I would now like to turn the conference over to Shanika Morris, Statistics Editorial Assistance Association of Research Libraries. Please go ahead. Thank you so much. I would just like to take a moment to welcome everyone to our webinar, the Introduction to Climate Qual Light. Thank you so much for joining us today. As mentioned, everyone is going to be muted to cut down on background noise, and of course, we welcome your questions. Just don't forget to type them in, and ARL staff will stand ready to answer them. And if time permits, we'll have a question and answer session at the end of the presentation. So just a brief agenda for our call today. I'm going to provide a brief introduction to Climate Qual, and then Dr. Paul Hanges is going to briefly discuss the theory and background of Climate Qual before sharing the findings of his analysis on the psychometric properties of Climate Qual Light. And in closing, I'll discuss the survey administration protocol and how we share the results of the survey with survey participants. So let's get started. So the Climate Qual assessment measures staff perceptions concerning the library's commitment to the principles of diversity. We share, it studies staff perceptions concerning organizational policies and procedures, and it also looks at staff attitudes. The goals of the Climate Qual project are to develop a tool that assesses the health of a library. With Climate Qual, we at ARL wanted to look at whether the policies and procedures and practices of the library are supporting the library's mission and facilitating meeting current and future customer needs. And so Climate Qual takes a snapshot of the library's internal climate at a specific point in time to get a sense of the health of the library's climate. And libraries, by participating in Climate Qual, can place their results in context by comparing their results to the anonymized normative data. And we also engage the Climate Qual community of current and past participants to create a forum where libraries can share experiences and intervention. Another aspect of Climate Qual that's enumerated in these goals is our desire to track changes in libraries over time. And so doing the Climate Qual data are therefore longitudinal so that we can analyze the effectiveness of the interventions over time. And at the end of the day, Climate Qual helps libraries empirically validate the library's climate for diversity and the resulting data allow libraries to validate the healthy organization theory. And so here's a screenshot of the Climate Qual website. And you can go to that website to find out a lot of information about the survey. And our FAQs are quite extensive because we know that people have a lot of questions before they decide to administer the survey. We do have a lot of information on the website. However, the survey itself is not publicly available and the survey is not distributed in advance of the survey administration. And this is done to guard against response bias as knowing the questions in advance will affect participants' answers at the time of surveying. However, if you do want to see a little preview of some of the questions that are included in each scale, we do have two sample questions per scale on the website, and we also provide in-depth descriptions of each of the scales of the survey. Now I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Paul Hanges, who will be discussing a little bit about the theory and background of Climate Qual and then also discuss some of the statistical properties of Climate Qual Light. Go ahead, Paul. Thank you, Shanika. Well, good afternoon, everybody. I'm Paul Hanges. I am a professor of organizational psychology at the University of Maryland in College Park. I am part of the group in the psychology department known as SDOS, or Social Decision and Organizational Sciences. And I've been working with ARL for a while now as we're developing and improving the Climate Qual survey. Unlike other diversity surveys that are out there, the Climate Qual is actually based upon a theory that we developed trying to explain how some organizations are healthy and how other organizations have certain problems. I'll define what I mean by healthy in a little bit, but the main idea with regard to Climate Qual is it measures various climates of organizations trying to determine if they have the right atmosphere, if you will, to facilitate the organization meeting the needs, the current needs, as well as the future needs of its customers. Now, on the slide ahead, we have a definition of what organizational climate is. It's an interpretive framework shared by employees regarding the priorities of their organizations, and it helps them understand what behavior of the employees will be rewarded, what behavior is supported by the organization, and what behavior is expected in the organization. This particular definition of organizational climate was made by Ben Schneider, and I cite his 1990 chapter where he talks about what organizational climate is. And the reason why it's important is, as you see in the definition, organizational climate, when it's clear and sends a strong message, tells people what they need to be doing, and if they do that behavior, the organization will be behind them and reward them for their efforts. And what we found is that, sure enough, when an organization has a clear and consistent message, as emphasized by organizational climate, the organization can be shown to outperform its competitors. So organizations that actually have a climate for productivity actually produce more and are more competitive than their other organizations producing the same product that have a lower climate for productivity. In hospitals, hospitals that have a climate for safety actually have fewer patient accidents and a lower patient death rate than hospitals that do not have a climate for safety. In our particular case, we identified various climates that organizations need in order to be maximum on satisfying customers in terms of what the customers need in terms of library resources, the kinds of methodology they want to use to access these resources, both in terms of their current needs and anticipating what their needs will be in the future. Now, we get information about organizational climate from actual employees. And so the question comes about is, like, where do these employees derive their organizational perceptions? And it turns out that we get these perceptions because, well, first of all, we're human and we always are trying to make sense of our environments. And it's a natural tendency of humans to talk to each other and try to understand their environment. Well, in organizations, one of the big factors that determine environments are in organizations policies, practices, and procedures. And so employees talk to each other to try to understand what are the messages being sent in terms of a particular policy, a particular practice, and a particular procedure that's endorsed and actually enforced in an organization. It's from this sense-making that employees then understand if they do a certain behavior, then the organization will reward them, support them, and indeed that behavior is expected by the organization. ClimateQual collects information about important organizational climates. It also collects information about organizational attitudes because these attitudes reflect the various states of the workforce in terms of its morale. So we're not just looking at, does the organization have the right climate to be in tune with its customers, but we're also looking to see what is the current health of the organization in terms of the workforce morale. So we actually get at information in two kinds of sources. One is from climate information, which tells us about do we have the right things to help customers, but also in terms of workforce morale to understand is this a healthy organization that can persist in producing customer satisfaction. All right, now I've been talking about health of organizations and organizational climate. The question comes like, what is a healthy organization? What do we mean by that? Well, that's a theory that we developed basically back in 2004-2005 where we took some of the work dealing with the life cycle of organizations, and organizations actually do have a life cycle. They have a childhood where they're growing and developing. They have an adulthood where the organization meets its demands and continues to operate in a functional manner. And then some organizations experience the death cycle, in which case they are losing employees, losing resources, and can't meet the new demands of their customers. And like companies such as GM, who was saved by the federal government, but otherwise would have died, organizations can indeed be eliminated, and we no longer see them. A healthy organization is one that actually maintains its part in the adult cycle. And how does an organization maintain its experience as an adult cycle? It remains responsive to its environment. So a healthy organization is one that's responsive to its environment. It picks up what its customers want, customers in terms of faculty, undergraduate or graduate students, what kind of resources, what kind of content areas they want, how they want to gain this information, either in physical buildings and having hard copies or through electronic sources, as well as trying to anticipate the future needs of the customers so that the organization can start building certain content over the time. This cycle that we have shown here in this figure is what's called the Attraction Selection Nutrition Cycle, also known as the ASA cycle, and it explains how organizational climate comes about. You see, we have the general population over to the left of the figure, and that indicates that in general, individuals that are part of the population are widely diverse. They're diverse in terms of their skills and abilities, they're diverse in terms of their interests and values and in their beliefs. Now, we have the organization who actually has a particular need for new employees to come into the organization. And what we see is that from the grand population, only certain types of people are attracted to work in the library. So there's actually what's called a non-random sampling of people from the population. Those people who apply for jobs in libraries actually have a reduced diversity in terms of skills and abilities. Clearly, they trained to be effective workers in libraries. They have a reduced set of values. It's restricted in terms of diversity. It's restricted in terms of interests. That's a natural consequence. And basically the non-random selection occurs because the individuals applying for the job are interested in the content of the job as well as the personality or climate of the organization. The organization doesn't take everyone who applies to it. It actually does a selection process, trying to identify those individuals that appropriately fit into the library. Consequence of this, of course, is a further reduction in the diversity of values, beliefs, personality, et cetera. And finally, over time, certain individuals leave the organization. Either they aren't working out and so they involuntarily leave, or they discover that they want to go elsewhere and try new organizations. So what we're left with as a result of the attrition process is that we have employees working at the library who are increasingly similar over time as we go on to attraction, selection, and attrition. Now, there's a positive aspect of this cycle in that it actually creates and reinforces organizational climate, which is what we