seeing none move to vote all in favor I I opposed any extenstions motion carries 5 to zero 2.5 minutes I make a motion we approve the minutes in the January 23rd 2025 meeting second have motion on floor properly second questions or discussion on that motion seeing none we move to a vote all those in favor I I any opposed any extensions motion carries 5 to zero up the SE item 2.7 citizens participation uh reading from our agenda time is set aside early in each Lake Forest Board of Education meeting for Citizens participation to allow members of the public to
003address board members on relevant topic reading from our board policy ke public concerns and compl citizens participation item on the board agenda is an opportunity for members of the community to speak publicly those who wish to speak publicly to the board must complete the information form provided at the board meeting and submitted to the board secretary prior to the opening of the meeting this form should clearly State the reason for addressing the board the public should not expect discussion or responses at this board meeting and comments are limited to three minutes per person uh we do not have anyone signed up this evening for public comment which means we'll close that it item and reopen it again at our next meeting in two weeks with that we're up to section three reports item 3.1 financial
004report Mr CT Kellman welcome Mr Kell good evening uh this will be the financial monthly report for the end of January and so it should go pretty quick tonight uh we the major change we have is just the revision on the budget numbers based on the the final adjusted budget that we had last meeting uh so all those numbers have changed which as a result of that it show it's going to make uh the the funds received go down the percentage so when you look at the both the discretionary and the non-discretionary the actual funds amount uh percentage received actually went down so the other thing I will I'm going to point out tonight because Michelle's going to give a presentation on spec ad this evening but one of the things she's going to talk
005about uh briefly in her in her presentation is the fact that we cashed in some uh units for our IND District High Roads class and so those units that we cashed in we earned we had eight students that were at the time of unit count uh that we could identify uh that earned us an additional three units over and above if we had placed those students out of district and so with each unit that we earn each additional division one unit we earn we pick up a lot of people don't realize this we pick up division division one salary money we pick up division two AOC money we pick up division two energy funds that associated with that division three education sustainment and Technology block gr so there's it affects six different lines up here
006for every single division one unit we earn and so um for instance division 2 AOC we're supposed to get when we earn 291 units this year we're supposed to get $2,925 per division 2 a unit now unfortunately that number hasn't increased in over a decade that amount that they give per unit um and in fact I went all the way back to the year 2000 so 25 years ago the actual number per unit that we received for division 2 AOC was actually higher than what we're currently receiving per unit so the good news is that the governor's recommended budget they did actually put an inflation factor in there for that this year so that's good news but when you see her part of the presentation you talk about cashing in units like um we cashed
007in almost eight units this year and and if you look at the budget bill it talks about a teacher unit being worth like $882,000 but there's all these other funds that come with that and so that's what we talk about when we talk about those three units are worth over $300,000 in discretionary funds to us so I just wanted to point that out any questions on the revenue side questions for Mr kelvan on the first page of rant uh moving on to the expenditure side again nothing major to report here all the budget numbers have been updated um if we look down on page two the tuition payments for special schools uh we only have two more districts that have yet to submit their tuition bills that's capital and Christina so we're waiting on those
008tuition bills uh they do typically come in later in the year um and then the other thing is minor Capital Improvement we pretty much exhausted our state funds our our main primary source of minor Capital Improvement funds and now we're in the process of requesting those enhanced minor Capital Improvement funds but we're at 43% of our discretionary budget remaining compared to 44% last year not a huge change and uh all funds 47% compared to 48% last year so any questions on the expenditure side any questions for Mr Kell on expenditures or anything on financial report all right so this will come up for a vote later in the meeting thank you Mr calender up to 3.2 we have a special report tonight special education report from Miss Michelle Alman welcome M Alman floor is yours
009good evening I'm happy to be here um I'm gonna go over our special programs um starting with starting with our update on our numbers of special education students so this year we have 749 special education students resulting in about 20% of our population um I put some numbers up there on the top of where we were last year and then how that kind of fares um Statewide and nationally just so you know Delaware is about fourth in the nation uh fourth highest for uh the percentage of students with IEPs um and our numbers are consistent with the state um numbers we are seeing increases in our special education students you can see um how they're distributed across the district um I have them classified by um their funding categories like Kurt was saying so you
010can see there's a k to3 basic and a 4 to 12 basic um and then the intense and complex and so the students as they're classified those needs based categories those generate um different ratios generate units so in the complex um 2.6 students identified as complex generates a unit um and intense six students generates a unit and then the 4 to 12 basic is 8.4 and K to2 is um 12.2 um let's see some of the things I want to point out um our prek oh sorry um our prek students we do have students um in there um that are typical students that do not have an IP um but Federal Regulations only require students attend school if they have an IEP in the prek level so we don't get any funding for students that
011don't have an IEP in prek um our total number of students 373 and 739 of those students have an IP preschool through 12th grade um with the increase of student numbers in the complex and intense we that generates units which also generates related service units and our related service um people are all the ones that um provide all the services attached to the IEP so our speech um our special ed education coordinators our school sites speech language paths um OTS so I wanted to show you um just since last year we've been able to grow our department um we've increased our school sites from 3 to four um since I've been here I've been able to hire two additional School sites so um we're pretty well stacked there um our speech language we've gone up
