Reader

people say things aren't forever there are two things that are are forever inflation and taxes well you know Will Rogers said the difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets he was right

and you know that sometimes causes a lot of confusion probably won't get into it right now but so just real quick though so the first half so from July through December that's called an estimated tax bill based on maybe what you paid last year or what your rate was the year before and then after we've certified the free cash and we've been able to set the new tax rate which happens in November or December with the select board meeting then the actual tax bills can come out in January and might be slightly different either higher or lower based on the tax rate that's been set and the potential value of the home right

[Music] hello and welcome to Around the Clock I'm your host yand Greaves today in studio we have Michael Herbert the town manager for the town of Ashley Michael welcome back to Around the Clock hey Yanda thanks for having me it's been a little bit since we've had you here at around the clock I know my feelings were getting a little hurt no don't please we know you're busy yes so it's we don't always want to take your time but today we've brought you here to start talking about the budget process right we're we're getting to be in the thick of it Town meetings coming up in May we're looking at what our departments are are needing to be able to do their jobs so we brought you in to really talk through what is the budget process for a town like Ashland but why don't you start with giving us a little bit of your Finance background that people may not be aware of right so Yolanda you know I was I'm Town manager now I just celebrated my ninth anniversary going in my 10th year and uh a lot of people you know who moved into town during that time they don't know that before that I was the finance director and uh I I always I kind of chuckle you know when you were interviewing me for Town manager you know you know I'm known now as kind of like this creative you know Vision type of guy but I was known as the the numbers guy back then and you were like well how are you going to transition from being you know the numbers guy to more the big picture guy so uh before I came here was the finance director I worked in the city of Newton I was the Performance Management director there and worked on the budget in then uh before that I was in the city of LOL and that's really where I learned Municipal Finance from a guy who uh who's a genius his name's Tom Moses um and he moved on from the city of L to become Town Administrator in Hudson so so that seems to be a path you do Finance for a few years you become an assistant Town manager and eventally a town manager somewhere and I mean for municipal government that's a path yeah and and this will lead me into an important point I want to make because originally when I got into municipal government or I was studying government I was studying to be a planner that's my undergrad um and that was really kind of the focus of my masters and then at some point I had no interest in the money piece and then I started realizing when I was doing my Master's thesis that you know what you need the money to actually do the things that you think about and want to do and so that's how I got interested into into Finance so you know Finance is boring it really is hey unless you're a special kind of person right but it's the most important aspect of a community of an organization definitely because you talk about Services you talk about doing infrastructure projects what underpins all of that is funding and the ability the financial ability to do anything that you want to do in a community is so important correct correct any operation you see has some kind of dollar attached to it definitely definitely yeah okay so that's your background let's start big picture sure right we're we're talking about the budget where does it all start and I know it's a fluid thing right it's not like we start and start and start you know it's it keeps going it's cyclical every year so where would a where would you know we're heading into fiscal year 26 when did you start having these discussions right so um so for fiscal year 26 which is actually starts it starts on July 1st of 2025 um that's fiscal year 26 for so for that budget uh which is coming up we actually started work in November and uh so basically that starts with you know basic uh Revenue estimates uh very very early Revenue estimates uh just some general thoughts and ideas about the budget um and that in turn goes out to the department heads and the school department and uh so they start developing their budgets at that point in time and from there they submit the budgets at least the non-school Departments what we call the municipal departments so that's like police fire DPW um so those they those departments usually submit their budgets by December or at some point in December right and uh from that point our finance director you know who is Britney I capony uh she starts assembling those and really that's when in January is when you really start crafting a a budget a full budget with Revenue estimates and expenditure estimates and so you basically follow that process which is laid out partially in the charter and partially through policy which has a heavy public input component as well you follow that process throughout the winter and spring until May which is when we have town meeting and town meeting is uh the actual um expenditure Authority for appropriated expenses y um in as how does the process end what's the the back half of it okay so it's important to note that even at town meeting what town meeting is voting on is still at that point an estimate of not only the revenues but the expenditures and another important point I should make is that they're only voting on The expenditures um they don't vote uh there's no vote on a revenue estimate okay so from that point um it's uh the uh Town accountant who's also our finance director because you they do two jobs they do two things y um so she starts working on closing out the the fiscal year that ends June 30th you know going into July 1st so that process takes a while because you know you're making sure that you're counting every invoice that gets in you know making sure you're trying to get every invoice in trying to you know get every encumbrance which is you know permission to spend into the next fisal year all of that taken care of um get that done and close out the books because at that point hopefully at that point we have a BAL balance at the end of the year meaning that our Revenue was more than our expenditures as we've gone throughout the year and so what happens at that point is that gets sent to the State Department of Revenue and they do something they call Certified they call certify it and if you have a balance it's called free cash um not really sure which is not free and it's not cash really it's not free it's not cash it's a number on a spreadsheet somewhere but uh it is real money um and can be appropriated once the state uh certifies it okay um and then uh you a town doesn't have to have a town meeting in the fall but we have traditionally done that and in some cases we um have adjusted expenditures uh for that fiscal year or made new expenditures um just like we did this past uh fall yep and um so at that point you basically have all of your expenditures everything in place your planned expenditure for that fiscal year um and then you send all of that to the state and they certify what they call your tax rate which is uh basically a multiplier uh that they use in calculating your tax bill and once that is certified we can send out the tax bills that are due in January okay now the tax bill you see in January is going to be different than the one that you see in September or October excuse me Britney don't kill me um or Cindy I should say um and you know that sometimes causes a lot of confusion probably won't get into it right now but so just real quick though so the first half so from July through December that's called an estimated tax bill based on maybe what you paid last year or what your rate was the year before and then after we've certified the free cash and we've been able to set the new tax rate which happens in November or December with the select board meeting then the actual tax bills can come out in January and they might be slightly different either higher or lower based on the tax rate that's been set and the potential value of the home right I mean those are some things to think about cor and the expenditures um so that that those are the controlling features of you know calculating your tax bill right and yes um so we do quarterly tax bills here um and like you said first two um well the first two in the fiscal year which is actually the ones in the latter half of the calendar year um our estimates and then yes you have what the actual bills are in the okay so that's sort of the budget and finance process as people are watching us have these discussions at select board meetings at Finance meetings at Schoolboard meetings there's different terminology that we hear we hear Chapter 70 we hear ugga uh circuit breaker cherry sheet excluded debt included debt um different things like that let's start with um the cherry sheet right because that's information coming from the state how does that impact us yeah so the cherry sheet is um actually what uh they call the the basic basically the instrument that tells you what your state aid is or the money that you're getting from the state it also has what the money that you have to give back to the state as well we can't forget that um and so it was actually back in the day printed on act red paper so um that's why they call it the cherry sheet and so that is part of the revenue component in the town budget and somewhat of the expense too right correct correct if it is correct on the expenditure side correct right and if you're watching you can actually go see what our cherry sheet is by going to to the State website and you know mass.gov and looking what our potential incoming funds from the state are going to be yeah and on that cherry sheet what are the some what are some of the funds or what are some of these things that we're going to see yeah I think your two biggest ones uh that you're going to see uh the first one's going to be chapter 78 um now chapter 78 is Aid that is given based on um a very complex formula uh that the state put together after the education Reform Act was passed in the '90s and uh so basically it get gives you money for your your schools and your school children um and you know I will have to say again that that formula there's always opportunities when you have 351 cities and towns and several school districts you know there's going to be some towns that do not make out that well um Ashland was enfor one of those in the initial formula initial formula um big kudos to our Senate President uh Karen spilka who you know a few years ago was able to change that and uh she worked very hard yeah yeah and uh so you know I think we're still a little bit behind but she made great great strides well and there's been a new there was a new law pass three or four years ago the child this I'm sorry the student Opportunity Act which also we've seen some increase in funding because of that formula as well correct correct that and then also you know there is a per student component of that and uh so as enrollment has increased you know we do get more money that way as well right okay so that's Chapter 70 we also hear about ugga or unrestricted government Aid right so what does that mean yeah and that's that's probably your other biggest category on your cherry sheet and um and so that is is a just given you know for General government services and um it's usually significantly smaller yes yeah okay so those are some of the revenue things so now you you've talked a little bit about the budget we as a select board we're getting ready to do what's called our tri board meeting so we're having discussions with select board finance committee school committee what do you foresee in those discussions part of it's what the school needs are and if if I if watching from the public I hear about a tri board meeting if I were to sit on one sit in on one what what can I expect um boy that's a loaded question Yolanda now what could you expect um well you know I think the the first part of the meeting we would talk about Revenue really and that's probably going to be the focus uh of the first part of the meeting and then we talk about the expenditures and when we do talk about Revenue on a local budget it's really broken down into four components so we talked about state aid yep that's one one big one the other big one of course is property taxes yep and a town like Ashland and you know some of these Suburban towns you're going to see property taxes make up a significantly larger portion of the revenue than a place like a city like a Gateway City or or you know Boston or Framingham even right and um so property taxes are are a little bit complex in Massachusetts because of a couple laws that have been in place for a while um and some of the rules in place but you know the first I you know I should say that every uh property is assessed a tax um called a property tax uh for businesses that have equipment and things that they utilize uh in the operation of their business they have something called personal property tax um and so that is assessed a value U by the Assessor the city or town that you live or work in and um so that uh you know basically that cannot equal that total assessed value for the community cannot total well excuse me now now I'm getting confused even me I've been doing this forever um so that's basically how you get your property value it's called equalized valuation total and so from there um you have your first limit on what your property taxes can be and that's called your property tax ceiling U which can never be more than 2.5% of the full eqv of the Town equalized valuation in town it can't be more than two and a half% or you can't raise it from year to year no it can't be more than two and a half percent I don't think a lot of people understand that well that is that is one component of prop that a lot of people do not understand right because most people think of the second component right which says the tax levy which is usually far far below that 2 and a half% ceing okay um the tax levy can't increase year-over-year more than two and a half percent okay and um it it can be done in two exceptions right so actually three uh but I'll take I'll say two um so the first one is called a debt exclusion yep and a debt exclusion is a a vote by the community to tax over and above that Levy limit um an amount equal to what it takes to pay down the debt associated with a large capital expenditure so in the past couple of years we had two large ones we did the public safety building and we did the Mendes rebuilding of that correct and about years ago we had four projects that we did so that is called that's the excluded debt correct okay and if I'm looking at my tax bill am I going to see those separated on my tax bill or not you will not see that separ so it's all just into one one bill it's all just into one um so on the budget so that amount though on excluded debt though so that's not folded into your regular Levy right so you'll see that as a separate number and that's because that goes away once that bond is paid off so if you have a 30-year Bond 30 years that goes yeah so for a lot of communities though like Ashlin right we had these projects that we did 20 years ago and we were looking at all that debt and said okay when it's done it's going to go away but then we had more Capital needs and we had to do more of that excluded debt to do some of those projects yeah and maybe you know maybe we need to rephrase that because you know at the end of 30 years that that the dollar amount associ the taxes that you pay Associated to that project from 30 years ago goes away right now you might have voted new projects along the way which uh you that would be reflected right right but you know it's not like at the end of 30 years it's not like the tolls on the Pike for those of you that know that were supposed to go away that were supposed to go away once the pike was paid for but instead they decided to move it towards the big dig sorry anyway well but I think that's important to note right because people have looked at excluded debt here in Ashland and said okay we have this debt that's going along and all and it's going to drop off so our tax are going to go down but as a as a community we made the decision to say okay well because we know this other debt is going to be dropping off we are as a community voting to add new debt so that as this drops off this new debt comes on right and I will say that um you know if you remember when we we were doing the public safety building in the Menda school we tried to time it and set it up and I tried to structure the bonds to where um or the debt to where it would uh you know as some was falling off that's when the bulk of the new was coming on it was all at the same time yeah you wouldn't try to get a huge Spike yeah so we've talked about the process we've talked about some of this terminology we've talked a little bit about uh you know the tri board meetings and those discussions if I've watched this where can I go on the website to say okay what did we spend in 2025 what are we expecting to spend in 2026 and how else can I follow up on this discussion yeah I think the best thing to do probably the um the the one web page that has the most comprehensive information would be uh Britney's page the accountant and finance director page okay so if you just go to the web page you look at departments accounting Finance um you know click on if you look at the menu on the left you're going to find uh access to the budgets um our financial policies the audits U that are done each year um and a number of other Financial related things and then uh I would suggest people start with the actual budget document for the fiscal year uh our finance team spends a significant amount of time putting together a budget document that is very comprehensive you know usually when we have the capital plan rolled into it it's 400 pages right you know now it's a light you know went on a diet it's like at 300 Pages now um but you know people I don't want them to think that they have to read 300 Pages because Britney does a really good job of doing like an executive summary kind of give you you know kind of the bird's eyee view of what's going on um but that has everything you're going to want to know about the town um work charts Staffing levels all that good stuff good good well Michael I don't want to take up too much of your time but I think this has been very helpful and to those of you watching check out the website go look at things and if you have questions reach out to Michael reach out to his team reach out to any of the select board members or Finance member finance committee members uh because we are here to work for you and take us through this budget process yeah don't be don't be shy I love talking about Finance I'm probably one of the few people that do so take advantage of it great well Michael thank you so much for coming on around the clock oh my pleasure uh that wraps up this interview with Michael Herbert the Ashland Town manager regarding finances and the budget process here in Ashland thanks for [Music] watching e e e

the meeting is now open and the live stream is on thank you that alarm tells me that it's 5:30 good evening as sua Community students staff parents welcome to the Board of Education meeting today which is February 25th 20125 I would like to call the meeting to order today at 5 30 moving on to item 1.2 roll call we have vice president Benavides here um board clerk Rodriguez P pres board member Greer here board member Ramos here and I myself I'm present as well moving on to item 1.3 approval of agenda can I please have a motion make a motion to approve of a first by board member Rodriguez paa can I please get a second second motion we have a second by board member Ramos discussion I see none colleagues please place your votes I don't okay let's go ahead and take a hand vote right now board member Greer yes member Benz yes board member Rodriguez paa yes board member Ramos yes and I myself yes it passes five zero the following are the guidelines for public comment the 2.1 item on the agenda if you wish to participate in public comment please make note of the following the board ofed the education encourages public input board members are not permitted to respond and a member staff will contact even information is needed now moving on to item 1.