talked about before. Organizational climate affects productivity, and it affects and enables people to know how to behave in organizations and when they'll be rewarded for behaving a certain way. The downside is that the attraction, selection, and attrition cycle increasingly reduces diversity over time. And what happens is if the organization reduces diversity too much, then we have found it no longer pays attention to its environment. It starts to just listen to the internal voices about how the library should perform and disconnects from what the faculty or the students are saying, its customer base. And it's this disconnection that we find is when organizations move into the death spiral. So the key here with climate quality is to measure particular climates which slow down the attraction, selection, and attrition cycle so that we don't go into the period where the organization is no longer responsive. And here's a set of climate dimensions that are needed in order to slow down ASA. And this is indeed what is measured in climate quality in the long-form version. There are nine climate scales. First, we have climate for deep diversity, as well as, second to the last one, climate for demographic diversity. What these do is they basically tell individuals who are applying for the job and who are selected in the job that diversity is an important value in this organization and it has been shown to increase a diverse workforce and effective at attracting diverse workforce, which is very important to slow down the ASA cycle. Now, another particular climate that's important that's measured in climate call is the climate for justice. This is important because once people are in the organization, people from diverse backgrounds, the climate for justice enables the individuals to want to stay in the organization. It's not enough to just attract them, we have to keep them in the organization. Climate for psychological safety, the second one, is important because when people feel relatively psychologically safe, they take risks. And we have the individual who is willing to speak up in a meeting and to share an uncommon point of view. And so the climate for psychological diversity increases the likelihood that the organization will hear diverse points of view. Finally, while we also have the climate for innovation and the climate for continual learning, which determines the extent to which the organization can capitalize on learning about these diverse points of view and actually take action and change. In addition to this, we assess climate for leadership, which is extremely important for creating these kinds of climates, and climate for teamwork as well. We finally, in the long form of climate call, collect information about climate for customer service because that's a direct measure of the extent to which the organization is trying to pay attention to what customers want. So those are the climate scales that are collected in the long form. In addition, the long form of climate call actually also collects the employee morale information or what's called attitude surveys. How engaged are people at the library? How committed are they? Do they exhibit organizational citizenship behaviors? In other words, this is the team playing aspect. Are they willing to help out their fellow coworkers when their coworkers are overwhelmed but they have their jobs in hand? So do they pitch in? We also look at organizational withdrawal tendencies. Are people thinking about leaving the organization? We collect job satisfaction, team empowerment in the workplace, and work-unit conflict. All these attitudes basically look at the overall morale or health from the employee's perspective. Now we have had climate call the long form since 2007 and have applied it in lots of libraries since that time. We are now rolling out a short version of climate call called Climate Call Light. And this version basically focuses on the key components of the theory. It says, okay, we want to get a quick assessment of how well the organization is doing in terms of being responsive to its employees. So one of the key things about climate call light is it decreases completion time, the time required for your employees to complete it. We've actually run this in a couple of libraries now in our pilot work with several libraries and we found that the median response time taken to complete climate call light is 13 minutes. In addition, the time saving produced by climate call light does not hurt the quality of the data that we collect. It's still as reliable. You can still use the actual normative base that we have created over time using the full version of climate call. But yet with climate call light, you have access to all this information that has been built up over the time, this excellent normative information, while also reducing time to completion. Climate call light allows institutions, if they use it, to still get a good understanding of how the library is doing with regard to the major components of this healthy organization theory. Now in terms of the statistical properties of climate call and looking at what is the quality of the scales that we've developed, first of all these are, like I said, these are based on theory and so it's not just a collection of random items or scales that have been used by other individuals. We are basing it on a theory and have identified measures that actually test these factors. We have assessed the quality of the scales and we actually have administered climate call full version as well as climate call light through a total of 53 libraries. The majority came from the United States but we also started looking at cross-cultural work where we actually had four libraries coming from England and two from Canada. First thing we wanted to do is see whether the questions that are being used in climate call do they actually hang together so that when we say, well, we have a climate for diversity, is that meaningful? Are the questions that were designed to assess diversity do they basically give information so that you can be confident about the information? The answer, by the way, is yes. Through procedure known as factor analysis we have evidence from the 53 libraries that our scales really do give information about these themes. We also looked at the reliability of this information and we used a technique known as crumbox alpha and the reliability are extremely high. Finally, we used the statistic known as an interclass correlation coefficient, what's called an ICC. The purpose of this is to really determine the extent to which we're assessing organizational climate. If we are, these perceptions should be shared by people in organizations and the ICC is a statistic that determines how shared are the perceptions within a library. If everyone has different perceptions then we're not really measuring a climate. So we need the ICC to be greater than zero. Here are some of the properties that we found from climate quality. First of all, in terms of factor analysis you'll see that all the scales substantially exceeded the required cutoff of 0.40 that's basically looking at how each item is related to the overall theme. Basically, our scales are working. Our questions give us meaningful information about our measures. The internal consistency reliability, are we accurate with coming up with this information? The answer is yes. And in terms of scientific standards our reliability's are very nice, extremely better than the minimum professional level. In terms of aggregatability, the extent to which do people in libraries share this meaning, share their understanding. You see with regards to the ICCs the average in the field is 0.08. We do exceptionally better. Our average acceptable aggregation is at the 22 level. It's above what's traditionally found in the literature. Therefore, we have evidence that the climate quality light measures are providing the correct information in terms of the themes. They are reliable and accurate information with regard to the themes and indeed evidence that we are measuring climate. On the next slide, we have the conclusions. Climate quality light has desirable psychometric properties. It measures organizational climate and not individual perceptions. These conclusions apply to both versions, the light version and the full version. Here's a slide which actually shows the differences in terms of what's measured in the full version versus the climate quality light version. What I showed you before were all the climates that were measured in the full version. Here, what's bolded are what's measured in the light version. You see these are the central components that are part of the organizational health theory. Notice we are including what I was referring to before is we are looking at both deep diversity and surface, so what's called demographic diversity. The attraction selection attrition model is really concerned about both these types of diversities. On the next page, we look at the attitude measure, and here you really see the difference in terms of climate quality light. It's not designed to measure the employee morale, except for job satisfaction, which is one of the major variables in organizational psychology, and that particular variable is very substantial and really tells it's a good quick summary of organizational morale. Overall though, you have the information that's needed to know how well your organization is doing with regard to the service quality. In order to get further sample questions about climate quality, you can go to the website that's shown on the screen, and you'll see some of the various sample questions. By the way, before I go, I just want to say that we have completed our analyses of the climate quality light in the test of the theory of the healthy organization. We have had substantial support for the model, and we have just recently submitted a paper to the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology Conference, and I'm going to make that available to ClimateQual on its website later today. Wonderful. Thanks so much, Paul. That'll be really great to have that in our publications database on the website. Thank you so much for sharing these wonderful properties of climate quality light. I'll just take about a minute or two to discuss how we administer the survey and how we share the results with participants. This is Shanika again. Really quickly, this slide just summarizes the difference between the long form and the light form of ClimateQual, and the take-home message is that basically, ClimateQual light contains approximately 50% fewer questions, and our data at this point show that the response time, the medium response time, is cut almost in half when you administer ClimateQual light. This is without compromising the integrity of the data that you receive, which is pretty great. If you decide to administer ClimateQual, whether it's the long form or the light form, the survey looks at the library as a whole, and it also asks questions about respondents' individual team and work unit. The light form has the comment box at the end of the survey where respondents can write comments about the library's climate that's present in the long and the light form, and libraries need to be large enough to run the study and preserve the confidentiality of the respondents, and so we ask that participants survey at least 50 part-time or full-time employees, possibly including student workers, so that means that your library needs to have at least 50 part-time or full-time employees, possibly including student workers to run ClimateQual so that the confidentiality of your respondents of your staff