012to from 6 to 7 um I've hired two additional ones um in the past um two years um occupational therapist we had zero when I arrived and we have two now um one just started yesterday so we're really excited to um expand that department and our OTS we have three so um a little fact about this um in order to employ our um occupational therapy assistants you have to have an occupational therapists employed and one OT can only supervise three um kodas so we're excited that we've been able to expand to a second OT in case we do need to expand our um our kodas um um so we can have opportunities to grow there um and then when I arrived we only had one behavioral health specialist and now we have four so we
013are growing our department to meet the needs of our kids next one so um sometimes we have students with such complex needs that they may require a specialized school buing and that's kind of what Kurt was talking about um so this is the distribution of our students right now we have 83 students that are in ex um external or alternative placements so um the first lines the capital and Caesar Rodney um and our Christina schools those are other school districts in the state that are a part of a Consortium that allow us to send students because they have specialized programs that we do not have that Coe funded and so we pay tuition um per student for those students and so that's the cost all the way on the um what is that right um
014for our tuition for those programs and then you go into our private program so high roads um we utilize both the Felton and Georgetown campuses um that's a a private program shave and that's a day program Shor Haven and Stetson those are private residential programs um next to that you see ict3 that's the cost that's displayed up there is our 30% that we pay all of those students we apply to go through the ICT process once they're approved then the state um if they see the need for why we are utilizing that placement then the state picks up 70% of that bill so that's the 30% that we pay so um the total is um displayed at the bottom for our outside placements next slide 504s we have 208 students um who have a 504
015currently that's about 6% um the Delaware average is also 6% and the national average is 4% um those are the numbers um broken down by grade bands um I do just want to point out some differences between 504 and IEPs so um IEPs fall under idea and the E is really important there because that's the Education Act and 504s fall under ada8 so that's Americans with Disability Act um so an I an IEP the student must have a disability that shows an adverse educational impact whereas a 504 the student has has a disability that must substantially limit a major life activity such as walking communicating breathing and once those once that disability is accommodated it should not have an adverse educational impact so that's why we utilize a 504 um most 5of floors are medically
016um diagnosed um and not considered educational if they do start to show a um adverse educational impact and that's where we look at um an IEP um our school counselors or case managers Ag Building of the 504s um we do not get federal funds for 504s it's not educational um it actually falls under the office of civil rights so we don't have any federal fundings for 504s um and then the bottom is just some PD opportunities we've provided um for our 504 case managers and another special program we have here is our multilingual learner program um we have 6% of our students fall in our multilingual program um we are much lower than the um State percentage of 10% and the national percentage of 11% um but even though we still are much lower we
017are growing you can see those numbers um from 2022 up to 2025 in the grade bands and that we are consistently growing every single year um when I came we had two MLL teachers we now currently have four um we are still continuing our um K to3 MLL Academy which is really greatly helped us um uh localize our teacher support because we don't generate any MLL units our numbers are still so small that those teachers are not generated through um units we pay for those teachers through our opportunity grants so um it's nice to be able to a teacher at every building where our ml programs are located um and at the bottom I wanted just to quickly um let you know that every family who enrolls a student builds out a home language survey
018and if they indicate that any different language other than English is spoken at the home then we screen them um to take a test to see if they qualify for um ml services and um then that creates a weda score and then we put them in a program depending on that score so the next slide kind of just goes out a little bit more in detail just just so you guys know how we use their um English language development score um we what I like about this WEA test is that it gives us what we call can do descriptors so it tells us what the students are capable of doing at that level so we provide this guidance for teachers so that they can see based on the scores that the students um are are
019scoring on that test what they can do in the classroom and then some recommendations for how we can support them in the classroom and then also the recommended um hours that our um MLL teachers work individually with those kids based on their individual scores on the we assessment so just a little bit more information about how we provide programs for our M Mo Learners um so we have some project updates um we are still continuing our special education parent advisory committees um I encourage everyone if anybody um wants to hop on those Zoom meetings um it gives an opportunity for us to get parent feedback and we're also planning another parent information night we had one last year that was really well attended we have partnered I'm really excited last year we started partnering with
020KSI um and we've been able to utilize their camp Camp lenpy um and we use that for our 12month um programming so students who need 12 month um education year round um certain students are entitled to that based on their disability um and we can use that camp for their 12 month which has been we've gotten such great feedback from parents that the kids really enjoy um kind of being offsite in a different location that's um not that school isn't fun but when you're going for 12 months you kind of need a different you know um place to have those classes so we've been able to use that and then we've also implemented youly which is a reading based intervention for our reading um uh based summer programs um we've gotten a lot of great
021results from that it's an online program and we're excited to expand that for summer Services again this year um High Roads we've expanded High Roads we to two classrooms so we have an elementary that serves grades K through four and then the middle programs are grades five through eight um the elementary is still hous at North Elementary there's nine seats total in that program currently we have five students in that program and then the middle one um is housed at Chipman West we have nine seats available there we only have two students in that program but it's new and so we wanted to have it in place and established for to be ready so that students can um instead of utilizing so much of our external um placements we can start to keep our kids