like ratio down but I just at our St we get caps like numers extra teachers and others are and that's a principle and probp I can yeah let me throw let me Google research that supports it yeah it'll come up great whoever makes the presentation for the board has for three hours do you find research that supports yeah not for long because they're getting rid of all that funding but they're just deleting yeah exactly this didn't as it's not on the census website no you didn't see it that didn't happen I a lot more of those applications those two years you know as soon as the I think it's probably make replacement so and I think in the system stuff lot get all the you know coaches do all useful stuff that's a decision you don't right maybe you need a little more like maybe you need few more administrators you don't need 18 structional coaches I'll take two director but also that could be put more on us as I not maybe more onest but just give us us team more training all right well also I think like another good example of this is like I'm sorry why don't we have lesson plans math now has lesson plans that's good English has bad lesson plans most in science there's no lesson science maybe not no if you look at our curriculum if you look at our social space curriculum there's a unit guide with like five activities and an assessment those aren't lesson plans that doesn't show me a new teacher what a lesson should look like like English English and now math has scripted lesson plans which not I don't think everyone should be made scripted lesson if you're a first year teacher especially if you're a teacher or contract another country it would be very helpful to have good examples of like oh five minute bellw work vocab routine right fluency activity and then this but then planned out for like a year match to our pacing and it would only take someone like like if I like even if we're just going off the HH it would take the math stand all stuff maybe like a week of work to really put together like a year like routine of like they teaching lessons Monday through Friday whatever and it was another week of work I could even tailor it to like the days we have off so like it just doesn't get I freak too busy doing Turn talk so you do turn talk turn talk the kids can't turn to talk because they don't even know what the words mean so yeah I can give them a sentence frame and they can fill in the blank one the word it's actually not helping them learn anything because it's just like a Lear also like in that situation if you're not giving teachers train which which should be fair is more not keep in my slides I'll keep a turning talk thing so I can really someone Hey kid gu what we're doing a turning talk and it's like whatever but like I couldn't do that unless if you got someone who's a dumpster fire or site that's a dumpster they're not going to they even know what it's do they even know what collaborative discussion what do you need e e e okay everyone we do aind make turn on your mic when you're speaking turn them off rest not a little reminder here to make sure when you're speaking you turn the mics on and when you're not using the mics turn them off because it uses the battery and we want the battery to um last our entire session today okay so um we're going to actually move on it's the other slide um the the previous one yeah yes okay so um you're finished right jel oh okay oh that's right that's right okay so we'll have you share then yeah and I I'm not going to spend a lot of time going through uh this document because it's a long uh involved document but I did want to orient you to the information so that as you're looking at it uh you can kind of see what is on there uh so this is the stay interview we had um one of our conversations earlier about some of the things that came out of our meet and confer process last year was the um addition or the uh uh systemization of stay interviews as a mechanism to gather information of current employees classified and certified about their intent to stay uh in the district and what are some of the triggers that would maybe prompt them to leave the district uh so just to give you kind of that quick overview there 's a brief explanation of what a stay interview is um the interviews are conducted with highly valued employees that doesn't mean we don't value all employees but that means that a highly valued employee is someone who has been consistently part of the district uh that has you know affinity for being part of the Craton team and has been identified by their director or their principal as somebody that might be able to provide insight as to what it is that keeps them coming back from year to year so in looking at our results remember we do not interview all employees in this process uh the recommendation is for sites and departments to to interview 10% so uh when we look at the numbers we actually have pretty good results uh and we have a variety of levels of experience represented so certified classified and um distribution based on years of experience novice continuing established veteran and you can kind of see the totals so of the 119 people that were interviewed 60% were certified and 40% were classified these are the sites that returned information uh so we have represented across non site-based departments as well so you see Technologies there uh exceptional student services community this is a lot to look at on one screen so I'm going to let you digest it on on your own time uh but basically this is what I did was I took uh some of the reasons why that might be identified as categories broad categories and I presented those as uh quantitative measures so if they were present in their results the principles or the directors would indicate that on a Google form uh I know it's very hard to see because it's very tiny yes just real quick um before you show something like this can you just tell us where to find it because I'm looking in the shared folder I think a bunch of us are like scrolling and looking for just which document everything that I always put is in this document the the green folder or the green Google sheet that's in the resources okay if you look at today's notes it says meet and convert update my apologies meet and convert updates for 2425 resources okay got it and then you link so anytime we have any information that we're sharing I try to link it on that document so thank you for that Dorothy um so what I did was I took some of those broad thematic Concepts about why someone would return and Quantified those uh using the same I did uh reasons for leaving as well so we have two different measures we have a qualitative measure and a quantitative measure the quantitative measures are represented in the charts these were the things that people primarily would say would be a reason to stay or primarily would say would be a reason to leave that's what's represented in the charts I kind of scrolled past it but this is just a little bit of a summary of the factors overall districtwide not uh not broken down by site that's individual in those um charts then also did the same thing for insights about leaving and then summary of additional comments so in this process there's also something that we don't capture uh which is anything that the supervisor can do that that needs to be addressed that would be something that's critical for that person at that time right so if there is a specific need or specific concern as part of the stay interview process they ask for that feedback and then the charge for the director or the principle is to address that and get back to that person right so it tries to be actionable and tries to be responsive uh especially for those individuals that you know considering highly valued employees and if there's a something that happens that can be directly impacted immediately then that might tip the scale one way or the other and then just an overall summary of the the document so this is here for your review um we can pause for a moment if you want to take a look at a couple of things um I know we're going to be behind today but I want to give you an opportunity to have any questions answered um just had a qu question real quick so I appreciate that it's the 10% and that if that particular person has um something that is they would like their supervisor to address but if that thing ends up being something that is not just specific to that employee but could be impacting other the other 90% in that department is there any kind of thought about that supervisor not just Direct you know directly addressing it for that individual employee but also expanding that more for knowing that it might have impact for other employees that aren't part of the stay interview as well yeah there's nothing saying that it's isolated to the person that they're talking to Okay so if it's a individual issue like let's say I'm a an employee having the interview and I'm struggling to get to work because I have a daycare issue that's probably an example of something that's only relevant for that person but if there's the structure of the way duty is assigned for or morning duty is another part of that conversation then that could be something that's a bigger picture item so I think it's up to the principles and the leaders to determine you know what is the extent of this and they may do more exploring and say oh this person had this concern might that be an issue for others as well got it so they have that opportunity yes sir um you said that the goal was to interview 10% approximately 10% yeah is that did every site hit that approxim goal yeah yeah I just want to make sure that all of them have like a statistically significant amount of interview so I know uh most of the administrators interviewed the majority of their staff or quite a few quite a few of them did I know I quite a few did not everyone did yeah well quite a few of us did like I know I met with like 90% of my certified staff and about 50% of I classified right give you just a minute to look at this information and then I'll turn it over to Vanessa yeah yep once once you're ready to switch I'll switch it over all right any other questions or if you need more time we can field questions later on all right I'm going to turn the mic over to Vanessa so she can update us on budget and I'll get that switched over thank you so much I appreciate it perfect thank you okay so this should be becoming a very familiar item I will just real quickly talk about uh why this method is used so what it does is it takes into account uh the current budget and where we stand because we've already been allocated that budget we've already been expending in that budget green folder so it's a communication tool that I use with the governing board with groups like this with other um uh groups and it talks about from where we were what's going to happen in the future so that I can try to start putting together a proposed budget uh with projections and assumptions and gauging climate and trying to stay on the newest latest and greatest and so it's a moving Target uh I start as early as I can and so I started with this group very early and I talked about how um especially the yellow areas were were just highly volatile so since that conversation and as happens every single year um as I get closer and closer to the end of this fiscal year I start getting more data available to me to fill in some numbers so that uh things aren't quite as volatile so um looking at that top number that's where I take an adjustment in this year's current budget I have to adjust for that so I can see and plan head how we're going to end up at the end of this budget year so then I can see how much did how much is going to go that would be eligible in our budget calculations for next year and some of this talks about you know all of these factors in some way shape or form touch each other so yes this is a a portion of how we determine a budget balance carry forward and there's a lot of different weird layers of um School Finance so there's cash balances and there's fund balances and there's budget balances um so the part that we tend to focus on is the budget balance carry forward that's kind of what funds the fund balance Reserve that we've discussed okay so um that first number is an adjustment this is the one that I had guessed really close um to but I also had to factor in that um we had some student data uh we had some challenges getting that student data up prior to budget season I call it and so if you don't have everything really tight and your data really clean by October um you can be required to make a budget revision which we were this year once I captured those dollars back into our budget it made that change on that top number so I'm pretty confident on that number we'll keep checking that one as we keep getting closer and closer towards the end of this fiscal year the next number is our projected enrollment decrease so the last time you saw the screen I believe I had that at 188 we track a bunch of historical enrollment data enrollment and ADM are two different things so when you try to compare those two numbers they always look a little funky because you guys will say well we had 4,800 kids enrolled and your ADM only says 4600 kids or 4500 kids that's because those are two different measures of students enrollment is just a a day in time and this is how many kids were sitting in seats on this day ADM is average daily membership meaning that for the first 100 days of school they count how many days that particular kid got of the 100 days if they got a 100 days they're considered a 1 ADM if they get less than a 100 days then they're um FTE is a portioned so if they only attended 50 days and I think I gave this example before they're a 0.5 so in that same time period I could have a 1.0 kid a 0.5 kid a 0.5 kid I now have two ADM for money purposes that's a per pupil money so uh in the funding formula they take the ADM times a base level support amount that's called per pupil spending I'm educating three kids but I only got money for two so you can see how this stuff always becomes a really fun and interesting topic yes I'm trying to follow what your explaining but so for that first um column the FY 25 adjustment for 100 day ADM it's almost double on today's budget versus the one that you submitted sure highly volatile because of not having any data whatsoever and just plugging a number in based on one aspect of the four or five different data points that hit that number okay so when I'm asked to provide the number super early tell you guys these numbers I don't rely on them right but so what did you use to base the numbers on the F for the B first budget sheet you gave ADM only ADM projections only okay for last year for this year okay so we did it this time for this year's budget okay in the year before I had to try to guess how many kids were going to be here today so adms have gone up adms did not go oh yes adms went up uh like by four or5 and that was the number that I gave you and then we also had student data that was not included in our budget because we had to do a budget revision um and these are at board meetings in the explanations of why we need to do these budget revisions um so because our data was not there in October uh our budget had to be revised down lacking that data being in it to help with the calculation of money so our budget was revised on our last revision low because there was missing student data based on changes we had no control over so ad changed the way that they take preschool data because of that we couldn't get our preschool kids uploaded ad had some other changes in some other areas and our free and reduced lunch numbers were not being pulled into our calculation so of the variety of factors affect that number so then that happens is depending upon where you are in October with your student data that number will have to be re-budget in the budget and I'll have to go back out it's a mechanism of state law it's a requirement through the Arizona revised statutes and AD sends you a letter and says because your data even though I know my data I know that I have those kids they're in my calculation ad does AD doesn't have them in their calculation so they send me a letter they send it to the governing board and they say because you just have so much time on your hands go redo your budget and bring it way lower than what you know it's going to end up being at the end of the day because by this point in time you didn't have the data right then we pass 100 day and then we fix 100 day for the rest of of the year because at 100 day we may or may not have all of the data we only get paid for the first 100 days of school for students and then it goes into a calculation and that number that's why that number will change at different points in the year so what I had back then was just ADM I didn't have the impact of all the different studa data points that I didn't have any idea about until we passed 100 day in January and then I had to get to February for the January reports to come out and then for me to see things are or are not there or missing from what I expect 100th day to be and then I get to March and I go hey guys did we get that thing fixed because it's not in my March number and oh no ad changed their system we can't get our data up we're working with our vendor and this thing's happening and now you know I'm a little closer with that number by may I have to hope and pray that all of those numbers and data pieces and everything for the first hundred days of school we work on it for the whole rest of the year um um come out correct and then that way I get every penny of funding that uh we are entitled to through the budget process so that number can go up drastically and could go down drastically sometimes I know what's pushing it but when it's really early in the year I don't which is why I tell you guys how volatile these numbers are so that's why it went up was because of a couple extra um student data pieces and so when I did the budget revision with the board on it going up and down we talked about the the data there some of it and then um the other big piece is now this should stay pretty consistent that's why I un yellowed it I'm pretty confident in this number it'll change a little bit here and there but that one now isn't going to change drastically so thank you for that question and letting me get into that a little deeper yeah so to summarize our student numbers are going down long term but the numbers that were reported to the budget last year were undercounted and so we received a little bit more money from this year undercounted let me remember I mean yeah no I'm not assigning blame or just you know the numbers no it's the process that you try to guess so you your numbers can either be inflated in a budget process when you project because you just don't know how many kids are going to show up this year right so so I'm I'm the reason I'm asking is because we're projected to lose this many but we could end up in a situation next year same thing no one's fault where a bunch of kids just show up yeah oh and I'm actually going to talk about that in the next one and why I think that there's a likelihood of that happening in the next number so yes so let me tell you two things about that top number real quick and I'll move to the next one when you project a budget you have two big factors Weighing on you one is the tax rate is set with your projected and or your proposed in your adopted budget so it's really important to be fiscally responsible to taxpayers when you're trying to pull the number of students that are going to show up in the following year out of your magic crystal ball you want to have really good historical processes and mechanisms to try to project those numbers because you don't want the number to be too high because then your tax rate will get set too high on your taxpayers right and you don't want the number to be set too low because if we set that tax rate too low I won't get enough revenue and cash to fund my budget so there's like this really big pressure when you propose and adopt a budget to be I say go high I say go a little high not to the point where it's going to affect my taxpayers negatively but to make sure that I have the monies and dollars available to manage the budget for the whole next year I would much rather not come in short supporting our budget right so um so that's kind of what happens and the process is not a great process in school Finance this this isn't awesome um we do have current year funding it has it's pros and cons there's a lot we can do a whole budget class I could talk forever about that but anyway so yes that number goes up Goes Down based on projections that I'll be making now for next year and same thing will happen with that budget now going to the next one the reason why it's yellow is exactly what Daniel was just talking about so that number comes from so we track our historic enrollment over time and we look for Trends and we talked to a lot of people in the industry about what the climate's going to look like economically birth rates trends that we see in other areas uh what the esa vouchers are doing and how much that we think that's pulling kids out of our districts um Charter effect there's like a bazillion things that we think about when we're trying to say how it's going to happen to our kids next year right but one thing that we can really see is that we definitely have a progressive trend for um declining enrollment uh and so the first initial mechanism is to take that historic Trend and apply logic to it uh the way that I've seen done in this budget is an average of those um Mr Man had an average that was higher than I saw the trend as I came on board and then I started calcul like last five years so his last five years were a little higher decline I saw it slowing down so I decreased the number of how much I think we're going to decline next year so we're declining but the level of how much we're going to decline I had slowed down because our economy was showing that uh the growth in Phoenix is still happening but it slowed down uh birth rates were declining but the decline of how fast the birth rates were going down has slowed so I slowed our decline that's why we had 18 88 there and then the immigration stuff happened so now I needed to factor in something because we know we we are getting directly impacted by these these changes so how do I come up with a number to adjust that in declining enrollment and we talked about this at the last meeting so I did pull in some research studies from some of the um information that was gathered during s sp1070 that was passed in 2010 uh but one of the other things that I thought would be really interesting to look at is what happened in kraton during that time so fun story in 2010 kraton had the the next to the largest decline in enrollment at 400 uh no sorry 287 kids over that Year from the previous year the next highest in the course from 200 7 since 2007 the next highest decline is 230 kids in one year so 287 kids in that year the S SP 1070 came on board and everybody knew it was there so we declined our our decline increased the year before it was 100 something the year after sb1070 was put in place was our highest decline in enrollment ever it was 457 kids it doubled from our highest number so it was extremely impactful in this area in this District so I'm like well uh I'm hearing some districts planning for a 30% increase in their declining enrollment some districts are calculating anywhere from 8 to 15% I've heard a lot of measures out there I took our own data our own averages all the other stuff that I researched and then I applied what I think is logical for me in the budget process and that number increased from 188 to 250 I am projecting a bit High because do I is it going to go up a little is it going to double or are we not going to have any impact at all and that's what I want to show you the cool thing about it is yes I might go into the budget year with a little less dollars but at multiple points in the year I can increase the dollars back and put them back in our budget and have them available it's why we always talk about contingency so that's kind of where we're at now as I get closer to the time for me to project and um do a proposed and an adopted budget I will work on other factors such as like what are my peers in the area doing where are they seeing it um actual data from this year that I collect and say how am I how's how's it being affecting my number this year like how are we as a district already losing kids to this situation so there'll be a lot of factors that's where it is right now that number will change which is why it's yellow any questions about the enrollment decrease how we calculate it and where we're at right now the things that affect it sure keep going um what's the other thing on there okay uh that's a good one uh in statute this one's pretty quick um in the funding formula each year we get an inflationary increase to our dollars in our base support level base support level is the initial dollars that they give you for a student based on a quick calculation this year it was $513 per ADM there are way more things that happen in the budget after that uh but in setting those base level support amounts um it has an inflationary trigger so what happens in uh Arizona is you either get 2% if inflation's 19% in our state it doesn't matter you get 2% if infl is 50% doesn't matter you get 2% if inflation is 3% you get 2% but if inflation is low like it is right now because we're at one point I think I just looked Point 1.3 um you get the Lesser so so good times I'm anticipating we we're not going to get 2% that number will change as we get closer um through the year and I see more Trends in inflation but right now I I lowered that number I don't think we're going to get a 2% infl inflationary increase this year from the state so I'm looking at a 1.5 it's yellow I don't know for sure anything about that it's pretty standard do it that happens every year uh medical cost increase it it it rounded back down to about 4.73% it also includes those Dental choices that we haven't solidified so I don't really know but I have a budget towards it that budget um takes care of the district portion the staff portion and any increases to the um that come uh the district side is not increasing I don't believe for the dental so that part doesn't matter that's why I feel comfortable with that number and it's not yellow that's the budget everything I'm hearing is that everything's still within the budget and I have yet not I have not gone over budget um based on the choices you guys are making in in the committee or in here uh selecting those medical things can I ask a question real quick about that that's after we've already negotiated with them about the increase because every year they come to us with their projected increase and then there's a some level of negotiation process and that's already taken place correct yeah yes I mean I guess if you're saying negotiation is adjusting our choices sure yeah no I don't mean adj adjusting our choices they'll come in and they'll say uh we're projecting a 17% and then there'll be some HR involvement and then it'll actually come back 8% or 9% like there's always a oh it's not because of HR involment it's because of the same reason that I have trouble pinning down some of these numbers they have initial information that they're projecting and they think that we're going to have this level of claim and this level of uh Pharma and then as they get closer to the time frame of when they actually have to set the rate they wait to the last minute so they can give us the most accurate uh rate possible so when they start coming in and talking they're at 5.14% um a a month or two has has gone by we've had more information come in on our actual claims and how much of we're using of our policy and they're able to recalculate it they always work at recalculating for us and getting the lowest percentage which is why we're with them and why we're in this type of insurance and then they came back when it finally got time to sign the paperwork and and say they're at 4.73% I don't know if we've signed paperwork till it goes to the board they'll do another final calculation before we sign on to make sure that those rates are what they said they were going to be and um we're at 4.73% so negotiation Pieces come from what do we want to offer in our plans that's the part that goes back and forth with HR and bringing to this group and saying here's the dental and oh good Joel has info on well I was also just going to remark that sometimes I know you're thinking of those times when Rosie would go and she would go into a dark room and then come out and then we'd have different results um that was also before we were self-insured right and before we had that relationship with Valley Schools so that's why we're not seeing that big you know some some of the fact big one but even though we're self-insured we're still there's still some wiggle room because we still have an underwriter and we still have some right right my my son's an underwriter for siga so like right even he said like yeah we always project we always go in 10% higher than what we actually right and that's one of the benefits of being part of Valley Schools is do that process for their clients as the bigger group okay okay I'm sorry I didn't know that you had a different process prior to being in a self-insured pool I'm just so used to them always working really hard to give us the best rate so okay um that's the medical one I I mean I think that's close I don't think that's going to change uh inflation cost of goods I mean that one could change but I don't mess with it too much I'm at 1.56 I think I'm pretty spoton if something crazy happens I'll change that one but I didn't mark it yellow I felt more confident in it asrs definitely is just what it is that's another one that'll change but look at it $7,000 it's not big um Staffing adjustments this is some attrition I get some savings to attrition I don't necessarily always put this into the budget um but I wanted to this year because I was looking at mechanisms to just try to capture some stuff so typically this is uh in this goes into just Savings of monies we didn't use so I'm putting these savings more visual on the sheet to try to help us get to a bottom line number that gets us out of the zero area by attrition do you mean that when um higher paid employees retire and we're replacing them with lower some of that is savings no not vac well some vacancy savings some of that some of some of the reductions in cost to this year like the budget that I'm spending this year I will have attrition of positions that don't get filled I will have some you know some attrition I you know vacancy savings are tough because that's just a part of that budget balance carry forward number so you don't ever really want to get too into that because I have to budget there's no savings I have to budget as if the world was a Utopia and we got all our teaching positions filled and um else we wouldn't get the right tax rate to to fund the budget I'm sorry guys I'm I don't mean to get so technical I just don't know so please ask questions so I can help help uh try to explain there are a lot of aspects in here and a lot of moving Parts yes um I was going to say we appreciate I think I mean I appreciate the technical details I think we're all intelligent people and I think you know more detail is always good um does this include cuz we spent I think like a million fiveish on the ratio reduction last year does this and I know I mean I know it comes out of M even though it was one time it was one time money to M right it doesn't a show up in here because these are ongoing monies okay so yeah that's what I was going to ask is this is all ongoing money so there's no okay yeah nope this came out of that came out of onetime money so it wouldn't be showing here um budget balance care for that's when everything is said and done and we are completely done spending for the year which I won't know until end of encumbrance which is end of August uh that's when I know um kind of what that number is and then it goes to the state the state does recalculations on their end for different types of funding things or things that go through the legislature and so I mean that's yellow probably until I'm here next year at this point and then I can say oh yeah that number was this so um we don't get that information until way after uh budget adoption and proposal so we do again um managed historical processes to try to hit those numbers as close as we can through the budget process and then we adjust uh to what the actual numbers are next year through budget revisions so what we project the intent is never for it to be absolutely per perfect the intent is for it to be at a budget level to get us what we need in our buckets to ensure that we meet all the requirements for legally and all the different things we have to do uh we do try to get it as close as we can and uh last year we did two budget revisions or yeah two budget revisions uh this year we will be doing three budget revisions which is the norm I have been in districts that do more than that uh but just for the regular Norm you're typically looking at three budget or you know three budgets uh in the year just to make sure you get it as accurate as possible okay um so we met with the uh compensation and compression committee and we kind of really dug into the difficulties of determining compression and one of the first things is that the system of record is challenging to pull data out to even start the process to figure out who's in what group that could be compared to any other type of group um we are absolutely working on fixes and moving forward it is a it's a tough one it it it's tough It's a system problem it's a culture problem it's a data problem it's a having time to work on it problem um I pulled what four nurses I pulled four nurses it took me like I don't know 30 minutes just to pull enough data into even and it wasn't even all the data right that's just me and I'm pretty good at pulling data out of there anyways um so really cool uh information came out of that committee and they said you know we know this is going to take us a little time we're getting access to some tools we're back and forth on this one and they said in the meantime how about because we know it's going to be a multi-year process how about we kick that 200,000 that we had earmarked for compression back to the committee I mean back to meet and confer I'm sorry um and have them utilize it because those are ongoing monies that just didn't get spent but if I'm going to spend them next year I need to include them [Music] um and I think Dorothy did you want to talk about what happened in the committee like I feel like you're the best representation to what the intent of the committee was to put that back what do you think sure um I mean basically it came down to really digging deep into it and seeing how complex the situation is and I've been here a long time so I understand how it somewhat how it became so complex it was a multitude of different factors over the years that caused it to be very difficult to pinpoint how and where to address individual compression issues or um like employee group compression issues and so we really talked about while we're trying to dig in and kind of un tangle all of the various components that are causing the complex can we at least address the compression through something general like longevity which at least is going to acknowledge that people who have been here longer should be getting paid more money than a new hire in this a similar position it's not perfect it doesn't address the nuances of what we wanted to address with compression but it's just that the compression issue is so complex and complicated to solve that we felt like that more was needed to untangle or detangle and we really put in a recommendation to make sure that any decisions moving forward don't further complicate the system that it becomes more clear how we're moving forward with taking into account the issue of compression and minimizing the impact of it on existing um retained employees yeah so that's why that's there and then um as some of those numbers firmed up it started showing me a different picture and um couple of things you know on there new which is the sofg prioritized teacher support professional development there's some pieces coming out of curriculum uh it's been coming forward in the board meetings and while the I just I need to make a common about the budget the entire budget is sofg prioritized so these are dollars that are new dollars not existing dollars um that are intended to have a direct tie to the governing board's goals um it has gone through a process and um so that's where that is is happening can we get any information at all about what that Prof believe that's going to the governing board yes absolutely okay it'll be in the governing board ER Eric's not here yeah I'm used to the whole team being here I'm like okay Eric talk about it now so wait a minute a quick question Bas what she said so when about development training there's no M I thought you had one um when we were talking about um prioritizing teacher support and professional development SL trining um are we talking about sending admin to training are we talking about teachers going out to training when we talk about supports are we talking about adding more District level admin and managers like what does that 650 looks like so that is curriculum and teaching and learning so their program and their plan that will be articulated out into different venues has already started at board meetings that information would be with that group I just apply budget numbers to it through the sofg process I understand that but what I'm asking like so if we all go and watch the five and a half hour meeting from this weekend it's going to kind of give us some ideas or what yeah I think some of that came out and there you know there's some um so first off as you get more into the into the process there have to be measures right and that's something that's being asked of this group so as we make decisions those decisions have to be tied back to these goals with inputs and outputs outputs are those interm measures that say this Choice was made this was an input we decided that this heard coaching model right I get that part and then they had to measure it through measurable outputs that said because we did this coaching model we saw these improvements in these areas that they feel like support teachers I know that a lot of this revolves around the coaching model and providing more coaching model support to the to the sites so we're going I cannot answer detailed questions about it though Ariel I I can speak to what I think your concern is and also I think it's useful for the group to acknowledge um going back to the context of our uh the last year the year before we approved that big $10,000 stipend right out of our eser money and I think part of the motivation was that is that when we looked through the expenditures of the Esser money we found a lot of things that I think people maybe not universally but like we spent a lot of money on some guys to come and play guitar and sing songs and that was not well received and so to some extent there was a belief like we blew a lot of this money the Dead coming up it's better to go to staff than to see it wasted and I think to Sophia and Jay earlier like I think there will be an urge when you see money spent on professional development training to want to dig in like micromanagers like the wrong word to want to dig in and be like okay what is this money being spent on what's the company what's the curriculum what's the subject because I think there is a little bit of a lack of trust there based on spending from previous years however I think going back to our conversation before there needs to be some level of trust because it will not always it should not always be the case as a school district that the money is better in my pocket going to Vegas than spent on professional development right like that's just the reality is that there should be some level of spending on professional development training support that is better than just going directly to staff because we're School District I agree with that I I'm asking who's going for because like for example are paying for district level admin and whatnot people to go to some training in Las Vegas dat data wise I maybe yeah they going I can tell you anything that they go to has to connect to sofg and we are asked really hard questions about why we're going where but what I'm asking is the 650,000 because it says teachers support professional development SL trining who's going to the training are we talking okay we're going to send teachers to training or we're going to have people come out here to train teachers or is this money being spent to send District admin at the district level position and then you know we already have a budget for district Admin Professional development so is this gonna be like teachers teachers getting the training like this is in this category and I just put a lot of things together for Budget brain not for curriculum brain the majority of these dollars I would say 625 thousand of it is probably going towards coaching models and direct teacher support so mean are we going to hire more coaches again I know we coaches I cannot talk about the details of it because that's another department it's teaching and learning and they are sharing information out through the sofg process I had to put dollars to what they've been talking about that's been discussed with the board and I think that we can get um detailed questions that kind of question back to you we can definitely tell you add that to the list of things to hear about about next time it's like what exactly I don't know if it's a hear next time it's a I think it's he about in the next board meeting so in the next board meeting we're going to hear what exactly we're spending six or I'm not thinking like oh Eric and Joel is gonna take the money and R run off no but there's also a big piece of that which to me is not very big some portion of it is for sofg training too sending staff like yourself to the sofg model so that you can be a part of this whole process so that you understand that the board is not going to allow us to spend any dollars that don't have a direct impact on the outcomes of students in a way that we are showing in how we're being held accountable I'm not sure how to say it but like we have to before we do that stuff we have to have measurements we have to say here's a a model of success here was the data that we used to show that there was success and that it did something and then we're going to recreate that success or we're going to add these new measures to it the whole process of it is all about data data data and tracking and interm measures and then saying before the board will allow any of this we have to really show those connections I just think like if we can tell teachers before they sign their contract okay we have these SG prior priorities and we are going to provide teachers support professional development and training this is how it's going to look like this is how we are all going to work together to achieve these goals so that's what I'm asking like absolutely and that's coming yeah absolutely we could have Eric come in and give a little that would be fantastic because they're the ones I had to I had to put it in the budget so that we could have numbers to get you guys moving forward with conversations in the meet confer realm and so that's why it's there be like like these are the type of supports we're going to provide for this upcoming school you can use this recruitment in retention I agree I think it's fantastic I mean what little I know of it as a money person just because I'm just not Savvy enough in the depth of curriculum that's not my expertise Dorothy I think it's a great idea I love Ariel your idea of making sure that you're able to share with teachers because that's one of our charges right to work on Recruitment and Retention giving more clarity to that information I can also give an example I think of like prioriti prioritize teacher support we heard them talk about having those more formative assessments and I believe one of the intentions with some of this money is to have you know summer work being done by teachers for teachers in creating those create informative assessments which is then a support for the teacher so that they don't have to create them themselves within those plc's so I think that's a a fair example of one of those expenses yeah I mean there's convers there's no one person standing over here going oh I think I'm going to spend $600,000 on something these are conversations and data pools and a lot of process by the time it gets here yeah no not Dr um no said lady the lady the other lady that puts on Dr No P Martha um no Dr P Dr Pomo Dr pombo is the director of curriculum could we have her come in and give us a breakdown of what things will look like next yearing Dr dupin to do that he's the assistant superintendent teaching okay he may choose to break okay but we'll talk about yeah I just think that would be more kind of like geared towards your answer where are these where is this money going toate like request and it also show is it a yeah I don't think anyone's saying we're not going to give you information and we're not hiding anything I'm just telling you there's other forums too that that's coming out and meet and confer I I mean I don't know what level you know that and I think that you share all the information especially with meet and confer because as you said you can go out and Advocate hey these things are coming down the pipe I'm just saying I had to put a number in but for those people were here I didn't think to have them here that's on me I take responsibility that I have a number on there that people would have a lot of questions about I just know that the information is coming out yes I I just want to extend on the on the processes and for clarity or for trust just like you said there's board meetings their committee work uh there are other venues and fors in which people can find out details of the expenses and nothing it's expended without having the proper approval POS in place it it's so hard to and also I want to add to the it's not hard there just proc yes and it also I want to add to the other process as a director who oversees Grant um different grants I have to repurpose um training money because people for many many reasons are not able to be compensated to take a training for multiple reasons uh there's also toing money that needs to be reallocated specifically for Mento students because I haven't found teachers who have the stamina or all the commitments again but there's different opportunities to make extra money and the reality is some people are available to take um um use of those opportunities and some of people are not are completely exhausted and checked out and so I just want to bring that also to the story that we're not going to if we're going to go into pennies and how we're going expended let's also talk about people not having or not having the time willingness to take these opportunities hey James hey um I just have a facilitator question um I'm I'm all for information but should we be concerned about um time in terms like if because we got a lot of things to get through right well especially since there's dollars on the table to talk about and weren't any so there's time that I think you might not have thought you needed to spend on but right so just a suggestion I mean if we're concerned about time maybe not a whole presentation but maybe just a you know a document or if we can get the if we can get the information elsewhere are you I'm just saying like it it because I know presentations sometimes turn into discussions and in the interest of maximizing our time if it doesn't have to be that then let's not so you're you're um talking about next week instead of maybe having a speaker we just get the information presented to us on like a PowerPoint or something something that's given to the team and I I would also remind us that our scope of work if this is instructional in nature if the concern is instructional nature is not within the scope of work of the meet and confer process oh and I'm not saying that um I also want thr I'm not saying Penny pitching to where any Penny's going but if we're saying like oh we're going to prioritize teacher support professional development training if you have teachers who are on the fence about not coming back if they kind of knew what some of those supports would look like next year it might give a lot of the people who are really stressed out and like I'm not coming back here ever again maybe kind of giving them like okay so things are changing in the district things are happening from these sfg models them being like tell me each penny where is going I don't really care I'm just like what does the teacher support looks like and I know this oh sorry I think if if we were to have a speaker um you know our questions I don't really think like Joel just said there probably wouldn't be a discussion because we don't have any input into instruction curriculum so he would just be providing us information so we can't question what they decided to do with that money and I definitely know that there's an interest to provide information to as many people as possible because everyone understanding what's happening is critical and as you said you know spreading that information to others this is coming directly from superintendent guard ra number three so that's kind of part of it but it also touches I believe um the plan is touching all four goals so it'll be interesting to get that data because you'll get to see those connections all right I I do want to um do time real quick so on the so that's that one I jumped to that one the 15% fund balance Reserve we've we've discussed that one a bunch of times I think that one's fine it hasn't changed it's not going to the meet and confer budget so uh dollars um 724 386 those are dollars um I just wanted to put some number to it so you have the 200,000 for that what had been already determined to go to compression has come back into the group to decide what what to do um you have the 724 386 which is a mechanism of these budget numbers I I can't just keep changing that number so I hit a number and then I call it good and then we move on that's the number um if we get a tremendous amount of more money than that in some fashion that's why we talk about make sure there's some contingency language because if the fund balance Reserve is at 28% that means dollars would be back you know what I'm saying and I won't know what the fund balance Reserve is until we pass some measures so I think on the next one I'm G to I'm going to bring in some dates that tell you when I get the final information on if I hit the 15% or not um so there'll be some dates that that happens in the future after probably we've proposed and adopted the budget so contingency language for next year into if it's above the 20% the board has you know we've had some discussions about it um you know we talk about that maybe in here in contingency I'm just I I don't know what exactly you guys would want that to look like I've have I have examples of ways it looks like in other places but that's where that contingency comes into play is that next year I will have actual data that says that we're at that or we're way above it and if we're way above it what does that do are we above it a 1% then do a onetime 1% payment to staff I mean there's ways we can handle it different things we can do we can talk about it later the other big thing is the 724 386 I wanted to cost it out at this point in time that would cost a 26 to1 ongoing instead of a one-time teacher ratio um or it's uh equates to 2.21 1% salary increases across the board at all levels not pulling that you know differentiation of any any sort um we obviously can do that I put the 1% in the um the shared docs so I know uh Daniel likes to take those one% and do some stuff for you guys um or any other mean confer recommendation so those are the dollars 900$ 24,38 anything that costs money has to come out of that bucket and I have strict directions that it can't be a million dollar what it is is what it is it's 200,000 and the 724 is 900,000 so I just would just want to put that out there can you clarify it can't be a million dollars it is $924,900 number is that what you mean and because these are the numbers that we've put out and yes that's it I'm I'm too flexible in all the other numbers I can't be flexible I just can't I am taking the hit if inflation doesn't come in at 1.56 right I am taking the hit in all those other numbers I have to have solid numbers and I have to know what's in my budget with that being the case I talked about it last year and I've spoken with the board and I've spoken with exec team it's $924,000 386 for all of the things that cost money in this group wait can you sorry because I was doing things on a spreadsheet and I just dumped these numbers and summed them up and I got like a million 11 is that my numbers which numbers are you looking at like I just took the the the fall 25 adjustment the fall 26 adjustment the 1.5 base support like I literally just added all I just summed up all of these numbers yeah there's 880,000 buffer at the bottom okay right so the 880,000 buffer is because we want is because I don't know the yellows right okay I understand and so so this would be the number for for these conversations is a 200 and 700 any dollars above and beyond that that that vet out because those yellows get solid and that number of 80,000 goes way higher yeah so I would rather round up if we're going to round and I'll take it it's in the 80 if you guys want me to take the 80 to zero I'm happy to take the 80 to zero I'll do it okay so that's I mean you guys are saying that and you're smiling about it but I gotta tell you the people who understand how this is working I don't know that you want me to do that that 80,000 might fund something else in federal that we're going to lose you guys know we're losing 25 to 30% of our federal funding so sorry to clarify it's in there I get it it's your job to get every penny the labels are sorry so just the additional continuing funds that we are getting that we have like in general not that we necessarily can spend but additional continuing funds are um we are subtracting a a little bit of those from the 80,000 or we're subtracting the 80,000 from those so we can meet that 15% number is that correct it's probably in the budget balance carry forward estimate that number will change if you see that's where it is right now at 793 622 if you'll notice most of my numbers I try to round them when I can so that one's where the 880,000 is coming from is the budget balance carry forward okay I understand so if we spend more than what I think we're going to spend it'll go into that budget balance and that'll reduce it'll scoop up everything but what I commit to is the 200 and the s so the and the only ongoing cost we approved last year that that wasn't a salary like obviously you wouldn't take salary from people it would be compression which is why you includeed in here so our money that we can access safely assuming nothing crazy whatever we also maintaining our 15% fund balance Reserve is 924 386 yes and we could round it out of the 80,000 though if if you guys want me to round we need 500 bucks we can take it out of the 80,000 but if we need you know $100,000 we're not that's not okay I understand it's not happening cool and that 80 is a magic number it's not a real number it's because I don't know the yellow yellow yellow but I feel confident enough in the other numbers that the 924 th000 or if we round it to 925 because I hate the numbers too um i' I think I'd rather do that I was just trying to do really solid where the number came from before we talked about it in here but it that's that what feel confident based on the information that I have assessing the risk levels that I'm aware of the federal decreases the immun um immigration impacts the extra this and the extra that the bond sale 500 million other things I'm thinking about I feel confident that I will be doing no harm to the district's future fiscal Health by giving seven 25 and 200 out of this planned budget with the knowledge that these numbers will change and with the hope that the committee will put in some language that'll help us adjust if these numbers go so much better than I anticipate because they could or they could go worse so we have some capacity built in with our fund balance Reserve to deal with some of these impacts and emergencies that we anticipate may or may not happen and that's what that's there for to get it it's not there to fix it forever it's there to fix it in the emergency time and then have a plan to try to figure out what bad things happening to us and give us some breathing room and that's what the fund balance Reserve does so by maintaining that and then going through the budget process it came up with those dollars and then there's like 880,000 of number because I don't know the yellows yeah so again that's why I said I'm I mean I get it and I I I appreciate your passion like I think I'm like I'm so with you too and then I appreciate the team coming in and saying oh we can take that 880,000 yay uh and then I'm I'm in the middle because I'm like I want to be here well no no I really want to be over here so that's why I said I'm willing to round up the 724 to 725 I'm not going to fight hard over the 80 I just think it's not a good precedent I think it doesn't show respect to the budget process it's not a 1% if it was at least a 1% I would have rolled it back up it's less than 1% of a salary increase and I kind of use that as my measure when I'm looking at numbers and so since I had those 1% available I threw them in there and I threw as much of it as I I I had a different criteria so I'll tell you I don't usually have 2.21% salary increase I heard through all of the uh conversations that you guys were talking about was that the um teacher student ratio is important to us and we want some mechanism with ongoing monies not onetime monies so because of that that's why that number ended up being that because I started with that as the PRI like 26 to1 how much does that cost 27.5 to1 is not affordable can't work it in the budget but can we ongoing do the 26 to one I felt comfortable that we could sorry I raised my hand excuse me excuse me thank you um sorry I guess I have two questions one can we get that final number I know you kept saying 920 whatever but it's not on this page it's 200,000 and 724 it's those two numbers together those are what you guys see where the ones that say meet and confer M and C that's the two numbers right there okay we can go up to 92 725 yeah it just for simp I know you guys like that and then and I do know that you guys Target small wins so if something was $10,000 are we going to we've got 80 there I mean it is important and I appreciate you prioritizing the ratio because that is definitely the sentiment of many of us in this group so thank you for that um yeah having one number I think just together just for clarity is helpful because I heard you say that number but I didn't yeah thank you thank you for clarifying it is hard I'm in my mind I've looked at these numbers so many times I'm like like what do you mean you don't know it's $900 is related going back to Dorothy sharing about the recommended compression I get that it's complicated it's never not going to be complicated so I just have a lot of rub with pushing it back I get that that allows us more money but the issue is still compression and that's still on our list so now we're just like flip-flopping and that feels weird so I don't know that does address compression the compression committee wanted to see a win and was was trying to see how quick they could affect people actually in their pockets with compression right and so then I think the thought process was but then we're all walking on eggshells I have to just I'll just throw it in there they said longevity so that's the intent of it not to get scooped up into the other dollars the intent from the committee's recommendation was how can we affect compression right now and I think they felt like the priority of putting those dollars in the pockets of the people who have stayed with us who continue to stay with us our senior staff and putting it into longevity seemed the biggest effect that uh the committee felt would be positive in this climate I think it would be disingenuous if that money didn't go towards longevity I get that that it's just hard to come into the committee and go okay committee you have to do longevity it would be awkward to go back to the committee and say well yeah but instead it went to you know reducing class size or you know the a raise for everybody like sure the the committee did recommend that it go toward longevity which isn't asparate but that it can be still generally address compression I guess the reason that I'm confused or why I feel this like rub is that last mean confer we were like there are like uh study sessions that can be created around this or there are like more information that we can gather like it seemed like there were fresh ideas different things that could be looked into and now it's like well it's all longevity well if that was the case why didn't we just prioritize that last year anyway why are we creating a committee to just bump these dollars that we already allocated to oh that wasn't that wasn't the intent the committee just recognized that they're going to have to be doing some significant work and and they weren't going to have it done by the time this committee was going to make the meet confer was going to make decisions on dollars okay and so they're like we can hold on to the money and apply it we may or may not apply those dollars this year sure okay you know so that was it if we take it back we take it there's no right or wrong in this um I would say the intent was not to combine it but it also is not our intent to walk in here and tell me and confer what to do right so that's where I'm kind of in the I I give it a 200,000 I'm gonna put it on a separate line so you guys know it wasn't supposed to be for that I guess I thought there was more behind that 200k than just let's put it into longevity and now I'm understanding that it is there's so much more that we will be able to do do with it yeah Kelly neighbor neighbor got skipped was that from a different stack Eve um I just wanted to contribute to uh I know the compression um conversation is uh historically longer than just longevity and that's probably something that we want to explore but given where we are right now I think um longevity is a is a good way to address compression when we are at bare minimum right now and I also think that it um is Equitable for classified and certified sometimes I think our classified staff doesn't get represented as well in meet and confer and so when it's longevity it's like a flat rate and so that I feel like levels the playing field a little bit and as we know transportation is and Facilities facilities is one of the two of the places that um the compression is the worst right now right where like the people that have been there longer are getting paid less than the new hires so like longevity helps to boost that um I have a one small comment and a couple of questions about the the longevity and the compression I think that's the frustration on I don't want to speak for Kelly but I think we wanted something more targeted for places like Transportation where we could actually just like fix the issue instead of just applying it to because like respectfully like you know if you increase the longevity I get that money I don't have a compression issue you know what I mean and so that's money that go is going going to go to me that could be going to someone in transportation and that's why I think there's some frustration about well we waited a year and it just you know didn't get done and I understand there's actual like constraints as to why that's happening but well it didn't not get done it's that the process of getting it done showed us how deeply it's yeah am mesed there's a lot going on um yeah we did a lot of work we've done quite a bit of work I have some questions um does the compression so I know we're talking about continuing dollars the 200,000 from last year that was allocated for compression like or or rather this current year that we're in right now um is that money was not spent so is that wrapped into this or yeah okay so because so then that is repres where is that represented in your budget no but yeah but that would that would be for next year right or would be that would be represented in the final numbers in the yellows right okay so it wouldn't get double counted because I've pulled it out over here so I get what you're trying to say yeah that's where it would be represented is is it's backed out of those yellow number so it doesn't get counted twice okay so we would be spending like if we choose to spend that $200,000 on it or whatever would that be from this current Year's $200,000 that we allocated or next year's it's from both it's ongoing dollars okay it's ongoing dollars so it's not like well we could approve we could approve a onetime longevity increase well I guess right right and it would be on it would be an ongoing cost you right never mind it's ongoing just like salaries last year when you did salaries that's that's ongoing we're not taking unless you guys in here decide we need some extra budget dollars you say we're going to take money away okay you know so yeah so once it's there it's there it's all ongoing which is why I pulled it out separate so okay and the 200 that wasn't spent is just in the carry forward well it won't be that's why I pulled it out on the line by itself I'll make adjustments once I have those final numbers in the carry forwards understand so it doesn't get counted twice okay um basically do you unrelated to compression do you have a 1% calculator because I can take mine from last year and just add the raises but I I put a 1% of actuals in there that I backed out the um is it on the green I I see I see 1% figures for planning but I don't see a link we'll put that in there and yeah you can make your calculator is fine I think we had um multiple calculators I would just ask that we have one calculator I didn't make one and yours and mine was the same no yeah I no I I was just saying because I was I'm not gonna make you I'm not gonna be like go make me a spreadsheet that's why so I I could use my old one yeah just use the old calculator and then the 1% new numbers will be in the in the doc like in that same place thank you Joel I appreciate you and then we've talked about it a couple times on I see that the last update was that they should have met on the 19th do we have those NextGen compensation numbers that's what we did with the com compression committee we went through the nextg data and determined what could and couldn't be pulled out a nextg and Dorothy did you want to speak to that we we bumped into immediate problems when we started trying to pull groups because our naming conventions that were changed through several processes uh do not align in NextGen at all um we did go back and get some historical data um for what the titles used to be um we actually have been able to give um members on the committee which I think I had to work with you because when I went and looked at and test it didn't look like it members on the committee have will if they don't have access to the nextg module um so that we can get our job titles updated so like it it doesn't align um and we did find out that when they came and showed us the the thing they have a new uh teacher how cool was that I think that's really interesting it was helpful to hear directly from one of the I don't know creators or people in charge of NextGen and just all the they are working really hard to try to acknowledge and deal with some of the problematic areas like the job titles and how to mesh those together um it was also a little frustrating at times because there's not a lot that we can get from it other than those very teacher superintendent bus driver you know the ones that everybody Global every district is going to call the same thing where it gets really dicey is a lot of the administrative assistant and PA classif the classified titles are just a such a jumble of how different districts call them that it's I don't know how meaningful the comparisons would end up being I mean they're good for the global and just keep in mind this nextg product is not a um necessarily the the salary comparison tool it's an addition that they saw a need out there um we don't I don't use this for that I use um it has a very robust budgeting um uh indirect cost calculator it used to take me two weeks to calculate indirect cost now I can plug it in the system have very accurate and historically accurate data so I use it as a budget tool this was an add-on that was added to the system in the um compression committee what we realized was that we needed to pull out the groups that the meet confer um uh identified and we're looking at those groups like real people real data and then using the nextg tool to look at those um positions in other districts uh because the nextg tool is all about psychologist facilities were is a little trickier facilities got hard but some of the other ones were easier so yeah we're using multi- levels to do that I I think long question to say no we don't have it in here right now um we first had to figure out what can we get and how do we have to do it um so I think we came up with a really good plan we're going to have all of the groups that were identif if IED and here uh at the next committee meeting um it is a unfortunately um complex pool from our system because our system is kind of flawed in some ways the way that it manages data um so yeah so everything that we unturned there's 50 problems as to why can't I just get this answer I is it possible for us to just get like like the ones that are Universal teacher principal bus driver things like that because that even that would be helpful because like we're talking about raises like our certified raises that's like mostly teachers yeah and like you know I'm here representing teachers but like I If we're 10% overpaid compared to every surrounding District that means probably can go better places than raises right but if we're 10% underpaid then that might I think it makes sense to at least bring all the global consistent ones and then figure out how we can I mean longterm we need to it won't help with compression things and try to conform more to the of the other districts last year you guys saw the meaningful about which districts we compare to as well there's like I don't remember how many was it like hundreds of districts oh yeah hundreds of districts but we would just pick our normal five six seven eight the other thing to know is out of that system it's comparing um placement data and so when it said oh here's with 10 years experience most of the districts use a step schedule and so then they equate steps to years of experience and they go out and look at a schedule and they go 10 means 10 years of experience I can tell you that is not the case um years of experience don't equate to steps in most districts when we got frozen for a million years yeah so it's just the it's a mechanism to move people this way or to move people this way um or to move this this way uh it's just a mechanism so we don't have a step schedule we we have a placement schedule it kind of looks like a step schedule um so just take keep that in mind I think our best bet is to do base level entry um but the other problem we bumped into is that other places don't include some of the add-on pieces so we have to keep in mind some of those too like Market demands and things like that it it's I we're trying we we will try to give you some stuff I just it can't be this is perfect data and it's the end all be all yeah say can we make a hard commitment to at least having like the teacher data for next next time I think so don't you think so Dorthy looking at it I think I would think like big ones are like teacher principal like bus driver is a great one yeah yeah let's do that it was and I understand there's a lot of caveats but like I said before we're all intelligent people I think people understand the constraints and things that go into the and I would feel more comfortable giving you those than all the ones we gave last year because then we found out oh wait when we do half the ones especially certified I mean not certified classified it was crazy Carolyn Caroline how are you doing by the way okay good it's a big topic okay we're going to move on thanks so much yes I want to make sure I captured the data request so we're looking at nextg data for groups at align uh with the focus on certified and what particular groups I heard teachers I heard bus drivers that's a good question um which are those global ones I mean it was yeah sure but if there if there are specific groups I think we I want to capture that here so when I remember the list from last year I would say the the smaller certified positions that are more likely to be um in congruous are like less of a priority and the bigger priorities teacher bus driver psychologist principal assistant principal Maybe depending on as long as that's congruous he probably yeah like yeah I would like to I would like to see those numbers but the problem is is that another school might call someone a custodian that is not like comparable to what we call a custodian [Music] manager District realizing it's cheaper to just contract them out so what happens is thats doesn't show up on next so it isn't if we have the same name that most other people have if we call them custodians in our system y we could compare it's we'll we'll go through and look at the ones we think are the most accurate so to answer your question Joel as quickly as possible yeah I got you okay are you a to put the PowerPoint up okay here Carolyn was a member of IBN a couple years ago so she is familiar with the process so we're fortunate about that um okay my I on why am I okay what time is do we want to vote on the he curve plan really quickly the dental did you have enough time to think it through yeah I read it all okay so we're going to make a recommendation to um stay well stay with level one two Delta Dental as opposed to going to the extra what was it two levels right okay one and three so the recommendation is to stay with Delta Dental level two so thumbs up cross okay so our recommendation is to stay with uh level two okay just a real quick real quick review of what an option is um and just remember an option really is the solution it answers the how and we are going to meet in our two groups again we have four um to finish four issues to finish um and when you're in your group just remember that how we come about with our Solutions is by brainstorming within our team coming up with as many items as you possibly can come up um try to get all members of your group to speak and actually I do have a little prop for all of us to use today and I thought of an when I purchased these I have Talking Sticks and they sparkle and so some had mentioned I they're pretty so some of them someone mentioned in our evaluation that um maybe if we used a Talking Stick I think it was in last weeks and I thought that's really a a great suggestion so how these work is um your your um Taskmaster we're going to put in charge of this so the Taskmaster will pass this talking stick around so that everyone in the group gets an opportunity to talk and we would like to make sure it gets passed around so we'll we'll be using these um when we meet with our group okay any questions about how to develop options okay let's go ahead and we will have our jobs um again and I have cards that um will pass out in the group so we'll have our timekeeper and we will display the clock like we did the last time or the timer I guess I should say we'll have our Taskmaster our nor Monitor and recorder and presenter so try to mix it up if you've been a presenter maybe several times and you happen to pick out that card maybe give someone else an opportunity to be a presenter we kind of like would like to mix it up a little bit okay so um our issues to day to finish in we just might be able to finish in before lunch we'll see how it goes um is salary advancement for education level special education workload um relevant open positions or leave of absence um internal advancement promotion employee group compensation so uh we'll assign groups um reviews stories interest and framing statements when you're in your group you'll the charts are right over there the four charts are together over there so you will grab one of those charts you will review the stories and the um entrance interest and the framing statements once that's complete that's when you'll start brainstorming options um analyze those options to determine your final option or options uh write them on the chart and then you'll share out to the group we're going to use the exact same process as we used last time okay um we're just going to take it easy today and just count off by uh we're gonna have two groups and we'll just count off one two one two starting here two two two okay ones will meet over here twos will meet over here your team can decide which chart you would like to take and um I think we'll try for 20 minutes so Adrian when the groups are all set don't start the timer until we have all the jobs assigned e e e okay our time is up so raise your hand if you're the speaker or the presenter okay over here who's your speak speaker or presenter who is it Ariel yes okay I was gonna say aren't we supposed to switch that up or you like to do it she yes she likes to speak so that's good okay so can do the talking James doesn't count he doesn't even know who de D tasi is so before we start um first of all we need to have it quiet please okay um as you are sharing um please let us know the story as a reminder refresher and um the interests and then share your options and remember all of us are going to think is the option okay are we happy with it okay let's start over here Ariel oh just like to say this will be my last time being a presenter I passed the card on to Daniel okay um yeah so we'll miss you Ariel um so District education I'm sorry special education workload District special education employees are often asked to take on additional legal work without compensation to fill in compliancy gaps due to leave of absence vacancy and noncertified employeee in a position um and so some of our options we came up with is case managers who cover case oh sorry case managers who cover case management for vacancies or nons sped certified teachers will be compensated for the additional case management three hours per IEP I'm using the extra Duty rate what currently right now is $35 but it could change oh and that's currently in practice we're just putting it down on paper um and then our next one was school psychologist market demand amount added to base instead of being a market demand and they are in a separate group when it come to any raises questions concerns I see looks U oh the second one school psychologist market demand amount will be added to the base instead of being a separate market demand stipid yeah and um they will be in a separate group when it comes to any raises instead of ctif yeah they won't be certified classified or admin there would be a separate group with just them ctif oh yeah it will offset the certified raises what you mean when we do raises usually we do a raise for certified admin and classified we just we we had some discussion amongst the group about like well that would make their rise significantly higher if they're adding adding that market demand to it so in order to offset that they would have their own category and then presumably a lower percentage compared to certified who doesn't have a market demand stip in and we talked about how yes it would be great to move all employees who receive a d market demand such as sort of uh OT PT all the other ones into their base but we have to start somewhere and so we felt like psychologists were sort of the biggest bang for your buck type group um and based on how many contracted employees we know that there's not very many coming back next year um so this would solve those problems hopefully and now what we can advertise this really big number and be like look how much you make in a creating District okay comments about that and yes we can add to it if you want us to we can add more love to know the numbers of where we are comparative because I know people who have applied have gotten substantially like 15 to 20 grand more so like that would be a great starting point um I'd like to have more information of what that looks like in terms of how we're compared because I'm a little cautious about having it totally makes sense having the separate table because I think it'll be forgotten and again we know how much we're spending on contractors for syes and how like we can't get people over over here um so right and I don't know I adding it to the salary is great but I don't think it's going to give us that big bang because we're so low compared to other districts now like I just don't want a false hope but a great place to start for sure yeah and well I was going to say the nextg data would help with that and then also we did talk about potential cost impact of that recommendation and just some like very quick math that I did on my napkin um says that the cost of hiring contractors is more expensive than the cost of the 21% uh that this would add to their base salary and so if we hired if we hired even one psychologist that would cover for you know three psychologists market demand going into their base and so on and so forth so um oh and then about the um yeah having them in a separate categories because like if the average teacher is making like 60 and a psych is making closer to 90 then that like if they both get a 1% raise syes are getting a fortunately much higher dollar value than teachers and it's like weird to lump them together and just just to remind us that the next gen data is going to be based on last year's salary information so it's not going to be taking into account increases the 5% increase from this year so just kind of keep it that in mind as we're looking at those numbers okay any other comments sorry and did you want to add a suggestion that you shared yesterday we can add that I forgot to put it on go ahead um all of the contract psychologists that we have coming in have written in their contracts that they have one work from home day a week and they are not extending that to District level psychologists and that is unfortunately rewarding the contract psychologists more and encouraging people to leave a district and so I would request that we allow one to two work from Days home a week because psychologists in terms of case management have a lot to do in terms of overseeing paperwork and making sure that we're being compliant and we know that there's folks that are leaving the district to go work for a contracted company purposely because they know that they have yeah and just to add we have neighboring districts like Scottdale that has a whole thing about one day work from home for syes there is uh Madison there are requirements in terms of compliance and all of that so there are we did write a proposal that we submitted to um our director on that as well to try and recruit people um so it's definitely something I think could be really helpful can we do two separate option one option can be one day per week and the other one can be one to two days per week because one day I think okay good good good good good one day per week thank you I just help understanding how reducing the amount of people available for kids in a week is in the best benefit part of the story part of the story is that psychologists often get pulled when they're on their campuses to cover Duty to grab a kid that's running to do other everybody does that in every position asist when there vacancies or when there's emergencies or with there's abmm right but I really I need help from this group to help me understand how um a person working from home doing only clerical it's going to benefit and going to help us with sfg goals um I have to say it's because of sped so school psychologist is responsible for all of the evaluations and they have to do a whole there's a lot of paperwork that goes into a m a Met meeting one and a Met meeting two and they're responsible for all of the compliance paperwork that's on the federal level it's not a e it's not like they're going to be going home just sitting there the paperwork takes hours and days it depending on the kid it can take weeks to complete one men evaluation all the paperwork this is not a strictly clerical thing this is a compliance directly attached to Federal funding this is something that we need to do in order to make sure that we are meeting timelines and obligations and as we indicated this is something that is inequitable right now because we are losing District psychologists to contractors or other districts surrounding districts who are offering this as a way to make sure that we are meeting compliance timelines and again up for negotiations and debate when we come to a vote this is just getting information on the paper right now and I I want to add to like directly to Avon's question about how this is in the best interest of kids as a teacher I have seen some pretty bad sped paperwork I've seen a lot of Co not the and and I think a lot of that comes down to people being rushed to complete the bare minimum of federal compliance rather than actually trying to do what is best for students because there's a certain number of like minutes in the day there's timelines that have to be met and like I just know that if those IEPs were written with more time more space to be given for things I'm I'm I'm aware I'm just speaking to sped in general I I I an evaluation is a lot more difficult than I you know I imagine just coming up with some classroom accommodations and so if I'm seeing for example the wrong kid's name coming up in an IEP right I'm not just I'm not going to assume that that teacher that wrote that is just like a bad teacher or someone is bad at their job I'm going to assume that for because of time constraints because of the like responsibilities that are assigned to them they were rushed into doing something same thing with an evaluation no one want it's not good for our sped students to have like a rushed evaluation because psychologist got pulled to go do lunch duty right and so they cut their thing short and they had to come back to it and they're like I just need to be done with this today versus having some structured time to complete all that like the paperwork isn't just to make some person at ad happy right the paperwork is a reflection of the practices being put in place that help our sped students and our sped Department like you know our district has a whole um committee I think or task force set up around collecting feedback about our SP Department because it's been an issue ongoing for years where families have given a lot of feedback where they feel like their sped students are not you know being given the services that they deserve so I think that that's no not not really I I understand the difficulty and the importance of in compliance but there are other positions that had also uh clerical work that assist with compliance and federal grants educational SEC and and and and they don't have four days a week or three days a week they do it before and after and during every day and they're still available as needed for their team at each one of the schools so um I'm sorry I just I just want more clarity because I don't see how having less time at campus will impact in better result for kids let me make a suggestion because we're not um these are just options right now we're not doing a formal recommendation so um I would say whomever really wants that think about how it really can align to our um guard rails so you're ready for that conversation when it comes up okay um James you wanted to say something yeah I just had a question um if if correct me if I'm wrong the the first option is if there's uh something that the case manager has above and beyond their case load that they're to be compensated am I understanding that correctly not above and beyond if there's if they've they're getting additional duties because there's a vacancy or because there's a non-certified teacher who cannot legally write the IEPs so that kind of case not because they go over some magic cap or anything because there is no magic cap but it's if they're actually taking on the responsibilities of a vacant position or a position that's filled by a non-certified teacher somebody has to write those IEPs so they would be the ones and then they get compensated that's happening right now yeah we do that now right it's current practice correct that's not true it is current practice for anybody if somebody's doing that and not getting paid for it they need to talk to D Gretchen because right it they it's happening but it's a practi not in the PA that's the point yeah so that's sorry that that that's my question so what you're saying is this is an option that is current practice but maybe unevenly implemented I think in paper or in policy I think so that if somebody felt like they weren't getting it they could say hey it says I should be getting paid for this yeah because I I thought it was current practice it is current practice it was vetted through the Triad Pro procedure last year and we had input from exceptional student services uh to develop the mechanism to gather that extra pay documentation and what those criteria were so all of that is in practice currently and it's in our practice manuals so don't it it no it's not that we don't have the budget we we won't have well we don't have to no we don't have to add as a budget item because it's already in practice that's a pretty easy one then yeah okay any other questions okay I'd like to finish this one before we go to lunch so our speaker neighbor yeah our topic was salary advancement for education level um our story was lack of license s psychologists um no interns as a result because I guess you need a license site to oversee an intern um people don't always and people don't always feel compensated for their education um interests were how do we compensate psychologists for achieving uh their licensing and how can we competitively compensate employees for their education level um couple options we came with up with with if funds are available to lower uh classified staff educational advancement criteria from 15 to 10 hours so I guess they get advancement quicker and our second one if but it's if funds available provide comparable stien for for licensed school pyes it was also noted that um it shouldn't affect I think our budget because the district gets reimbursed uh through Medicaid for sites license sites what do you mean by comparable what do what does that mean comparable so would we need to determine like do the research to find out what that is and put in a dollar amount I would think yeah yeah if I mean if that were to move forward as a recommendation I think we'd have to have a dollar amount yeah okay comments can we get curve so just for the people sitting at home watching can we you first mentioned oh licensed psychologist my first reaction was y'all ain't licensed what are y'all doing here maybe do some clarification what licens mean so we are all certified School psychologists to work in the schools however it is required ired by the state that a licensed school psychologist that means a psychologist who is typically they have to have a doctoral degree um they also have to go through additional testing to obtain that lure and then they can do private practice not all of school psychologists who are certified School psychologists can do private practice the difficulty that we're seeing is that we're not able to recruit interns because we don't currently have a licensed school psychologist on staff which is heavily impacting our ability to recruit new psychologists um from ASU and surrounding universities yeah um go into more detail about the billing to Medicaid So currently hopefully Medicaid stays around if it does um a licensed psychologist can bill for every evaluation so if they consult and provide consultation to any of us for say autism sign the report they could bill for every autism so it actually could actually pay for the typen and actually bring in more money and Vanessa apparently has something very exciting to say because she's running up um we can bill if they are not paid from a federal or grant funding source you can't build somebody get paid out title or something so if they're paid out of idea we can't can't we can't build medic but if they're paid out of M yes if they're paid out of a ml or local funding question then are all speech and language therapists paid out of M I could look I don't know that would be great because they bill because they bill everyone well if they're billing then they're paid out the right funding source because we're audited extensively we cannot sub we have to submit reports that show where they're being paid from so whoever we're billing for is out of a funding source that's billable I just want to make sure that we all understand there's there's there's some people that we don't bill for because they're paid for out of idea or some other grant funding source so I wouldn't say all of of anything but the ones that are appropriately funded we can bill for if that makes sense it's a balance so clari question so um she um lordis said that if um a licensed psychologist if they um what do you word do you use Bill Medicaid not Bill Med but if they you they consult with a psychologist but that psychologist they consulted with is paid out of IDE a grant can they still bill it's only the only the licensed psychologist would be billing so if as long as they're not paid out of okay they would be able to Bill that was my question and considering we have zero now I think we're okay so I have a clarification on option one are you looking at reducing just the 15 to 10 or all the other four categories because there are four different professional growth credit levels in the in this di so we were looking to reduce all of them we'll add in the number but we didn't have all of the other numbers the way it reads it's just saying the first one yeah so if we can get the additional numbers we'll reduce them 30 45 and 60 okay any more comments um I have a question what do you mean by lower so just what do you mean so for classify staff lower the criteria so you mean so when we say 15 hours tell about 15 college hours is just 15 okay so instead of getting 15 credit hours they would just need to get 10 credit hours to qualify for the advancement the first level of advancement okay that makes sense okay okay so thank you very much um I thought that went well after lunch we will complete the next two and uh then we're going to work with our wording thinking about our discussion we had this morning uh we're going to revisit our options and if we have time then we will go through all of our options to determine which ones we're going to need Finance for and which ones we do not so two more Yep so it's 12:20 so one how about 105 okay enjoy your lunch everyone e e e yeah let's go for it I'm up for that slide yep okay that group is out by the picnic table aren't they but Ivon can you tell yep oh he's yeah and Amy you're leing right we'll miss you let me know how everything goes Amy welcome everyone I hope you all enjoyed your lunch okay in the back there we're going to line up make a straight hor horzontal line starting from shortest over here to tallest we're gonna do it again did we shortest to tallest okay we're gonna do it again we have some we have Carolyn here now so it's gonna change a little bit I was going to do boys and girls but there's way more girls okay we'll do years of service zero one year to 3 five all together yeah all together it doesn't have to just be in this District Ariel where where do you belong Ariel okay Daniel I guess you're the newest person since you used your college degree for Education okay Daniel how many four I just don't like to Countess well 14 14 16 25 oh my gosh wow okay soel Joel how many years do you have oh it's catching up to you ladies how many I had I had 30 oh my I even know six how many years have you guys been in you ladies been in the eight Lisa Don how many Don how many of you had been in that six Finance or education alt together yeah wow we got some r is almost ready here okay everyone okay from an over that's from an over is one team you can come over here and over here this team and select one of your charts and we're going to go through the same exact process six one two three four close enough e e e um Adrian we're gonna we're actually finished early we're High achievers uh Kelly needs your cards if you were in her group okay are those all collected theyed perfect well who has the norm card it really okay I'll make a new one okay um great work as always um we're going to share now and we'll have our presenter over here sharing um the topic the issue and the option well actually you better share it all the story yeah um so the story to summarize is that some of our current employees are not seeking uh promotions or advancements because uh the the pay would not end up being an increase because of maybe contract days or something like that so our option is um for internal promotions that when a transfer to a new higher position you would receive a percentage over your current rate the the just this just the option when um transferring to a new or higher position you would receive a percentage over your current rate what yes and the the reason for that is um because sometimes if you're a 10-month employee and then you become a 12-month employee even though the base salary might be more if you look at your daily rate you're working more days and so then you're not actually getting a raise or promotion it ends up becoming a decrease yeah any other questions questions comments okay thank you can let's move on over here and it's uh Daniel um our issue was Employee group compensation so specifically it was addressing compression as well as some specific subgroups of unemployeed who are underpaid compared to surrounding districts um when it came to the subgroups of employees who are underpaid to surrounding districts we don't have any data that we can work off of currently so like things uh groups that were brought up are uh LPN syes edx bus drivers facilities we asked for the data because like we had the whole prior conversation we don't have it in front of us and so we couldn't make we couldn't create any options targeting those groups because not only are we short on money but also we don't know how much it would cost and so we didn't feel comfortable making that um but for compression like we already talked about um the compression committee uh was unable this year to come up with a solution to address um I guess you'd call like job roll compression where a manager is not paid a significant amount over their employees but we can address years of service compression where someone who's been in the district a long time is getting paid only a marginal amount more than someone who's brand new coming in and through longevity um we don't have like hard longevity numbers in front of us Vanessa said she's working on that so our option was to address compression the longevity stipend will be increased at years 5 10 and 15 by x amount um we know that that can be up to $200,000 because that's the amount we allocated and was separated out this year from our budget and that can be continuing funds and so um and we addressed Tiers 5 10 and 15 because those are the years that people would be experiencing compression not we have a three-year longevity tier but it doesn't no one at three years would really be feeling like I get only get paid a little bit more than someone with one year of experience like yeah it's pretty comparable compared to someone with five years to a brand new employee that's a pretty big jump okay comments questions okay good let's move on okay so like I said earlier today first thing um I know there was conversation at our last meeting um and the evaluation about how do we word our options and that's why I asked the question I asked today of the board president and um probably some of the things I wrote maybe we need to ignore but maybe not because every option we look at might be a little bit differently but here's what I learned from my study so when we word our options the they should be clear so the person understands them and I think that doesn't change they should be clear and they should be specific and there should be actionable language in other words there should be an action verb in there I think we can do those three very easily okay um concrete details and a connection to your interests which that's what we did here um so we know that they're going to to our interest because we did that activity um it's best to avoid vague terms like should or might and instead State opinions that are concrete actions that can be implemented always ensure your options are directly tied which we just did to your framing statements and think about this when you're looking at your the options because we are going to do an activity which requires us to go back and look at our op options and in your group I'd like you also to think about is it achievable is it truly achievable when you say that when you say that do you want us to think about achievable Cur based on the current financial status for next year specifically or achievable with that if then language should more money come in I I think both because we are going to do the if then so um I would think both Daniel a comment about if then language we can't have I would say I mean I probably even more than one thing but we can't have too many things competing for if then language because um then if there's money who decides what if then goes you know and so just be aware that not everything can have if then language okay yes James idea to prioritize well but James like for example if we do if then language for salaries up like with a minimum of 1% what if there's enough like money to give everyone 5% worth of like salary increases like that would we do a 1% raise and a bunch of other things or would we do 5% of salary so if you have too much if then language it's going to compete so you could prioritize but you it would require it to be very detailed so like you could say if there's enough money a 1% raise and this and this and this and this before a 2% raise right but it needs to the more if then language there is the harder it is to prioritize yeah I'm notu just see if there's a way to avoid that we kind of prioritized in the past with them and we'll probably use that same process that we've done in the past so thank you for the question okay so here's just more information on the wording of options key points to remember when you're with your group wording your options be make sure the options are specific meaning they're detailed an example would be instead of saying improve communication you would say Implement weekly team meetings to discuss targeted student engagement strategies so that's pretty detailed I mean you read that and there's not too many questions that come to mind um try to make sure you have an actionable verb in there um an example the company should consider becomes the company will Implement and I think we do a pretty good job with that actually um support with evidence which basically means data explain why you're making the options by referencing data or observations from your analysis we're not really going to do a lot of that we might with our research um and we're going to need to do that with our research for sure okay these bottom two I'm rethinking now after the conversation had this morning I still think we might be able to maybe add dates when needed um I think we're going to have to be careful with that after our morning conversation and actually the last one you know provide person group responsible um kind of left thinking we might want to look at that too with how we're wording it up to all of you because you are the team but that's before we had the conversation today I think um we should try to PRI and this is my opinion we should try to prioritize timelines for things that don't make sense to implement unless they're done by a certain time and like like for example if we have something that is only effect like I think we included some language about providing teachers structured time to meet with uh sped teachers in the first two weeks of the school year that is only something that really makes sense because it's part of that year first year back process um and if we are like oh well they can't get this done by the beginning of next school year then you have to say okay is it okay for it to be done the following next school year and if the answer is no I guess we just got to make priorities right like how badly do we need does something need to get done versus oh it would be nice if we did that acknowledging like the like the capacity limits that the district has I think that makes sense does it make sense to all of you so when you're group when you're in a group can you Summit a little bit smaller so when you're in your group and you're saying should we add a specific think of this time timelines are not bad but they should be it should be important if you are adding a timeline yeah a rationale yes yeah thank you okay here's an example and like I said I put a date and I put a person in it so um you'll have to bear with me so to improve student attendance that's the evidence because you would have have evidence to look at which is data the school that's the group responsible will conduct there's my action verb um quarterly surveys that's specific and it has a date to track attendance rate by school um to track attendance rate by school grade in classroom evidence and Implement targeted solutions to address student attendance so it's pretty specific active voice within the next quarter so there's a date so do I expect you to do this for all of our options no but it's something I want you to think about and like I said I did I did kind of research it and it made sense to me um so at least we have I know some of you wanted a little bit more Direction into the wording of our options so really the purpose of this is just to give you something to think about and like I said you don't have to use every single one of those suggestions but if you can Implement them where you think they should be implemented that would be great questions okay so our activity for today it's going to be a long activity it's probably going to take us 40 minutes and then we're going to take our break um we're going to have three teams um each team is going to have a captain okay and the responsibility of the captain is they have to wear the captain hat so if you get called on and you're not willing to wear the cap you can't be a captain so this is the captain hat so our Captain's going to Weare hat and then our captain is going to randomly going to pick this the the captains are going to be selected first they're going to come up here and then they're going to randomly select crew members from my little packet of names and then the team cap Captain is assign is going to assign the job responsibilities for the group and the team captain has to collect those cards at the end so Captain if you're selected when I pick the names and you don't think you can follow through on those responsibilities just say select someone else so anyway so we'll first select our team captains and then once the captains are selected we're going to divide the options and I don't know how many we're up to now 28 maybe I don't know we're going to divide all our options into three groups so every group is is going to have a certain amount of options probably eight or nine options your job in the group is just to read over the options individually if you think the way they are written is fine leave it if you think it needs to be tweaked a little bit more then change it okay so on a chart paper you're going to write what your group has decided is the final wording of the option so we won't have to do that again when we go to do our recommendations um any questions about the directions okay let me randomly call someone to repeat the directions which by the way are right up there and hopefully that person that I select is here Amy Daniel what what do I need to say to repeat the directions of this AC oh um the captain will receive their hat and put it on and then um they will assign like you know once you've picked the groups they will assign roles to their group members and then uh and or responsibilities and then um you will have have eight or nine options to review that you'll be rewarding um for Clarity by reading through them reading out loud and revising and if needed um or if needed you also may leave the options alone okay oh and then write the revised versions down perfect okay Dorothy select a name here for Captain one Katie Katie is not here Kelly Kell are you willing to be a captain I know not much okay Kelly is going to be a captain y Kelly okay select another one Kelly you want to go up and grab your Justin's not here Ric nope do you accept the challenge okay Justin's not here Ricardo an's here let's take her out one more one more James Jes James are you willing to be a captain no okay so we'll select are you serious you really don't okay select another one Ivonne are you willing to be a captain okay okay we're not gonna have too many in a group we're gonna have very few in a group hey the hats are brand new you are the first person to wear them okay so well we're gonna do it hey R you know why I didn't it randomly because when I was little and was on you know we used to divide the teams for the Kickball and I was always the last one to get selected until I got good then I I got you know so anyway I felt uh that's why we're doing it randomly oh let me make one for carollyn okay or how about neighbor okay okay so the captain's over here one at a time you're going to draw a name you're not going to see the names zon come over here no those are the ones not here okay my first person is Dorothy Dorothy nebor am pick somebody elseca lordis neighbor you're with over here okay so uh this might take us a little bit of time but we have to select the posters with the options on it so goes okay so we'll have ivonne's team will be over here Kelly's team will be in the middle and James you you should have been picked it's it's Junior High all over again I bet you e e e welcome back everyone okay so our job right now is to share our revised if needed options and we will start over here with Daniel and by the way if you have in your folders the paper that lists all the options you can use that to follow along some of like we said some of the options were not changed some of them will be so if it was a changed option let us know why you changed it and then I want us to agree upon that and once this process is finished we're not going to change the wording again okay this is it um so starting with the first six on the printout we changed the first one to uh yeah of course um let me fix my screen up all right and this is called boardroom probably it's mirror all right let me make it bigger it's as big as it gets all right um the first one on your print out the first option we changed it to read a committee formed by the kraton elementary school district will conduct a thorough investigation and formulate a plan for a 4-day school week findings will be presented during the meeting confer session for the 2526 Academic Year with a recommendation for implementation targeted for the 26 27 school year yep passive to active voice sort of you go back oh all right moving on the second one in alignment with research that suggests there is a diminishing return on student outcomes for instructional minutes Beyond 5 hours and 30 minutes the school day will be reduced from 7 hours and 10 minutes to 6 hours and 30 minutes yep we added rationale and slightly changed the language in alignment with research that suggests there is a diminishing return on student outcomes for instructional minutes Beyond 5 hours and 30 minutes the school day will be reduced from 7 hours and 10 minutes to 6 hours and 30 minutes is this for next year yeah yeah so all of us out it's I we're fixing up the option language it's not like do we need to say implementing 26 or 256 yeah we I guess we should add to make it clear for the 25 26 school year well again adding yeah sure let's leave it off is sorry maybe we say for the 256 unless yes put that at the top of the option so what how will you reduce the date by 40 minutes like what's going to be reduced it's not the point of changing the option language the option is the option clear do you understand what it means that's not what we're asking well do you understand what the option is saying then we have rewarded the option successfully can I just ask one question um is that a calculation based on required instructional minutes and that's the minimum in order to meet all the instructional minutes including uh early release days and okay if not I'd want to get someone in here who really is deep in the student data part that would ensure that that would work the surrounding school districts all have 6 hour 30 minute days we used to have I think 7 hour and 30 minute days and it was slightly reduced to 7 hours and or no sorry we used to have 6:30 and it was increased to 710 I think we should have our student data person um because we have a audit requirement to run our calendars in each year annually to provide that the instructional time minutes are are being met I know I'm just saying for data purposes because I I would hate for an option to not like not meet the legal requirement yeah we don't want that fix data for you guys that's illegal yeah it's just another piece of data to make sure that your times all work out and if you had to make literally I did this job and so one minute you might have to say six hours and 29 minutes or you might have to say six hours and 31 minutes let our data person run the times for you so you get that exactly right that's all I'm saying next I yeah but we're not right yeah I would just add it to the data request required minutes instructional minutes sep separate options well we could approve both well Dorothy we could approve both and starting next year we have six hours and 30 minutes and then the committee is investigating a four day school week right which might increase the school day yeah yeah just so people know I don't want the Mone I also think that maybe oh I also think before we have someone come and give us feedback on some of the so maybe the requirements or the options they require feedback from another department someone else instead of wasting someone time to come out maybe we can thumb the ones today that require a presentation to see it's even worth having someone come out and give us information if if we're not actually no I will not I will not publicly support something that might be illegal if all I need is one person to thumbs up or thumbs down if it's even something that we really want as an option so someone come out and get it because if we're some of like what I'm trying to say is if some us already know that it's a thumbs down for us regardless of what the person come in and says is it really worth wasting someone time to come out and give us information I'm saying thumbs up or thumbs down the options they require someone to come out and do a presentation they're not wasting their time diging up information and whatnot what I'm saying like do we really want to waste someone time to dig up all this information come and do a presentation if some of us already off the bat no is not something we'll ever consider well like do we want to waste somebody's time collecting all the data yeah but there are guidelines for Staffing and minutes and we can provide what we currently have and what we know how our minutes break down that's a pretty easy thing to get okay I don't think it needs to be a presentation I think we can just present that in the data information and you can kind of look and see and enough of us are in here we have an AP in the room who's responsible for Staffing or for uh master schedule so if there are questions about how that looks then we could rely on our expertise from our principles in our AP I know I just don't want to waste anyone time trying to make well it's this one this one is just GA gathering their document and putting it in there so you have access to it does that sound okay okay okay um moving on each month of the school year one Friday per month will be designated as an inservice day for mandatory staff PD we we yeah we use the language in service day rather than I I so to repeat the original option was designate one Friday per month for mandatory staff PD comma without students we wrote each month of the school year one Friday per month will be designated as an inservice day for Manda story staff PD an inservice day is a day without students yeah yes yes the next option originally read district will initiate development of site-based systematic protocols for crisis team response intervention including identification and training on District processes threat assessments suicide assessments Etc by the end of the first quarter of each school year we we did but that's not what we're talking about right now um we changed the language to develop site-based systematic protocols for crisis team response intervention including identification and training on District processes threat assessments suicide assessment Etc that will be administered by the end of the first quarter of each school year any issues um the original language was School site or sorry the district will provide a full-time highly qualified ESP who is also on the crisis response team we change the language to read School sites will ensure that a full-time highly qualified ESP is assigned to the site's crisis response team any issues um where it's develop site based systematic protocols um uh because in the past there seemed to be a push to have uh consistency across the district and when I read site based I feel like that implies that that's not true am I misinterpreting that um so the when I recall last year we actually passed a recommendation to do this some sites have followed that recommendation other sites have not for reasons I do not recall but I think we talked about it at some point um and some things yes I think in general everyone prefers consistency but crisis response and intervention for example relies on things like the Personnel that are available like contact XYZ person right the positions that fi at a site the physical like literal physical layout of buildings depending on like things like that and so um I my understanding is that why that is why crisis response is site based although I could be wrong I yeah I don't know if it's just me but I like when I read that it's feels like everyone has their own systematic uh protocols in place that may or may not look the same from side to side is there a particular way you'd like to you see that possibly Chang um I would just get rid of site based and say develop systematic protocols everything else is fine but the site based is what depent right that's why I didn't I didn't write the original option so I don't feel comfortable making an edit like that because it wasn't my option does anyone remember whose option it was ask a process question so we did have similar language in last year's agreement so would this be a revision of the existing recommendation so realistically Joel it probably is going to be dead in the water because we already have an a recommendation that covers this and the people that want this should file a grievance for being it being a violation of our um professional agreement or if this language like I I don't have the other language right in front of me or like you were saying like I noticed that this says end of first quarter school year I know our previous language didn't it would be a revision right just as a some additional information is that the curriculum effective uh essential student services ESS exceptional student services it's going to be a while uh so ESS uh cinaa myself uh Dr dupin uh we're bringing APS in we've started talking about the training that needed to have happened this year and what's going to be different for next year so I that wouldn't prevent someone from fining a grievance or change what we're doing in here but just to know that that came out of the conversation that we had earlier this process yeah so the way the grievance procedure and the professional agreement works is you file grievance with your direct supervisor usually regardless of what who is responsible for the violation so like I don't know if it if it is a district level thing you would just you would give it to your principal or your site administrator and then they would escalate it to the proper person and then the goal with the grievance procedure you're supposed to resolve things at the lowest level so first you go tell your supervisor hey this is a problem and then there's a certain timeline that they fix it within if they don't fix it within that timeline you can file a grievance same thing there's a timeline the grievance gets a response from the district or the responsible party in this case it might be hey we're doing XYZ thing if that's sufficient then they don't nothing happens if that's not sufficient they can file like a level two grievance that can goes to a different body I think it's supervisor and then superintendent and then School Board s ultimate ultimately everything falls on the superintendent and their designes so you know what actually happened and why something isn't being done is is going to depend like but it's up to the superintendent to make sure that their principles are doing XYZ thing right um I'm just asking this question it the crisis team is at the school right and the the principal selects the crisis team is so is that your question James it's like is it use the mic please keep forgetting that um so uh the uh it's just that word site based that to me that implies that each school would have different systematic protocols for their crisis team and that seems to go against previous conversations that we've had about uh trying to create uniformity across the district so I'm just wondering if that is the intention or if I'm misinterpreting it or um yeah um I I'm thinking of two different things with what you said site based meaning it's at the school the team and you're thinking that the crisis the actual crisis development could be different from each School correct because of the way of the wording correct okay I I get that um I I think that's the clarity right because it's the training is that provided by District level staff so that that's uniform but how it actually is applied and unfolds is site based because it depends on like like uh Daniel said the layout of the school or the nature of the crisis and the actual Personnel that you have available all of that is site based but the training would come from that's the uniformity from the district level staff that's that's that's humorous to me um and and the and I don't mean to be sned about it but I promise you that training would come from the people at the site because I I mean I don't want to speak for district but I don't think they have the resources to go out to every school I think that's the point the threat assessment and the suicide assessment must be given by should be given by the district Personnel that was one of our recommendations last year and this is revising or reemphasizing that because it has not happened at some sites okay my department is the one that does it so I know it hasn't happened so school districtwide okay well that that language to me is not clear for that especially the developing site based I mean I hear what you're saying and I agree with it I just I don't think that reflects what she's saying how would you do you have an option yeah James if you'd like to add an option that addresses your concerns I think that's fine while also leaving the original option I mean the only thing that kind of rubs me the wrong way is that site based so if my my option would be to remove site base and to say develop system atic protocols for crisis throw it on the list so really it's just deleting site based that's that would be my recommendation doesn't gayway already have a I think our concern James is like what if teams look different site to site right like there was a time where some sites had an AP and some didn't so we can't really develop a districtwide one if they all those team members don't necessarily exist within certain sites I think the uniformity comes is that it's districtwide but then it's up to the sites and those supervisors to be able to determine what exactly that shakes out to be on that particular campus and also did James credit it is possible I mean you could just have a flowchart if this if the site has XYZ Personnel then use XYZ Personnel right but um I I'm worried about what I mentioned at the beginning which is it it implies that each school will uh develop it differently and it won't be based on I mean because it's like a game of telephone right you go and you have District processes and training and stuff but then once it reaches the site level um if you're having a site based approach to it then that can change based on the interpretation of uh of the people at the site it's happened before I've seen it happen before would that's right and I would say that that's wrong and it should be that way and uh maybe but I like I said I I I don't think that that addresses it that's all I'm saying so I think we can add an option to our final list that excludes the language site based I don't want to change this because the original language had site based and we're just changing for clarity um rather than trying to change the intent of the option does it change the intent of the option by deleting site based yes yeah like those are two different things no but what I'm saying is it does it change the int oh we can't we can't determine that because Amy's not here oh okay okay so wherever we're collecting our final list of options can we have that reflected is someone writing down a final list of options somewhere yeah okay cool oh our group did the ones over here oh look at you yeah yes these ones weren't but those ones were Contin we we'll r is it that James then when Amy I guess is here okay continuing on um I will repeat the one after that one since we had cot discussion um the next option reads the district will provide a full-time highly qualified ESP who is also on the crisis response team we changed it to read School sites will ensure that a full-time highly qualified ESP is assigned to the sites crisis response team so 40 hour this is very small but does everyone know what ESP is that universal language or is there another word that we use for classified employe right which is exceptional student services no that's what I meant educational support Oh e oh oh I see oh just write it out that way I see I thought there was another word that the district used right well it's a title I thought it was educational support professional that was my that was my definition we don't need that one the one says to provide it is professional we should have put money on the table I was correct something district is already planning to do so rereading School sites will ensure that a full-time highly qualified educational support professional can you can you wait until it's quiet ESP is assigned to the site School sites will ensure that a full-time highly qualified educational support professional ESP is assigned to the sit's crisis response team can you I hate to mince words but can we Define full-time because most esps are not giving 40 hours in 40 hours is full-time most are now 36 and 37 would you consider them full-time cuz some sites might not have any 40 hour full time is fulltime I think that the intention I'm not a mind reader but the I think the intention of the option is that there is someone who is there all school day right full-time well 37 hours is all of the school day when the kids are there that's the point that's considered okay so then full-time for them but it's not 40 hour full-time that's why I'm saying Joel I guess then what language can we use to well we don't want it to be a halftime we don't want it to be someone who is there the whole time can we just put full time in quotes could we say 37 hour could you do full day is that are we okay what's that school sites will ensure that a high qualified educational support Personnel is assigned the crisis months I don't where instead of fulltime full day or school day who works who works a full school day so School sites will ensure that a highly qualified educational support professional ESP who works a full School the who works the full school day the full school day is assigned to the SES crisis response team there you go I have a question and and I I don't I don't have a problem with this I just I I want to describe a scenario and you tell me uh whether or not that's something that should be of concern um so so uh we are in a time where it's hard to find people uh sometimes and let's say that this is something that's implemented and a highly qualified ESP person is not able to be hired would what would that mean the same the same thing as if you have a math teacher position that isn't able to be hired you have a vacancy that's waiting to be filled okay so it's just vacan so it's not it's not a it's not a violation or anything no so there you can be that there will always be an educational secretary or an office manager or someone else in the front office there who works that time there will always be somebody in that position I think you're thinking of Perros and that that's true that can be that can be kind of a large turnover group sometimes in some places but you'll always have one of the two either an office manager or NX so they could put that person in that place so this isn't necessarily a job it's someone who's assigned to that crisis response yeah and and the nature the nature of the nature of grievances is like the school district is really only responsible for a grievance like like if the school district can't do something or doesn't want to do something that's what kind of what the the Grievous procedure is for not like it's not literally possible Right like if you file a grievance and you're like this thing is in our agreement and it's not happening the answer is we can't hire anyone to do that that's you know right lawers take that up be like you're violation contract you have not suc you can never guarantee that you're able to hire someone in a contract right got it thank you for the clarification um moving on the next option read the district will provide ongoing training to all staff in terms of trauma informed practices BMC transfer behavior management cycle rulers Etc we changed it to read provide ongoing train to all staff in trauma-informed practices the behavior management cycle ruler and other comparable programs designed to Target student Behavior but we're just we're just we're just rewarding them right now save that um Ariel for next meeting because that's what we'll be doing exactly what you said are you okay with the wording okay okay go on the next option oh we we did the options on the posters we rewarded them like the ones over here so I will migrate is to be able to read the options um oh the next one I don't think we changed very much it just says to add address compensation or sorry to address yes to address compression prob yeah to address compression longevity stiens will increase by 10% at years 5 10 and 15 okay that's how did we come up with 10% well when we when we developed the option earlier we wrote x amount and then Vanessa gave me some numbers and 10% was an amount we could increase the longevity by without going over our $200 limit okay okay next one Daniel um the next one originally wrot read case managers who cover case management for vacancies or non-speed certified teachers will be compensated for the additional case man Che thank you to continue yeah my hat case managers who cover case management for vacancies or non-speed certified teachers will be compensated for the additional case management hyphen at three hours per IEP at extra Duty rate we changed it to read sped case managers who take on additional duties for vacancies of nonsp or non-speed certified teachers will be compensated at the extra Duty rate at 3 hours per IEP respons yep you're as the case manager you're only responsible for the IEP you do not have to do the support I don't what is the current practice I don't know it depends because those vacancies change throughout the year yeah it's a good question but that's we just rewarded the original option it just said per IEP it didn't say per I and progress report and whatever it just said per IEP you don't get compensated if for shown up to meetings you just get compensated for the IP I guess right it assumes that it'll take at least three hours of your time to write the IP and Sh to some meetings yeah okay there's at least one I don't want that one the question is well I'm I'm asking Dorothy do we want to Dorothy you're the professional I'm I'm just here um do we want to take out like three hours per IEP or do we to put three hours for that's the problem right so if if the case management is in February and the IEP was already done in November you get three hours to get compensated when you don't even have to write an IP okay that's not can't afford that I mean it's it's for actually doing something no I mean like do we want to change it so people actually because you going to need someone to do prog course you going need some want to attend the mid one and mid two do we want to keep the phrase IEP or say per case manager activities per case and then put in parentheses all the things that no do you want to do per case excellen had a vacancy first quarter of the year so any I that need done not order one of the other resource had to do them yes happening right now in monista but they didn't have to do progress then we hired somebody there was no longer a vacancy so I'm just not sure I'm not Pi sure for as long as there is a vacy no no no for May me for per casee so so in that in that time frame you have to do the IEP if there's a met you got to go go to it and you have to do IEP and then if the parent let's say for example something happens and a parent calls extra IEP meeting you gotta do that too I don't know people aren't vacant for the whole year usually I mean that's a huge problem if they are they're vacant for like a few weeks or a quarter and I don't know and thinking three hours for a like three hours per case makes sense to me because then that's a Max number if we SW thanks it's a Max number if we switch it to say case per instead of per IEP then I feel like that can Encompass up to three hours per case yes up to three hours per case the suggesting yeah the exact wait up to three per case between January and March and no was due when there was a v yeah that says up to hour up to three hour yeah and that's what the up to is is it Dorothy it can be zero zero is up to three hours yeah you have to fill out a form so if you fill out an extra Duty form for an hour of work then they get two hours to do their part and then every they could get another hour doing something else isn't that what we already do no what how does it work an IEP oh okay so the stat the current practice is only for an so if you have to do an IEP you get paid and we're going to have to consider compensatory at anyway I'm not sure how long it's going to take to do that progress report so could they like make a case and get paid for what the work that they think they're doing extra that's not our policy right now at the only point of this was to document the current policy then I'm not comfortable with well I'm saying you know that a part of that three hours that includ control Z control Z moving on um the next the wording did not well yeah this the word did change um the next one second to last for our group go for it when's a sped case managers will be compensated at an extra Duty rate at up to three hours per IEP yes for yes taking on additional duties for vacancies or non-sp certified teachers cool and that c probably doesn't need to be capitalized is allive sped capitalized sped cool um the next one school psychologists market demand amount added to base instead of being a market demand and they are in a separate group when it comes to any raises we change that to read psychologists will receive a base salary increase of $115,000 in blue of a $115,000 market demand stien and psychologists will not be grouped with other certified staff for the purpose of negotiated raises is that clear to everyone what that means okay and then our our last one allow school psychologist to work one day per week from home or offsite we change to read School psych or psychologist will be permitted to work one day per week from home or offsite psychologist will be permitted to work one day per week from home or offsite while you're talking that's when we did it okay so purpose of negotiating raise so we're you want to share what you want to share oh yes um so last time we met I sent a group of RF Protections in the Google Chat of proposed reduction Force language um it was relevant and preent because we were talking about potentially losing a lot of federal funding which might necessitate a reduction in Force if you don't know reduction in force is when um usually it's like more than 1% of Staff positions have to be closed um or removed or made vacant um that may or may not happen that usually happens at the end of a school year so for example if our school district had to shrink more than 1% of our positions moving into the next year that would be a reduction of force um I asked everyone to read it if you have any issues with that language if you could please let me know before our next meeting so we can fix it up yeah cool I'm glad um it was added on because of that reason and also under the interest of retaining um good staff I forgot what the exact interest was but it was something about retaining uh staff and retaining recruiting staff um it is under our scope because it's like a a benefit um similar to how something like Severance would be a benefit or protections around um observations would be part of your working conditions so um it is a lot of language so I just threw it all in one document if there's someone that doesn't like it or wants to thumb it down or thinks it's bad and we could fix up the language to get it approved that would be helpful rather than like viewing it as like 30 different separate options I'm also going to reach out to the district lawyer with the language just to make sure that it's vetted through her so that she can determine whether or not we're overstepping we're not stepping enough or we have done something that that may not pass muster Daniel I know you use different you research different options for that language was our policy Craton policy one of those documents that you use to put together your proposal iot iot guidelines ruction course basically so not when the trigger what the just like when one is happening the guidelines structure out thank you okay um it's in the folder so when we meet next time we will finish when we meet next time we will finish our wording of the options then we will determine which options require money and which ones don't um then we will um have that long discussion about what options do we want we'll talk about Finance what we can afford what we can't afford um and then we will align them to our standards and maybe hopefully come to consensus on some of them anyway we'll see what uh how much time we end up having so it's April 4th I'd like to before we do with Emily um I want to do um a quick temperature check how are you feeling are you okay any comments I feel good no comments okay anyway anyone want to make a comment um I would like to add to anyone watching and also to the people in the room I was told that contracts will be due April what was the number 8th April 8th so we should have not board approved professional agreement but we should have a professional agreement going to the board um before contracts are due on the fourth well you know within and yes April 2N my bad okay so Emily um let's go ahead and do our communication update so really we started off today by having um some speakers a conversation with our board president and our superintendent and then um well you know mine's going to be super specific so I don't want to go through every little item um but really the gist of what we did today was um we finished developing options for four issues um and then we um after we finished that activity we um spent the majority of time rewarding our options and that's where we left off and every time we always have a presentation from Vanessa and Joel um anything else you'd like to add that I might ADM Miss Dorothy yes we're staying with the Delta level two as opposed to one and three I think it was we're not we voted against that thank you thank you Dorothy anything else that we want to add to [Music] yes I do want to ask you all something quickly Dorothy justed ask I look at I look at what Emily posts mostly because that's I like to um but I don't ever look at your detailed notes do you actually put the options there yes I do and you always have um I believe so I mean since we've had them why I just I'm wondering I think Ariel was trying to say about if it's an option that's not going to pass anying right do we even want it out there that that we were con considering that yeah I you know I didn't I I agree but I do put a note and I did put a note Dorothy that these are not recommendations these are just options I add that note to it yeah James just to kind of just to kind of add to that um we've had in the past um controversial options um that have uh come up and uh for every option that you would thumb down there are people that would be supportive of it and would be upset if you didn't at least have the conversation and sometimes I think it's helpful to tell people hey this was brought to the table because it was something that W that uh constituents uh felt was something that was important it was discussed and it was thumbed down so I just think Sophia will be very that's a good point if she want to see that we not that we have to all like make Sophia happy that's not what I'm saying but she's already in this mindset of I give you health insurance what's more can you ask for type mindset I think said all well she said I give you health care but um she said it's important to her yeah that we have that everybody hasal yeah yeah but her seen the fact that we're no about the S about trying to reduce the school day well we'll wait and see where we're at with that and you know like we said earlier with her we're going to provide research you know there's as to what we may not even settle on that options so we really don't know at this point what we're going to do we still have them like to add Ariel since it sounds like you feel so strongly one way on that already like do some research and look on your own because we are one of the districts that have one of the longest days FG and all that other J I think it would be a I think not necessarily though because quality sometimes is much better than quantity so there I mean when you have longer days sometimes you have kids who have more fatigue you have more issues like there are a lot of things nothing for us to get into now I just I think you need to kind of think of it broadly I also worry that we're creating stories for people before they've had an opportunity to review these options or recommendations should they become that and I worry that we're creating these stories that are talking people out of looking at issues or approving recommendations and we don't have that data to indicate that they would go one way or the other I agree I think we just need to come to the table if this is a big option for us I think we need to come to the table with student outcome focused maybe at other schools that follow the same guards just come to the table with all of our data and all of our research behind it we're trying to engage with you in this conversation I would appre I'm distracting her so sorry yeah so when we actually next week I mean our NE not next week um April second is it or fourth our next meeting we will be devoting quite a bit of time to that and if we need to add another meeting we need to add another meeting because like I said we have to add research this time with whatever we decide April 2nd I just want to um throw something out here we you know with the healthc care the benefit we never went through um the process for those I'm still going to write that down as a recommendation because we already did the recommendation okay um what I wanted to ask you about is there were two other ones that we never went through the process for so do and I talked to Daniel about this do we want to add them as our options the one about translation pay because the district already I guess is doing that so we will not add that as our recommendation right are you all in agreement and how about the PTO option the PTO option which I I think um Vanessa said they the district was already working on that so that would be something that we really don't need to negotiate yes um so depending on the district and like we could include these things as language in our bargaining agreement and it might prove redundant um but I think in an effort like the previous conversation this morning of like showing trust in the school district and not needing to like micromanage things if something is been clearly and publicly like communicated us that it's already being done there's no reason to be redundant includeed in our professional agreement unless we feel like there's a reason to like James has often talked about how he wants to make sure our professional agreement isn't like 100 pages long and that's one way of doing it is not to add redundant redundancies okay last lastly um you have some homework for your next meeting did you notice it on the PowerPoint okay so here's your homework I'd like you to bring an artifact for showand tell from your perspective um that from your perspective is represents negotiations okay and it could be in relation to what you offered to negotiations or just the broad topic negotiations so you're going to bring a little artifact to share with each of us so we're going to go round robin everyone's going to share their Show and Tell object any questions about the homework assignment okay and we can handle that right I'll um can you yes Maria will send a reminder okay um a wonderful job today even though we didn't accomplish everything seems like we never do but we really do a great job of accomplishing um what we do get done so I'm proud of that yes I thought so and I really feel that taking the time to hear your voices is important to this process even though it does take us a little bit longer but it's important to hear you all so um if you would please fill out your evaluation and leave at your pleasure for