is preserved when running the survey. The survey is web-based and is administered within the STATSQAL platform, which was developed by ARL, and you should allow staff 10 to 20 minutes to complete the survey. As Paul mentioned, our approximate survey response time is 13 minutes, and the survey typically lasts for three weeks. As I mentioned a little while ago, respondent confidentiality is of paramount concern given the sensitive nature of the questions and responses on the survey, and so while we don't provide institutions with access to the raw data, we do provide an overview report that analyzes the mean scores on each scale by demographic group, but data are not reported for groups that have too few responses, and the report contains comments from the participants. We do share those comments verbatim, but at the beginning of the survey, we let participants know upfront that we will be sharing their comments and we encourage them not to self-identify when they write their comments. So we disclose that upfront, and we have a number of ways that allow participating libraries to put their results in context. First, participating institutions can compare their results to the normative data, which have been updated through 2013, and participating institutions also are invited to a results review phone call with ARL staff. So that we can go over the report with you, and we also have a series of quarterly ClimateQual calls, which are a closed forum, so current and past participants only, and this forum is where libraries can share their experiences and the interventions that they've implemented in order to improve the library's climate. So we ask that you join us for ClimateQual. We're currently enrolling institutions for the remainder of 2014 and 2015, and if you're interested in running the survey, please email us at climatequal.org. We'd love to have you as a part of the ClimateQual family, and if you still have questions about the survey, the next two slides show resources for ClimateQual, and I'll just click through those quickly. We have our informational video that features the wonderfully engaging Dr. Paul Hanses, who spoke with you a little bit earlier in the call. We have our publications database, which is publicly available. You can go on and search and read publications about ClimateQual, and we'll put Paul's paper that he submitted to the conference in the publications database, and then if you do become a participant in the survey, you will have access to our shared workspace login, which has even more resources for survey participants. Next slide has a few more resources, and for those of you who've run LiveQual at your institutions, please take a look at Stephen Town's presentation in the database that looks at ClimateQual and LiveQual at his library. So thank you all so much for joining us for this presentation about ClimateQual Lite. We have about eight minutes before one o'clock, and so we'd love to take some of your questions. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to register for a question, please press the 1 followed by the 4 on your telephone. You will hear a 3. Don't prompt to acknowledge your request. If your question has been answered and you'd like to try your registration, please press the 1 followed by the 3. You may also submit a question using the chat feature located in the lower left corner of your screen. One moment for the first question. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you'd like to register a question over the phone, please press the 1 followed by the 4. We have no phone questions at this time. I'll turn it over to you. Thank you so much. I wanted to just double check and see if there are any final comments before we bring the webcast to a close. Okay. Well, thank you all so much for joining us today. Again, if you have more questions about ClimateQual Lite or the long version of the survey, you can email us at climatequalatarl.org. We look forward to hearing from you. And thank you so much for joining us. Everyone have a great day. Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude the webinar for today. We thank you for your participation and ask that you please disconnect your lines.


In most cases, the customers choose to use SOA because they look at it as a mechanism for business enablement. So in general, there are drivers, business drivers, and we normally correlate them against actual business metrics. What metrics does the CEO see, and how do we translate that from a governance perspective? I think its potential is absolutely huge, and that is exemplified in the agility that they are able to demonstrate because they can respond quicker to changes. Sudden rapid change, agility, that's the main driver. There is a conception that reuses the main driver, that's a conception and a misconception. If you look at the service, it has a business point of view. Looking at it as a business service perspective and then an application service perspective, it would even deliver more value for the business to define the service levels that they want to achieve, and it's important for both to have governance. Because if you don't have governance, you don't have reuse, you don't have standards. Time to market trumps all of those values, the return you get from being able to move in your business. Well, I think that ultimately, SOA, big data and cloud will become ubiquitous. We won't be talking about it as if there are new initiatives that will be foundational computing concepts which you'll learn in your computer classes, and you really won't think twice about using it. Using all of the techniques of good service oriented architecture as just the way we do things. I think one of my favorite quotes is, the hype is over now, we can get value.


President Mohamed Bahari has expressed sadness over the death of former Chief of Defence staff, retired Lieutenant General Joshua Dogoyaru. The President made his feelings known in a statement by his spokesperson Malam Garabashehu Ina Buja on Thursday. He described the demise of Dogoyaru as a great loss not only to the Nigerian military, but also to the country because of his patriotic sacrifices in defence of its unity and territorial integrity. Bahari also extended deepest condolences to the government and people of Plato State on the passing of this legendary general. He prayed Almighty God to bless the soul of the departed and grant his family the fortitude to bear the loss.


Good evening and welcome to Byline. This is a public affairs show here at Amherst Media and it's co-sponsored by the Amherst League of Women Voters. And we have a special guest here tonight as we continue to try to understand how the transition to our new government system is working. And of course one of the biggest parts of our town council's work every year will be forming the budget. And one of the biggest parts of the budget, in fact the biggest part of the budget is of course public education. And we have our superintendent of schools Dr. Michael Morris here with us today to talk with us about first about the process and his experience as he's going through working in this new system because how many budgets have you done here in Amherst prior to this? This would be my third. This is your third budget. So you weren't there doing it that long before but you got that down and now we're heading into a different system here. So let's start with just your reaction to how it's going and how it feels differently to you or not. So I think in general what I find to be the same is that when I'm in front of for instance the finance committee where I was yesterday for the elementary school district I already went for the regional schools, I think the concerns are the same and the interest is the same to make sure that we have a high quality school system that is fiscally sustainable. And so I'm very appreciative that finance committee in a town is supportive of that first as well as the second end. Some of my colleagues don't enjoy that flexibility perhaps or the same interest but the questions I receive and similar to how I receive them historically have been ensuring that we're making fiscal decisions that aren't just one-year fiscal decisions but they're sustainable for the future because everyone's commitment is that we have high quality public education pre-k to 12 in the town of Amherst and that's something that I think speaks volumes about the elected officials, elected appointed officials in our community. This year because of the transition government we followed pretty much the same timeline. One thing that I was speaking about with the Amherst finance committee yesterday is for the regional schools that's sort of locked in because of the other three town to town meeting schedules for the Amherst public schools at least theoretically we'd be able to push that back a bit and something that I have an interest in thinking about is we released the first draft of our budget in January before the governor releases that budget the house one budget and that sometimes is hard not that we're so dependent on state funding but there are years this being actually one of them where there's a lot of discussion of educational funding and to come out with our budget before we have even the governor's first guidance to the legislature sometimes it's about the little awkward and and it's hard to communicate to the community when there are changes that we have to make changes along with it in our budget that's not new to this process that is part of the system that has been around for a long time and is likely to continue for a long time that's right in our conversation last night at least for the Amherst elementary school budget is a couple weeks would actually make a significant difference of when we list our budget and because we don't have the other three towns town's meetings or now Amherst town meeting to get one articles on might we have flexibility to think even slightly differently might might yield really positive results for how we approach the budget and and how we communicate the budget to larger community and not feeling like it changes throughout the process so much and for those who are new here in town we should point out that you're actually a superintendent of two different school systems you wear two hats and you have two school committees that you're working with tell us about that sure so so for including our friendly neighbors of Pellum it's three school districts but for Amherst particularly the Amherst elementary schools pre-k to six or its own unique school district with its own school committee its own budget and the Amherst Pellum regional school district is a four-town school district of Amherst Pellum levered in Shootsbury that covers this or governs the 7th through 12th grade students in our district and it's a regional school district which has significant differences in terms of what the superintendent role is I mean the regional district is its own separate entity it's not a municipal unit form a municipal government in the same way on dot formal documents I'm the quote-unquote CEO of the regional schools where I'm not at the elementary schools which sometimes feels it's an interesting relationship but from a budgetary financial point of view there is no relationship between those two entities they have their and so by the way I framed my question which you rightly corrected me on I'm sort of projecting forward a little bit because there's a separate effort that's been going on to look at the question of whether the small school system of Pellum and the small school system of Pellum elementary and the small school system of Amherst elementary