022here and work with them so that we can integrate them back into a lesser restrictive environment and then there you can see we did pass three units to pay 325,000 600 325 657 th000 towards um the cost of the High Roads um so as we populate that program that cashing um amount will eventually um we're hoping to uh Break Even I'm we're continuing work on the University of Delaware IEP project last year um we um had over uh 50 hours of training with the University of Delaware and all of our coordinators are now running schoolwide plc's all year long to push out the training with their teachers um and we've had really great feedback on that program as well um and we've also been able to expand it to individual coaching model with the special
023ed teachers at Chipman middle school and then this year I'm excited that we are attending multiple conferences so um our slps attended the Asha American speech language and hearing Association conference in Seattle this year and that was really great our school Sykes are going to Seattle next week to attend the NASPA conference um and then we have our Council for exceptional children which we're sending 22 people I'm really excited because it's in Baltimore so it's close so I want to get as many people there as possible um and then our aota our American Occupational Therapy Association we're sending them this year it's in Philly um this has been really great for our related service um uh team members because they there's not a lot of professional devel development for them in the district because they're
024so specialized um and so this gives them they have a required amount of hours that they have to take to maintain their license and so this gives them those opportunities to get to gain those hours maintain their license and be better um in their role bring all their knowledge back and um utilize that with our students and I think that is all that I have do you have questions thank you this Alman questions or discussion from the board on our special education presentation so I have a couple you know I would um so if we look at your go back to maybe the the numbers the third Slide the overview of the department so it looks like from last school year to this year school year we went from 28 to 31 total staff um
025in the department so where are you from a staffing pers perspective is that the right number is that too many is that not enough yeah so I feel like um right now I would say we are fully staffed um I think that um as we generate related service units we um Travis is really um uh I'm super grateful that he lets me kind of just post what we can post and see what we can get because they're so difficult to find so we have some school sitech positions out there and um occupational therapists and speak therapist and they might sit at you know zero applicants and then as we get candidates um I'm always eager to add to our group so right now I think our speech language um therapists are um getting at the
026max end of their case load so I would love to add to that group but right now we are definitely covering um uh K 12 we do have a need at um our preschool for some more therapist those numbers are GR growing rapidly so we're always looking to find some more people for that area um but I feel good about where we are we have we're doing we're doing pretty well comparatively to some of the other districts yes yes that's an understatement I think in some cases so that's again we said it before but hats off to everybody that's involved in that um the the ratio of uh OTS to the kodas you said was one to three or one to four one to three one to three so in this case so we've got
027so if we drop below that ratio for whatever reason what happens so let's say we um we don't we don't have to employ um occupational therapy assistant so I guess what I'm saying is that let's say we had some turnover and lost an OT and we ended up I guess not below the ratio above that ratio what what then happens yeah that's a good question so um currently so up until this year we haven't had an IND District occupational therapist so I've contracted with um a part-time um occupational therapist from a local agency who um really the the supervision is like a once a month check-in with our our kotas uh she has to review their goals and progress um and I do have to say our three kotas are so fabulous and have so
028much experience that they supervis themselves pretty much so we're in a really fortunate place where they are on the limited supervision kind of on the chart and so I was um uh Contracting part-time with a outside OT um and that satisfies the that satisfies yeah um so that could be a fallback if we ever get into situation again and then we hired an occupational therapist this year um who was a graduate from Lake Forest so we're really excited to have her but she has to have a year of experience before she can start supervising so um we just it's just been a great addition to have that second one because um she can kind of take over we didn't we could let go the contractual OT and now um if we wanted to expand our
029cotos we could and then the last thing that I have is on the next slide uh the cost to placements so when we look at the secondary ilc is there any other option than that place or is that the only CH you have a monopoly on that's a really great question there's not really an option um in the secondary we do tend to send students there sometimes for a behavioral reason so if there's um a potential um long-term suspension in Li of a long-term suspension we can utilize the secondary ilc so the students can still get services not have to go like on homebound um so so in that case they could go there for 45 days and that number actually we have received three students back within the last um week couple weeks so
030that number is reducing because they can go for 45 days they can have a successful completion of the program and then come right back into our program so that number is uh fluctuating um some of those students go there for the long term um but we always are trying to get those students back so we did just receive three back um and then I wanted to point that the elementary ilc those five my goal is to transfer those students back into our High Roads program by the end of the year so I predict we might have one student left at the elementary ilc at the beginning of the school year next year with the remaining four in our in District programs so that's kind of one of the reasons why I wanted to build it