and in 4A mosquit is the 15th seed and they will play at Prescot on Wednesday at 700 p.m. girls basketball in the open division mosquite is the number four seed they've Advanced to the quarterfinals and will play number five Pinnacle at home on Thursday evening at 700 p.m. and at 6A Gilbert is the one seed and has a Buy in the first round after a second round loss to Desert Vista in the open they will play the winner of the higgle Cesar Chavez game at home on Saturday at 600 pm. and Highland is the 15 seed and will play sandre day o Conor Thursday at 700 p.m. and cample verie in 5A is the five SE and they will play AZ college prep at home on Thursday at 7:00 p.m. so a lot of games this Thursday boy soccer um in the open Campo made it to the semis but lost this past Saturday 3 to one they always put together phenomenal teams 6A Gilbert and Highland both made it to the quarterfinals uh but they lost as well on Saturday and 4 a mosquit lost in the first round to West viiew in penalty kicks it was a close one 4 to three and GCA in the 2A lost in the corner finals to number one seed Phoenix Country Day and in girls soccer Highland uh in the open Highland made it to the elate 8 before losing to Perry Campo lost in the quarterfinals to chapparel which was ranked number one and GCA lost in the quarter finals 3 to2 to Kingman Academy in wrestling the Champions ship was last Thursday and we had many GPS wrestlers make the podium including two state champions Campo was runner up for division 2 and D Ridge took fourth in division one and we will recognize our two finishers at next month's board meeting on to something else School connect Cafe on Tuesday March 25th at 8: a.m.