should be combined why don't you take a second and tell us where that states sure so there was a two-town meeting on April 13th where representatives elected officials from those two towns came together to look at the work that had happened at this point there was some sense that the timing may not be right for Tim to further consider that change given a number of variables one the state funding system second is that we do have a new form of government in the town of Amherst and so I think in the next few weeks we're taping this in early mid-May there's going to be a decision by that regionalization board whether to proceed or whether to stop and have this be an artifact in case this wants to be studied again in the future so they're making so if they decide not to move forward the committee dissolves at that point or does it stay in place they do they would vote to like to dissolve okay and if the conversation needed to be restarted at a later date the two communities would have to go through a process of deciding to form a new regionalization study committee and make decisions at that time as to membership timing and charge but you would not anticipate that to happen immediately but it could happen again in the future absolutely and I think the work of the board whether it ends up being moving forward or not will still be helpful for the communities to better understand how would regional transportation aid contribute the financial piece was studied in depth the governance you know how would you transition from municipal form of governance to a regional one I think all of the information that board has whether it materializes anything tangible now or not still critically important because the question comes up all the time and we have a tremendous amount more information thanks to the tireless work of the board than we had beforehand yeah and of course by then the state will hopefully have concluded their most recent effort at education reform which the last one was done in the early 90s carried forward even until today and usually when they conclude that process and there's a lot of pressure and the governor the speaker in the center president have all said that they expect within this two-year legislative term to act finally on another reform package those packages usually get implemented over a 7 to 10 15-year period so there would be more information and more security as to knowing what the future would look like if another regionalization study committee were formed in another year or two or three because we'd be in a new pattern that would likely continue for a long time I think that's true I think the other thing that perhaps could be new information that might emerge from that is many people at DESI including the deputy commissioner have talked about the benefits from their point of view of regionalization and it's what's unknown is and there was a the state auditor last year st. Otter Bob came out with a large report on regionalization so what's unclear is in any new package what impact would have on districts that are considering regionalization and right now that's an unknown and year two from now I think we'll have a lot more information that will be able to be considered good so let's go back to the budget now and so you've presented your budget the budget is before the town council finance committee will be doing its work and some public hearings I believe and and they'll be playing this out over the next few months so during that period of time we need to understand as they look at the education side of the proposal what's the headline here what what is what should we be looking for and thinking about when we think about the budget that you've proposed for our elementary schools and for our regional middle and high school sure so when I start with the regional schools the secondary schools because the Amherstown Council has already voted on those at this date a date of this taping and two other towns levered and shoots Bayer voted affirmatively and time is taping palums voting tomorrow and so at what's true in both budgets I should start with is that we're having an unusually positive buzzard year for a couple of reasons one is that we had a pretty significant reduction in health care costs the second is that we've I was that achieved those achieved through the town and the change from being self-insured to joining a group insurance policy or program and that has netted some significant savings for the districts as well as the town towns I should say Pellum is also part of that same insurance group so kudos kudos to the town efficiency move so yeah thank you town manager and town council absolutely okay and so the other thing that I think we've been very intentional about is looking at declining enrollment which is kind of stagnating a little bit but we've had to decline and doing the principles in particular done a fantastic job analyzing how do we match that with the appropriate staffing so where places we can add staffing in areas that we needed and where places that through natural attrition we can remove it just because of that declining enrollment and we've realized some we've realized some significant savings from that and been able to redistribute that and areas that are consistent with our values I mean for me a budget is a valued document and we're in a fortunate place where we're able to express that this year and perhaps better ways than in the past we also want to be conscious that every year is not going to be this year some of the health insurance savings is one-time savings and as I said some of the declining enrollment based on our projections and our experiences looks like it's kind of plateauing so we want to also build things in in this positive variance here that we we don't have to necessarily rely on so we're trying to both do the things to support our add the things we need to support our students and also being very realistic that we're not going to be in this fortunate situation here and what are some of the things that you're adding to serve the students better yeah so at the regional level we're adding a second restorative practice technician a practitioner so we have had one there's a second year at the high school that we've had a position like that and what does that position do yeah we're adding one at the middle school and what that position has been a lot of interests both nationally and locally on how much how discipline is doled out at the second at all schools but particularly at the secondary level and one of the legitimate critiques of K-12 education is that it's often comes from a you know it's called natural consequence it feels more punitive it doesn't actually repair the harm that's done and most of our behavior challenges there is someone who is harmed and there's a harmed doer but unless that relationship is repaired it's very likely that that same trend will continue the idea of so this fits into anti-bullying and the like conflict resolution anti-bullying and it also fits in in terms of the cultural aspect so one of the critiques of of all districts and we're not excluded from that is what's the demographics of who gets suspended more often or less often and it's really working proactively with students with staff and faculty to how do we create a climate in our school where students can be leaders in some of that conflict resolution where we're highly conscious of cultural impacts and biases that we all have in that approach and we did recently a show here actually Damarse Media is one of the student leaders as well as the practitioner and it's amazing the impact it's had already in the schools and we want to expand that impact so that's one of the things we're really excited about we are revising our math curriculum in grades 6 through 12 which cuts across multiple districts who are sixth graders right now are in the elementary schools and so those are again talking about one-time cost we want to not just replace the curriculum which came out of an extra review but also provide support for teachers to be able to implement a new curriculum so we have a one-year position that is really coaching teachers on new curriculum supporting students within that and again that's the financial sustainability part as well and that decision and program was driven by a an external report that said yeah so we it was driven by community staff parent guardian as well as student concerns about our current curriculum so we did have an external review and what they found was that our curriculum wasn't well aligned to the current standards and so we need to address that the other thing they they underscored within that was that right now the type of math teaching that our students need that problem-solving that frankly employers and colleges are saying we need to have right now our philosophy at the middle school didn't match our philosophy at the high school and we heard that directly from students so we want to have a balanced curriculum that emphasizes problem-solving as well as computational fluency that's never going away no matter what's in our phones and how quickly we can do it there there's some parts of that that you need to access higher level mathematics and so there there's a cost related to both the curriculum and also the professional development and training that we want to support our teachers the best support student outcomes okay other initiatives that this budget is going to make possible sure at the elementary level we have we're starting a dual language program we're very fortunate to get a along with the Holyoke public schools a joint grant for $300,000 supporting the implementation of that program at Fort River School but there's still ongoing needs that's really for this spring and summer there's ongoing needs for the program so we do want to support we're buying a new curriculum right as we don't have an existing Spanish language curriculum that aligns and one of the choices that our staff made that that we're all supporting and excited about is they want to make sure and not just that it's a different curriculum the Spanish class and English class but actually to reform have really a very streamlined but in-depth joint curriculum so that if you're in the Spanish the students are in the Spanish class or the English class they're getting the same high quality tax they're getting the same types of teaching so at Fort River we're actually we were thinking about it more narrowly and the teachers were telling us no if we want kids to have this all kids to have this experience we want all kids to have access to kind of revised curriculum so there are some costs they're not huge but they're related to that one of the ongoing needs in the town of Amherst has been access to early high quality early childhood education we do have a program at Crocker Farmer preschool program but that is a state driven program around students with special needs there are typical peers that are associated but what we know and we've done some surveying actually community led group did some surveying is that cost is a major factor for many families in our community so families with children without special needs there aren't we have a wonderful community action program a head start program there are more families that can access that program so what we're partnering with the town of Amherst as well as the elementary schools is to provide almost a grant for us to work all three entities the town the schools and head start what would it look like if we were to expand access how close could we get to universal preschool access for income eligible families in town and so again not a huge budget item