031and then get the kids back into our our district so the in these calls that are listed they are a per student call it's a per no they're actually the total cost so like if you see five students for the elementary IC that's the total cost for all five students and so we get like Kurt said we haven't gotten our tuition bill yet because they'll give us like an estimate in the beginning of the year and then we kind of reconcile that at the end of the year based on how long the students were there how many months of service they they received um some students drop out of the program or move to a different school district and so that number does fluctuate um this was the number I think that we expect at
032the beginning of the year but then at the end of the year we look at those numbers again and kind of reevaluate so then the capital Mr Kellerman I I'll ask you as well so the capital secondary ilc that's listed there that the total cost anticipated for the year correct yes and and so I noticed that it's a 39% increase with one less student so is that simply driven by a rate increase from that school um we have seen Capital has uh increased significantly each year over the last couple of years so the cost per student has gone up to the point where every time when they give us tuition billing where the the rate per student exceeds 10% from the prior year they have to provide justification for that it's really not that difficult
033for what they have to provide for justification I don't think anybody really checks up on that and to whom do they provide the justification Doe not to us we just get kind of a a bill randomly and we're like that that price went up um so that is one of the reasons why when we're building our own in District programs we can start pulling these Goods back um and then not owe that tuition money that's certainly exorbitant and and I remember it coming up previously but I don't remember seeing the numbers like this so and I think they're kind of moving up consistently across the board correct yeah and that 150 could change I mean you see 10 there so so um as she mentioned every time we get a tuition bill each year we
034get one once a year each year and it's supposed to come by the end of December but we haven't received capitals yet and we haven't received christinas yet and so um that just delays them getting their money you know but they haven't gotten to the point where they've collected all the information and submitted it to doe because that's the process is they have to identify what that cost is then they submit the form to doe and then doe blesses it basically and sends it to each of the districts that they're charging um so in that form they do look at last year's actual numbers so if last year we say we had we we thought we were going to have 11 students and we actually had 12 well then they fix that on the form
035and they'll put 12 students now we actually had last year and then the cost per student and then if they you know estimate you know originally we were thinking we were going to have eight and then that maybe that goes up but the big portion of that form is really um capturing what the actual costs were for the previous year so there's a little bit of tring up going on with that tuition billing process because we're we're kind of paying for the changes from last year and then we're also accounting for the estimates for the future year so it's just one bill each year approximately this time in the year yeah and so when a student enters into the program we're not always sure how long they'll be there um some students complete it quickly
036some students that might take a long it might take a bit longer we look at the data every marking period to assess if they're ready to return or not um and then that will adjust the cost because some kids are only there for a short amount of time and some are there for years so so as I said that was my last question but I have one higher level theoretical kind of question so I know you said our percentage of students kind of mirrors the state but that we were the state overall was so much do you want to go back higher than the national average yes why do you think that is I'm really glad that you asked that I was gonna I was gonna add that in but I forgot um so I
037ask our coordinators because I wanted to dig into this too um I know it looks like from our K to3 to our four to five that those numbers are really jumping up um I do want to let you guys know that just this year we've had 72 students move into our district already identified with an i so Central for example had 15 students enroll this year with an IEP um the high school had 25 students enroll um um that already had an IEP Chipman had 12 students enroll um and when you say enroll meaning coming from other coming from other states states coming from other districts yeah already identified so that does add to our numbers um and I think that that adds to Delaware moving up to Fourth nationally because um I've heard from
038families that Delaware is the place that you live when you have students with special needs um because our programming is um kind of exceeds some of the surrounding states um I just got a phone call yesterday from a family in Colorado saying that they have a student with autism and they want to move to they're going to move to a district that can best suit their students needs anywhere in the country and they called here because they had heard Delaware is a great state for students with autism so it's it's um you know it's a blessing and a curse because Delaware is also um a burden approv state so we um if a parent requests an evaluation we honor that yeah that that my my I look at it and it's either it's it's one
039of two things for me it's either a difference in the students or it's a dis difference in the systems and based on your answer I got a a third choice there it's that our students are different because our system's different meaning we're getting more of these students because of the system so it's very interesting so thank you Mrs Stark the High Roads program at Chipman is that for any secondary student it's not just Middle School correct or yeah well and that's a good question too we we're trying to keep students in those programs they have um they require a small student to teacher ratio and more therapeutic classrooms um to work on self-regulation skills so um we wanted to try to group kids closer to their age um the elementary we had in the first
040year we had a preschool student in there we didn't want to have fifth grade you know it was kind of a a large um age level so we moved fifth grade up to 8th grade um so it's 5ifth through 8 we don't have any six seven or eight currently in the middle school program but I wanted it to be available in case a student needed that program um so we have the flexibility we actually buy seats so it's not really organized by grades we just kind of you know I talked to Dr Lucas about like what our vision is and and how we want to support the students and we just felt like if we grouped them closer to grade level then they could um just be with peers of their same age so then