for pledge of allegiance we have today uh AA High School principal and you're already at the podium could you please introduce our our students yes ma'am uh good evening board president adanas board members cabinet and Community my name is Gabriel Fernandez I am the proud principal of our isusa high azcs I would like to share a few highlights from isusa high isusa high school is a hub of academic Excellence creativity and Community engagement through its early college program which is in partnership with Citrus college students have the unique opportunity to earn college credits while still at high school both a four-year cohort and a two-year program serve over 250 students this year in all great levels theusa high school offers a diverse offers diverse career Pathways from our Graphics arts and computer science to the distinguished Medical Academy and a nationally recognized engineering program students also thrive in Visual and Performing Arts with award-winning artists and exceptional programs in jazz band marching band Orchestra piano guitar and choir Beyond academics zusa High Fosters a strong Student Center culture the Student Union and collaboration with link crew leads initiatives such as student Le Community circles at AHS and its mentorship programs impact elementary schools as well as Gladstone Middle School Athletics at isusa high are just as Dynamic with competitive teams every season newer sports like boys volleyball flag football and stunt cheer continue to expand opportunities for our student athletes competing in the Mont View League as achs take pride in their teamwork and sportsmanship with a commitment to academic achievement artistic expression leadership and Athletics isusa high is sheling shaping well-rounded students ready to excel in college career and Beyond I would now like to introduce Cadet Colonel Philip via from our JROTC program who will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance tonight please stand place your right hand over your heart ready begin I PL allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all you may be seated Philip please don't leave yet we're we're going to present something to you so what I was going to say is that today as sua Unified School District would like to recognize you and proudly present you this certificate for leading the Pledge of Allegiance today in our school boardroom could my colleagues please join myself and our student in the middle please e e great now we're moving on to item 2.1 public comment Lea do we have any blue cards I'm sorry Lea do we have anybody online in on Zoom we have no hands raised on Zoom oh do we have any blue cards great moving on to item 3.1 presentation of the 20 24 2025 local control and accountability plan the lcap January update Miss Garcia Medina I will turn it over to you thank you good evening board president aranes board members cabinet and audience uh my name is Adriana Garcia Medina director of Educational Services here in Asuza and I'm excited to share with you the district's progress toward boards our local control and accountability plan which is also known as the lcap during tonight's uh study session this is the first of our three-year alcap plan which runs through 2027 in this plan we report on the district's goals how these goals will be measured how much funding is tied to each of the goals what specific actions and services are supporting progress towards these goals this year the ed services team of directors which is here with us tonight is excited to share with you the midyear alcap update in a collaborative approach we will be taking on a Hands-On approach using an interactive protocol we anticipate that this protocol will allow the board to take a deeper dive into each of the goals and work with the ed services directors to identify areas of progress and potentially areas of need additionally there will be a rotation which is the governor's budget uh rotation with Miss LaTasha Jamal as you can see we've set up tables for each of the goals so we will have six rotations tonight and using this protocol we hope to be able to highlight for you the academic success drivers that drive our instructional practices in our classrooms here at auua C cognitive rigor academic discourse and collaborative practices first to highlight cognitive rigor in our study session you'll have the opportunity to analyze uh data from the media report independently um and you'll be able to synthesize uh this data in the media report as students have that opportunity to do in their classrooms when teachers aim to shift that cognitive load to the students so you'll be taking their role today second to highlight academic discourse and collaborative practices you'll have the opportunity to collaborate uh with our Educational Services directors uh based on Focus questions that we have for you today at each of the stations uh you were going to have some resources that you'll be looking at uh first you'll have uh the medor report which is a bound copy of the en entire um media report that has all goals um included and it's divided into sections and each of the sections matches one of the tables uh secondly you will have a section that is specifically assigned to the table so for example table one will have section one which corresponds to goal one table two will have section two which is goal two and so forth so when you get to that table that's what you will be uh looking at we like to give our students multiple resources so we also have included for you uh the 2425 uh lcap overview which gives you an overview of all our lcap goals with uh various graphics and tables and it's more condensed version for parents and students to take a look at uh so this is something that we have included for you as well um and then we're also going to have for you an outc cap note catcher which might look familiar um this is for you uh to take notes on to annotate uh to uh refer to some of the questions and possibly uh jot down jot down some of the answers that you may come across um and it's going to guide you in the conversation with um the ed services directors okay each board member will be assigned to one of the five goals we will have 20 minute sessions at each of the stations uh so the first 10 minutes we're going to ask that uh you have some quiet time to dig into the section of the report uh so if you're at goal one you'll take the first 10 minutes to look through it you're going to see what stands out are there any patterns are there any Trends have we made progress what can we continue to do to build on that progress and potentially are there any areas of opportunity that we need to continue to investigate um and refine our practices with the second 10 minutes uh you'll be able to have a collaborative conversation with one of our directors um and you'll be able to ask questions to clarify uh make some comments work collaboratively maybe on some of the responses uh to these questions uh and then we'll continue through that process with which each each of the stations okay at the end of the rotation s you're going to be asked to share out uh one area of progress uh and a potential uh way to support that area of progress for continued growth and an area of need and potentially something to support that area of need and the trick of it is you'll be reporting from the first station that you are assigned to okay in other words it's going to be a glow and a grow from the first goal that you're assigned okay and I'm sure you're super excited and you want to find out what table you're starting at what goal you're going to dig into so I'm going to ask uh director Sanchez to help me with that and he has created a randomizer because we want to make sure that this is all by chance and he's going to go ahead and spin it and go one does Adrian get two again oh okay you get goal number one okay so you'll start with Goal number one and goal number two will go to Mr Ramos congratulations goal two and goal three president ananis and next goal go for Mr Greer and goal five Cress of elimination we wanted to make sure that you you we also wanted to make sure that you get confetti too there it is all right so I'm going to ask directors to go ahead and uh head over to your assigned table and uh board members as well yes 10 minutes I'll start but I'll I'll work on this right now I got it already e e e okay you should be gathering your resources so we can transfer to the next station if you were in goal one you are going to head over to goal two if you're in goal two you're heading over to goal three if you're in goal three you're headed to four and four is coming all the way to the governor's budget yes take your clipboard with you yes we're going to give five a uh a break so you're going to head over to the governor's budget table 31 to one okay I was gonna send over how about you yeah yeah okay so we have a break she has a break all right your 10 minutes of quiet time okay your 10 minutes of quiet time to start looking at your packet for your section begins now e e e second you may start packing up that's going to conclude round two please gather your items finish your last thought and head on over to the next station I got it will board member Greer is going to be going over to station six with Miss Jamal board member remember Benz station one Miss Board member of Vita station one okay your 10 minutes of reading begins now e e e e e e all right that brings this session to an end please finish up your thought you can thank your partners if you like and please gather your items and head to your next station uh board member Greer you're going over to number one table one um board president aranas you are over in six with Miss Jamal budget Miss Jamal it's great it's nice to see how the clipboards are great to hold anything anything but a backpack there you go nothing but a [Music] cup all right your first 10 minutes time period begins now e e e okay that concludes this session this round please finish your last thought gather your items and head on to the next session or the next table president arianis are going to come over to table one board member Ramos you're going to go from 5 to six with Miss Jamal okay your 10 minutes of reading is going to go ahead and begin now e for e e e than all right ladies and gentlemen this concludes this round if you would please go ahead uh say your thank yous and gather your items and we're going to go ahead and head over and go ahead and head on over to your next your next table or station all right if you got over to your next table we'll go ahead set the timer and your time [Music] begins now e e e we have about a minute there's a minute to win it finish up your last thoughts all right ladies and gentlemen that concludes our last round we can go ahead and you can get back to your original stations and I will turn this back over to director Garcia Medina all right everyone thank you so much for partaking in some great conversation um some good questions um and some good highlight so I want to give the opportunity to the board uh to report back to everyone uh based on your first uh goal assignment so try to find your notes from the first table that you went to I just wanted to ask my colleagues do you guys need a few minutes to I think we need a few minutes we're like on information overload right now and what I'm getting from from the consensus here majority um yeah two of them so you can give us about two minutes two minutes is good or the whole day two minutes is good or let's see it's it's 7:52 how about 7:55 7:55 let's do s thank you for your patience okay so just a couple minutes to review your notes e e e that is a twom minute time hopefully that was enough time for everyone I'm seeing some nodding so just a reminder all we're going to do is share a glow and a grow from your first uh goal that you uh went to so the first table um so we'll go ahead and start with go one so that's me right correct you're looking right at me um so gold one is auua UniFi school district will ensure growth and achievement for all students on California State Standards so we have um a positive on um we have many students that have been reclassified and that's a positive and also um improvements of of the reading and math for the English English language Learners and what we need to um I'm sorry that was in we need to on the English language Learners test scores right um because we I noticed that you know um from the past they were also still need Improvement and I do see other schools that have higher scores and the question is you know what are they doing different do does a certain school have more e students and do they need more support you know with the funding do we need to uh Shuffle more more of our budget that way so that we can help these students and um because it's really important that you know when they're reading the reading is some um start at third grade if they do not read in learn to read or learn what they're reading it it would it's going to be hard for them going all through school um moving forward so um that's all I have to add and also the budget Workshop was great all right thank you Mr Rodas paa and we'll move on to uh goal two Mr Ramos yes goal to um first of all I want to thank all of you for the session together it was very informational for me being the new the new C block so to speak um so thank you for the effort and the time of together the the cabinet superintendent and the directors that that participate this um for my response to the glow and grow um it's going to sound similar to um my previous uh my my colleague um although it is a little bit different um my goal number two is uh the Su UniFi school district will meet the diverse needs of English learner students and accelerate the academic achievement and English proficiency through an assets oriented culturally responsive approach so um the Highlight for me or the glow was um for those students that reclassify from being English Learners into what I would refer to the Streamline students um there was there's a high percentage of um proficiency and when it comes to meeting or exceeding the standards in the ELA there's a lot of letters there CAA psbac um standard so um through um in all the different uh schools the the percentage of the students that uh met or exceeded the standards was was High um averaging more than 50% so that was a a glow for me um and I think that all the efforts that are being put into um making that happen I think uh you you know that's that's going to continue and um uh so I was very happy to see that um so along the same lines um so the students that I referred to were those that have been moved over right so um the the grow opportunity uh goes back to our English Learners um also in this same category of testing um they continue to have lower scores right but the goal is to continue to look for ways to help them reclassify right because once they reclassify that's one goal or one achievement then from there um it looks like they'll be able to um uh increase or we we'll be able to increase the amount of students um that will meet or exceed those those standards so um those were my two areas the the grow and glow and again thank you very much for your time and putting this all together thank you Mr Ramos all right and now we'll move on to goal number three uh board president adanes yes and um goal number three it was uh students will graduate and be prepared for college and postsecondary opportunities one of the things that was um I'll start with with the need um what are our greatest areas of opportunity and how we can effectively address them one of the things that I noticed since we combined both both of the high schools there has been a lot more resources coures and programs at the high school at ASA High School um where before it was divided and you know if you wanted a if you wanted to do the uh is it the what is it called the dual enrollment with Citrus College you had to be at Gladstone High School if you wanted to do the uh the other the is it the my gosh is it bi I thank you um you had to be at a Souza if you wanted to do the medical you had to you know and so forth so I I I the the um areas that I think that we we start with the progress actually that we've done is basically we we've we've done a great job we and I say you um because we we don't do it um you've done a great job and being able to go ahead and merge that those opportunities for our students to be able to access um um those programs and we also had our high school principal come and share a lot of the things that are happening in ausa which are amazing um so one of the things that we so that's the progress the need I I see that we can increase the graduation rate at um it's getting up there but to increase it to offer more opportunities like Pathways and dual enrollment at our continuation school I I did have an opportunity to speak with um two students from Sierra High School this weekend and um they're from uh they're from auza high and I asked them I said will you be will you be ready to go back to your your high school and what they actually said was no we want to graduate from Sierra and so I asked them why and they said because of the fact that it's a smaller school um and they did well in that environment um the parent was also sharing that with me and so I I think that we have um great things happening um at Sierra High School um and we're slowly getting there with with your guys's hard work but I I do in the future um you know being able to offer more of those opportunities and at both of the high schools that we have here would would probably be a need okay thank you so much okay next we have um goal four which I believe was uh Mr Greer but I think he's been excused he okay so we'll he's been will skip or um Mr R I'm sorry no Mr Ramos he shared his feedback but then he took his paper with him which one was four it's a blank sheet I think it's okay we can we can skip with me when I was and then he took it with him so all right so we'll move on to goal five um Miss Benavides um so goal five was um goal five is a USD will ensure safe and restorative School climates um and I want to read this from the material for context you know so as a community school district safe and restorative learning climates are an expectation and essential for Student Success a usd's annual survey data indicates a need to continue to create a safe and restorative learning environment so um this just gives some data the percent of parents who reported students are safe at school vary by school levels 71% for elementary families 33 for Middle School families and 39% for um High School families so the reason I read that is because just to better to give a better understanding for those that are might be watching and um as a school board member and as staff and teachers and cabinet and superintendent I think that we we're constantly ensuring that we are providing a school and safe environment for our kids and that's as far as I know I think we're all on the same page that's a priority for everyone in this room including the parents right the community uh so the the glow that I noticed is that um yes there's been different programs and different um strategies that have been implemented by the school district one of them is the partnership with um the Western Justice partnership which is which is essential because we want to be visible we want to ensure that the community knows that we are bringing in third party um you know help if anything so that um because we we can't be in the classroom and then you know we only have so many people on our you know staff on our campuses so we need those second or third eyes out there so and I think also the growth in creating um Community circles in our district and one of the things about the community circles is I joined um one of them at the at um I think it was Aza high school and so I had that opportunity to experience experiencing that but one of the things that I noticed is that the the students started doing that and for me personally I think I like that because it really it creates engagement between the students and students that maybe you know tend to be kind of isolated and you introverted I think it's really giving them an opportunity to speak and to hear from other students that maybe are feeling the same way they're feeling so I really think that that engagement between students is so crucial and I think it's great that we continue to do that because we need to make sure that students know that we're not alone there's another person just feeling the same things I'm feeling or maybe not getting the same um attention that I'm not getting right whether it be home or school so I think that's really important for me because I think that growing up in a single parent household I can put myself in that shoes so that's one thing um I think that professional development is has been a big thing I think that um in speaking to the ladies the I think we need to continue to focus on not only like we're doing now the certificated employees but the classified employees so that students feel valued right because we have to instill those values in our teachers whether they're classified or certificated so that they could transcend that to the student when we feel valued then we that's what we give out so that's really important to me so I really do see that as a glow I hope that we continue to do that um I would love to see more parent engagement but we'll go to the grow site after that thank you absolutely and I wanted I did want to say thank you to all the staff the team because it takes a whole team here that put this together um last year was a little bit it structured a little different um this was nice too because uh you should have been here last year remember Ramos but this is good too because it really gave us an opportunity to dig into the goals a little further and really they really um I feel like it it just I got a better understanding so thank you okay thank you so much to everyone uh we appreciate your engagement um your opportunity to uh work with us and and listen and clarify um I just I do want to mention to everyone that this report will be available on our district website uh following today's meeeting uh so parents will be able to download the report and review the report at at any time um after today's meeting um additionally we do hold uh what we call Community engagement meetings where principles will be uh going over a slide presentation that gives an overview of the report um in in general terms for for parents uh they will be doing these engagement meetings with parents as well as certificated and classified staff um there is an accountability piece where they submit dates of these meetings to us here at the district level just to make sure that we get the word out and and that we encourage that engagement with our parents um we will also continue these protocols uh with our pack plus and our student Advisory Group also looking at these uh reports um and this midyear data uh to inform the 2526 um lcap plan that will start to develop starting tomorrow can I add something regarding the um lcap 5 I'm sorry can I add something regarding the alcat 5 sure regarding the um ausd will ensure saf and re re restoration School climate so I I know that UniFi that we have so much to offer at the high school and at the middle schools and at the elementary schools as my colleague mentioned you know Western Justice second call Blackwater even our strategic badges our community schools sports our CTE courses and um but I I really still say that we are not advertising it enough I also think on the youth troop survey that um why it's always saying that they don't feel safe you know it's parents you know when we have all this to offer and I I really strongly believe that maybe they don't understand what it means do you feel connected maybe they don't understand if you say do you feel safe what does that mean safe when you go home or safe when I'm in school it would be great if um when they give this survey you know if the students did it in class and the teacher explained to them this is what it means maybe we would have a different outcome because we keep getting the same thing every year saying the same thing that they don't feel safe that they I mean how much more stuff do we need you know I mean other than putting bars on the on the schools you know we we do a lot I know that and I know we have a lot of outreaches and I know we have the well-being Center we have so much I just can't see it's just frustrating seeing the same feeling that they have and what we can do other than we cannot reward it because it's already written but maybe we can explain it even to the parents even during during the cop with the principles you know um back to school night or or what have you know we just need to explain it what does it actually really mean oh you know I play sports I play soccer well then you AR connected with you know so it's just frustrating that we keep getting the same answer and I would like hopefully what can we make make it easier for them to understand to educate them great points and it's something that we've discussed um this is data from the end of last year right so we're about to receive our new youth tooth survey results so hopefully when we report at the end of the year we'll see some growth but I think that's key what you mentioned making those connections in terms of vocabulary right so that's what it's about we do it we should be doing it for our English learners but again when they're taking these surveys do they understand the question um can they make the connections to what supports um are in place for connectedness or a sense of belonging or do I feel safe um so really explaining questions and understanding um you know what the language is I think is key so definitely important for us to take back to our school sites and our site leaders and teachers yeah and and also just looking at the um suspension rates the exposion rates how they have different you know I've been here is sit on this board the longest and I've seen we used to have as I mentioned to Mr Hernandez that we used to have Mr Mr um creel and he would present 506 explosions or 506 suspensions and the sco you know now I mean you're looking you see one so I'm thinking of course it's not perfect but I see a change I've seen a difference in the numbers but yet people are not feeling safe so it's just something that we need to work on definitely thank you and I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to our assistant superintendent Miss kamacho to close us out so just very briefly because we are ed services we are dedicated to strengthening instructional practice and we do want to highlight some of the instructional strategies that you experienced here that many of our students experien in their classroom so we started our evening by identifying a clear articulated purpose for what the learning was going to be today we utilized a gradual release of instruction we started with an I do we do together to you do independently we provided a structured notetaking guide for you to organize a lot of the information that you were hearing from each of us um you had an opportunity to work through expert groups and you got uh to speak to those who are most well-versed um in some of these goals we tied your new learning to some prior learning to add to to your knowledge base and you had opportunities to work in four domains of language Reading Writing listening and speaking which is key um for our student learning um you also got to work in small groups and we provided differentiated resources for you to access the information um so again um thank you for participating um with us tonight as we continue our commitment to engaging our educational partners and ensuring transparency in our lcap reporting process as well as our budget and we open it up for any further questions or comments you may have board member Benz I just wanted to um again say thank you for you know putting this together and um we didn't really get into um we we had a station over with Latasha who really looks at the numbers for the district and the reason I kind of want to just highlight this a little bit because um first of all I appreciate all your work is because you know we have with this crisis that with the fires and things like that where the state is looking at budget cuts and the governor's you know we don't know where the funding's going where we're going to be in a year something that we she you know she walked me through and it and then we have the cost of living increase and things like that so she we look at the revenues and I'm trying to look at my notes here and just you know look at what what I heard and it's like just for the sake of knowledge that we don't know where we're going to be fiscally in a year a year from now right because we know cuts are coming and it could impact the district right it's going to impact every district and um then we have our expenditures still that we have to account for and um we have to continue to do our jobs as as a district District so it just really it I mean it just I if Latasha if you don't mind just giving a little brief overview really quick just you don't have to get as detailed as you did with me but just so for the sake of transparency to our community kind of where we're at thank you uh yes thank you um so we talked about uh the cola where we started out the cola projection of 2.