in terms of costs but maybe down the road but we've tried multiple ways to increase our preschool access over the last 15 years and and we haven't gotten there and we have this existing gem in my opinion i've been over to community actions right next to wildwood one of the sites what they do for children and families is outstanding and how do we as a school district who are the beneficiaries of their work how do we support them how does the town support them because we know that when students arrive in kindergarten without preschool access that their outcomes are demonstrably different than students who do have a lot of hidden poverty here in Amherst because we're an academic community and they're relatively high salaries associated with people who are affiliated with the colleges people think of this as a relatively wealthy community but the reality is whether they're students who have come here to study and are married with children or whether they're people who've lived in this community and are the next generation of many generations living in the community there's a lot of people who basically don't have that that high level of income that we're perceived to have generally in town and that presents itself in different ways in the school system yeah one of the things that i like to say when people say oh Amherst it's probably all affluent families and they have they have their perception is that we're one of about three or four communities across the commonwealth if you look at our school population that actually averaged that are our averages are the same as the state average in terms of race ethnicity poverty english language learners special needs students and sadly because of residential segregation there's not many communities that actually are at the state averages and we are so one of the exciting things is we're this microcosm of the commonwealth and what an opportunity we have in our math classrooms there'll be one student whose parent may be a professor of mathematics and another student who to get in that seat has this amazingly rich life story of how they got to be in Amherst and they're getting to learn from one other and what a joy that is and you know it's one of the reasons people like me stick around in this district it's my 18th year and we also have to respond to that with the appropriate staffing to make sure all students can access the full extent of the curriculum and that's one of the reasons why so many people call education the great equalizer in our society and we've recently interviewed our library director and same thing you know the library is available to everybody the school is available to everybody and it's about creating an opportunity and an environment in which no matter where you come from no matter what your background is no matter what's happening at home that you have a safe and encouraging place in which you can grow and develop and again whether you're doing it in the schools as a child or a young person or you're doing it in the library as an adult and a person living in the community those should be safe and dynamic places where you can go to improve yourself and and take advantage of everything that this country is supposed to be about so let's switch gears here for a couple of minutes the school construction so there's a lot of activity around school construction so give us the highlights of where we are in the various efforts to assess our schools and apply for grant funding and the like. Sure so I think the the two pieces I want to talk about is there's short to medium term things we're doing and then long term things we're doing I'll start with the long term but but I don't want to lose the track. The long term is more expensive right? It is yeah that's the one we need grants for. Let's start with the big picture. The big picture is that we are hoping to replace our outdated elementary schools particularly Wildwood and Fort Berber so we went through an extensive community outreach process this winter and early spring and what we found is that a proposal that I suggested which was looking at a 600 student school to replace those two outdated schools which would involve some other changes that we're exploring had community support to move forward so that proposal had to be in the statement of interest MSBA which is a state funding agency on this front on this area asked us to you know build consensus in the community so we had nine public forums on the topic we got tremendous amount of feedback from both parents in the district staff in the district and community members at large and that led to unanimous votes of again both the school committee and the Amherstown council to submit a statement of interest so that statement of interest was submitted in early April state gets many of them they do a thorough review and in December 11th at the MSBA and there's their board meeting they'll vote on which grants they're willing to accept and invite into the process so we're keeping our fingers crossed and but we really do appreciate the engagement of the community it wasn't a simple narrow discussion it was really a pretty thorough one and thank Amherstown media for videotaping 15 minute one which led off all the sessions people get a sense of what we're talking about and so if that process kicks off in December if we get positive news in December that starts off a roughly five-year process of analysis more deeper analysis and then construction we're really beneficiaries that we had a wildwood building project that wasn't successful we have a tremendous amount of data and the town took on a Fort River feasibility study so we now have more data I would say about those two sites than any applicant to the MSBA process so I feel like we will be well versed to take quick action if we are invited in so that longer-term big vision big project what's the rough cost anticipated I know five years out it's hard to predict the exact cost but in today's dollars or by today's some kind of measure how would you describe the scale right the project in relation to cost right so it's a hard one to judge also because the MSBA reimbursement is unclear until they tell us so I'm going to be cautious about my description but the cost the cost is certainly north of total cost certainly north of 50 million dollars and the town cost I think is is likely north of 30 million dollars but I think everything anything beyond that is is getting into the weeds that we don't have an architect to design this school right all that comes from when we get in but in general scale I think that those are the terms I'd be comfortable sharing and you mentioned we would start with the long term so now let's go to the short or mid term sure so we we submitted a pretty assertive or aggressive capital plan for the Amherst elementary schools to the town and the joint capital planning committee of the town government has been in my opinion very supportive of that plan they asked lots of great questions but one of the things is that we had no cooling I mean the school year at wildwood last year if you remember the last august it was incredibly warm and and really it was difficult to be there for the staff and the students and it's really hard for me to get used to the idea that our children are going starting school in august I mean because it just it just in my whole experience both my own school experience and most of the years I served in the legislature we always thought of it as sometime after labor day right but we're now august that is and most districts also moved pre-labor day starts like us and so what we've you know one of the hard things to judge about some of the capital planning was that we are hoping to replace these buildings so some of this is sunk cost and how do we judge that and so what we've landed with two in capital planning they haven't voted yet the town council but in our proposal is to rent a portable unit right now since wildwood was fixed last year we feel like that's in pretty good shape Fort River were less clear in terms of the chiller and the life but have it actually housed at Fort River and if there was an issue with the chiller if it you know has problems we're ready set to put the other one online if there was a problem at wildwood it might take a day or two to get it over to the school but we work with companies that that rent these portable chillers they would be fully sufficient to chill to cool the building so that was a major issue last year additionally we have other repairs that we want to make on the buildings that are they're not just about the cooling but just improving the environment in the school we're looking to rip up some of the carpeting at wildwood which is original to the building make it a kind of healthier improve the air quality that there's been concerns about at wildwood school that already happened at Fort River continue to improve some of the water outlets we're certainly well with well below the EPA level but we want to make sure our water is as healthy as it can be for our children and one other thing that we're working on now is ADA upgrades so we we chose as a district to have Americans with Disabilities Act audit done of all of our schools and not surprisingly given the age of the schools there were many areas that we need to improve the accessibility and we're particularly looking at we did additional sessions where we got feedback from families from staff and from the community that the access to the buildings and access to the playgrounds are two areas that were prime in terms of major issues that we have and so we're looking to improve those next year as well in terms of the capitol so while we are hoping to replace the buildings we we know there's a generation of kids in them right now and they can't wait five years for some of these fixes to occur and that's how we're approaching it. So we have just another minute or so left any other point that you would like to make that my questions haven't elicited from you? Sure well I I'm just incredibly appreciative of the support of the town of Amherst for supporting our budget I think because of our budget we're able to support our students needs in ways that not everybody has that flexible not every school district has that flexibility and because of that you know we get ranked highly recent now online ranking ranked our district as ninth overall in the state and first in western massachusetts and I can't separate that from the funding priority that the town places on at school so last thing to say is just my deep appreciation and to the taxpayers know we're very careful with with the funds that we come in and we put it directly as much as we can to student experiences where the needs are and we'll continue to do so. Terrific so I just want to thank you for being with us tonight but I also as a resident of the community want to thank you and the school committee for the stability that you have brought to town because things were a little bit rocky there and we were looking a little rough around the edges and that I would say was not the Amherst way so very very grateful for the skillful work that you and members of the school committee have done to restore a sense of calm and rationality to this most critical function in our town government. We spend the most money on our schools of anything from our taxes and it has an extraordinarily important and critical role in helping maintain and build a self-governing society and so I just want to thank you for your hard work and I want to thank you all for joining us tonight. Hope you learned a few things tonight. I certainly did and we'll look forward to seeing you at another show.