041we have Flex flexibility in that so our high school students are they in Georgetown or do we not have high school students in our high school students are at Felton because um The High Roads Felton placement starts at fourth grade okay um and so right now we only have three students that are at the Fon um High Roads okay and we haven't expanded the IND District to high school because um the three students that are at the fountain location are doing really well there and so we were cautious about disrupting their um educational path um and we just didn't see a need yet at this moment for that population to have an IND District therapeutic classroom any other questions for Mr dolman so thank you for a great presentation thanks for a great response to
042your grilling questions there and um thanks to everybody in the department for the great work they do with such a special population we have an amazing staff um great here so I'm really really um blessed to be able to work with such great people um if we're done I am excited to announce that Heather Hitchens is going to she gets to do all the fun stuff um and tell us give us an update on our Special Olympics so she's our special Olympic coordinator and she's going to give us an update on that program welcome Mrs Hitchens we're up to 3.3 Special Olympics report so I heard I have five minutes so I'm gonna do it two and a half I got that thank you for having us um this position was created last year and
043so I'm just very grateful for the opportunity to be here to sh show you what our students are doing with Special Olympics so about our program I'm just going to go through some quick achievements that we had last year and update um for what we're doing this year and what we hope to do next year uh kudos to South they were our second school to receive a state unified Banner which was presented at our welcome back uh ceremony in August uh there are certain requirements that you have to meet to receive these banners uh it's not just to do it to get a banner it is proving that they are meeting these requirements they are holding um clubs and lunch bunches with students with and without disabilities they are um participating in fundraisers and they
044are also um what's the third one yep sorry they're participating in fundraisers they're holding um tournaments and they are having like a kindness club or those type of things with peers and just incorporating inclusion throughout their their day almost every day so South was our second School Central was our first school and now we have South Elementary so we're excited we hear that chipman's trying to get on that bandwagon I know that Mr Pearson wants a banner so he is on it we're excited to see him next um it's really exciting that Central actually received the national Banner recognition I believe we were the 10th school in the state and the only the fifth elementary school so it took Central six years to get there I'm super proud of the work that we've done um
045to receive that I feel that that is a testament to what the district has done um I started here six years ago and inclusion wasn't a term that you heard that often and now it is not a term it is just who we are it is who we are becoming and I love that and this Banner proves that it it proves that our students with disabilities are just as important as our students without um Dr Lucas always says that he wants his students here to be employable en listable or enrollable in college and these students with disabilities are just that they are going to be one of those and that's because of not just the Special Olympics program but what Miss alond does with hers as well like this program is a platform for these
046students to be one of those three things and I think that they will okay um nine of Heroes this was also really cool So Special Olympics Delaware they do a nine of Heroes every year to celebrate the the people in the community that make this program progr as amazing as it is Delaware is also one of the only states that student athletes don't have to participate and it's because of the community that they have created they actually created an award for the school district and Lake was the very first school district in the state to receive this award um it was an honor for me to go and I'm literally sitting there and after you hear all of the testimonies saying why am I here what have I done to be among such great people
047that have truly been in this program for 20 30 years and here I am just six years in and to be here it was an honor to represent Lake Forest so that is a testament to who we are and where we've come with this program it was a beautiful evening um the athletes actually come up on stage and they introduce us and to see that and to hear the love and passion that they have for what we do for them was just truly humbling so thank you to Lake Forest to allow me to accept that award on on our behalf this is a really evening uh bot was fun there was no fog delay this year yay Mr Weller we got it that was a great day um The High School Host did they do
048an amazing job as always we had 122 athletes and 60 peers so all of our schools attended CNS this Montano knocked out of the park with hot lunches and snacks again the kids really love not having to eat peanut butter and jelly so we are grateful for that um Miss Dawson hooked us up with transportation and we had New York games and Miss almond funded us so Bachi was an incredible day I did fun the IDE she in charge of that we also had a Community member that built these really cool ramps I don't know if anybody saw them for students with wheelchairs and they presented them to them at Chipman it was really amazing to see this community come together and provide them with those so uh we actually had other school districts that
049reached out and we're like that's really cool how'd you do it but it's just a testament to what we're building within our community as well so and Dr Lucas officially opened the game that was pretty cool uh our goal for Bachi is to be fully unified so what I mean by that is I want every single one of our teams to have a student with and a student without disabilities and we are so close we are going to get there next year uh most of our schools are doing it but I have I have the goal that next year every single team on that field will be Unified uh okay the inclusion Feast at Central so we held this in November it was the first time that we got our parents together with our kids
050from Bachi so we were able to host everybody over at the school we had our kids and our peers come together we had a great meal provided by CNS as well um the staff stayed and served our families and our students and then what was really neat is I stole the nine of Heroes idea and I had the students uh present each other with Awards so it was a student Le opportunity where our students with disabilities came up and presented their peers with an award because they can do it and I wanted to give them that that opportunity so it's really cool our leadership conference our elementary Special Olympics Delaware has a leadership conference every year and that is for our students to go and actually plan and be student leaders Elementary alliv our schools