at Highland High School we are having our next school connect Cafe School connects cafes are designed to bring schools and businesses together for the betterment of students we're excited about this opportunity and look forward to the collaboration that is about to begin thanks to our local businesses who put the interest of our children and our community first first and lastly next week is read Across America week our schools have invited many guest readers to their campuses to help spread the joy of reading to our students thank you to all those guest readers and thank you to our schools for being so welcoming to everyone and Mr Thompson that concludes my report but I'd like to announce a couple people real quick um from our Spire program one of our teachers uh Andrea MSO uh instructional coach over at Finley Farms Elementary so please welcome Andrea and from our superintendent student Senate uh Mr Luca scano he's a senior at mosquite high school and we're very happy some of their just so you know there they have they have to go to one of these things and but yet that's part of the job but yet you're here and we appreciate you guys taking the time to experience the things we get to experience on a Tuesday night so again welcome to you guys and that concludes my report for this evening thank you Dr McCord moving on to agenda item number five request to speak to the governing board we're going to first uh have Dr Robison read our uh admonition all right the governing board may make an open call to the public during a public meeting subject to reasonable time place and manner restrictions to allow individuals to address the public body on any issue within the jurisdiction of the public body after an open call to the public individual board members May respond to criticism made by those who have address the governing board may ask staff to review a matter or may ask that a matter be put on a future agenda however members of the go governing board shall not discuss or take legal action on issues raised during an open call to the public if the matters are properly noticed for discussion and legal action during an open call the governing board requests that speakers refrain from voicing complaints against School Personnel or anyone connected to the district as it may impact due process rights please contact the office of talent management if you have specific concerns about any individual employee thank you Dr Robison we have one request to speak to the governing board tonight Richard young if you'll come up to the podium uh there'll be a timer up here on the screen that you can watch you've got 3 minutes and whenever you're ready go ahead and well you're welcome to begin I I have no complaint with the administration or with the board you all inherited a problem with social emotional learning uh some of you know of it but we have new board members I've never mentioned it to you uh it cost $68,000 a year for a license uh there are many objections to it but one recent one is an executive order signed by President uh Trump Banning CRT um critical race theory in public schools what does that have to do with social emotional learning you don't need to go any further than the Arizona Department of Education to find um it's condemned and it's criticized for being a trojan horse for introducing critical race Theory what's the problem with critical race Theory unlike the people who were memorialized by the uh brilliant students here uh who reduced racial tensions critical race theory has been shown to increase it it's a problem and by continuing with it Federal funding is potentially threatened for this school it's been uh criticized by uh president trump it could be U funding could be withdrawn beyond that I've also I've included a package for um president Thompson and for Dr McCord with some of this information there's also a Manhattan Institute study that shows that uh uh social emotional learning causes more harm than good and it's been found to be associated with um worse social emotional Behavior worsening depression anxiety syndromes and significantly poor quality of parent child relationships there's more on it I provided it to uh Mr Thompson and for Dr mord so I'm requesting that you correct an error from the past and eliminate social emotional learning to have I have one benit left I would like to extend Kudos that is praise for Dr McCord for something that he did I think it was about a year and a half ago in supporting a reading program uh for this school in doing that he was well ahead of the curve because since then since that time it has become a national issue uh poor reading outcomes for graduates for people entering University and I have to uh acknowledge uh compliments for uh Dr McCord for getting on that early but 36 35 seconds please eliminate social emotional learning you can use the $68,000 saved for uh Dr McCord's rating program thank you thank you Mr Young um Dr mord I'd like to request uh that we put uh uh a review of social emotional learning for the board in an upcoming board meeting you bet thank you very much uh that was our only uh live um request to speak but I did want to mention that we received an online comment earlier today and wanted to thank that individual for uh for sending that comment and anybody who would like to comment at our monthly regular board business meetings is welcome to come here in person and also there's an online option an online form that you can fill out and submit your comments to the board so thank you very much moving on to agenda item number six reports 6.01 monthly financial report for month ended January 31st 2025 Dr McCord thank you Mr President govering board members I will turn it over to our associate superintendent of Business Services Miss Bonnie Betts good evening governing board me Members president Thompson Dr McCord uh first before I begin I wanted to point out that we have received the published um annual comprehensive financial report that is uh at each of your stations you'll note that they are tabbed for the major sections that are in the report I just wanted you to know that if at any time any of you are interested in going through some of the details it would be about a 30 minute meeting if you wanted to do that please contact me um and i' be very happy to meet with you uh the last tab uh represents uh the section that's the statistical section that section you might find some interesting statistics about G public schools and how we are doing uh globally over the last 10 years so just um if you're interested in some of those those details so to move into the monthly Financial presentation year to date as of January 31st 2025 uh as different from the presentation that we shared a month ago this particular financial report only has one grid there was only one major change that we wanted to share tonight which is the district operating funds so note that you have the maintenance and operations fund highlighted as well as classroom site fund as well as unrestricted Capital outlay so to date the maintenance and operations fund has an available balance of nearly $18 million that's about $1.9 million more than we reported last month the reason for that is in trying to make sure that we had all of the expenses accounted for we encumbered the second half of the stipan the appreciation stipan that we awarded um in uh mid January and so because of the timing of pulling the data it duplicated the actual payment of that stipend as well as the encumbrance so that of course at this point in time has been corrected and which the result is um an available balance that has been increased by almost $2 million wanted to point that out and then unrestricted Capital you can see that the year-to date expended encumbered is about $32.7 million I think I shared this with all of you in the board report uh last Friday but please know that that encumbrance doeses include all of the uh all of the projects that are on the consent agenda asking for your approval this evening so um we do expect that the year-to date ex um expended and encumbered will go up a little bit the deadline for uh final unrestricted Capital uh purchase orders from our schools was the I'm going to cheat here was um February 21st which is now passed and so we do expect that when we report uh in March for the year to date February that that expense encumbrance may go up some just because of that deadline looming and that is all I have for this report I'm happy to answer any questions do any of the board members have any questions for Miss Betts great thank you very much I got to say Miss PS I do feel with only one chart to review tonight I feel a little cheated that's funny because we felt a little relief over us we were like oh she didn't finish anything she just brought one piece of paper thank you very much for that report and your your uh your diligence uh moving on to 6.02 Proclamation National School Social Work week March 2nd through 8th 2025 Dr McCord thank you Mr President governing board members if you don't mind I'd like to read the proclamation whereas School social workers serve as vital members of the Education team playing a central role in creating Partnerships between the home school and Community to ensure student academic success and whereas School social workers are exceptionally skilled in identifying and providing services to students who face serious challenges to school Success including poverty disability discrimination abuse neglect addiction bullying mental illness homelessness familial stressers and other barriers to learning whereas local educational agencies Community Support agencies should continue to work in partnership with school social workers to address and access resources and support services in helping meet students social emotional physical mental health and environmental needs so that the students May achieve academic success and whereas School social workers maintain knowledge of school climate which are necessary for responsible school safety planning now therefore I Dr Shane mccor do hereby Proclaim March 4th through March 8th 2025 as school Social Work Week in Gilbert public schools and commend its observance to all in our district Community by highlighting the vital contrib vital contributions of school social workers to the successes of students in our schools thank you thank you Dr McCord thank you to all of our social workers in GPS a big uh a big thank you from all of us on the board uh agenda item 6.03 TCH tching tching and leaning uh teaching and learning academic Spotlight Dr McCord thank you Mr President govering board members we have a spotlight tonight and we have two individuals I'll let uh Mr Ryan who um yeah he's going to hate this um he did his perspectus today for his uh doctorate dissertation and so he's just got chapters four and five to finish right it's correct that's correct and what's the target date on that so I can get you on the record and live be finish by July of this year of this year okay just checking cuz remember I it took me a while uh you beat me a little bit Mr Ryan thank you Dr McCord uh Mr Thompson uh governing board members um it's an honor to have Justine Ingram with us this evening if Justine will walk up here I'll say a couple things about her um also joining her Tina Wenning is here in support I believe as a coordinator of English language learning um in our district um I had an opportunity to work closely with Justine last year physically we're shared a wall right and uh we would talk about things often and her brain works at a higher level than mine does and and she would walk out and she would simply say um there would be a new program implementation or something we were starting or didn't matter if it was summer school or after covid and trying to address concerns with students and she would just always ask how do we know it works how do we know that it's working what we're doing and she would just continue to ask these questions and and I'm so happy for her to have been selected to be um a fellow in partnership with Harvard University and able to really spend time dedicated to um creating a way for us to analyze and really uh build a system to evaluate our programs and program evaluation is is essential to what we do and so she's here this evening to share uh with you some of her work and I'm excited to turn the microphone over to her at this time so Justine thank you very much future Dr Ryan and thank you governing board members Dr mcord for having me here tonight and thank you Tina for being vulnerable and putting in all of the work for the past two years on this project it was a still continuing Journey um that she opened up to and I really appreciate it so I'll get into where it started and what we're doing and what we're continuing to do oh so and when I first started working at the district office uh two years ago three years ago now actually we uh were trying to find a way to build data literacy across the entire district and so in searching for resources to do that we found the Strategic data project through Harvard and our initial proposal to become part of that fellowship program was about executing a data literacy plan across the district and after getting accepted into the fellowship program with um the strategic data program we found that their resources and the things that they offered really didn't align with the time for doing that what the Strategic data project does is offers highquality research methods and data analysis that's always based within education um they have a large network of Education partners that help with policy decision- making and we felt like it was a really great resource for us to build that data literacy capacity within our district after going to our orientation there we switched our project selection from a districtwide do literacy to focusing on just one program and that started with attending the district CIP meetings our continuous Improvement meetings that we have and English language Learners came up quite often during those meetings as an area of Need for different reasons a lot of other programs within the district comes up as well but Tina often works by herself s in there and so while we might have had a large following for some of the other programs or a plan in place for some of them there wasn't a lot for our English learner program and so we felt that there was a need to find out where our growth data was and other gaps within the data that we might have and so it was decided to switch our project from the data literacy to focusing on doing an entire English learner program evaluation for the dig for the district and so we switched to focusing on that and Harvard accepted that program and as we continued attending the district uh continuous Improvement meetings we also heard that there were a lot of other requests for program evaluations across the district and like Jared said I like to annoy him in his office about things that I would like to know more about and so we also wanted to see if we could come out of the Harvard fellowship with a plan for doing program evaluations across the district some of our close districts near us have program evaluations Within th their research department or their evaluation Department we felt like it was a gap that we had in Gilbert public schools and so we proposed adding that to our English language learner program evaluation and Harvard accepted it so some of the training that we've gone through as part of this and it's continuing it ends in September of this year is analysis analysis planning learning to plan and involve stakeholders methodology so what kind of studies can we do we we have a descriptive study but it is mixed methodology so we're using data that includes numbers but also qualitative data we did a lot of classroom observations for this project as well um learning what resources are at our fingertips as well as networking so I was able to interview people that are part of English learner programs across the country at state federal and local levels um as well as having connections to networking for people at universities we have a uh Fellowship adviser that works directly with Harvard but also a technical adviser that might work for a different University mine works for Boston College and she is a lead researcher in English ler programs so I feel very lucky to have someone so involved in the English learner program and then data visualization which a lot of that um Harvard does support with but I also have to commend the technology Services Department here in the training that I've had very Hands-On being involved there and the job training as well which they're very patient with me on because I am not a coder so we're getting there so part of the project the steps that we have done as well as where we are headed we defined the program which was completing a logic model did we went and involved stakeholders multiple times in finding what the root causes were with the El program that we could look further into and continue to develop questions we practice team development in which we did we have two District teams that we meet with to present the analysis to them and then talk about actions that we can take and also where we want to take the program we did a three-year analysis on the district data for our El program that included State assessment data as well as in-house data we also did a classroom data analysis for the fall semester in which we went in and observed all of our El programs from the K through 12 level so across the board and all variations of the program and that ended up being the development of the English learner program guide for the district so that we can have some practices and procedures to follow that are enacted districtwide that make it much easier to identify the practices in place when we go out to do observations and make it so that we can have better data analysis on the program moving forward as well as outlining all of the changes that were decided to be made to the program from the team leaders and then what is currently being worked on and we'll continue through the end of the program is the district program evaluation model which the El program evaluation is outlining that model but it will be refined to be flexible for any program within GPS our project outcomes from working with the Strategic data project are having the English learner analysis it says 13 there and I'm not sure why because it was definitely 3 years 13 years of data would be very hard to to get um data monitoring tools so so Tina will have as well as everyone for board and as well as curriculum instruction will have data dashboards to continue to monitor the metrics that we decided will outline the El program's success and growth and so those will be live data dashboards that they will able to use so that we don't have to have a lengthy program evaluation in the future a district program guide that will be available to all leaders at district and site levels in order to understand the program better and follow all of the processes and procedures and then a district program evaluation process that will be carried out in partnership with our data and research team for the district for future programs and that's it any questions I I have questions of course first off thank you so much I appreciate I mean I looked at this before but your explanation makes it much more clear about what we were trying to accomplish and I think it's really exciting that we get to partner with Harvard and learn how to do this really deep dive to make sure that what we're doing is working and if it's not working how we go about improving that so thank you very much um so the question I had was um in going through this what what were some of the um things that you were able to identify or improve with English language learning that we as it was currently um being done so for the elementary level we we focused on just our pullout models we do have a dual language program but we didn't look into that this is just at Gilbert Elementary and the pullout model for the State of Arizona has um no solid schedule or anything you have to follow so we had different variations within the district depending on what elementary site the program was at that schools were following so we did find that one variation of the model was pretty unsuccessful compared to the other three but we also found that there were some key indicators within the other three models that made those work better and so one of our decisions was that there shouldn't be overlapping grade levels going into English language pullouts and that the people doing the integrated instruction outside of the El specialist in the general education classroom should be better trained and have more follow-up trainings to do that because on the sites where that was happening the integrated practices were happening more often and at the secondary level we did find that the hybrid model does not work work as well as the inperson model um and I know that there are it's in the works to try to make sure that we have an e specialist at every site but there are ways that we did find success in the hybrid model it just takes a lot more work and training and Personnel at those levels and it's the parent with JW is a lot higher when we have Regional sites and so it's not recommended to have Regional sites all right well thank you for that I really appreciate that I hope we can move forward on some of those improvements that you're talking about especially having it at every site so thank you very much okay thank you any other questions from the board okay thank you very much all right we're moving on to our consent agenda items uh agenda item number seven is there a motion to approve the consent agenda items as listed on tonight's agenda I move that we approve the consent agenda items as listed with the correction on the minutes as previously stated perfect thank you Miss humph is there a second second thank you Dr Robinson all those in favor of approving the uh consent agenda items as presented with the uh edit as previously mentioned say I I any opposed thank you very much moving on to agenda item number eight 8.01 employee benefits trust EBT medical insurance rates recommendation for 2025 through 2026 school year Dr McCord thank you Mr President governing board members the employee benefit trust EBT uh motion to recommend a 6% medical premium increase for the 2526 school year this premium increase results in an increase in budgeted expenses to GPS the amount of $1,292 612,000 included in the 6% premium increase are plan design changes applicable to each of the plans note that the total uh actu actuar um determined increase to the medical plans includ cluding the plan design changes is 11.8% the potential draw down of EBT reserves is approximately $1,525 th000 in addition the EBT is recommending no changes to the dental insurance rates for the 2526 plan year and we have Miss Betts and Mr Macintosh available if you have questions all right let's uh first start with a motion uh is there a motion to approve the employee benefits trust medical insurance rates recommendation for 2025 2026 school year I move that we approve the rates as presented thank you Miss humph is there a second second thank you Miss Murray uh any discussion on this item um I I do want to uh just talk about the process a little bit yet um because this has changed slightly since um I was previously on the uh employee benefits trust committee which has been quite a while since uh she uh president eug jetti had taken that role for eight years so um the employees have their own meeting and they have discussed all of the um recommendations and looked at things and then uh they came to the conclusion and had consent that this was the recommendation to move forward and then it was brought to the trust board which of which I'm now a member for this year and uh then we discussed it and um voted to move forward this recommendation and I have to say we have had very very low um increases in the last few years I mean we've even given a a premium holiday was that last year that was last year um so we've we've really been blessed in the way that we've been able to keep our insurance benefits down and this is a little bit bigger increase but still considering um what other plans and other increases have been faced by uh both um education entities and probably PR private business with health insurance um I think we've done very well and I appreciate the hard work that um Business Services has done on this and also those employees on the employee trust committee that were the first ones to look through this through and the recommendation so it is a little bit more than we've had in past years but we've been so blessed that um we've had very low increases for the I think the last three years at least um it's been just like a few percentage points at the most so I I recommend that we uh approve this thank you is there how many members are there on the employee benefits trust board the board or the committee both so on the board um there's Mrs humph myself as well as Mr Mark we um Mr Reed Carr and Dr uh Charles Santa Cruz so five of us board as the trust board the formal trust board and the committee can you help me 11 M 11 on the committee and those are made up of support staff certified teachers and administrators correct yep Y and so so I understand the process so you're saying that the teachers or the staff get together and discuss benefits and I I guess what what kind of things I I if if I was a when I've been an employee of a company that receives benefits I don't know all the ins and outs of what you know what what goes into creating a benefits plan um and so I'm just curious what that when when the when the teachers come together are they organized is there is there a a leadership group among them that says these are the benefits these are what we recommend and then the teachers and then I'm sorry the staff discuss that amongst themselves or how does that process work so as um Dr McCord shared it does represent all employees though and we don't have we don't have a representing um teacher group necessarily there's just a couple of them the idea though is that they are expected to loop back out to talk with their constituent group and the same thing with all the support staff as well as the administrators so that was the intent um and then uh what happens generally is knowing what the the circumstances are regarding the claims experience during a current year then uh Sean and I and Adrien work closely with our um our benefits Consultants to come up with some potential options that we can share with the employee benefit trust uh chair of the employee benefit trust committee and then then that whatever comes out of that committee then is shared with the employee benefit trust board the formal board so that's a little bit more detail about what happens I think it's important that it's clear to you as the governing board that this does have a three-prong approach that we have we we are drawing down some fund balance of the employee benefit trust we're increasing premiums but we also have some uh plan design changes across two of the three plans actually all three of them I think um and so that in conjunction with the premium increase um has has brought that um 12% increase down to the 6% so with all things remaining equal if you did nothing else if you just left everything the same the increase would have been 12% if we left everything the same it actually would have been 14.6% yeah and what drives plan changes are basically increases in claims right that's correct so if you have if you have a year where you have maybe $2 or $3 million in claims off of just a couple individuals that could truly impact that and so in years past we really haven't had those types of claims uh but now uh everything comes due and so as a self-funded trust that's how this operates correct that's correct with the increase the 6% increase do we anticipate any member loss from the plan so strategically one of the things that we did consider uh we do have our EPO plan that's not a high deductible health care plan which does have a um premium share a charge to employees uh the high deductible healthc care plan that's at 2500 and the other one that's um projected to go to 18 uh for next year um they do they are both High deductible healthcare plans and they do come with the district contributing to their health savings account uh we do anticipate that individuals may move from that EPO because of the 6% increase to their copay and move to the high deductible health care plans it's not clear whether that will be benefit to us or not we are anticipating that it will be and we see that as a positive change so it it could result in movements that that could be positive for the plan as well even with the district contributing a portion of that uh to the health savings account that's correct corit we absolutely um consider that as well okay all right any other questions all right thank you uh then we'll call for a vote all those in favor of approving the employee benefits trust medical insurance rates recommendation for 2025 2026 school year say I I I any opposed and that passes thank you very much 8.02 renewal of Administrators for the 2025 2026 school year Dr McCord uh Mr Thompson can we take 8.03 at the same time absolutely 8.30 is renewal of certified staff professional staff psychologist support staff uh as well as hourly employees for the 2526 school year this is the annual approval from the governing board that we need from so we can start getting contracts ready to be deployed uh within the next month uh essentially and so uh the list of names and individuals on that can be found up in the office of talent management if you're interested in seeing any of that but that is our request this evening so you want something from us huh I do sorry all right okay uh then let's take these to uh as far as the vote is concerned should we separate out I think you call them out in your motion do do them together okay so then is there uh a motion uh to approve the renewal of Administrators for the 25 20 2025 2026 school year and renewal of certified staff professional staff psychologist support services staff and hourly employees for the 2025 26 school year so moved thank you Mr brard is there a second second thank you Miss humph is there any discussion on this well I would like to say um thank you to all of our staff for how hard they work um it's really something where it's it's really not seen a lot I mean if you're in the classroom or you're a parent you you're going to see something but it's a lot of work and we really appreciate all that they do for our students and it's really important work um so thank you any other discussion thank you for that Miss Humphrey is there any other discussion among the board okay also want to thank uh everybody involved in helping put this together so we can get these contracts out on time and hopefully earlier or at least at the same time as surrounding districts so that we can make sure that we get the best of the best here in Gilbert as we've always done so thank you um okay we'll call for a vote uh all those in favor of the renewal of Administrators for the 2025 2026 school year and renewal of certified staff professional staff psychologists support services staff and hourly employees for the 2025 2026 School year say I I any opposed and that passes thank you very much and now we're going to uh move into some policy development 8.04 policy development first read of policy 1-31 Rules of Order Dr McCord thank you Mr President governing board members all policies tonight uh are very much related around cosmetic changes just so everybody knows every policy starts off in our policy committee uh which is a committee of the whole for the governing board as well as uh administrators uh and support staff and other cabinet members and uh we go through this before it comes here for a first read and then after that after tonight it'll go back to the committee for a another lookover and come back to the governing board at the next meeting meeting after uh the policy meeting for approval and so uh in this one again just additions of governing board in in places of where it says board before that and then just some changes from uppercase letters to lowercase letters uh the biggest change in this is out of item number three uh B um they moved that portion down to number four where it says the governing board president May recess or adjourn a meeting without a motion to adjourn if required to maintain order and so essentially that's the changes to this policy thank you for that explanation is there a motion to approve policy development first read for po of policy 1301 Rules of Order so moved thank you Dr Robison uh I'll go ahead and second that is there any discussion among the board on this uh on this policy 1-0 1 d301 okay then we will vote all those in favor of approving the first read of policy 1-31 rules of voter order say I I I any opposed thank you very much the next one 8.05 first read of policy 5-4 8 hazing prevention Dr McCord thank you Mr President govering board members again on this policy basically just some uh changes in what it looks aesthetically there was an addition of a category that calls out a specific area and it says Arizona law specifically prohibits the following and uh then again that's it they changed in the third to last paragraph uh complaints of hazing and violation of this policy should be reported and they changed the should to shall and added a member after staff so it says staff members and then at the bottom uh essentially it says parent SL legal Guardians and that's the changes to this policy Miss Wilson can you go to the next page please oh it's in the back sorry I'm she's looking at us I'm like I don't did you not did did you hear that is is Sarah back there she is can you oh here we go perfect thank you okay that's helpful uh let's first uh make a motion is there a motion uh to approve the first read of policy 5-48 hazing prevention so moved thank you Mr Brainard is there a second second oh it's a tie goad second thank you Miss Murray uh is there any discussion on this okay seeing that there's none we'll move to our vote all those in favor of approving the first read of policy 5-48 hazing prevention say I I any opposed thank you very much moving on to the first read of policy 5-23 students with disabilities individuals with disabilities Education Act Dr McCord thank you Mr President govern board members this policy is essentially 27 pages long uh I won't read through all of them uh I know Dramatics readings with Shane McCord um what you'll see in this is again very Cosmetic in nature they've added just other words um you know um at the end of sentences uh added things such as in a certain area it says will not be considered to be in violation of requirement they've spelled out many of the acronyms that we love to have an education for example fape is uh defined as free and appropriate public education and an IEP is individualized education program and then um along through that it says in blue at any time subsequent to the initial provision of special education related services and so uh the lawyers have gone through all this and made sure that they've matched any legislative changes that have occurred related to uh and that impact our policies uh and so uh I ask for your approval all right is there a motion to approve first read of policy 5-23 students with disabilities uh individuals with disabilities Education Act so moved thank you Miss humph is there a second second thank you Dr Robison is there any discussion on this policy I remember I recall from our meeting that there was some discussion regarding the the should and shall should and shall language I think that's on the next one is that on the next one okay all right and I remember you were going to reach out to reach out somebody yep exactly okay so that's on the next one so I'll ask again is there any discussion on this policy and the changes that are being proposed okay thank you very much we will call for a vote I will call for a vote uh all those in favor of approving the first read of policy 5-23 students with disabilities individuals with disabilities Education Act say I I any opposed thank you very much 8.07 uh first read of policy 5-24 students with disabilities procedural safeguards individuals with disabilities Education Act Dr McCord uh thank you Mr President govern board members again uh more cosmetic um retooling of this policy uh to answer your question even though that this wasn't changed but it was brought up as a question in our policy meeting I have reached out to our attorney I've have not heard back yet um but I wanted to give you my thoughts a little bit because I've read this numerous times after we and it's under on page 11 under the referral to an action by law enforcement and judicial authorities it says number one the district May report a crime committed by a child with the disability to appropriate authorities to enable them to exercise their responsibilities can we can we go to page 11 on the screen please thank you there you go and this is the basically the top section and number two is the district in reporting a crime committed by a child with a disability will ensure that copies of special education disciplinary records of a child are transmitted for consideration by the appropriate authorities to whom the district reports the crime but not only to the extent permitted by furpa so as I read through this a few times because I think we were discussing where it says the district May instead of the district shall I I when we were in policy I read it very similar to how you did and then as I backed away and then read it again I read this as this is something that may happen and then in number two I read it as and if it does and we report this is what we have to do and that's how I rationalized it so I'll again I'll check with our attorney and bring it back to the policy committee and we'll get the final answer on that but that's why I've read it uh 20 times in the last couple days so but I could be wrong okay let's go ahead and make a motion is there a motion to approve first read of policy 5204 students with disabilities procedural safeguards individuals with disabilities Education Act so moved thank you Mr Brainard is there a second second thank you Miss Murray okay is there any discussion about this uh these policy changes okay so Dr McCord um explain to me again after stepping back how the use of the word uh May in subsection one under referral to an action by law enforcement and judicial authorities how how did you how did you rationalize that yeah how did you come to that conclusion my heels together three times no I I looked at the heading and that's what got me so it says a referral to an action by law enforcement so in my reading after I read that a few times to me it says Hey the district May report a crime I got do you see what I'm saying there and so that's that's what unlocked me a little bit on that so but again we'll we'll get we'll get the final verdict so just to clarify so we may report a crime but if we do report that crime then we have to make sure that we give them as many uh special education and dis disciplinary records as we can without violating their furpa free and appropriate rights um I can't remember what the words are for fora but just to make sure that their their priv privacy is still um considered as we do that so then if that's the case should this read when the district reports a crime committed by a child dot dot dot I don't know again people a lot smarter than me put this together so I have a I I do have a hard time tinkering with what they put together because I don't want to to have things misinterpreted but obviously we're interpreting this differently so well an attorney's already gone over this so I think that the wording that's currently there is probably good but it also needs to be readable and and under and people the general public need to understand what they're reading so if there's a different way um then we can approach that as well yeah I think the aside from establishing our policies making sure that things are clear clear in the event that something is needing to be reviewed by um a judge I think we don't want to leave any ambiguity there that can be interpreted uh in some other way that it's not intended to be interpreted so um okay with that uh is there any other discussion in regards to uh policy 5204 okay I'll call for a vote all those in favor of approving the first read of policy 5-20 4 students with disabilities procedural safeguards individuals with disabilities Education Act say I I I any opposed and that passes thank you very much moving on to agenda item number nine items for future agenda do any of the board members have any uh agenda items that they would like to add to a future agenda I'm sorry any any items they would like to add to a future agenda okay then we'll move on to board reports uh town of Gilbert liaison Dr Blake Robison uh nothing to report thank you uh audit committee Mr Chad Thompson I don't have anything tonight Gilbert Education Foundation Mr Jesse Brainard nothing to report thank you Mr Brainard city of Mesa is on Miss Shaina Murray nothing to report thank you Miss Murray legislative representative and employee benefit trust Miss Jill humph so we did have a meeting for the employee benefit trust to approve what we just did tonight and I really appreciate the hard work that has been put on to make sure that our employees have good healthc care insurance and that we're trying to keep that cost um as low as we can uh the other thing I wanted to report on as a legislative representative is just um a lot of bills have gone through committees um it's been change over weeks so things have been taking along pretty good I just wanted to mention one bill which is SC 1026 that state in committee it just was concerning because it would have made um Bond and override elections more difficult to pass by putting a 60% um uh floor on that instead of just a majority vote um it fortunately was held in committee and it will not be going forward um you know we we've worked really hard and we we know districts around us that also worked hard on their elections and we're not as um um fortunate or blessed as we were and they're now um working on cutting their budgets so it is it is something that's very um it's a fundamental part of our uh funding so we just have to be aware of those things but it's not moving forward and then I just wanted to mention two or three things um uh the when uh Sarah deu from Greenfield Junior High was recognized that was we were recognized at the same luncheon and I just wanted to thank the Arizona music Education Association it was a beautiful luncheon it felt really great to be honored for my music advocacy um I just felt like it was the Oscars for me and I wanted to thank all of our music teachers that were there for the hard work that they put in and I was thinking about it later and it's really it's kind of like being a teacher you just do that work and then every once in a while you get a little special recognition that feels great so I really wanted to tell the um Arizona music education Educators Association how much I appreciated that um I also wanted to mention that um we have wonderful activities at our schools we have sports activities we have theater activities if you want to spend some date night money or go to something that makes you feel really great um I was able ble to go to the Highland High School orchestra dinner um their fundraiser and it was just such a pleasure was a wonderful dinner we had a lot of administration there and it was just it's a really great way to have a cheap date and support your local schools so I just highly recommend that and then just lastly I wanted to mention um I went to a preschool parent Community night and um it was ways to learn Ma with preschoolers without doing a worksheet it was just phenomenal put on by Suzanne Lunt and our preschool team Suzanne Lun is a kindergarten teacher but um she just had lots of great ideas for working with your four and fivey olds and helping them to learn math in a way that doesn't use a worksheet so I thought it was really uh an awesome night and that's my report thank you Miss humph uh meeting dates Dr record thank you Mr President governing board members our next meeting is a board work study brief board meeting next Tuesday 6 p.m.