Everybody forced here ripping 2023 Star Wars chrome hobby top Star Wars chrome hobby a box Case number three random box style. I'll open the case first get the boxes How they should be and then we'll do the random and see who's got which one and then we'll rip them all good luck everybody Thank you for joining Let's see. So you've seen some oranges. We need to see red and super now Jerky lost today tie so flip this around so that all the boxes are front-facing Right side up. So there's one through four on the left There's five three eight on the right One through four five three eight Good luck on the random. Well, I guess I guess good luck on the on the break the random. It's all random box, so Four and four eight times on our names first one two three four five six seven and eight Brad oh down to Ryan s and the box numbers here one two three four five six seven eight three down to two Okay, got Brad. Oh three Zach s seven Makoto eight Drew B5 Francis D4 Paul B1 Tom B6 Ryan s2 Get those posts and also call it the box whose box is who's once you get to him Personal breaks and questions that's on here on midnight. Well, he's training so there'll be a lot of questions That's not that's not false It's pretty accurate Ironically, yes, there'll be lots of me explaining things that you guys have been like Who are you doing here you could fit all all the cases in this in a strategy, I think Make sense to me So my wall Okay, I'll drop the checklist and shout as well. I know people have been asking about it quite a bit So here it is pretty straightforward though hundred card base set autos insert some short prints Looking for nice colors like Super Fractor red orange So pretty straightforward numbering in this one Super Fractor to one red to five orange 25 gold to 50 green blue aqua Those are your number one so not a whole lot of numbered parallels, which is which is good. I think that's good Sometimes Box number one One Paul B. Let's go Paul Paul you in chat We got personals almanac tomorrow night with Kyle on drip. There should be going though the Stream I guess would we'll go live on drip at 10 a.m. Eastern Manga man is and by that I mean We will have it posted to where you can order the boxes then for the stream that starts at 5 p.m. Eastern So like when I mean the stream goes like live. It's gets posted It's not actually like that's when the stream begins if that makes any sense You can like bookmark it and buy spots for it though and buy whatever personal boxes But there's a hundred of them one forty nine ninety nine a spot lanes as a The ceiling is five to five fifty ish the floor is like fifty to sixty so pretty good stuff hundred of them made I Was numbering they packed him earlier. I was numbering them today. We've over Fractor. Oh should be pretty fun I only got to see a handful of cards though, but we've got a sketch That's one of one original sketch congrats Paul beautiful Obi-Wan Kenobi Rugged handsome Obi-Wan Smudge on the artist signature that's pretty darn sick. I don't know there were sketches in this But they are very rare as you can see they're not one per case like some other products Fantastic sketch Paul. Oh, yeah, we make every sketch Even if it's not like worth a ton of money. I just feel like they deserve they all deserve mags Yeah, no that is that is that is one that is viewed beautiful and What's the words some case? Taladurith And a gold of fin that's pretty nice too. What a box nine to fifty gold fin Fractor Ned B. Congrats Paul There are the auto coming as well, but I guess that theoretically could replace the auto But I doubt that it will down manga madness It should just be extra if they're gonna be that rare then they're probably just randomly inserted into like a pack Is that Borellios? I wonder if you can see more than one in the case if that's how it's gonna be Not likely obviously Possible maybe Barulars eight of ten on the auto black auto Barulars. What is going on? Very nice Black eight of ten. I didn't see that on the base parallels me. That's just an auto parallel I think it is just an auto parallel. Yeah, because the base that goes from orange to red Only auto parallel black to ten nice Barulars. I would be too Paul. It's the best box you open so far tonight Yeah, on solar refractor. I would hope if you don't like this one. You don't like the product Gail and Urso awkward a 199 Mads Mickelson, he has all those in this too Mads Mickelson does great actor I'm digging this product refractor Boba Fett Manga Madness Leia 3po Yeah, the stream will get posted at 10 a.m. On drip to goodbye spots then you will have to go to our drip to do it Blue refractor Chewie now a lot of color in this one to the 150 on the Chewie The nice card Emperor Palpatine refractor Definitely said that sketch this I gotta get a picture of that Yoda. Mm-hmm 3po and Darth Sidious Number two who does number two work for You tell him buddy Ryan s. Oh Drew oh Drew come on. Oh man tough look tough look Manga Madness Kyle a render factor Hello render factor First appearance is Luke Skywalker Bb8 refractor when he was all whining No Luke He's a farm boy. Oh, yeah How do you know exactly where he was going refractor mace Windu because It's a trivia question a board game.  Yeah, I did Salacious be crumb autograph refractor auto Dr. Crumb I Assume he's a doctor. He looks pretty intelligent. He's definitely a bd1. Yeah flippers bottom-all tie Trying to sell them on eBay Fractor Sabine Wren the golf. Yeah, the golf that should happen Donnie and I were but we're not part of it. Nope. I Took I took this week off. I don't play golf Fractors and our son or takes everyone. I'll just yet We shout the force Manga Madness, you're gonna have fun. You have to make time for me basically You can rearrange my schedule Donnie and change all that and we're good. I can't promise that Refractor Cobb Vanth Refractor Grogu any big Star Wars? Yeah, there was a pretty big Star War But the rebels won got a Lando Calrissian refractor Ekka. What was the score? I? Guess one to nothing because in a war there's just Mando The Empire today win anything Huff They choke just like the Bruins did number three Brad. Oh, yeah, we pulled a we pulled a all interest here So we pulled a Obi-Wan sketch just a moment ago. That's very really cool Hold a gold Andy Circus Auto. We saw a I feel some nice color like massive color yet But some pretty nice color so far All right Manga Madness Poe Dameron Again, this one's for Brad. Oh, this is box three Wrecker, so I didn't say it. He must hate me now He didn't say it Let's see 22 to go on the Sterling and Bowman mixer 22 to go A lot of possibilities in that so there's a lot of good teams in Bowman, of course That may not be great teams in Sterling so a lot of potential for a lot of teams Refractor Cad Bane, they should make a Cad Bane skin for fortnight. Oh, they should that's the one you would buy No, I think I'd probably farm boy Luke Think they had that one just When you buy like the Luke said I think it came with like Farm boy and then like the return of the Jedi one refractor Anakin like the black robes. What the hot? Oh, yeah, well, it wasn't much of a battle drew they get the Dagonbo with the other back Aqua Kanan Jarrus to $1.99 Fractor KTSO. Yeah, Drew. Does that count as a battle if they just shot the planet? I just blew it up. I mean It was a secret battle there Manga Madness Do you think the people on Alderaan were like, ah, yes, get ready for the battle Or sister refractor that's what it sounded like from their side Oh Finn monikers Princess Leia, Organa auto to 150 young Leia Princess Leia auto to 150 First time I've seen her sign blue refractor fennec shand as well Number to 150 and a refractor Darth Vader. Oh, come on Carl Come on, man. Oh, that's nice a manga madness parallel here green the 99. That's a cool one Yes, sir. Is that our first number in inquisitor? Manga. Yeah, it is actually We also haven't seen a number to I think we've seen all the other regular inserts numbered at least the groggy ones Definitely the most common. Yeah, for sure. Manga is probably right after that refractor Mandalorian. Oh good the monitor turned on sweet There goes back Manga madness off manga matters. I don't think you see that one yet Yeah, yeah, oh Princess Leia the general nickname the general insurance For a great low rate you can get online Fractal mega go to the general save some time happening. Yeah, that might be worse than anything Sam does No, I take it back immediately. Yeah, take it back. He's got a new one for Luke on the Anniversary card there Jar Jar refractor something all systems go or something. Oh my god. I was watching that last night that is He took literally three like two seconds of a song and turn it into a shtick. Yeah, I am a not very creative. I Don't even know how I didn't know how to react when I saw it at first last night. I like that Yeah, that's right you were here. Yeah pretty bad that one's brutal What ups in box number four Type insurance seems to be the Millennium Falcon has dude so many how many accents that things been in how many pieces of getting knocked off Rances D box for Solo like Han probably called around. They're like, oh, no He's gotta be uninsured. Yeah for sure.  