051attended and secondary Chipman led the ball and they knocked it out of the park as well so we're excited for that opportunity you will see the results of that in March during inclusion week on what they came up with in pled okay so one of the fundraising requirements in order to get those banners is that you have to participate in one of Special Olympics fundraisers so they have two they actually have a lot but the two that they offer for schools are the Polar Bear Plunge and over the edge you can go to the next slide I think Polar Bear Plunge I totally left Mr Weller out this year because I got the flute so I did not do it I'm so sorry I owe you I know I owe you um we had 23
052plungers raising $3,300 we had a great team show up I have told my husband he has to take me down because I don't feel right wearing the sweatshirt without doing it so but I had the flu I just can't do it I can't do it so we're going to do that soon uh over the edge we had this is last year we had for 12 team members this year we have 15 our goal is $25,500 uh it is on May 8th last year we raised so much money we were able to take Mrs alond and uh support her she didn't have to raise anything she got to go and just scale down that wall for these kids scary it's horrifying it's horrifying it's a live day um again these fundraisers are just the reason that
053our kids in the state all across don't have to pay a fun fact and then I'll stop talking I went to um what how we raise money is we build community relationships and I go around and some of my team members and we present at local lodges and we've been doing that for the last couple years and I went to one last year and I presented this and a guy came up to me and he said my granddaughter needs this in her life and I said okay let me help you and then I went to a barbecue over there summer and there was a girl in the pool and she was just like knocking out of the park and I can't swim so I'm looking at her and she's dumping off the diving board and
054she's doing amazing and her grandparents walked up to me and they said she's now in swimming in Special Olympics Delaware because of you and what your team did and she's loving it and they said that it changed their life as a family so like I know we're raising money for Special Olympics Delaware but it's coming right back in our community it's coming right back in our students and our families and that's why I feel like that's so important so that was just my friend story over the edge is terrible it's terrible but it's okay uh just some highlights and spotlights we did a homecoming float this year what I like about Special Olympics is that it's not just one school it's all of our schools so every school made a banner and we talked my
055husband into pulling the float and we all rode and we had a great time um last year you guys saw Johnny on WBOC he knocked it out of that Park all that kid needed was an opportunity and he really changed a lot of lives so that was super fun uh respect week is coming in March we have our clubs deck is joining she's done here deck is joining and holding their first event in May to get the little kids involved and then we also have Elementary and secondary participating in soccer in May this was something that is near and dear to my heart when we were going to WBOC I said I need a shirt to wear what am I going to wear on the news that's what every woman thinks about right so I
056came into school and I said guys we need an inclusion line and Mrs Hancock she's the parot central just blew me out of the water when she developed this line and we now have an inclusion line that we sell and it is amazing we've sold 43 orders we have a profit and that money goes right back into our students and the things that we do here at Lake okay so our future plans we're going to expand we want to outreach we want to get every school continue to grow we want um the inclusion line to be student L our goal is for our students to make the shirts we've been working with the high school and Chipman we have a hat press like we want our students actually doing the inclusion line we want to
057cultivate new avenues of students and we want to host more events and we want to just continue to build this culture of inclusion that every kid is valued and every kid matters and has something to bring I think I went over two minutes but thank you thank you guys for all that you do to support us and we are very grateful for you two and a half minutes exactly you sound surprised questions or discussion for Mrs Hitchens and our outstanding specials report so I will just say I too Mr well will thank you for not having the fog delay because the last two years I've tried to make it and it's been rescheduled to a date I couldn't make it and this year I was actually able to make it and I did it was
058just as I would expect for many Lake Forest event it was well planned well executed and just a lot of fun so two fog delays we've had in my time here have been on b b so um anything from anybody I just want to applaud the work that you and the whole group are doing it's very um an incredibly um necessary thing and it's helping a lot of people and reaching a lot of people so I appreciate that um I do also o want to comment on the DraStic change in your wording for the over- the-top thing when you're trying to recruit people to after recruitment is done and then you're honest because it's I'm glad to see the numbers 12 15 but I've never heard from you over the edge is terrible or I
059it's terrifying when you're trying to yeah yeah don't let her talk you into it it's not I was gon trying to recruit recruit no trying that's what I'm glad the numbers increase without my participation I will be there to watch that day I'm going to work out my office but um I'll be watching with two on the ground so why this is how we find the inclusion line like is there a website or how a website um it's on the central homepage uh we also have sent out flyers we're piloting sending out like we just ordered youth sizes because we were just doing adult sizes to see how it go so it is right on the central website all right thank you again thank you all right we're up to 3.4 super superintendent report Dr
060lcas she have a couple tough act to follow we'll be under two minutes everybody it's always great to start my report off with some good news we've heard a lot of good news tonight but I would like to report that Hospitality teacher Miss Sue post from Lake Force High School is a finalist for the superstars and Education and Training award for the Delaware restaurant Foundation uh drf applies for this award based on proart its opportunities such as work-based learning and apprenticeships congrats to our students and Miss post over at the high school also like to congratulate coach Kay and the WT Chipman wrestling team they capped off an undefeated season by dominating 23 other teams at the end of season tournament in Milford just last weekend Chipman wrestlers racked up 60 more points than the
061second place team they really dominated top performers from the Spartans included Colton fer and chz Waller who both won their weight classes Josh Lawson and Isaiah Bullock took home second place finishes cam H Henderson Luke Roswell and Kaden Miller third place Elijah McBride fourth and Chase bonell and Mason Cary finished sixth congrats those wrestlers on a great season also want to send some thank you and congratulations out to the staff students and parents for our first ever inclement weather remote learning day yday was our first one right yeah first time we to do that uh by all reports teachers and Learners took took the advantage of the opportunity to learn yesterday despite not being able to get into school uh while we fully understand face-to-face learning is by far the best way to learn it's