93% um now we're looking at the projected Cola being 2.43% share with each board member for isua Unified School District that reduction in Cola of a half a percent equates about $450,000 um we were just talking about the evolving change of the fires and the other disasters that as of right now we don't even know if that 2.43 % is going to materialize um we identifi that we do have an increase in our projected purs where the district has to make the contribution for every dollar for our classified employee um stirs is currently at 19.10% and that's slated to remain the same um but we have other um increases um we did dive into the fact that even though the district receives a cola that does not equate to an increase in Revenue so even right now just on paper um for 24 25 we're projected to close out this year receiving a hundred million and with the change in Cola and due to decline enrollment our next year projected um revenue is going to go down by 3.2 million so we're just showing that the parallel does not just equate to yes the state is given to Cola that means the district is getting more money because you also have to factor in um decline enrollment thank you I didn't mean to put you on the spot and one of the things that she mentioned which was I thought was really important and maybe it's because I'm a Pur you know former employee but is that we initially started at 4% right in 2008 until we're at you said we are at over 27% so that that's a big jump and that that's that's just Aza Unified School District that even impacts like local municipalities anybody that's hers or stirs so I mean those are big numbers and I just for the sake of transparency I just wanted to you know not shine a light on on that um because we need to be prepared as a district and because sometimes hard decisions come down the road so thank you for that Latasha board member Bros any last comments yeah just again I want to thank you all for um putting this together and for me being again the new here it was very informative and I think the time that we used to do this was very so again thank you and um also got a lot of good reading material for for for the evenings to come so um um and I am going to dict to some of it because uh all the data that that's there is very interesting so um thanks again for to everyone for for for bringing this to the board I have one one last com uh oh go ah number yes um I also like to thank everyone um I I like how we do this because we all have in different questions individual questions right and um the same thing with our budget know we met with her individual we never did this before and I want to do it more than once a year because it was great information but of course we all had different questions on that too and um you all did a fine job on explaining each um lcap that we had 125 and I want to thank you all for your time thank you colleagues for for your comments and I have one uh some less comments and uh to Echo my colleagues in thanking you guys this this is I I remember being part of this as a parent when we were um it was a pack plus it was the first year and trying trying to write three years out was a lot of work so I I I have been part of it and I know how much but I'm not mainly part of it just as a parent you know contributing factor to it and it was just a lot so I just want to thank you for your time your dedication your passion to making our district just become better and better and being able to to see kind of uh like what R uh board member Rodriguez P said that we're just it's just not a presentation basically you're teaching us the way our students are learning and we are enjoying it we're enjoying it and we're learning and yes we will have to review um our notes I agree those graphs um you know it's very simple but at the same time it's you know it's understandable it's not complex to understand and so as the years go by I appreciate the positive U you know criticism or uh constru uh constructive criticism that the board gives or parents and you guys are adapting you know the lcap and most importantly putting our community first which is our students our parents our staff how can we support our staff because if we can't support our staff then there's no student growth in any of the areas of math you know um English and so forth our our our chronic absentees how can we improve right what are ways that we can improve our our absentee our chronic absent absentees um so these are um great conversations and I'm sure we can sit here all night and talk some more but I I think I think we're all on all on information overloaded right now I think we're good and we just want to thank you again for your hard work and your dedication to our district thank you now moving on to item 4.1 which is the adjournment can I please get a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting make a motion to adjourn we have we have a first by board Rodriguez pñ can I get a second please I'll second the motion we have a second by board member Ramos discussion no seeing that there's none we can go ahead and place our vote and it passes four when being absent this meeting is adjourned at 8:25 p.m.

right here and then our next board business meeting is March 25th uh we will have spring break at the conclusion of next week I'm sure everybody's happy I know Andrea is out there I know Luca is excited and I know Albert's excited because everybody's going to be gone and they can get a lot of work done um and I just want to wish everybody a happy Happy Spring Break coming up thank you very much all right uh takes us to agenda item number 12 adjournment is there a motion to adjourn so moved thank you Miss humph I'll second that all those in favor of adjourning this evening say I I any opposed good thank you very much everybody

and with 5 minutes to spare have a great evening have a good night

e e e Dr Hayes would like to stand for the pledge all please stand for theed I pledge ALG 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 welcome everybody to the Cliffside Park Board of Education uh meeting this evening February 26 2025 I'd like to start with the roll call Mr Alano please thank you Mr capano I'll just read a quick statement if I may the New Jersey open public meetings law was enacted to ensure the rights of the public to have notice advanced notice of and to attend the meeting of public bodies in which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted upon in accordance with the provision of this act the clide Park Board of edit has caused notice of this meeting to be published by having date time time and place thereof posted in the office of the burough clerk burough Library b Rec Department the office of the Board of Ed the offices of school numbers 3456 in high school on February 19th 2025 and notices were forwarded to the reporters of the record February 19 2025 this is an official meeting I'll take the role now Mr capano please Mrs Abu here Mr capano here Mrs Fredo here Mr garciaa here Mr nadw here Dr Dr pontano here Mr rank cor no Mr Russo here mrakia Mr taraka no and Mr yanui no okay Mr thank you you want one Mr okay at this time I'm going to ask for the superintendent report well good evening and thank you Mr President thank you Mr Alano um there are 21 Personnel resolutions tonight vast majority of them we're seeking approve approval for appointments of sub substitute teachers professional development dates leaves of absence and our spring coaching staff however there are two of the 21 which I would like to speak to and uh they involved retirements of two of our long-standing staff members and we are fortunately tonight here with one of their former students from the high school who wants to address both of them resolution number three retirement of Kathleen mulwitz resolution number eight retirement of Janet we definitely want to wish m m was a wonderful retirement they have both served our district integrity and hard work for years sometimes in different schools and they've touched the lives of thousands of kids including me and I just want to wish them the best of their retirement and we've been happy to have worked with them and be blessed by them for short time thank you Mr and as far as policy and procedures go there were three investigations this reporting period the findings came back with one standing stood it alleged and two were confirmed in all three investigations there were parental contact made counseling was provided and restor practices will put in place and uh that's it for me Mr President thank you Dr Hayes at this time I'll ask for committee reports any committee reports on the floor I have a couple of reports sure I'm not sure if they're committee reports but I have a few reports to share go ahead Dr P um the Cliffside Park School District submitted an application to transition from Early Childhood Program Aid to preschool education aid for the 20 5 26 school year and the application was approved which uh means in short that we will be providing preschool programs for I believe uh Dr Hayes three-year-old and four-year-old so we will be having preschool programs for three-year-olds and four yearolds beginning in the 25 26 school year I would like to thank Mrs marady and Mr Alban for all of their hard work it'll bring in a significant amount of money and it will expand our pool of preschool school children that will be servicing in the district so thank you and congratulations for that and I assume at some point in the future Dr Hayes will be having a presentation on it to share with the community yes uh and always one of my favorite reports to do the athletic report so for the winter Athletics the girls basketball finished 7 and 17 which is significant considering they didn't have any seniors on the team uh the boys basketball finished 13 and 12 and the team is the number nine seed in their state sectional bracket and they're playing right now in Warren Hills I don't know if we have an update on the game but we certainly hope that they're doing well uh the boys wrestling finished six and 14 and second in their division Junior Isaiah Rodriguez played second in The njsiaa District tournament and Senior Brian mahz placed third in The njsiaa District Tournament the girls wrestling which I'm sorry I didn't get to see one of their matches but uh completed their inaugural season so congratulations to the girls and they came up in the top six in the Bergen County tournament so congratulations and we look for great things out of them to come in the future indoor track season is complete with the team competing at the conference County and Invitational meets in New York and Toms River uh student athletes were successful with many personal bests as they gear up for Spring Track season the boys bowling season in his complete competition cheer finished as BNC division Champions congratulations to the cheerleaders I love seeing them in the athletic report the dance team season is complete with third place at MSU and third place at PV the team will also perform at halftime for various basketball games and the basketball cheer team cheered at home basketball games which was great to see and congratulations to the girls bowling they finished their regular season at 14 and2 uh Wendy paluchi and Khloe Balin finished seventh and eth respectively at Bergen County's top 35 uh as the number two seed in the njsiaa north group three sectional bracket the team defeated fairon hackin saac and Colonia advancing to the sectional championship for the first time in school history but were defeated by longtime bowling Powerhouse Woodridge so congratulations to our girls bowling team for doing some so well uh the cphhs Athletics celebrated njsiaa official the preciation week at home basketball games on January 27th and January 30th and Junior Eric I'm going to mispronounce his name Loi is representing the district as the njsi AA student ambassador spring Athletics will begin on March 10th and we wish all of our spring Sports s of very good luck in their competitions uh another report that I have to share with the board comes from the curriculum department and uh it comes to me via Mrs calib we had cusac in the district uh doing an evaluation and they shared with us some recommendations on how to make the school district better in the years to come and we are taking those recommendations to Heart and developing an action plan so we should have action plans around chronic absenteeism njsla participation uh in the area of mathematics and possibly we'll have a new sequence for our algebra classes as well as some of our science classes there were recommendations in the area of Middle School honors program which I think our honest program is wonderful and one recommendation comes around the inrs program and I was happy to see this because this is something I've brought up several times in the past but there's a need there's a definite need for elementary guidance counselors now we do have Elementary guidance counselors we don't have one Elementary counselor in each building and that's a dedicated position to each one of our elementary schools now as an educator in the absence of Vice principles and vice principles often times are thought of as a disciplinarian or somebody who is reactive I think it's much more important that we have an elementary guidance counselor who can be proactive with students and work on behaviors before behaviors become issues and possibly have groups and so forth for the students so I was very happy to see that we'll probably be moving forward with Elementary guidance counselors in each one of our Elementary uh schools for next year I would ask that you know that be considered in next year's budget if we can do that just update you Dr pontano it is in our PCR for our 25 years position control last I am thrilled and I thank you so much on behalf of the elementary schools to know that that's already in the budget and something that we're strongly uh considering obviously if and when the budget is approved because again it's something that really adds a benefit to our students especially at the elementary level um actually this also came up I think Mr tabaka brought it up at our virtual meeting that we had because we were talking about bus evacuation drills and how we needed to do bus evacuation drills for all of our students not just the ones that ride the bus on a regular basis and in conversation with Dr Hayes we came to the conclusion that we should have a bus evacuation drill every time a bus leaves on a field trip because often times students who go on field trips do not ride the bus regularly and if you do a bus evacuation drill possibly with a second grader in September and they don't go on a field trip till May they may not remember everything that they did during that bus evacuation drill so we thought it would be prudent and good policy that every time we take students on a trip especially students who aren't on the bus regularly that before they leave for the trip we do a an emergency evacuation drill with the students this way before they leave it's all fresh in their minds and I think that you shared that with the principles on Monday very receptive to the idea they were receptive to the idea so we want to make sure that when our students are going on a bus that the emergency procedures are fresh in their memory and in their mind we never want anything to happen but it's good practice that that's something that's done before every trip so I think that we'll be making that a practice and I thank you Dr Hayes for taking that suggestion under consideration and moving forward with it thank you and I think that's all the committee reports that I have thank you anybody else have committee reports I'm just going to touch on a few things on Personnel committee uh as everybody knows uh here on the board and for the public the teachers uh contract expires June 30th we've started our uh first meeting of negotiations we've set out the ground rules parameters and we hope to have a an agreement ratified uh uh prior to the expiration of the current contract we're also in the process of uh uh actually closed on Friday uh accepting uh applications and resumés for uh superintendent search Dr Pantano is leading that search uh uh with myself and we're in the process of uh selecting a few candidates for some interviews in reference to finance everybody knows this time of the year uh we start the budget um U Mr alfano started probably about two months ago with all the moving Parts uh that compromised a a 50 million plus uh budget uh a lot of good things uh are trying to be added to the budget and we take into consideration the astronomical raises in prescription plans for our uh employees and medical plans uh so uh tomorrow we'll have a better idea as the state implements their uh uh you know allocated numbers to the cities and municipalities here in New Jersey and I want to commend Lu Alano for the last uh 10 12 years you've worked very hard on these budgets and I commend you and we've always come up uh ahead and uh with a a surplus so I just wanted to talk a little bit about that in reference to the building and grounds uh committee uh we are working on our 2025 uh summer projects uh and uh uh Capital Improvement projects for 25 26 our lobby expansion has uh pretty much is 95% complete I'm happy to report that we met on site uh last week and then on Monday and Tuesday they did some pre-testing of uh fire alarm systems Etc um we do have a temporary Co and I expect that that Lobby will be open on Monday our in-house contractors finishing up some loose ends and while they were uh in there uh the Board of Education under um L's guidance uh and Dr hay decided to uh paint the entire uh stairwells uh on the ground floor there too so about three stairwells are being done and a lot of good things like with any project there's always uh once you open there's some fine tuning but I'm pretty sure uh everybody's going to be happy to see the lobby uh complete the outside work is anticipated to be completed in uh early spring summer as we're now soliciting uh proposals and bids for uh the outside uh Paving concrete work and ballards so uh that pretty much wraps up the committee reports um the high school committee report I know we have our representative Valentina I'll turn it over to you um so we have a fundraiser going on for the high school it's going to be going on next week it is uh donating to the food pantry fair viiew and it's basically going to be like Battle of the classes but with buckets and it's going to be with uh quarters so basically half of it or a quarter of it is going to go to their class and then the rest is all going to charity so it's a good way to get the students involved and give it locally as well so yeah that's what we have going on the city council yeah also U to the senior class I know it's the time of the year where uh uh you know the scholarship uh applications uh go out so uh I did get an email on that some some great things uh on that so you can share that with your uh you know your student your friends got it yes anything else um that's about it yeah where did I see a picture Rec you no I'm on the CH Team Championship so congratulations so um at this time um I'll ask uh Mr Alano to go over the consent agenda I know uh Dr Hayes did everything on uh Personnel side um and operations but if you can turn it over we'll turn it over to you for the finance side of it uh Mr off sure thank you Mr Pano um as you alluded to we are uh working on the budget we're getting to the final stages and some of the key dates obviously meeting with the board which was tonight um we meeting with the municipality tomorrow uh we're looking to have a special meeting uh towards the end of next week of course on the 7th we have to deliver the tentative budget to the county uh right now we don't know all the specifics of the total budget but we going to be somewhere in the $70 million range total budget for uh 2526 we'll have that more buttoned up that we as we get closer to the end of next week and I again I'd like to thank the board for all their support uh the business office for all their support and the staff all their support specifically folks like Mr savastano has been a great help during the last uh six to8 weeks i' just like to take your attention to page 15 resolution number 45 this is the first time we've received that and we always like to get grants our our chemistry and biology and science supervisor Mr danho applied for this and we got a $5,000 US EPA environmental grant for $5,000 from Bergen Community College essentially him Mr Dan and Mr Bernstein are going to the uh appoint individuals for this and essentially it was a partnership with Bergen Community College with they called five high need Metro New Jersey schools to fund sustainability design challenges so Mr DaNell and Mr Bernstein are working through the process now all the paperwork has been completed so this is pretty neat stuff hopefully this will expand over the years but uh grants like this are very helpful for the obvious reasons of they they're fully funded and they required some incremental knowledge bases for the uh for the students so congratulations to Mr Dano and Mr Bernstein for pursuing that and winning the award I wanted just to bring that to the board and the Public's attention that's pretty much it uh Mr capano okay thank you Mr Alano at this time anybody from the public any comments or uh suggestions now it's the time to come up state your name hi Mr H I have to tell you I'm glad you're here but um I we were expecting you next month the board's gonna honor your students next month but come on up Take a Bow and congratulations on all your success thank you this is just below preview um thank you very much for uh in you know letting me be here and speak our students have won uh an invitation to Washington DC they're going to compete in an international engineering challenge I wanted to give this has some personal information the kids have their phone numbers so it's just kind of like for you guys but this is the work they submitted to earn the invitation to Washington DC uh the kids generated that entire booklet of uh CAD designs computer AED designs uh they've done a business plan for how to run a company and they've done a lot of physics calculations on how to uh operate the Machinery when are they going to Washington uh May 2 and 3rd well maybe Mr Russo a good friend of Mr Trump president Trump can make some arrangement ah we would we would love that um and then the other thing I was just going to share um I don't know if you guys may be willing to kind of share the news with any business people you know in the area that we are fundraising so I don't know if you might be willing to share those letters with oh thank you sir so I was hoping you might be willing to share those letters with local Business Leaders the kids have actually beat up the math of Cliffside and Fairview so they've already gathered a good amount of donations to go down there um and they've just been walking door too knocking on businesses and letting people know of their success so thank you very much and then if you don't mind I'll add in a personal thing just please with the retirement coming up I just want to say what a Joy's always been to work with Ed Meyer and um just his Devotion to his daughter and the kids has always just been very uh heartwarming for me to see so thank you all very much we'll see you next month congratulations you appreciate it anybody else from the public okay at this time I'll ask uh a motion to approve this evening's uh agenda a motion from Mr Russo and we have a second and Mr was number two okay yes thank you very roll call Mr Alano please Mrs Abu yes Mr capano yes Mrs Fredo yes Mr Garcia yes Mr Nadu yes Dr pontian I want to say yes and I'm very happy to see number 28 because that was started uh with Richfield a few years ago when I was over there so I'm happy to see that that's continuing the wrestling Co-op oh the co-op yeah um Mr Russo Mr Russo yes sorry Mike if I was mumbling okay Mr capano so moved thank you well before we close I want to thank the public for coming this evening and um do we have to do this or this is part number 21 and um our next meeting Mr alfano is March