There's an R2 moniker's green refractor to 99 Mon Mothma like I was nicknamed just spelled out in regular little manga madness the bouncy hunters Who's the guy with? With like the the wrap on his head. Oh, I forget his name, but if I heard it He's definitely the worst one. I know I know too. I've seen him on like his name before but yeah, I agree. He was in Clone Wars for a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, obviously boss IG 11 and then Oral Princess Leia, Organa refractor auto here. Nice Hawk. We just pulled one of those last case actually Yeah Fractor Obi-Wan Kenobi so to down green refractor fourth sister Number 299 refractor Bale, Organa factor Kira manga madness manga manga Jabba the huts His name is Jabba. That's not Nick. And it's literally his name No, his name is the huts, but oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Donnie. His name is the huts. Yeah So he is pizza Piece of the huts Seer Junda, yeah, I know sin. I know I know I know refractor bravura The kyber crystals is a TVA To be announced Darth Vader on the anniversary card there. Those are one of boxes or those are pretty cool looking Greeth cargo refractor. They should do um, I love to see a dual or chip a lot of those are gonna be tough pulls though Scoundrel is his nickname. Oh, jeez, dude Scoundrel I feel like they just got to get to know him I feel like for the kyber crystals. They should have Obi-Wan as number four But that makes sense Maybe they do Maybe they don't It's one seat to go on that mixer anyone else having audio issues It's our just our audio sound bad I'm seeing chat late Box five is going to be for Drew B. Good luck drew Maybe Drew can get a Baru Lars black auto. Yeah, if you do have any issues I'd probably just refresh if you're on YouTube, but if no one else have an issues that's probably just it Usually when OBS has the old disconnection routine the reconnection immediately sometimes it can happen. Yeah manga madness Princess Leia refractor. I feel like the manga madness Magic Oh a large refractor cross a refractor pick Farm boy Luke. Yeah, this is sound. Okay. There's a not sound. Okay after you refresh We refractor an ecu vozo Number to 150 and a refractor Hey, Boba Frick No, squeezy fracture Schmi Skywalker should have SSP where it's like Hugging Bob Amazing manga madness They should next season. They should do a whole bunch of Boba Frick and Grogu scenes factor gets you on this. That's just an insert. They should have a spin off a whole series That's your son Bobby I'd watch the whole thing if it was completely terrible or not It's walls and grommet clay animations. Oh, honestly, bro. Lars Fractor on it tonight Drew Drew you called this for yourself a few minutes ago if we pulled a black one green auto Baru Lars the 99 boss Nass refractor Quinlan boss See there's a Dryden boss Rogue you're there Janna refractor Madness 3PO Hey Aqua Jar Jar to 199 Yahoo, did you ever say that I feel like he says that It is Jar Jar he was saying just a lot of wild stuff all the time. Yeah 3PO Sebalba Nice other spot came in for that mixer Also, we got Stirling One to go on case number seven We're on a box six and box six is for Tom be Tom The golem game looks very bad. Yeah, it doesn't look great Who's who's making the game? I feel like with that property like It should be fairly at least like decent right now like I'm total bomb of a game. That's kind of weird though Yeah, Buster typically as long as it'll say in the break description what card ship I don't know of a basketball product where we don't ship all cards Yeah, so as long as it says everything ships in it then yeah Again, but I don't think there's a basketball product. We're not at work. Everything wouldn't ship Manga madness refractor Luke. No Jar Jar should have been Palpatine in episode nine where he makes no Aqua mace when you do 199 automatically makes the movie a thousand times.  I would probably enjoy the movie if that was the case Finn refractor Kylo Ren And if it ever if it doesn't say all card ship or it doesn't say anything about card shipping then everything's gonna ship in the product If it didn't say anything usually it says everything now though refractor captain phasma, baby If you want to send Disney email, just you know give my information But Fracture Saw Gerrera. I'm down. I'll be Jarder. I don't care. We won't release Donnie from his contract Manga madness half manga madness Fracture fifth brother the only reason people like Jarder is because of memes. That's it. Yeah, he's so insanely hated. You have to like Exactly like oh, it's so bad. It's good Chosen one monikers You're chosen one There's a time revora refractor auto Tam revora on the auto Cal Kessus refractor cow Seriously you guys cow I'll never get old Rector Canaan Jarris Especially now that You have Kyle that does breaks your cow Manga madness we need to hire someone named uh Butters now Should we just nickname somebody butters at the shop Oh, hey Can't even do a good butters accent or a good butters voice refractor r2d2 You just butters like that That pitch that you need that's hard the refractor mix mayfeld bill burr So I used to work with somebody that called the memes and I was like you mean meme like don't ever say me like Don't you say that?  I kept saying it Monikers groggy did everybody leave like actually yeah, you just go somewhere else Uh, we're on to number seven now. It's zack s so I think Uh sterling number seven sold out sterling number eight has four to go now that would be the next Break that would need to be filled four to go on sterling number eight It's gif. Why would anyone say a gif? Yeah, that's also I don't know It has to have its own thing It doesn't have to be a No, I know that but like But it's not all right. Oh my god, carl. Don't don't be like that. Don't do that Again, this is seven for zack s Hey Manga madness gif Anya numb Ray fractor I will say rippin topstrome. Let's get the dust going in here and then it makes my face itch Kylo Ren get time to get to the real world We've been long away from the real world Oh, that's so many that's so much easier to say drew. I haven't ever said it like that It's like 30 syllables rather than one got manga madness Healing or so the most produced card ever I mean the base is all kind of just it's a hundred card base that you're gonna see a lot of the cards a lot Yeah, you'll get close to a full base that with a box or like over halfway with it And again chosen one if you're someone that collects like the base out of stuff like the Not bad That's what we do jerick jagger refractor auto, you know, if you build a bomb he called the jagger bomb Berlu Berlu large refractor Did you know that donnie? Chewy refractor Yeah Manga madness the bounty hunter is there Chewbacca Slay just be crumb refractor That was that was tough green refractor dark ray Number 299 and refractor of Padme a Han anniversary card refractor snook And moniker's kid grogu box 8 This one's for Makoto All right, so sterling a lot of baseball a lot of top sterling some sterling and bowman mixers Got the double case later on so that'd be fun We've also got some basketball contenders basketball full case recon basketball half cases at our random team styles then we have a Prison basketball choice 10 box are also manga madness General lay organ refractor the general Qui-Gon aqua at a 199 Refractor count dooku. I will train the Where you say donnie? I will train the boy. It's gonna be that's me later on Uh starship a cup uh speeders Han Solo refractor young Han Solo Aaron Reich solo refractor jinn or so a lot of jins Qui-Gon jinn jinn or so Maybe that's the thing in the galaxy manga madness Where are we the judge refractor luthin rail Buckethead moniker's card talla dorith on the refractor auto talla dorith In a couple of months, I'm gonna be like Obi-Wan. I'm like, I am ready to take the trial Rector at black bar Freakles to the rescue Yoda refractor I'll turn on the Yoda too. Do or do not there is no try I don't believe it Ahsoka refractor that is the first Ahsoka parallel. I think we've hit today Base refractor or not? Do you have aqua? We definitely hit like a blue or something Her santa refractor well, it's the second one. We've hit then because there wasn't a base refractor No, I don't think it was a refractor crazy refractor do Yeah, I don't even know who that is chad Chewie game of thrones. I know what I know what game of thrones is but I don't know like who that is in the Show Why I don't know You're not watching nope manga madness Job of the hut. I guess never mind then have I watched that would know donnie I think Han Solo on the monitors I know again. I know a go t. Okay. I phrase her. I don't know who that is from Is it any of any John snow or That way the only character name I know That will do it. Thanks again everybody. We're on two k's number four