062great to know we're able to plan for execute yesterday's weather and make uh lemonade out of uh lemons given that we are already up to five days to uh because of the snow in January we need to find creative ways to keep the learning going and we were able to do that yesterday so congrat and thank you we did send out a survey for our staff to get some feedback and uh hopefully learn and even get better in the future fac with future weather emergencies always like to send out some calendar reminders during our report as we all know February is Black History Month and schools have been engaged in learning about African-American history and culture all month uh this includes each School having an assembly to create to celebrate the many things they are
063learning and I'd like to invite everyone in the community to our districtwide black history Night February 28th Lake Forest High School dinner will be served at 5: the program starts around 6 uh please check our website for more information in RSVP if you're going to come for dinner uh finally just want to remind everyone the district is closed Monday for President's Day and uh that's it thank you I yield the floor back to the board and president dcy for any questions or discuss thank Dr Lucas uh questions or discussion for Dr Lucas and his superintendent uh just one question for you so Mrs moski was supposed to ask you this earlier but she and I noticed on your desk um um I'm doing a Duo Lang learning a second language du lingo asked me about
064it so we're going to ask you about it well that's interesting you should say so dualingo is a way to learn uh languages and I believe there's also dualingo math in fact uh but uh I got sucked into it because my daughter was doing it and then Mr Black actually kind of has a little dualingo Club over at the high school so he noticed I guess he saw me doing it and uh came over and gave me the the little note thing there so so I encourage everybody to do do a lingo it's great it's fun and you learn a new language so I assume with Mr Black's involvement that is Spanish uh see seor great great well um just want to just say thank you for living what we preach right and that's the
065fact of being that lifelong learner so we encourage our students to so thank you very much thank you uh we'll move on to section six board policies item 6.1 board policies first reading this is a discussion item we have a few policies we'll go through one by one starting with ef Food Services questions or discussion on uh EF so I think a lot of these first ones are M Mont question ask there just the removing the part at the bottom what was the driving thought between removing that section about students bringing from home and we moved that up into the first oh is that all it was just made just made it more succinct and put it in the first okay yeah fantastic all right I didn't catch that when I read it thank you
066anything else on EF uh on to EFA food purchasing selection any discussion on this policy see none move on to efab use of surplus Commodities questions or discussion on this policy see no move on to EFC free and reduced price Food Services any questions on EC or discussion seeing none move on to efe competitive food sales vending machines questions or discussion on EF see none move on to efh Food Service sanitation program discussion questions on this policy non move on to EFI Food Services records and reports and discussion on this policy we move on to egab photocopying Services any questions or discussion on this policy see none move on to ege mail and delivery services discussion on this policy just a question so blue at the bottom but is that actually what's because typically when
067there's a change it's in red so is that actually going to happen the top three sentences going to be combined in one paragraph usually it's actually there and it's been red line so we again you see the change do we know whose policy that is no I had that one yeah which fine I'm just it'll get condensed together that makes sense okay that's a recommendation all right thank you Mr Ralph move on to EGF telephone service making this a very succinct policy questions or discussion on Miss and then lastly EGD use of Technology resources in office services discussion on this policy just had one minor thing I I think the way i' I read it the first sentence in the second paragraph should that be should the fifth word be sorry sixth word be through
068instead of though the district will provide guidelines through aups so the employees are aware so it's just a m change seeing nothing else we will close our discussion on board policies this will come back up for a vote later in the evening with that we'll move on to some action items Section 8 Personnel Mrs Dy section eight personel resignations I make a motion we approve resolution 8.1 and 8.2 second a motion on floor properly seconded questions or discussion on the motion seeing none to a vote all those in favor I I any opposed any extensions motion carries 5 to zero section n Personnel retirements I make a motion we approve resolution 9.1 through 9.3 second have motion will floor properly seconded any questions or discussion on the motion I will again just recognize some long-term
069Lake folks there some names very familiar that will be sad to see go and have a chance to celebrate at our Event in May uh seeing nothing else move to vote all those in favor I I any oppos any extensions motion carries 5 to zero section 11 personel transfers I make a motion we approve resolution 11.1 and 11.2 second the motional floor properly seconded and questions or discussion on that motion seeing none move to a vote all those in favor I I any opposed any extensions motion carries 5 Z section 13 Personnel off of employment I the motion we approve resolution 13.1 13.3 second I motion floor properly seconded questions or discussion in the motion seeing none to move to a vote all those in favor I I any oppose any extensions motion carries 5
070to Zer section 15 personalities of absence I make a motion we approve resolution 15.1 and 152 second I motion will floor properly second questions or discussion on that motion hearing none will move to a vote all those in favor I I any opposed exensions motion carries 5 to Zer staying in section 15 personel motion resolution 15.3 second I motion on floor properly second any questions or discussion on the motion see none we'll move to a vote all those in favor all those opposed nay nay uh any extensions motion fails zero to five section 19 I make a motion we approve resolution 19.1 and 19.2 second a motion floor properly seconded any questions or discussion on the motion seeing none we'll move to a vote all those in favor I I any opposed any extensions motion