e good evening good evening everyone thank you for joining us tonight um this evening we are in the process of finding Higley a new superintendent and so I thank you for joining us tonight um welcome to our board members community members our students and staff um thank you for joining us either in person or online tonight uh we have our three finalists this evening and they will be sharing about themselves and their career and then also sharing why Higley so in 20 minutes they're going to tell us all of that and then after we're done with that part we'll move into question and answer where I will facilitate the question questions for the candidates the questions have been selected from the survey that was sent out to the en entire Community as well as our staff and students to participate in this was done a few months ago um each finalists will have the 20 minutes to introduce themselves and like I said the 25 each finalists will have the 25 minutes to um answer the questions we would appreciate your feedback this evening please uh we have a QR code on a small sheet of paper over there but the survey will only be open for a short period of time and that's from this evening starting at 6 o'clock until tomorrow at noon and the reason for that is because the Board needs to see the results tomorrow afternoon as they go on their Journey to the finalization of what candidate they're going to be selecting uh let's see just just for the future what what comes next after this interview of course is tomorrow with the board members and then after that the board will make a decision on March 4th to bring forth a candidate and make that public so with that being said I have our first finalist here tonight Dr Erica copelan please help me welcome her tonight okay I let's see make sure I get that there we go Dr Copeland you're aome yes take hand this is my oh good evening everyone thank you so much for giving me this opportunity um I would like to before I begin um thank ultimately the governing board I I appreciate this opportunity to come and speak to the community of Higley I I'm honored and I'm humbled for this opportunity and I'm Al also very excited um so thank you very much um I'm Erica Copeland and um I have been tasked with telling you a little bit about myself I have 10 minutes and so um I have more content probably on my slides than I will talk about but you're welcome uh to read some of my thoughts that I included and um so the objective is I would like for you to learn a little bit about who I am and what I believe um and so I focus a little bit on my credentials but um I have the credentials and the education or I wouldn't be here so I I'd like you to really get to know a little bit more about me personally um and uh what the driving forces are um behind my career um and and how passionate I am about working with students uh so I'll start with sharing a couple core educational values and um some examples of how I have applied them in my profession I am going to share with you an overview of my career experience and then offer also a tiny glimpse of who I am beyond my professional career so with that I'm going to begin with some core values uh Student Success is um something that I have dedicated my entire adult life to um I feel passionate about preparing students um helping them to reach their Highest Potential um it's very important to me that students are not only successful within our K12 system but I think that we have a responsibility to ensure students success Beyond High School um and into our students lives and future careers and so that is um something that I have focused on um quite a bit um within my career and so I'll I'm going to highlight um one area uh that uh really shows my passion for Student Success and some of the work that I've done to promote that and I'm going to talk about Innovation and choice I have had the um great opportunity to be part of a team that has uh opened seven new schools and uh we are currently in the construction phase of an eighth new school um in the past 10 years and so that has provided a lot of opportunity for um how can we build Innovation as we are building these new campuses um and offer choice for our parents uh we know that um choice is important to families as it should be and um that's something that we want to try to offer um to meet the needs of our families so something that I'm really proud of is leading the um planning and programming for two brand new high schools um within my district and these are comprehensive 712 schools that have a career path Academy focus and so what that means is that um we were able to design these schools um with career pathies um amazing labs and maker spaces and opportunities for Hands-On learning for our students um our students are able to graduate from high school school with industry certificates um and preparation for their next step in their career um and uh it's something I've been very proud of um something that has been very well received by our community because not only is that promoting that success while they are in our high schools but we're really setting them up for Success Beyond High School uh so that is my example for that value the next core value um safe learning environment safety is extremely important to me um it is uh a top priority I I understand that students can't be successful they're not going to learn at their highest levels if they are not in a a safe learning environment and so um couple things that I'll share with you um about the area of safety um again through building new campuses and uh we have um uh had the opportunity to have a voter approved bond in place and so able to bring the buildings and that physical safety up to date in all of our campuses um we've done that through um physical barriers to the campus um ensuring that there's a single point of entry on all of our campuses um things like um safety glass um access onto our campuses through being buzzed in and out um and so those physical safety pieces um a second area that I'd love to share with you is our Partnerships with local law enforcement my team and I have um been able to build amazing Partnerships with our local law enforcement we meet monthly with u Mesa PD and Queen Creek PD um to talk about concerns within our schools within our community um and really problem solve and partner together to make sure that our schools are safe um they've helped us with um audits um and provided feedback uh something that I'm proud of uh that has come out of that partnership would be we have created a safety video this was probably two years ago I think is when we implemented this about uh The Power of Words and so a concern that we have had is um a threatening language right that happens with um students sometimes and so really trying to educate students and parents about the seriousness of that um whether it be um set out of anger whether kids think they're joking um there's there's really power behind that and so we um collaborated uh with the local law enforcement our sro's and and created an an educational informational video that all students Watch twice a year in 2nd through 12th grade uh we send that link out to the parents they also sign off on our um parent handbook um and I can tell you the data has shown that in the past two years we've had a significant decrease in our discipline in the area of threats so it's um been extremely successful and that has come out of that partnership with um our local law enforcement the next core value that I wanted to highlight uh family and Community Partnerships um I fir L believe that education is a shared responsibility um I think it is very important for our schools to partner with the parents with the community um so that our students can be successful and so I just shared um a few things that um systems that we have in place that I have been able to be a part of um they're similar things that um you have happening in Higgly Unified School District um but uh good opportunities to connect with our community and our families um I'm able to present and highlight some of our programs and those would be through things like um a cafe structure which is um community and family engagement uh business partner breakfast uh multiple committees with um lots of stakeholders I was part of I was a coordinator of our strategic planning um plan um vision and Mission Financial we had a bud a bond oversight Community um committee um with stakeholders and parents for a bond that we had in place um and also I think it's really important to be involved um with your local agencies like the Queen Creek chamber I was part of the education committee um that works to organize a large um Workforce um event um for juniors across the East Valley called e for Te um and and then partnering with our town of Queen Creek um we have um joint board um meetings with the town um and with our governing board and I've had the opportunity to present on programming um and some of our safety protocols and um next trust and transparent communication uh this is the heart of of who I am my strength um is building trust through positive communication through being transparent um I think it is very important to keep our families informed of what's happening in our schools um I would work closely with our governing board to keep them informed of what's happening I think it's really important to uh a mentor early on um shared with me that uh the importance of not only sharing the good news but we we need to share when there's challenges and news that's maybe not so good um as well um and and that's what transparency is um if it's something that should be knowledged that should be known it's going to be known it's it's going to be um communicated so this next slide um going to talk to you a little bit about my um 20 over 27 years in public education I of course started as a classroom teacher um I started out my career in Mesa Public Schools and uh something that um sometimes happens in education uh you're in the classroom and and you're a teacher and you are seeing these amazing results and you're you're feeling great about the positive impact that is um happening on the students in your classroom and you think well how could I expand my my reach how could I positively impact more students um and that kind of prompts us teachers to then move into some sort of school leadership um role and that that's what I did um after um I think six years in the classroom I became um this position it had it had a unique title at the time but it was a dean assistant to the principal who um traveled to multiple campuses um and uh worked with students discipline teacher evaluations all the things that an assistant um principal um took care of um and it was it was an amazing experience um I got to know the community better because I was traveling to multiple sites um and got to learn from a lot of mentors um different um leadership styles and things that were happening on their campuses after that I um got my first principal job in Queen Creek Unified School District that was in 2005 um I was a principal for nine years U one of my favorite jobs I I've ever had um just loved it loved being with the kids loved working with the teachers um and creating that environment for our students um so that they could succeed and Thrive um and so nine years of that loved it um was able to um as a principal um the the school that I took over um LED that to that school to its first a label um a and excelling that used to have an excelling label both with the state of Arizona um and also the first Elementary School in the district to receive the A+ um Award of Excellence and um that's because I had an amazing team um I had great teachers and staff Who Loved kids cared about kids and worked really hard every day to make it a great place so um that was that was my experience as a principal um next I um went into a district leadership role um I started out as a coordinator of um curriculum instruction and assessment um and I did that for a a short time we had some some changes in my district um and so the next year I became the executive director over human resources and academic Services um and so that was a challenging time in my career I had a a big learning curve um but I enjoyed it immensely and um I learned a lot and um these are things that I can draw from um in the position of superintendent that will really help me to support a school district uh so I was an executive director for I think six years um predominantly K12 um academic Services um which is basically all of teaching and learning um and after that I became an assistant superintendent I was promoted um to that role and did that role for three years um again on the teaching and learning side of the house with that um and I am currently an associate superintendent uh for Queen Creek Unified School District um in my role I oversee um there's kind of two sides of the house teaching and learning and operations I oversee um and and support uh all of the educational services which includes um curriculum professional development special education grants management educational technology um just to name a few um so I'm getting a I'm I'm getting a lot of um great experiences um I am able to impact student learning um uh I also supervise safety um and security Athletics um and so again I just have um had a great opportunity being in a growing District um to get a lot of experiences that I think um that I will be able to apply as the position of um superintendent and then lastly here's just a little bit about me personally um that's my family there in the center the the gentleman in the black shirt is my husband Chris and we were high school sweethearts and we've been married for 27 years uh we have two children as you can see um my son there on the far left he is a senior in high school and um has been accepted into the ASU College of Engineering for um Information Technology cyber secur is what he's really interested in um so we're super proud of him and we're really looking forward um to that time of his life and in our lives and then my daughter's next to him um she is a junior in high school uh she is a cheerleader so if you wonder where I spend my free time and my um free money yes thank you I knew somebody would get it if you know you know right um but it's amazing I we have enjoyed it so much um watching her Year all through uh junior high and high school um and then on the right um I had to add pictures of my pups there on the bottom we love our pups um my husband is a a big Aviation Enthusiast um his that's kind of in his blood of his family I'm being involved in aviation and um so that's something that um we like to be involved with as well um we like to travel we love the beach we love to play board games um and so really family is so important to me um and um that's just a little bit about me personally and that's the end of my introduction um to myself um and so how's my timing three minutes oh boy all right I'm going to go really fast so the next question was why Higley Unified School District Five Big Ideas came to mind the students the community the teachers and staff opportunities for growth um and I think I'm a great fit for Higley and higgle is also a great fit for me um so students the heart of Higley it's the fundamental purpose that we're all here right this is the work that we're doing it's for students um I am committed to creating the best possible learning environment for our students um it is near and dear to my heart um it it's what I've done for my my whole career so um I would love to be able to provide um that support to our students um and help lead higgle um to make sure that our students are getting the best possible education possible um the next uh big idea is community the higgle family and and I can tell you higgle truly feels like a family I I had the pleasure of visiting a few schools today and the just the culture was amazing the kids were amazing the teachers and principal I I truly felt like I was at home um and um that's something that that I love about Higley and that has drawn me to Higley um i' I've been in public education in the East Valley for 27 years so it I really feel like I'm part of the community we're we're a close knit community of Educators um I have um lots of connections within the community I'm a I'm a Higgly Aunt I have uh niece and nephews who attend higgle schools um I believe in the Community Values um within Higley and the East Valley I think you know we're we're very family focused and family centered and um as you saw from my previous slides that's something that's huge and important to me um relationship I I have a ton of positive um professional relationships and friendships um within higgle the the people that I have met and worked with in Higley are are um you know a key reason on why I would love to be part of the Higley family and then of course um having um making an impact in the community um serving the community is important to me and the way that I have done that has been through public education I'm going to go really quick through these next teachers and staff the champions of learning I I want to support our staff um I want to provide them the resources that they need um for their classrooms um and that is something that I'm looking for teachers have um made a huge impact on who I am today as a person um and and I want to support them I'm sorry that's okay and then here's my opportunities for growth um Higley has um some opportunities for growth with enrollment and I have some experience with that and some ideas on how to help that um I know that um we recently had an override renewal that did not pass um and so I would love to work with the team to strategize on on how to help with that um and then that fiscal responsibility because both of those things impact our budget Dr Copeland we're gonna head into questions now thank you thank you I'll start with we have 25 minutes for questions okay the first question how would you plan to Foster strong relationships with parents community members and local businesses to support the district's success so I think the uh key key there's a few key points to that um number one being visible and being in involved and engaged um in the community um that means um being out in the community that means being at school events um and really being um out there meeting people talking to people building those relationships um that that includes being involved in um in the community through things like the chamber um and so I think that that um that's that's the key to that um number two um building trust through through transparent communication um if if I'm open and concise and honest with my communication feel like that's the best way to build the trust of the community and that's how we're going to partner and and work together and so I would love to kind of be that that bridge um to continue to build the trust between higgle unified and that um community so those are those are two of the the big the big ways that um I would would engage with our families and um our community and and business partners thank you question number two what is your approach to school safety and how would you work with law enforcement and staff to keep students safe okay well that was I feel like I have covered some of that with my presentation but I'll I'll go into a little more detail um again building those Partnerships I think working very closely they are the experts right in safety and and um having them do safety Audits and walks on our campus um and monitoring our drills and then providing us feedback so that we are able um to improve our practices and our processes based on that feedback from the experts um in that area is so important um having um we have SRO on our campuses right um I know that Higley just got a grant um for an SSO at the the junior high and so working closely um with those folks um to help keep our schools safe and to build connections with students um are some of the ways that I would um work with law enforcement um to ensure the safety of our schools thank you question three what steps would you take to improve parent in Community involvement in the decision making process so I think it's um important number one to listen but in order to do that you need to provide some opportunities and so I would work to provide opportunities for parents and Community to be involved in the decision making uh um I've been involved in um multiple uh committees and um with a large large variety of stakeholders who are able to share their ideas give their input and and all of that is taken to consideration when you're making decisions um and so it's really providing that opportunity I think uh surveys questionnaires are are a good way to give parents a voice and give them an opportunity to provide some of that feedback as well um but but really listening right so you can ask for the feedback and um you can collect that information but really being responsive to it as well um and um making it meaningful um a meaningful experience um for for for our families and parents and um inviting them into committees there's there's lots of opportunities um having public forums um things like this um where you can share information and do presentations on things that are going on in the campuses um presenting um at our governing board meetings uh those those are some of the ways that I would do that thank you why is an affordable quality public education available to all children important to society as a whole sure well we are we're building the Future Leaders right of our community um and that's huge we we have a a a big responsibility for that and we need to make sure that we're providing our students um with the skills and the knowledge in order to be leaders to be critical thinkers um to be successful in the workforce and so um can you repeat that Karen I think I missing half of the do you mind repeating that one sure why is an affordable quality public education available to all children important to society as a whole sure okay that's what public education is all about right we teach all kids whoever comes through our door we're going to teach them we're going to provide them the opportunities to be successful to reach their Highest Potential um we offer um the opportunity for kids to be exposed to a diverse group of um students and people and so um that is going to be very important for them when they go out um into the real world world into the workforce and they have to collaborate with people and be part of a team um so you know that is that's the importance of of public education that uh we meet all kids where they are and and we try to move them to the highest point that they can possibly um become and uh and we just open our arms and accept them um and that's that's the beauty of of public education and and we're creating the the future citizens if if we are building strong leaders and students who are civic-minded and have the skills and knowledge that they lead that they need um you know we're building that foundation for this community to not only remain strong but to grow um and the students that we're working with are are the the ones who are going to be doing that thank you do you think public education is adequately preparing student students for life after graduation if yes give an example if no how would you work with the board and Community to better prepare our students sure I think uh for the most part we are being successful for that and and one of way one of the ways that we do that is um obviously that the fundamental um core instruction right we need to make sure that our that our students are are learning those fundamental um core pieces um as a system we're also providing lots of opportunity for extracurricular activities um we want well-rounded individuals who are um leaving our schools and so those are some of the things that we do um something that I'm very passionate about um and that I know that I am focusing on my career is um really helping students to explore their interests and their passions and help them come up with a plan um for what they want to do with their future and um I think that's one of the best ways that we can prepare our students um for the future for their lives after they leave our K12 system um with career exploration um with helping them to understand what if this is what you're interested in what's your skill set that goes along with that what would the education that might be required um and really helping them to leave High School um with a strong plan um for their future um and and for the career path that they're um interested in what is your philosophy on curriculum oversight and how will you ensure all materials align with Arizona State Standards well I think um first of all you start with policy right we have policies in and procedures in place um for adopting curriculum and um you follow that process you follow our policy um you take things for the public review um and receive that feedback and evaluate that um and so that's certainly one of the ways that we do that um I work uh very closely with our K12 principles and and so one of the ways that I try to help ensure that um is um reviewing policy reviewing expectations at our principal meetings um and having them bring that back to their teachers and their staff um and you know they're monitoring um their curriculums um their instruction through classroom walkthroughs um and so um you make sure that you're uh following your your policies and your procedures um and um and you hold people accountable to follow those um policies and procedures as well what is the biggest challenge you think our students and our Educators face how would you address these issues that's a great question um I think that we live in a a very complex world and so I think some of the CH there's a variety of challenges that our students are facing um and I think and I know um that schools are a place that students can learn the skills to work through those challenges um so it could be you know academic challenges and so are we providing that support that intervention that differentiation um we have students who are dealing um with personal problems and so are we helping them um with the skills that they need the life skills to be able um to work through those problems um and so I don't know that there's there's one particular um problem that I would identify um for teachers I think um we work with students who have a lot of different needs um and there's a a variety of skill levels and so I think one of the biggest challenges for teachers is um making sure that they are um evaluating and and determining how are they going to meet the needs of all students um and a lot of that comes with differentiating um and really meeting individual needs it's not a one- siiz fits-all for for our students and so we have to work really hard to make sure that we're meeting all of those individual needs and and that's something that um is certainly challenging for our Educators what leadership strategies will you use to foster a positive and accountable work culture among staff and administration so the the positivity piece I think um kind of go falls back on um being visible right um being out at schools being engaged um showing that I care and what they're doing is important to me um I think helps build that positive culture I also um know that there's a ton of great things happening in higly and we need to celebrate those successes um we need to recognize people for their hard work um and celebrate that and so that's one of the ways um that that you can build that positive culture um providing support and resources that our schools need that's you know that's our purpose at the district level is we are the support for the schools um and we're here to help them with what they need um so that they're able to teach our students and and take them to the highest level um so those are those are certainly some ways um that you can build a positive culture I think um that trust plays a role in that uh I believe believe it's important for um us to not only provide that support but um provide that consistency um do what we say we're going to do um all the things that that build that trusting relationship are things that that build a positive culture in your current position how have you uh attracted and retained teachers sure uh in a variety of ways right um one way that you do that is um you're doing great things for kids and um you've built that positive culture and you share your stories um and you make sure that people know all the great things that are happening in your District um so that they want to come be part of that um I think it's important to support teachers I was able to um start a new teacher mentorship program within our district and utilized my team and my coaches um to support new teachers and um that is something that I think plays a huge role in retaining especially um teachers who are brand new to the profession I I think it's important that um when you're working um with your budgets um that you're doing everything you can um to have um robust compensation and and benefit packages um for teachers uh we're never going to be able to to pay them as much as they deserve to make um but we really need to be um cognizant of how we are using our budget um and making sure that that we're able to um provide compensation I and that goes along with um having good salary schedules right that will attract um teachers um if you go back to your previous question having a positive District culture people want to work somewhere that's positive um and and sometimes that is um something that will attract and retain people um more so than those um benefits that I'm speaking of um they want to be part of something that's bigger um they want to have a purpose and so helping them um to have that Vision um that shared vision for um excellence in Higley is certainly a way that um that we can attract and and retain our teachers how have you engaged the community and supporting Public Schools please provide us with some examples I think uh one of the ways that um I have done that would be um through the promotion of um some voter initiatives and um sharing factual information making sure that um the community knows directly where those funds are going and how they'll be impacting the classroom um is is certainly a way that um I have done that and Karen I'm sorry will you repeat one more time for me how have you engaged engaged the community in supporting Public Schools provide us with some examples okay um again having having opportunities for the community to be involved um we have um kind of an initiative this year to increase parent engagement and so we have tried to provide lots of opportunities to get parents on our campus we want parents to be welcome on our campus and be involved um and so um we've increased volunteering opportunities events on campus that we're inviting um the parents um to be part of and so those are some great ways um to engage parents um again I think having that open communication um being visible being out there so that um I'm available to parents would be um another way that I would accomplish that what have you done to better the community in which you live in and how were you involved in that well I think um being a public servant through public education is a really powerful way to benefit your community um again the these children that we're working with are the the future of that community and so um whatever we can do to um help grow them help them be successful um set those high expectations um are are ways that that I personally have um benefited um my community I've also um been involved um in uh different initiatives um throughout our district um and really provided opportunities for our families to be involved um and so I think by doing that um we're helping our community um honestly I think the the work that we do um is some of the most in important work our our students are with us for you know the majority of the day sometimes they're spending more time at school than they are um with their families and and I take take that responsibility extremely seriously um and you know being a mother I I know what it what it feels like to to want um the best for your child and um that's really what I what I'm trying to provide for our community tell me about a time when you were able to bring people of different views together and make hard choices places I think that um strategic planning process um that we um did several years ago um we had engaged probably over a hundred different stakeholders um through some focus groups and committee work and we certainly did not all have the exact same Vision um of of what those priorities were um and so we spent a lot of time um working together and collaborating and and having dialogue and discussion um in order to bring people together you know ultimately we needed to come to consensus on on what those strategic priorities were going to be um and what some of those indicators and goals um were and so it was it was an amazing process process um but it it certainly it was a lengthy process um and it required um for all voices to be heard and considered um so that we could end up with a a final product that we felt like was really reflective of the entire Community um in addition to that um the focus groups um we also did some um we sent out an affinity question um to our um Community asking them um you know what is it that schools would need to do to to meet the needs of um of students to to choose their top thing and we had over 1,400 responses to that and and then went through some activities to categorize that and so um I feel like those voices all came together and and we were able um to work through it and hash through it and and came up with a plan that is really reflective of what our community um wants for their local schools well you did very well um in the sense of answering all my questions I have one more and that's it so how do you see yourself effectively gaining the support of our community well I would start with um I I would start how I did tonight right I would um communicate with the community what I'm about what I believe in my heart for students and Educators and public education um and I think I think that goes a long way for people to to know and understand who you are what you believe in what you stand for um I would be extremely inv involved in the community I I will be out there um meeting people getting to know people um and um communicating frequently um and I think I think that's a really important way for for people to get to know me um and um and and I think that if I if I'm present if I'm engaged if I'm willing to listen that that that's you know the perfect opportunity for people to understand who I am and and why I want to to lead Higley and how much um love I have for this community and and for our teachers and students and and for our staff uh Dr copelan you have a minute left if you'd like to say anything else I went short on the other one and now I have time for this one um I you know you know I just want to say um Educators school I think has played such a huge role in my life um I I feel like it has made me the person that I am today um I would not have the success that I've had in my personal and professional life without my teachers and coaches um and principles um and um I I I feel so strongly and I'm so committed to ensuring that higgle Unified School District um is providing that for all of their students um and I I would love the opportunity um to be able um to collaborate and and work with the community and the staff um and and build a strong team so that we can not only continue the great things that are already happening in Higley but really move us um forward I'm a I'm a I'm a big believer in continuous Improvement um we can always improve we can always move forward and um I would love to be the the driving force um um as um part of the team for us to be able to do that for our Higley students thank you Dr copelan thank you we we will have our next forum at six o'clock oh 7 o'clock excuse me e e e good evening thank you for those who continue to be with us this evening and have joined us um we are in the midst of finding a new superintendent for Higley Unified School District and we welcome our board member members our community students and staff and we thank you for joining us this evening in person and online um tonight we have our second finalist who will share with us uh about themselves as well as why Higley and then we have some questions for him each finalist has 20 minutes for their introduction in why Higley and then they will have 25 minutes for questions and answers concluding after 45 minutes we appreciate feedback please please use our survey the QR code and please do that as soon as possible we will be closing the survey tomorrow at noon so that the board has the information when they go into their executive session tomorrow uh decision will be made and announced and approved at the board meeting on March 4th so now let me introduce our second finalist um Mr David lenis [Applause] hey good evening thank you so much for being here my name is David lsen eer and I'm excited to talk to you tonight about why I would like to be the next superintendent of the higly Unified School District but before I jump in there's really an issue that we have to talk about there's an elephant in the room that I think a lot of you guys are probably wondering about maybe thinking about and uh that is how do you say my name okay it it 13 letters long it rolls off the tongue phonetically it's very easy lot Zen high and Zur all right when I was a kid I never got to put it all in the bubbles we stopped at for 11 and I was lots and he okay but uh I also go by a lot of different names I've been around for a long time you can call me Mr L A lot of people still call me coach Lots Dave David or the one that the kids grabbed on to the most and perhaps even some former board members and that would be Big Lots and so I'll go by any of those okay and I still don't understand where that one comes from but anyway I I'll go by any of those names and jumping in but lotson Heiser is how it is so today we're going to talk about I'm going to talk about my family I'm going to talk about my education I'm going to talk about my professional journey and then we're going to get into why higgle so be be remiss the most important people in my life and the reason that that I'm doing what I am and why I have the opportunity is my family and and if for you to know me you know that I'm family first and so uh I'd like to thank they're in in this row right here supporting me today and thank you so much for being here they rarely do they get to see Dad in action but I've been married to Sarah now and she's also a teacher uh we'll get our 27th anniversary that's going to happen this summer my oldest son Thomas is at work tonight so he can't join us but he wants to be like Dad and be a high school math teacher and so he's studying to follow in the foot steps my daughter Abigail is studying architecture she's down at U OFA matter of fact right now she's sitting in the m center waiting for tip off against Utah and then my youngest Ethan is in seventh grade he's here with me tonight uh he's really into chess and for those of you who have middle school kids he's really into Marvel Rivals and so if you need to talk about all the different character characters he's your guy to go to but my family is the most important this is why I do what I do right when people ask me hey what do you do how I respond is I try to be the best husband father and son and then they'll be like oh I mean your job okay I have a job but really who I am is my family and that's who who who represents me and who I try to represent to make them proud but let's talk about really okay and if you have Doodles you know who runs our house are these two okay that's sunny and Daisy and uh we got them during the pandemic like many of you these two uh Daisy is a wonderful little dog who now has decided that her favorite chew toy are airpods and so uh we have to be very very careful at our house but for those of you who are Doodles and dog lovers that that that's our too you know there's a lot of people that have influenced me as I've grown through my career and my life but I really need to shout out somebody who who's really an important part of who I am and that and that's my dad and so my father was a career educator in the East Valley he was a longtime Elementary School principal in wienberg Arizona and then in Apache Junction and then when he retired he worked for uh one of the Indian tribes as their director of education but he's been a huge influence on me and help guide me and how I make decisions and eight years ago I lost my mom to cancer way too early early and when that happened I made a decision that I'm going to spend as much time with my pops as I can and so you'll see our pictures up there were rabid U OFA people matter of fact he's with my daughter at the male Center she took my ticket tonight at the Utah game but we made a commitment to spend as much time as we can with each other because going going back again when you want to know who I am then you need to know about me and my family and that's the big influences that I have so my educational path I grew up in a little town called WI ber if you know where wienberg is you're driving to Vegas and you turn right then you go to okay and then and then there you go and then we moved to Apache Junction I graduated as the valadi dictorian of Apache Junction High School in 1992 and I was a basketball player and so I played for a couple years at MCC and then my mom said David you're going to be an engineer because my older brother's an engineer and my younger brother's an engineer and I was going to be an engineer too so I went to a school called Colorado School of mins and I realized quickly I didn't want to be an engineer and I realized that my path was different and so I transferred to NAU perhaps because my wife was going to NAU at the time and uh I graduated with a M uh BS in mathematics from na and I started teaching right away and then throughout my teaching career I've sought to improve myself so I got a master's curriculum and instruction from ASU dad does hold that against me and then I did my principal certification and my superintendent certification through NAU throughout my 27y year career let's talk about my professional Journey so what has prepared me to be standing in front of you today with the knowledge and experience to be a superintendent well my first job was right down the street at Gilbert High School in 1998 and um I was a high school math teacher and I was a basketball coach and at that time it was probably flipped I was probably a basketball coach and I taught math and people called me coach lots and everything was about that and and I really enjoyed coaching I ended up my last three years of Gilbert I was a head varsity basketball coach and then I had an influential person in my life Dr Charles Santa Cruz my principal come to me and said Dave I think you can do more than be coach Lots here's a couple books on leadership I want you to join a committee talk about Reinventing Gilbert High School in the year 2004 and so I joined that committee and I started expanding my scope a little bit more about what it means to be a leader and what I can do differently had an opportunity to open Perry High School in Chandler and I transferred there and uh I was a math teacher only it's the first it was the only year that I taught and didn't coach and I thought wow this is pretty incredible for what I'm able to do in the time that I have I started taking my leadership classes and then my principal there his name is Dan Serrano I'll never forget I I owe a lot to him because I said Dan I want to get into I want to get be a principal he said that's great I have a Dean job and he's like I'm not going to hire you I'm hiring somebody else I already know it but there's going to be an opening at SanTan Junior High and this is the end of June I was on on tap I was going to be the calculus teacher at Perry High that's if you don't know that's that's a hard not a lot of people teach calculus and Dan said hey this is your passion you go be a you go be the dean you go be the assistant principal and I'll find a calculus teacher with two weeks before school starts a big lift for him but it allowed me the opportunity to jump into Administration I spent four years at Santan Junior High in the Middle School uh environment I'd never taught Middle School I'd never been around middle schooler before and while did I learn a lot and God bless all of you Middle School teachers and and administrators I had an opportunity to go to basa high school as the assistant principal of curriculum what does that mean probably my most favorite job that I've had and that is I got to write a master schedule because it's a giant spreadsheet and it's a giant puzzle and everything is about what can I do to make sure that the kids get what they request and I loved it because it kept score and I could see if I could beat the other schools which I did after two years I became the principal became the principal basa High School down in Chandler and if I were to say if there's one position that's prepared me to become a superintendent it's the principal of a high school now remember at the time where I was when I was at Basia 2500 kids we had 160 to 180 employees on uh campus every single day and as the principal you're in charge of all of them and it is just non-stop going making decisions supporting kids putting in initiatives responding to the district Non-Stop and I think that that really helped prepare me while I was at bash a few things happened we were an A+ school we were an a-rated school we were a school of Distinction for civics education and we um I got to start two or be a part of two unique programs one of them is the accelerated Middle School which is a a 6 seven and8 that's housed on bash's campus that my kids attend and then the other one was the institute for cyber operations and networking which was the first uh joint venture to develop a student to come out with cyber uh security AA degree after four years because of the successes of Basha I was able to apply here in Higley and so then I came in and I applied and was selected as the executive director of secondary education and Athletics which is the job that I've held for The Last 5 Years I'm pretty sure uh if I read all the everything right I'm the longest tenur now at 5 years D executive director of secondary Athletics and I'm really proud of what we've done in the five years that we've been here I will tell you right now the district looks very different from 2020 now here in 2025 and there's a lot of things overseeing secondary means the high schools and the middle schools wow I'm talking way too much okay um oh 20 20 minutes is not a lot guys okay um the growth of the high schools through that time I think has been a really important challenge that I've dealt with okay I'm a relation based leader relationship based leader I I think it's so important what we do and I realized and I'll go really quick through this that when I looked at all the pictures getting ready for this slideshow that apparently when I see someone who is twinning I like to take a picture with them and so here's some administrators we're in our saucan gear or perhaps I have oh yeah so that's me and Big Al dressed the same right right and and I just like taking pictures John and I here we are addressed again yeah so it seems oh hey Lynette there we are I forgot to warn you you're in the presentation tonight and then uh here we go Bruce and I and and so it's just funny how it shows up that oh you didn't know that was coming huh guys right but but when you're out on campuses and you see connection with someone for me it's what I'm wearing it's the better that's you know here we go twinning is winning all right core beliefs education first and foremost is a relationship based business I want you to take we're going to take I want to take three seconds right now and do something for me we you take three seconds and I want you to think about the most impactful teacher you ever had in your life how many people started nodding started smiling had a positive image that came out of them because that relationship that you had with that teacher was so important so to me the most important relationship is the one between the teacher and the student my job as a leader is to provide all the opportunities I can for the teacher and set up systems to support the teacher what I can control for what they can do with kids because student achievement and student growth is is what we are here to do if not we don't need schools but I can control and support that teacher it takes a village we know that that's part of it with educator students parents and the community together and we'll talk about that a little bit more as I talk really fast all right how do we know how do we help our students succeed there's an educational thought leader out there mark Perna some of you guys have heard of Mark before he really talks about what are we doing in education with Gen Z students we need to give them a competitive Advantage a personal competitive Advantage for them to learn the lifestyle and get prepared for the lifestyle that they want career ready part of a huge thing is college for every whoa that's every kid going to college right but career lady are we giving them the skills that they need for the lifestyle that they want in the career that'll meet that lifestyle and so we're going to talk about that we jump into why higgle why do I want to be the superintendent what's my time check left oh okay I want to be the superintendent all right because I I'll be honest with you this is the only superintendent position I've applied for there's a lot of superintendent openings across the valley this is it I don't want to go anywhere else I want to be in Higley why I'm part of it right now I'm part of a cohesive group of comp complimentary leaders at the district office are putting together a plan to help us navigate obstacles that we have in front of us I'm I'm uniquely involved in all of this right now already and for us to continue to face the challenges that we have moving forward I'm I'm part of it I'm living it as we go this keeping the continuity of our leadership team intact is really important we know that Higley is a small town with a big town feel but together and and it's so important together because it's not about one person it's about all of us and all of us in this room together we can and we will provide Limitless opportunities for students to succeed partner with parents or open in consistent communication engage with community and strengthen the bonds between businesses higher ed municipalities Faith faas leaders and the districts we can do that and then finally we have to have an attitude where we turn obstacles into opportunities and it's a really important mindset for us to have all right team husd I've talked about about our our team as a group of leaders together we also have a team of sight level leaders together and it's important that we support each other and maintain high expectations for each other to maintain maintain high expectations for who the most important person for the relationship which is that teacher how can we continue to attract and retain the best teachers in the staff because that's what's going to impact our kids and that's what's going to impact our community so that what does that mean for me I got to provide necessary curriculum resources professional learning I'm really excited about a change that we have site-based instructional coaches now to support a teacher when they're struggling that's non-evaluative it's huge and then focus on building effective professional learning communities when we talk about Limitless opportunities what we're talking about is programs we already have I don't want to lose any of the programs that we have whether it's DLI whether it's gate whether it's CTE whether it's leader and me we need to keep those together because our community wants that and so we have to look at a way that we can support those programs and make sure that they're achieving what we want we education's always changing matter of fact it's pretty cyclical but right now we talk about career acmis and career Pathways which is what I was talking about at Gilbert High in 2002 but now it's back and so we got to continue to look and say how can we have a lens for our kids so they can see what this possibly is where's their connection to their future I don't know you can nod your heads if you were involved in an extracurricular activity when you were in School how important are extracurricular activities and opportunities to our kids so important and and and even though I'm the athletic director it's by far Athletics is a drop in the bucket but we need to support the Arts and we need to support Civic engagement we have those programs where we have to continue to support them and finally our next generation for opportunities we're going to talk about how do we incorporate AI into daily learning because it's here it's here so how can we do it safely to protect you and your kids when we're looking at AI all right partnering with parents transparency about decision decisions and sight information transparency is that huge word right how do you know what's happening we can communicate if we're making a decision and we can't explain it to you then we're not making the right decision so we as a group as a collective group have to be able to explain the decisions that we me you're not going to like every decision we make I learned a long time ago as a principal I'm never going to please everybody because as soon as I try to please everybody I please no one so how do I make decision ision I make decisions based upon what I think is the most fundamental relationship that affects Student Success the teacher and the student and if we continue to focus on that if we continue to focus on that we'll do great we need to celebrate our successes guys as an educational group we're not the best at shouting from the rooftops how great we are and we are great Higley is wonderful is a wonderful District that provides great opportunities our schools our community hubs we have Community Schools they're smack in the middle of it and we know that the strength of a community one of the backbones is a strong public school system and finally we Ally with parents in the growth of their children sometimes that growth occurs through opportunity of making mistakes in learning and their kids and we help them learn oh that's wrong way okay how do we engage with the community first thing my job is now this is where I get to jump in a little bit I got to listen and learn so I'm already part of working with the Gilbert chamber working with the Queen Creek chamber Mesa Workforce Development the airports in still in the Mesa in case you don't know and so we get invited because it's smack dab in the middle of our district is the airport but working with them on what opportunities they have um face-based organizations throughout our community that's a connection we need to build right because they want their growth for their students the same way that we do so let's work together to do that I sit on boards for cgcc and attend things with ASU and uh Grand uh Grand Canyon already that allow us the opportunity to learn what they're doing and be able to connect we have events that are important to us as a community Chinese New Year Fine Arts Festival events on the campuses probably the biggest if I were to ask you guys what's the biggest event that we hold every single year we hold two of them and they're on the last day of school and their graduation and nothing is fun or as a principle than standing and getting to talk to 7,000 people I tell you what it's awesome but okay how do we take those and continue to promote what we're doing um with our community I know I'm almost out of time I got to be involved in something called the Gilbert leadership class 32 it's really a wonderful wave that I got to make connections with people uh I got to go to First Responders day and make connections and this is what it's about we talk about relationship based leadership but it's relationships that are important how do we make connections how do we know when we have someone that we're going to call if we need help and so you get involved in organiz organizations like this the Gilbert leadership class 32 where I believe it or not SRP took uh 11 of us up in a helicopter and we toured all of the dams that SRP is responsible for one of the coolest things I have ever seen ever what a what a great experience but allowed me to make connections within the community and that's what's important as a superintendent that I can help drive and finally this is my last one I promise Karen I'm almost done we have some obstacles in front of us guys and we cannot shy away from these at all okay we know that we're sitting here when we talk about finances and for those of you who attend board meetings you know there are two things that that we're that we have to look at one is declining enrollment and there's a lot of different speculation out of there here's a simple answer on declining enrollment this year we are going to graduate 300 more seniors who are leaving us than we have kindergarteners coming in right off the top three 300 and so when you look at the projections we're doing and I'm stealing Tyler's thunder right here okay 300 kids directly off the top because they're not coming in as kindergarteners and there's lots of different reasons for that but what I wanted to get on to this one is people ask what are you going to do about it and this is what I would talk about at please give me two more seconds this is what I would talk about at Basia every interaction who who's who's the greatest mouthpiece for our district it's our families and every interaction that we have as a district employee is an opportunity to spread our story to a member of the community to a family so that when they're sitting in their parking lot or they're out to eat or they're at church there's that conversation about what higgle can do and Higley can bring so how can we change this mindset thank you one interaction at a time I know I'm listening one interaction at a time all right and and thank you very much I I appreciate that 20 minutes I would have loved 45 you're welcome all right oh oh oh sorry last one hey we got this there we go thank you okay thank you we will now start the question and answers of 25 minutes and let me set the timer and Mr lsen Heiser how would you plan to Foster strong relationships with parents community members and local business businesses to support the district's success and so I feel like I've already started to touch on this um but but what I really want to emphasize is that when they talk about when you ask how will I the response is how will we I am a member okay I am a member of a leadership team here at the district office called cabinet right I'm a member of the The Wider leadership group called The General administrators okay and I'm a leader of a giant or organization where I can model and then this is our responsibility as a team this is not one person's responsibility we just talked about one interaction at a time with how are we going to talk to parents and engage with parents okay we have very formal methods to do that we have board meetings we have communication you know we found the parents read the communication from the school much more than they read the communication from a district okay so how do we incorporate our message into what the school's message is because you guys will click that one but if you see maybe message from Higley USD it might not be as important so we need to be targeted in that how do we connect we connect through social media platforms that we celebrate our successes we have a um public relations and marketing team that's going to do that while we support our families to be able to create that I think we need to take advantage of events that we do have what are the other largest events that we have other than graduation anyone have any idea probably the most well attended ones fi we have Fine Arts Festival that's one we have football games on Fridays in the fall how can we use and leverage that to be able to celebrate the stories when we have a captive audience that are interested because we have these feeder groups they're going to williamsfield and going to Higley how can we leverage that to do it when we talk about businesses we already have some processes in place like the business partner breakfast I think the next step in doing that is using our contacts at the Chamber of Commerce okay and any businesses that we have to be able to tell our story invite them in and ask them what's going on whether it's a business Council Andor same thing with parents a formal parent Council which I know is done in other districts so that they have a voice and are able to talk to us that's how we can connect and engage right those are the formal processes what's the informal process that we connect and engage every interaction that we have every possibility that we have so for cabinet and we've already talked talked about that what does that mean that means visibility that means attending extracurricular events that when I was a high school principal that's what it was there was an event every night and I'd go to make three out of the five nights I'd get to be home a couple of them but that's what we need to do because now when I'm standing on the sidelines or I'm I'm in in the at the drama production and I'm watching the play then I'm interacting with parents and I think that's how we continue to sell our story about what we're doing so we have formal ways to do it and informal ways through the interactions that we have what is your approach to school safety and how will you work with law enforcement and staff to keep students safe so honestly school safety is the number one important thing that we can look at parents and say we are going to make sure that we can keep your kids safe and how do we do that and I need to applaud the efforts again it's a Wii it's not an i it's a we as a team what are are we doing to provide immediate response which is our camera systems right which is our security guards which is perhaps piloting Vape sensors and looking at those different things that you can can see about keeping Kids Safe that's a really important thing that we focus and when you look at our and and I'm proud of the work that we've already done in Higley when you look at what we are doing to make sure that we have the physical plant and the safe of the physical plant you know our our Safety and Security team here at the district that's working with it we work with law enforcement like this already guys and I don't know if you're aware we now through the school safety Grant have an SRO or SSO on every single one of our high school and secondary campuses they can also go down to support the elementary campuses with need be and the communication we have with Gilbert PD is fantastic and with Queen Creek PD we have that in place and we have to continue to have those conversations and engage with them in how can they support us and share with us as things are moving forward and so when you talk about the safety of what our students are are doing then we have the safety of exposure and how do we make sure when we have devices that we have appropriate filters on them so that kids aren't going to where they're not supposed to go and that's working with our it Department to make sure that we have filters and things in place so that we're keeping them safe when they're exposed to the technology that we provide them I can't control what they do on their phone but I I can control what they do on my device and I can also help and teach them what's appropriate things to do and especially going through social media I think that that's another important thing when we talk about safety on our campuses what steps would you take to improve parent and Community involvement in decision making processes again I'm going to trumpet the Wii because as a Cabinet many of you guys just received a survey it's probably not the most exciting survey that you have ever seen in your whole life but it's a survey that's absolutely necessary so that we as decision makers can make uh recommendations to our governing board should we need to continue to reduce our budget and so when we give a list of different options and you're going to see for all of you are going to come to the board meeting on March 4th you're going to see a more in- depth what our responses to that survey looked like but that's a way that we can actively engage with parents so they can give us feedback back on what's Happening and I think that's an important thing that we do uh you know I look at modeling um a program that that's used in Mesa right now where each campus asks for a couple parent volunteers and they come in and we have a a parent Council and so we meet as a parent Council we've already started and this is a shout out to superintendent Richards right here a superintendent's advisory Council of students where we have sixth through 11th grade students come and talk to us about it we can do that with our parents as well and to get a because we know we have active and engaged parents within our community I mean I look at this turnout tonight and how how fantastic is this I look at the turnout that we had from our community meeting talking about what were happening with the possible override continuation and the survey we went out and the fact that we had all these people here that weren't here to yell at the district they were here to understand more let me know more why is this happening what's going on and then that's our education of what happens but that important idea of connecting and then the other part about connecting from a district perspective is one thing but really it's then the the focus down back onto the school level and what are they doing to connect and to draw people in and that's the directive as a superintendent then I can help and support from our principal's perspective what are we doing to draw parents in and get them onto our campuses you know we it's funny we'll have a lot of people come to a a secondary basketball game or something like that but sometimes we don't have a lot of people who'll jump in and help out at different different times during the day and it's up to that sight level leader and sight level group to help us as a district work to make a welcoming environment for our parents to come in and support us why is an affordable quality public education available to all children important to society as a whole all right I'm gonna ask you to repeat it one more time because I think there was bunch of words right in the middle why is an affordable quality public education available to all children important to society as a whole now more than ever public schools have the ability to bring us together and to be that Hub of our community yes we know that there's competition out there everywhere divisive but our goal and our want is to be able to bring those bring our communities together where are our schools located SM not on a busy Major Street most of the time it's smack dab in the middle of a community that's why we are Community Schools and we are that Hub of interaction where we have people from a variety of backgrounds and we are bringing them together and that is so important when we look to our future we talk about different generations and expectations for different generations and so what's our job is the school to help present this next Generation this gen Z before we get to gen Alpha right we look at gen Z and their wants and desires honestly guys are different than ours and so this public education that we can provide that can be focused on what their needs are to help prepare them again for the lifestyle that they want and the career that can get them their lifestyle they want is super important and so I think it's I honestly I look at public education and the school system is the background to a strong Vibrant Community remember we're 24 square miles we're not huge we got a lot of people but we're not huge so how do we continue to make this Higgly pocket a vibrant place for us to grow and learn together do you think public education is adequately preparing students for life after graduation if yes give an example if no how would you work with the board and Community to make uh better prepared students yes okay we can give some examples he here's the thing when we talk about Preparing People and preparing Kids for Life After High School right we have to give them the skills to be able to navigate that very interesting we're in the superintendent's conference room or uh superintendent Council we were asking the kids hey if we were to add a new program if we were to add something new to our schools what would you want it to be and do you know what they wanted financial literacy okay and true life skills outside of the home right that's what they're looking for and so within public education I think that we have to reimagine what our expectations are for our students to make sure that they we can meet that need 20 years ago 25 years ago that was the responsibility of the parent right dad taught me how to balance my checkbook absolutely and we did that in that process and I got that first bank account when I was 7 years old with like 35 cents in it and then we kept that little Ledger I don't think that happens anymore how can we continue to support the students for what they need are we doing a good job absolutely we are our kids are successful our programs are successful there's something I'm really proud in in husd is our Career and Technical education at our high schools we have so many different opport unities for students who want to do something different we just had the Gilbert leadership class 33 coming to our police science labs and classes at Higley High School you're saying what even is that right so here we have a criminal justice program where we're teaching kids how to become First Responders at high school because if that's their passion and that's their need then we're providing that Niche for them we have Early Childhood where we have students that are they already learning and already interning and maybe some of you who own businesses that need those kids can come and hire them because they're learning that on our campuses at the same time we have these core academic classes that are preparing kids to go to college and not just get to college but to succeed in college and how many of you raise your hand how many of you guys got a kid in college right now right how many of them came back from their English one-onone class and said whoa this is way easier than high school I know mine did and I'm like yeah because you probably attend regularly and that doesn't happen in college but anyway okay but we provided that because we gave them a challenge right and we challenge them in high school so they can go and be successful in college so yeah I'm up here a product of public education I'm so proud of it and and I we are succeeding are there areas where we can do better absolutely please understand that we're never perfect and that's our job as leadership to provide and find ways that we can improve our resources and can improve how we are supporting students what is your philosophy on curriculum oversight and how will you ensure all materials align with Arizona State Standards so I I think with curriculum oversight and obviously this has been a Hot Topic a lot of different our board meetings already right where do we go into terms of being efficient on curriculum oversight there are State Statute and there's laws and there's District policies that we follow and it's a superintendent I uphold to make sure we're following those processes to make sure we have the appropriate curriculum you know books was a big one it's been a big one within our community and what happens with books what was our response put together a parent committee and of teachers and parent and Community to review to come back and give the governing board who ultimately makes that decision an informed decision about what we want to add right now we're going to we're planning on going out for uh English curriculum adoption next year we started working on it the goal is to be able to come to the governing board and present that to them we're going to follow the laws and the process that is prescribed by our policy to make sure that we're providing the most relevant curriculum that we can which includes a huge one includes opportunities for the community to come in review it and give us feedback on it and I will tell you it's great to talk about but we'll have four people come and do it okay that's what happens right and so so we know we're going to make it available we're going to try to get as many people possible Right to come of view and to give us feedback so we can make that educated decision when we're proposing to the governing board this is what our curriculum needs to be but we're going to follow those processes and I think the the idea of curriculum uh oversight it's very important when you look and you follow the process and there's safety in doing that and when people step outside of it then it's our job as leadership and site leadership then to put them back and make sure they're following our processes what is the single biggest challenge you think our students and our Educators face how would you address this issue cell phones honestly it's the it's this little device here that allows them to have a different personality than they have in person allows them just to disconnect with the people that are around them allows them to to only focus and listen to a certain point of view because that's what's available on these I think from a school district's perspective and we've already worked on this within our group you know there's this idea that you ban cell phones right and do that kind of stuff that we know that that's not going to happen because I tell you what you're going to have you're going to go on a high school campus and every kid's going to walk in and they're going to drop a cell phone in the pouch and say I'm good and then they're going to take that other cell phone out of their back pocket and be like game on let's get this done but honestly so I think that we have to work with our teachers to make sure that when they're in the classrooms and when we're providing the appropriate time for instruction that we make it relevant and we make it interesting to them and we make it so much so that they're not going to want to go into this device I think that when we look at professional skills that's important for us to address that we embed them within our curriculum so the kids are learning that in order for you to come to work what what does our business people want when people come to work they want people to show up on time dressed appropriately with a good attitude and they're going to stay the whole day right and when I talk to business people they say I can teach them the skills they need to do but if they don't do those things we're missing out we have a group of professionals that can help with that so much and that's called our teachers every single one of our teachers is a professional we are trained professional Educators and we need to model that for our students and that's something that we can control as a district but honestly when I look at what's happening I think how can we help assist so that the these little devices aren't taking over everything that we're doing what leadership strategies will you use to foster a positive and accountable work culture amongst staff and administration um it it goes back to the idea that it takes a village and what I'm going to model is building appropriate professional relationships with my peers and I'm going to expect our cabinet to do the same and I'm going to expect our sight level leaders to to do the same one of the most successful times I was ever at a leader I'll give you examples when I was at Bas of high school after 2 years I was not happy I wasn't happy because I was trying to be a leader that I wasn't I wasn't true to my personality and I wasn't true to what I hold dear into education and so I I came up with an idea that we're going to focus on community so basah high that's our keyword Community we're going to talk about what's our place within our community how do we get our kids involved in in the community and then really importantly and what I control is what kind of community do I build as my employees together so you know what I my my goal was to make them like each other because I felt like if they liked each other they might like kids okay and so how do we do that I do it because I like to have fun you know and so what did I do I designed ways that I could have people interact that weren't necessarily academic in nature but we're social in nature and that I strategically placed teachers who weren't in the same grade level or the same subject area together to force them so that when they walk down the hallway they might see a teacher and say hi and they might not teach anything like that teacher or be around that teacher and it worked and it worked and that years that I had I had the lowest loss rate of teachers within our district and I had people at other sites going hey I want to come to Basha because we like to feel it Bas and that's the same thing I think that we do here it's on larger scale but how do we model how do we get people together so that they can talk and then we can learn about each other and it's through those connections we make in the community that we build that we can maintain a consistent morale because right now let's be honest one of the biggest questions that I get are how are you going to maintain teacher morale knowing that we're losing money okay because we might not be able to give them any additional money so we look at the things that we can control for teachers it's 7:42 p.m.