Imam Mahdi will not declare his arrival or make himself known publicly. This implies that he will be a man imbued with great spirituality and humanity. If he was looking to further a personal agenda based on gaining political power, he would make himself known to the whole world. This is a trade consistent with ordinary political leaders who need to feed their egos in order to satisfy their desire for leadership and conquest. However, the olia, friends of Allah, do not seek to follow their nafs or desire, but instead seek only the pleasure of Allah and work to establish his deen on the earth. His humility will also be a sign of his inner spirituality, which will be evidenced by his initial unwillingness to accept the Khilafah of the Ummah. The pious will be able to recognize Imam Mahdi. This is indicative of the fact that his leadership and acceptance of the Khilafah of the Ummah will be based on Taqwa, God consciousness and not on his own desire for nafs. In other words, he will win the hearts and minds of the Muslims and lead them under the banner of righteousness as opposed to his military might or political powers. Imam Mahdi will be seen performing Taqwa in Makkah during the period of Hajj. He will be completely unaware of the fact that the pious Muslims will search for him and insist that he accepts the Khilafah of the Ummah. However, Imam Mahdi will initially resist all attempts by the Salihin or pious to persuade him to become the leader of all the Muslims. He will eventually, with great reluctance, accept the Khilafah. His unwillingness will be a testament to his strength of character and his spiritual enlightenment. The unique aspect of Imam Mahdi will be that he will not be elected in a democratic process but will be chosen by Allah and, as a consequence, he will be identified only by devout positives. His inner light, that is to say, his deepest spiritual presence, will not be apparent to those who are corrupt, immoral and debased. Their hearts will have been blackened by the numerous sins that they have committed, that no goodness will enter it and, as a result, they will be oblivious to the emergence of Imam Mahdi. InshaAllah, he will see the moon behind the clouds.


Since we typical people cannot be as righteous as the Ahlulbayt peace be upon them How can we protect ourselves from satanic bates? Satan's always deceived human beings Hence if people underestimate and neglect this fact that they would not be able to preserve themselves The Ahlulbayt peace be upon them have shown us the path for instance Imam Ali peace be upon him said Avoiding making sins will help us protect ourselves against Satan Although having their capacity of avoiding sins is out of our league But we should do our best to reach higher levels Practice to be righteous and avoiding is a cumulative and the time-consuming process The first step in this process is to obey God's orders and to avoid what repels him The next step is to be determined to do so on a daily basis for instance Avoid lying or talking behind someone's back at all times


been drafted by the titans in particular. Oh, I couldn't be more happy once I got that call started crying right away. I thought I was going to be able to hold them back, but I couldn't do it. I was just extremely thankful. What were the emotions come from just all the hard work? Yeah, I saw the hard work and you know, just the Titans just believing in me, believing in me, you know, giving me the opportunity to go live on my dreams and playing the NFL. What do you know about their offense here, Kyle? I just know that I'm excited to be a part of it. You know, I'm excited to get up there, go to work, learn the playbook and get after it. Do you see yourself kind of in the, I guess, in the slot receiver mold and also as a punter turner? Are those kind of your strengths, do you think? Yeah, I definitely think those are my strengths and then just also, you know, my work ethic, how I work, you know, I'm just excited to go in there and do everything I can and turn a spot anywhere in the field, whether that's special teams on the cover teams or on the offense being the slot, you know, whatever it is, you know, I just want to help the team win some games. What separates a good punt returner from an ordinary one? I would say vision and trusting in his punter turn team, you know. You have the vision to see the lanes and trusting your guys that they're going to get the job done.  Yeah, I would say reliable.  If you need someone block, you know, I'll go block that guy if they want a third down. I can get that for them or a touchdown, you know, I'm sure a reliable guy that, you know, kind of puts the team first. And like I said earlier, willing to do whatever to help the team win.  So if that's something you pride yourself on and what does it take to be a reliable route runner? Yeah, absolutely. That's definitely something I pride myself on.  So that's what I've been working on, you know, ever since I was in about eighth grade. And it takes a lot of films that, you know, watching guys, how they run routes and just really learning from them and, you know, adding to your little toolkit, just releases, routes, stems, all that. What were some guys that you've sort of patterned yourself after maybe in the NFL? Yeah, so I say I'd have four main ones. I would say just cool Beesley and her Renfro, you know, just in the slot, how they run routes. I love how intentional they are with their stems, eyes, head movement, all that stuff. Next, Keenan Allen, at the top of his route, he's got a little skip step that he frees the DBs with. And I've been able to add that to my game and I love that a lot. And then lastly would be a Fonsi Adams with his release package. I really love his split release. So I've been able to add that to my game a little bit. Kyle, what do you know about the time at Manna Hill and how do you think the two of you are going to connect? He's a baller. I'm just excited to go with him, get to work, you know, get the connection down, you know, catch a lot of passes from him. You were pretty quick to sign there after Chip Kelly got the job. Was his offense particularly appealing to you? Yeah, so I was actually committed to UCLA at the time before Coach Kelly got the job and, you know, the staff that I was committed to got fired. Coach Kelly got the job and, you know, it was an easy decision for me. Coach Kelly's one of the greatest offensive and just called us football coaches of all time. And, you know, so it was an easy decision. I was excited to go there and learn from one of the greatest coaches of all time. And it was, you know, one of the best things for me. Where are you watching the draft from and what's kind of the weekend been like for you? Yeah, so I'm at home with my family and a couple of friends. So it's been really good.  But once I got that call, you know, this whole room lit up, you know, couldn't be, sorry about that. But couldn't be more excited to be Italian than, you know, friends and family are excited. It's just, it's been amazing. California guy, you ever been to Nashville? I have not, but it's my girlfriend's favorite place. And before this whole process, you know, was getting into it, she was telling me, please get drafted, please get drafted tight. And so I was like, look, you know, I have no control in this whole thing. So it's kind of funny how this whole thing's played out.  She's big in the country music. One of her friends lives there.  I know you play with some suddenness based on what we've seen. Was the 458 at the combine? Is that accurate or do you think you're fast in that straight line? No, I definitely think I'm faster. I wasn't very pleased with my time, but, you know, it is what it is. That's what it is.  And so that's what I'm going to show is that, you know, I'm faster in the games. And like I said, that's what's most important. So Kim, do you have anyone online? Yep, Kayla. Hey, Kyle, welcome to the Titans. You're Pac-12 guy. So you've probably seen a little bit of your new teammate, Elijah Molden. Just wondering what you thought of him and how exciting it's going to be to get in there with a guy from the Pac-12 as well. Yeah, I'm excited to get in there and compete against him. So one of my teammates, my roommate, actually knew him from high school ball and would always talk about him, you know, how good he is. So, you know, I'm excited, you know, get experience at first hand, you know, just be able to be on the same team as him.