071carries 5 to zero still in section 19 personal appointments I make a motion we approve resolution 193 second a motion floor properly second questions or discussion on the motion seeing none all those in favor I any opposed abstentions the chair abstains so the motion will carry for to zero with one Obion section 21 other business I make a motion we approve resolution 21.1 school choice as written second motion floor properly seconded questions or discussion on the motion seeing none move to a vote all in favor I I any oos oos any extensions motion carries 5 to zero section 22 other business field trip make the motion we approve resolution 22.1 as second a motion floor properly second questions or discussion on that motion hearing not we'll move to a vote all those in favor I
072any opposed any extensions motion carries five and Z section 23 of the Business Financial records I make a motion we approve resolution 23.1 as presented second motion on floor properly second any questions or discussion on that motion hearing none we'll move to a vote all those in favor I I any opposed any extensions motion carries 5 to Z and section 24 of the business board policies and make a motion we approve resolution 24.1 is modified during discussions okay a motion floor properly second any questions or discussion on that seeing none move to a vote all those in favor I I any oppos any exensions motion carries 5 to zero thank you Mr starky thank you Mr Ral we're up to section 25 board report and discussion items 25.1 Delaware School Board Association Mrs MCL I
073don't have anything report okay uh any questions or discussion for Mrs Mrs star one thing I saw that Mr ton um an email was today but I'm not sure that everyone got it so I will forward that to everybody because I don't remember see okay I will forward it just the NBA yes did you get it from Dr man yeah no M says Dr man yeah inter is yeah well we're all um then there's an alternate so that's probably why you didn't get it so I'll send it to you now okay all right thank you um all right thank you m MOSI Mrs 25.2 legislative committee Dr W hi it was a very um interesting meeting a lot of conversation about different bills being introduced of course um one of the ones that I was
074thrilled about was the amount of teacher Academy scholarships that our students will be able uh to take advantage of unfortunately I had to abstain um from voting um for that because it directly uh is my job so um I confess for that the other one that was a a big topic was the bill that failed for the funding of our school resource officers and the discussion basically led to that when they came up with the figures they had used used the highest possible salary and benefits and then just multiplied that by the number of persons that would be employed which is a really inflated figure so now that that has been defeated they're in the process of hopefully rewriting so we look forward to that there was also some bills that have not been introduced
075yet but will be introduced um about school board members and and how they can be removed from their position is one area another was about additional training that's about my report okay thank you Dr Wyatt very interesting questions or discussion for Dr Wyatt all right thank you again ma'am uh we're up to 25.3 good of the order opportunity for borders to address other topics otherwise covered on the agenda is I just wanted amendment to Chipman for um for e so it was great to see such an event that was so well put on and a great coordination between the two schools so thank you to the administration of both schools everybody that was involved not only with that event but just overall with a partnership that's necessary to ensure that smooth transition for for our
076students so thank you all Mr sty um I know last year Dr we had one for the community too was that in the spring the community open house I can't remember it was beginning of this year this it was okay okay so is that something that is planning like we're planning to have yearly our community leaders open housee uhuh yeah I I originally had thought about doing that every other year but I felt like this year since it was the first year we missed a lot of people that we would want to be there so I think we'll probably doing again next year in Fall it's all running together to be honest sorry okay so just there is one more scheduling night for eighth graders correct there is to make sure everybody knows yeah it
077was supposed to be Tuesday night but we rescheduled it for next Tuesday given the weather one more M um and also I do want to um just bring up um for the high school with the teachers who are committed to doing um this SAT prep on Saturdays that um I think it went really well I know that um I think there were 18 or so that attended um hopefully we can get some more but but I just want to know that that's well appreciated by the parents like my kid went on her own I didn't have to you know so I'm glad that it's getting out to them and um we're we're preparing that for them and there's people willing to do anything time we had plenty of teachers it's I think it's going very
078and we you know we will have more this Saturday I think than we had last Saturday and some of the kids are even rearranging work schedules and things like that all right thank you um one final update for me talk again about School Board elections I give one final update between the before the first Milestone so we Lake Forest board of education has one seat scheduled for an election this year terms now consist of a four-year commitment uh the filing deadline as always is the first Friday of March which this year is Friday March 7th um and elections uh will follow they are always the second Tuesday of May which this year is Tuesday May 13th um we do since our last uh meeting we do have some candidate filings uh so I will read
079directly from the Delaware elections website um so for the four-year term we have having filed and February 4th Daryl Hughes of Felton was listed as a provisional candidate um and filing February 10th Mr James L Ral uh from Felton who is listed as a qualified candidate um so thanks to both gentlemen for filing for their interest in filing arguably there's no greater method of having local community impact and by serving in your local districts board um and starting with our next meeting the filing deadline will have passed we'll provide a final update on candidates and then start announcing the ual election uh details so that is all I have seeing nothing else I do not believe we have a need for executive session any board member Mr Dr Lucas no sir all right well with
080that we'll entertain a motion for adjournment second have a motion for adjournment properly seconded I will mention that our next meeting this is important our next meeting two weeks from now Thursday February uy 27th will be held at the Delaware Early Childhood Center down on West Street and Miss pan Miss Street down in Herington uh public session will start at 7 o'clock as usual uh we have a motional floor properly second entertain a vote so all those in favor I I any opposed any extensions motion carries the board is adjourned 8:12 pm. thank you all very much stay safe out there