e e e okay 5:30 I'm G to call the meeting to order um can I have a motion to adopt the agenda I'll take a second all right all in favor I I we still have to vote motion carries 5 to zero but we're going to vote so everybody can see it online maybe ah finally okay so now today we're we're here uh what oh we're going to do the pledge all right let's do that Al to the flag all right today's just a study session so um a little bit more relaxed we're not going to make a decision so we're just it's purely informational discussion is um definitely encouraged a lot of it so um that being said 4.1 um discussion information on policy Services options so Madam president members of the board for this discussion item we invited the trust and asba to come make their presentations each of them have a presentation um on the uh uh in the backup you will see their presentations but then there's also that same information we presented to you guys at the last meeting so there's a a ton of information that you can take a look at uh with respect to this but uh and and uh we will go ahead and invite up the trust first Then followed by asba and there's a presentation and and Craig will go ahead and run it from in the room hello okay great uh good evening Madam president members of the board superintendent Wyman members of the cabinet my name is Lillian Lee and I am one of the um trust model policy program managers alongside as you can see on the screen Jennifer mclenon who is unfortunately not here her daughter is getting married this weekend so she couldn't make it okay so what is the model policy program I'm just going to give a little brief um background on the program um so the trust created these model policies for K through 12 school districts we did um also start with with making a CED manual as well because that was requested from us from a few ceds um what the trust did is they got a group of Arizona um education attorneys together and they spent a number of months really going back to the basics they looked at what was legally required of districts and said okay districts need policies on this and then they also looked at what would reduce risk for a district and created policies off of those why was it created this is a fantastic question this was not a space that the trust wanted to get into um if you're unfamiliar with the trust they provide your liability insurance with a slew of other programs and policy was not one of those programs they were offering um around late 2021 2022 early 2022 districts approached trust leadership and asked if they would get into the space um these districts wanted another service um they wanted a nonpartisan simplified solution and the trust leadership had con some concern about this they thought okay if the district leaves their current policy provider and they're left with no policies or they're left with subpar policies that's a liability concern and as I mentioned the trust um supports districts in risk management and so they thought the best solution was to enter this space they knew okay we can get the appropriate attorneys together and make quality policies um a few of the benefits I've already mentioned this nonpartisan of course um while this is a template it is customizable we know every District every Community is different and I'll kind of show an example of what that looks like and then the um numbering system is actually interestingly enough something we get a lot of feedback on that people districts really like that so how our kind of um manual works is it's for example chapter one it would go one chap policy 101 and then policy see 102 and then 1 103 that's how it looks throughout the entire manual and here's a breakdown of the chapters themselves so chapter one District governance that is really all about you guys as the board um chapter two is Administration it's our shortage chapter there's only two policies it's all about um hiring and evaluating your superintendent chapter three is business operations and then HR is chapter 4 and then of course our last and largest chapter is students which takes up probably a little bit more than half of the entire manual and then we also include a glossery of terms and um our template does have a form bank and when I use the word form that's similar to what you would call exhibits and like I mentioned before we did create an entire separate manual for cads I believe we have three cads right now operating within the program um of course these are all public polic excuse me um so how it works and you'll see a little screenshot of it is on the Trust website we have um listed and linked all of oh here you go this is the Trust website so this is the model policy program page and here are um a list of some of our adopted districts and if you click on these links it will go straight to their policy manual and you know if you ever have some free time and you want to browse our website you can see there's a line that say click here for the trust template and that link takes you to the template itself um of course the template is copyrighted our policies are copyrighted just to protect our work product but any new um unique policies to um you of course will not be copyrighted so if I clicked on one of these districts it would take me to their home page on our platform which is called microscribe and on the platform itself we C customize it to you your logo will be on there it um will be linked to your website and then there are tabs for each chapter so here's chapter one if I had clicked on the tab this is exactly what I would go to and it is broken down into subsections and within those sub subsections are the policies and procedures um and when I use the word procedure that is regulations for you um and you can see the numbers of the policies and procedures are blue those are links if you click on one of those h Lings it will take you directly to a policy which looks like this so this is an example from daart and this is what each policy will look like um this is a unique policy to them they decided they wanted um their mission and vision and their goals to be their very first policy so they put this in themselves um but you'll see it has the policy number the adoption date and if there are any um legislation that pertains to that policy it will be linked at the bottom as well um I just kind of want to go through the platform since I can't um show you the platform but you'll see on the left um top left side there's a bunch of buttons and so through those buttons you can download each policy as a word or PDF document um you can get direct links to each policy so for example if you want to directly link your leave policy to your employee manual you can do that and then on the top right side there is a um quick search toolbar that kind of serves as like a control F or control search function so you can type in any word any phrase any statute and then it'll pop up with a list of every single policy that references whatever you typed in and then you can also translate um the policy manual above that search bar you'll see the letter A that um if you click on that button it'll give you a drop down of different languages you can translate it to so the next couple slides it's just some data about who is in our program and as of today it's already changed this changes every week so I've just broken it down to who is currently adopted and is currently transitioning into the program on this slide and um these are the districts that are currently transitioning that means they have not adopted and we are currently supporting them through the work and one of these districts um actually today finished and they have fully adopted and they um their platform is being made as of today and here is just another breakdown by County throughout Arizona and how many districts we have per County okay the program fees so these are our current fees for this this year so just to access the program itself um as a firsttime member you will be charged a onetime fee of $255 and then you'll also be charged an annual fee of $240 um after that you will never be charged that setup fee again you will only be charged um the annual member fee and um I just to be fully transparent this fee structure is set by our board um this year they decided not to raise the price from last year so this has been our current fee structure for the past two years um but there has been talks of them raising the price of course this is still in the works I do not have a number figure for you um I have heard talks of in the coming years so multiple years from now um it being raised at most 2500 I've also seen the number a thousand thrown around but again I don't have that exact number it's not been voted on or decided but when it is of course we would let any current member or prospective District know um and additionally with that I do want to mention about our contract um our contract is a one-year contract and there is no penalty for leaving so you will not be Char charged an additional fee if you decide to not move forward with us in the following year um PPL fees if you are part of um the PPL program and you want to utilize your um PPL Council of course you will just be charged through that program and then the comprehensive policy review this is optional if in three to five years you feel like you need us to kind of come in and look through your entire manual and audit it and make sure you've been up to date on all of our updates and that you're still compliant um we would go ahead and do that for um $1,000 but again that is optional you would never be charged that unless you decided to pursue this um service and I also wanted to discuss what is included in this member setup fee for that first year and your member annual fee included in those fees is of course access to the platform microscribe you will not be charged an additional fee by them um policy updates throughout the year of course you're going to get a legislative update around August um wouldn't it be great if it was sooner too um and we also do updates throughout the year so we just had one go out late December early January we have another one coming out in a couple weeks as we know in education things are always changing so we'll do an update when it's necessary and of course we um always let our members have Blackline versions of the policy so they know exactly what is changing within our policies what is also included is constant support from our team um we provide technical assistance through the transition process and afterwards so once you've adopted you've done the heavy lifting you've done the majority of the work however policies change so anytime you need to edit or change your manual we will support you with that whether it just be the logistics um for example you just say hey we've approved this our board approved this um can you get this on our platform we'll do that for you or if it's a little bit more complex um such as you need us to craft language for you um or you need us to find a policy or find a form for you we'll support you with that as well and the transition process um that is included in this fee we do not charge any extra to support you through that process and I'll kind of go a little bit deeper into um what that transition process looks like and what our support looks like and then we also um include trainings within this fee um we have a list of trainings the last one we did of course was new board member orientations and our trainings are customizable we go to sites themselves um so for these board member trainings we went to the districts themselves to give indivual ized trainings um and along with those we have resources so for that training we did create a manual for those new board members I have a question oh all right um tell me what PPL is stands for yeah prepaid legal okay and also so you have a comprehensive policy review so you suggest doing it every three to five years after you youve you've already looked through them at the F at the beginning thank you madam PR that's a great question yes okay but um I should clarify that is kind of up to the admin T the admin team um if the admin team feel like they are on top of it and they have been on it with all the updates they feel like they're unique policies which we don't you know necessarily write um are compliant up to date then they can make that decision okay thank you thank you madam president oh and I don't want to forget um another thing that is included in that Fe is you do get a discount with board docs as well and we um can work with you on that do you know what that discount is um well every district has of course a different fee they pay um so the discount percentage is um similar to what you have now okay okay so how should districts join well step number one is you really need to preserve your existing polic polies we always recommend a hard copy and an electric electronic copy um you would just notify us that you are looking to join um I've already sent the agreement but we would send the agreement again and then of course it would have to be board approved and then we would just work on R end to kind of finish it up execute the agreement work on the invoice and processing it and what the transition looks like so like I said that is the heavy lifting um I know this first point says work with your District PPL attorney or your prepaid legal counsel but I'll be honest we really step in here um we have found it's just easiest and quickest if we support districts through this process and this looks different for every single District so what I will say is for every District what we will do is we will send you resources we will send the policies and a Word document we will send you a checklist of every area within that policy that you need to in that policy manual that you need to make um a selection so an option you need to fill in a blank or you need to customize it with some kind of information and then we'll also provide you with a crosswalk so what that crosswalk tells you is for example your leave policy is this in your current policy manual where does where does that lie in the trust template and that'll help you see okay what is missing or what is in addition within the trust template um what we will also do is look through your current um policy manual to see what policies are unique to you so what is not copyrighted and we'll work with you if you want to move those forward within your next policy manual um or maybe you don't um and like I said this after that this looks different for every district and it depends on your admin's capability and of course your um turnaround time when you want this to be fully adopted and we'll always set up a call with um the administrative team to kind of talk to them through this so we have some districts that um have you know not a huge administrative capacity or they have a very quick turnaround time and in those situations we usually take the bulk of the work we just say you know what we'll do most of the work for you of course with input from them because they still need to customize it and we'll produce the manual for you and the quickest we have done is I'm going to say two weeks and then we have on the other Spectrum other districts that have a very robust admin team and a robust structure that they've created to do this and we don't really hear from them until the very end and then we have everything in between we have districts where we attend you know Saturday all day Saturday study sessions with them we have districts where we have weekly working calls with them and so we're very flexible we just kind of work with your administrative team to see what they need and how we can help them okay so how should districts transition um well of course the policies need to be worked on they have to be reviewed and then they have to be approved by you um and once that happens we will um ask you if you haven't yet to contact your current policy provider and let them know your discontinuing services with them um and then what all you need to do is provide us with a Word document with the policies and then we take care of the rest we'll work with the platform you know we'll get your logo up there and they typically take around two weeks to get your um platform up and running and then after that you get a link to to your specific platform and then it's yours to post on your website um I do want to mention working with the platform you do have options you can have someone on your administrative team be trained to do backend editing um or you can just let us handle it and that's what the majority of districts do they just send us updates um Word documents whenever they want to update their manual and then I take care of it from there and we CH chose to do that we understand um the transition process itself it's just a lot of work for the admin team so we just wanted to take off that additional task from them and then after you transition we always encourage districts to look at the downstream documents that need to be changed anything in a hard copy in electronic form that references a policy has to be changed right any links need to be changed so um we can definitely help you with that um I've definitely helped districts change up their forms with their new policy um numbers and titles and I've kind of touched on a few of these but I am going to do it again so what you can expect after you transition and you're fully adopted like I said annual updates um and then again that comprehensive policy review if you choose to do it um we do have a law education conference every year it's in August we have our third one this year and for the past and again the fee for that is set by our board in the past two years our board has decided to make it free for every single member that wants to attend um and of course that could change in the future and then like I said site Based training okay next steps so next steps is you can of course contact Jennifer or myself we do have webinars on our um website that really goes into each chapter and also just an a breakdown of the program itself I'll be honest I think just picking a district and exploring their manual will give you a lot more information um just so you can see how the platform works and what different policies look like and you can see the language that is used um and of course we can always come back and do another presentation um so here is our contact information up on the screen um I am welcome um welcome to any questions okay you guys have this is your time got it you got any you have anything Jason okay Melissa oh Stephen let's hear it I don't have any questions what are you crazy I'm crazy I don't okay Lisa come on I do have questions here we go um you had mentioned at the beginning that it is a nonpartisan relationship um how do you ensure that it's nonpartisan during trainings or um other points of contact and working in that relationship um that's a concern that I currently have um to ensure that what you're saying that you're offering is what you're getting thank you madam president Mrs horn that's a great question I will say everything that we produce whether it be our policy manual whether it be technical support whether it be policy updates or um education conference is all vetted and looked at by attorneys so of course Jennifer mclennen um is a seasoned education attorney here in Arizona for the past 20 plus years um and anything that we send out is always vetted by a group of attorneys so and they're looking at okay well what does the law say we're not looking at the partisan issues we're looking at what does the law say and how is that reflected thank you thank you and then I also want to make sure that I understand the time to transition so say just for sake of conversation that we said okay today we're deciding that we want to go with the trust is that a two we or was the two week that you mentioned is that at a different point in time and there's actually a longer period thank you madam president Mrs horn um I'm that was my issue I didn't clarify well enough that two weeks I was discussing is once you've adopted and you've sent me your policies it will take the platform two weeks to get you a link to your platform okay the trans transition process itself can be as quick as two weeks like I said with that one District or it could be one year and anything in we've had anything in between okay and I would just say if we're going to do any changes we would look to do a start at the beginning of the of the New Year July one so whether that's practical or not we'll have to see but but if that's the decision that's the most logical time to change and try to switch in the middle of the year when you've already already started and may have uh people operating on under one platform and haven't switched another so I don't know what that looks like but that would be my suggestion thank you um I have a couple more questions is there a cost per revision or addition additional policy um so is there a certain limit like if you've had 10 revisions in a year now you're going to be charged excess or is it all inclusive thank you madam president Mrs horn that's another very good question there's no additional charges for any amount of support or revision you make I have some districts I'm best friends with them I talk to them on a weekly basis so um and that kind of ties in both of your questions we do have districts that want to transition quickly so they say okay let's just quickly transition let's get this template up and then we're going to spend the next year working through it methodically and if you're choosing to do that route you're going to contact me a lot with policy revisions so we don't charge for that okay and then one final question that I have um in a previous conversation or study session that we had um the employee handbook was brought up is that something that you look at and review on an annual basis at all um how does that work and is that a service that you provide thank you madam president Mrs horn um we do not provide an employee handbook and that is not a service we have provided in the past um that does not mean that it's not something we would do in the future for example we had a need and a request from one of our members for a um board secretary or admin assistant manual so they asked us for it so we said okay let's get together and let's put it together for them okay thank you anyone else okay I do have some more questions yeah um so you provide a list of trainings um what if there's something that we would like to be trained on and it's not on that list thank you madam president for that question um you just let us know and we'll figure it out we either find another organization that does it and on that training list we don't provide all of those training some of those are provided by different organizations that already do the work okay or um we can get together with staff at the trust um people from you know State departments or even the attorneys we work with to put together that training for you so then if your list is on there and you don't provide it then do you provide like the fee that it will be or okay yeah thank you madam president yes we'll tell you on that list if it costs an additional fee for you or if it's just a free provided training perfect okay at this point I don't think that we have any questions so but if we do I guess we can call you thank you madam president thank you members of the board all right thank you okay asba good evening members of the board um we are pleased to be here today my name is Julie bacon and I am director of leadership development for the Arizona school boards Association I am a longtime servant of public education a volunteer um as a parent but I also volunteered as a governing board member so I spent three terms on the Paradise Valley Unified School District governing board which does not have any schools in the town of Paradise Valley just want to make that clear it's a very uh diverse District in Arizona my daughter is a sixth grade teacher both my parents were teachers um education's in my blood so we are thrilled to be here um today and you might wonder why the director of leadership development is coming with the policy people well the reason we're coming together one of the reasons is our executive director had to have surgery so she's doing fine and she's she but she couldn't be here tonight but the other reason is that we work so closely together in the office as a team to provide um policy and education and professional development um we'll go over some of the services that we provide a little bit later on um but I wanted to also say um what we do is you that's all we do we are only we only exist for governing boards um to be members there's no other um thing that we provide um other than service to governing boards so that is something I think unique and it is something that we all um when I when I was um on the board in Paradise Valley I was an officer in the asba board of directors the executive director always said to us we are a mission-driven organization and you know I'm like okay all right yep you're all Mission driven I get it doesn't every organization say that and then I started working at asba and I realized oh they are Missi driven everyone in the office is has the the vision and the mission of doing what they can to help governing boards be the best they can be so that your schools can be the best that they can be um so that is it for me right now I'm going to hand it over to Lynn Bondi um who will give you her background but the one thing I'm really proud of about our policy servic team is that they're both Educators so they know how to implement policy they've been in the classroom doing it um and so as we write policies and as we look at them they're looking at it from a different perspective um in terms of implementation of policy so I'm gonna hand it over to Lyn evening board Dr Wyman and cabinet um I'm Lyn Bondi asba policy analyst and my background is also an educator I was a high school English teacher for 20 years adjunct faculty for Rio solato Community College and a student teacher supervisor for the U OFA so uh definitely education is in okay I have to say though I graduated from ASU same I did the same I Am A House Divided I am too must clarify but you have a paid me so that was great but I truly appreciate the opportunity to be here and highlight um how we support you and answer of course any questions that you may have so as it has on the screen we are here in service for you so that means continuing to provide nonpartisan policies that are in compliance with state and federal law agency rules and legal opinions we also send upto-date policy advisories and alerts throughout the year and just to clarify a policy advisory are those that directly impact your policy documents and alerts don't necessarily impact your documents but it's information that we feel you should be aware of um for example we recently sent out an alert on the uh teacher contracts and that uh update and statute the on or after uh March 15th date for teacher contracts um to be sent out and so again that didn't impact anything in the policy manual that date but of course especially this time of year that's information that you should be aware of so that's the difference between policy advisories and alerts and we're always going to be sending you um those anytime there is an update um we touched on the employee handbook so we offer a complimentary employee handbook it's compliance focused it is customizable and it's aligned with your policy manual already and your District does have that information uh we also provide unrestricted on call consultation for board members for superintendents for Administrative Professionals and we never start a timer when you call we are here to answer your questions no matter how long it takes and get you the information that you need I know my colleague um a district had asked a question and she spent so much time researching and researching and researching to make sure we came through and gave you that information so um as uh educational practitioners we love research we love getting you that information we also provide policy Amendment service at no additional cost so we want your policy documents to reflect your local uh needs and so uh we are a huge proponent of local control so if you need us to help you amend create any kind of policy we do that again that's all included um we also network with the American Association of State policy Services which is a wonderful team of legal and policy experts that we collaborate with and we speak with them quite a bit so um that's a great resource that we have we also provide policy Q um assistance for the policy Bridge uh software platform so you can be as handson or hands off as you like I know Judy is very Adept at processing documents through policy bridge but um we give you that option so if you want us to handle it and say here's our adoption dates you take care of it we're happy to do that as well um we also offer a optional comprehensive policy review and I have our objectives up on the screen so anytime we do a policy review and it's recommended every um four to five years is we want to make sure your um policies are aligned with your practices of that everything's in compliance and we want to make sure there's no kind of internal or external conflicts so we are checking for a myriad of issues as we look through your manual because if any documents in your manual have issues with any of these um and they're not addressed um we want to make sure we can help you address those quickly so you can get back to focusing on what is most important for your District so we handle all of that um how we accomplish those objectives is we go through every single um policy document in your manual and we compile a pre-analyses and we send that to the superintendent prior to ever setting foot at the district so that they kind of have a heads up of how we're going to navigate um how this starts the conversation of course it's not limited to what's on the spread sheeet and our prenotes it's just that serves as a guide and so this is an example of that spreadsheet one a page of that spreadsheet would look like it's got the policy information any policy advisories associated with that document again my pre-analyses and then that final column is based on our discussion at the actual policy review so anything that we discussed is going to go in that final column everything is also colorcoded we try to make it as easy as possible so the color coding matches the comparison doent so once we're finished um processing everything I send the superintendent this spreadsheet the comparison document and also a document that looks like this again we want everything to be very very clear and so this document provides all of the policies by section number that have to go to the board and then the second portion of that document has the regulations and Exhibits that are going to be um for the super approval and then the last portion is anything any regulations or policy or exhibits that we discussed but they are going to be retained as is so everything is very clear on the spreadsheet on this document as far as this conversation and we give additional steps moving forward as far as how all of these things can be adopted so we provide support before after um during this entire process so we are always here to answer questions throughout um we also publish a calendar of recommended and required actions that's an additional resour resource that we provide as far as policy Bridge um policy Bridge allows you to access and search over 200 manuals and you can search those all together so that's a large Bank um of of topics so if you're interested in something again you put in that search and it searches all 200 over 200 manuals at the same time so that's a great feature we also have the global function so if you click on that little globe in policy Bridge it gives the URL that you can copy and paste to send or if you want to insert that um link into a document we have that we also have the download feature and that downloads the documents as Word documents so that they're easy to edit and customize and then we also utilize the Google translate feature so you can anyone who looks at your policies can look at them in over 100 languages so that's a nice feature as well um most importantly we listen to your feedback so we are in the process of conducting um comprehensive manual review and we're rolling that out to districts um in sections so easy to manage we just sent section A last week and um you might have noticed in that policy review um policy advisory summary that this is done with a team of policy and legal experts we're also have outside reviewers so we're sending these to districts we're sending these to educational leaders and they're vetting each document before we send the sections out to you so uh during this process this really great for us because it's given us the opportunity to look at other policy manuals and we are very comprehensive we're more comprehensive because we are focused on what is going to assist you and your governance and your operations so we kind of uh cast a wider net if you will um to make sure that you have policies regulations and Exhibits that support your districts um functions so for example if you look at section B which is board governance that is very robust because we created that with you in mind and what's going to be most helpful as you um in your work and your role so we were really really excited about that project we are also um our policy Bridge software platform is being upgraded and so we are going to be um transitioning districts over to this upgraded sofware program by the end of April so that has the latest technology all the new features um and we'll continue to provide those free trainings for our super users um in in we can go to them remote or inperson free trainings for that we also recently launched our uh e newsletter a monthly newsletter pulse on policy so we can keep you informed with all things policy and recently created a policy list serve just for our super users and so they have a place to ask questions and um and network there so with that I think I will pass it back over to Julie and then we will be here to answer any questions you may have okay um so I just wanted to go over some of the things that are included some of the services that we have um in terms of your policy manual um but also to talk a little bit about the things that are not policy related um we do in-person um and remote um this is says trainings on here we're starting to call it professional development because we don't think that you need to be trained we think you need need the information and education that you need to do your job to the best of your ability um all of our webinars are free um and access accessible on our website all of the um we have a very robust phone a friend program at asba so if you ever call the office and want to talk to someone and get information then we um are always available to talk with you about that um we have um a list a very comprehensive list of about 20 um professional development topics that we can come out and provide but we also can provide anything that you want um because the people who are doing the training and the professional development from asba are people who have sat have have been in your shoes um we are the the department has two former governing board members in it so we know where you sit we've lived that um responsibility and the tremendous um both Joy and challenge that you live every day as a governing board member um we do have the also the discounted board docs fee um the policy manual uh reviews are $500 and again Lynn talked about that um and the super uniter trainings and the list serve are included we also have a very robust list serve for um a group we call ASAP and that is um the Arizona Administrative Professionals so that is a group of um administrative assistants executive assistant to superintendents and governing boards and that um when I say active I mean two three four times a day um people going on and asking hey what do you have this do you have that what do you do about this how should I write this agenda item so that is also another um benefit that we have that um and we know who you know the real bosses are right um so that's another service that we provide um to our members at no charge um let's go to the next slide what's a super user so a super user I'm gonna let Lynn I I I could try to explain that somebody that bugs the heck out of you or what like I'm just wondering it's our main point of contact for policy Bridge software so Judy is the superv or super user for your district and then she can set up editors and so you're the one that bugs them all the time is that what you're saying no I'm just teasing no the super users are incredible because they're always yeah in they're asking questions but it's our main point of contact to process documents through policy brid okay thank you yes any other questions about that um should we wait till the end Madam president four questions oh I don't care whatever they want to do um okay then I'll go to the next slide um so obviously policy is necessary um for governance and to run a school district effectively um and it's one of the most fundamental responsibilities of a governing board when I was governing board president one year I my goal was to review the whole policy manual and I had a couple of board members say to me well that's not really our job and I said um yes it is that is what we do right uh so it's a very important part of the work that you do um and they belong to you as a Gover board um and we're happy to serve you as your professional association and supporting you in this role um we believe in local control and the responsibility of governing boards to determine their policy based on their Community right that's you're elected to represent your community and so your community's values beliefs um should be reflected in your policies um you have access as a subscriber to a m multifaceted team of legal policy operational and governance professionals um we currently have a relationship with the law firm of Pierce Coleman um in I don't know in Mesa they're at the their headquarter in Mesa um and we have a great relationship with them in terms of reviewing all of the things that come to us um from a legal and and policy perspective um we really if any of you were at law you may have met Justin Pierce who sang um he did a presentation on um legal issues with a guitar so oh you guys saw him last week yeah um so anyway that is who we've been working with and and we're proud to work with him Justin is also a former legislator um he was a member of the Arizona legislature as well so um I think we're well covered in terms of that piece yes and we also work with another attorney Martha Taylor who was the senior director um for desegregation in Tucson unified and so as an educational lawyer she's been helping us also with um our policy manual revision and so we have two very um seasoned wonderful attorneys though um so this is just kind of our um wrap up here policy service subscribers receive all-inclusive pricing we don't do any billable hours whatever you need we will provide um it's subscription based and it's available to member districts and the subscription is for 48 months that that's changed in recent years it used to be a fouryear um I mean I'm sorry it used to be longer than four years but we can we're flexible on that I believe um in terms of how we can structure that that subscription and it is based on a sliding scale Fe fee based on your enrollment so any questions um Lynn and I will be happy to answer them okay Jason do you have any questions okay Dr Wyman how long has it been since we reviewed our policy I do have that information Dr Wyman it was um 204 I believe was the less um comprehensive policy review huh it's been a while okay I just want to add though that Judy doesn't let things sit in the queue so um a lot of times the policy reviews especially for districts who are keeping on top of the the policy advisories and alerts approving new policies um are they're all kind of it's just a function of making sure you are up to date okay is that all you have I I think so okay well we can come back to you if you need to let's hear let's hear him I see you're writing over there do um or does asba have a advocacy or legislative group that Advocates on behalf of asba and or education in Arizona so we have a government relations department um that works to provide um information around legislation um the r 501c3 is a obviously nonpartisan um and we don't advocate for um individuals or or um in any sort of campaign the thing that we do do is all of the advocacy that we do is done um with our political agenda in mind and that political agenda is set by our members so we don't at the office ever say how should we vote on this or how should we advocate for this we go to the political agenda and see what our members have told us that they want us to do in terms of advocacy so um I hope that answers your question do the members typically lean one way or the other or do you feel that it's pretty even well here's what I can't tell you because I've been involved as an officer of asba for for four years and I've worked almost six years and I can I hear from both sides that we're to the other side um so I wonder sometimes what that means um you know if what we would say the left is saying we're to right and the right is saying we're to left um we try we are not we are about what you need and your local local control is all about you so that is the only thing that we support in terms of um any kind of legislative advocacy is what you tell us to Advocate around that's all I have for questions that's it every year in September there's a like where they yeah delegate assembly right the delegate assembly where they go over all the stuff and every member of each board puts in their vote so it's a collective um vote of all the districts that are part of that and that's how they come up with that political agenda that yeah that's something our members vote on and we talk about it before that before our delegate goes and tells that person what we want my question was when was the last time that we reviewed our policiy thank you Melissa for saying something um so your subscription fee of what was it what what is it well it's based on a sighting scale so about 5,000 is that what ours is at this point just under 5,000 and that's for 48 months yes okay so it's not yearly no gotcha okay any other questions no if you guys have questions that we can since this is a study session I mean we can ask the trust as well if you have a if a question if something popped up so speak now I do have one more question I think it was mentioned that there's a 48 Monon um contract where are we at currently contract expires in June 30th of 2027 the 2027 okay and if we were to end that prior to are there penalties or how does how would that work I would have to look at your contract but I believe it's 50% I think it says it in the I think we have it in here if you um yeah I think it's attached to it okay I think I think we are are good so like I said we're not making a decision this evening um but we appreciate I very I very much appreciate both of you guys coming and answering our questions um what else anything oh yeah so that is uh I saw it asba policy service agreement I have it I'm just trying to rip through it real quick to see what what the agreement is but it it's in it's in the backup it's it's some place where it said I know we have it here oh here we go I found it it's number eight termination okay all right okay so one more time I'm GNA ask one more time any any questions okay okay all I'm just making sure okay so then um we are going to go ahead and move on to um our executive session so um I would like to make a motion to go into executive session there's there's a second so all in favor I I yes I think we need to work oh there we go and now is there any way that we can take our computers in okay because I wanted to be able to access our policies no Stephen did Stephen did a second oh okay e

e e e you okay Dr lman good evening everyone it is Wednesday February 26th at 6:30 I call this meeting to order Lisa can you please call the role Robert Downey president Patty krae present carollyn Lopez present Ben Owens present Shante Rothchild present thank you I move on n1c Pledge of Allegiance and have asked principal Miller to lead us in the pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for wish stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for thank you principal Miller we now move to item 1D adoption of the agenda motion to approve second leas we have a motion to Second shant rosch child I Ben Owens hi carollyn Lopez hi Patty kraay hi Robert Downey I so moved we now move on to item two superintendent report Dr lopman thank you Mr Downey eight Cadets from Copa high school and desert Sunrise High School Air Force Junior Roc took flights as part of a Hands-On training with the Civil Air Patrol the cadets conducted pre-flight checks and flew from oin airport to the Buckeye municipal airport gaining direct experience in aviation operations this opportunity reinforced leadership skills and provided insight into career Pathways in the aviation industry in celebration of school resource officer appreciation day musd recognized the dedication and service of our school resource officers with a special social social media tribute these officers play a vital role in maintaining campus safety while building meaningful connections with students and staff this partnership with local law enforcement strengthens safety and contributes to the supportive atmosphere in musd schools our human resources department hosted a family Barbecue that welcomed more than 100 International teachers special appreciation goes to Mr Becket Mr Harmon and Mr Chad Whittle for firing up the grill and to the teachers who shared dishes from their home countries the event reinforced a sense of community among our International Educators who bring valuable academic and cultural perspectives to the district the afternoon was full of laughter great food great food and plenty of selfie worthy moments education profession students from Maricopa and desert Sunrise high schools volunteered at the Maricopa Water Festival project wet guiding fourth grade students through Hands-On lessons about water conservation and environmental sustainability students LED stations focused on groundwater watersheds and the water cycle reinforcing key science Concepts the demonstrations provided students with a deeper understanding of water resources and their responsibility to preserve them for future Generations last week musd hosted its first legislative dinner and Forum bringing together more than 30 parents City officials and staff members to discuss legislative issues relevant to education while no state legislators were able to attend city council member anamarie no and I presented key legislator issues affect affecting Local Schools multiple City multiple City Council Members participated and shared valuable insights and feedback looking ahead musd hopes to expand this group of engaged parents and staff into a legislative committee for the 2526 school year to elevate their voices and advocate for policies that support students staff and families mu welcomed more than 100 prospective employees at its recent job fair which Fe featured approximately 30 interviews and resulted in 11 job offers for the 2526 school year themed around the world the events showcased career opportunities within the district and reinforced our commitment to recruiting top talent congratulations to Brad Chamberlain cyber security teacher at Maricopa High School who has been awarded a scholarship to attend the prestigious National cyber security teaching Academy or ncta this graduate level program will provide Advanced Training in cyber security further strengthening his ability to deliver very high quality instruction in this critical field Mr Chamberlain's dedication to professional growth underscores his commitment to equipping students with top tier opportunities in cyber security this week we celebrate Public Schools week by recognizing the impact of public education and the dedication of our teachers staff and students through a series of social media spotlights we've highlighted the outstanding programs that make musd unique and a destination District thank you to our Educators students families and community for making musd a place where learning thrives we invite you to follow along on Facebook and join the conversation by sharing what makes Public Schools our Public Schools special to you and that's my report president Downey thank you Dr lutman now I move on to item three Bo governing board members report member rth child happy Public Schools week um several of the things that I had an opportunity to do since the last meeting um in addition to attending the legislative Forum also had the privilege um of serving as a judge at at the Santa Cruz fifth grade talent show last week and so um if you are a fifth grade or fourth grader this year get ready for next year because there was tons of talent and a good time so thank you for that opportunity member Owens thank you president Downey uh I was able to uh last week attend the legislative dinner uh and discussion um really good uh couple hours uh getting to know uh some parents and uh getting to hear some about some of the topics that directly um are potentially coming down uh the line uh to impact education um here um and across the state so uh look forward to hearing more about uh some of those things some of them uh hopefully don't hear about um too but um that was uh that was a great time thank you thank you member Lopez I don't have anything to report member Lopez vice president C thank you president Downey um so I was able to attend the uh senior night for the MHS basketball team um that we were invited to go to at the last board meeting um it was awesome to see them um all the not just the uh basketball players were recognized but the band the pep band members and the pal and the cheerleaders were also recognized so it's always nice to celebrate um and they had you know they had a really good season um didn't end the way they wanted it to but congratulations and congratulations to all of our wrestlers um from both of our high schools that went to the state competition uh way to represent musd so the the issue that I wanted to share with with you all is um the 347 we all are impacted by that um some of some of us drive it and they're not home to our families and our students until 6:30 7 o'clock at night and that's a very long day for your student and then to have to do homework and dinner and all that other stuff is it can be a bit much and um we've got a group of people that are really working hard to get 347 noticed at the state legislator and there is a bill right now House Bill 2557 that wants to add 16 million in funding to improve 347 and fix it so um there's a group that has a website 347 fact.com where you can get more information regarding this and you can also send an email out that goes to hundreds of people that are involved including ad do representatives Senators um and just to share your support your stories um it's a way to get our our message out there and it's been working so with one email you can contact hundreds of people so if 347 affects your family and it does affect this community please um share your support thank you thank you um I just saw the legislative dinner and discussion session that I attended as well very good very informative pity the legislators did didn't turn up but still a good discussion good points were covered now move on to item four Spotlight recognition Miss Terry let's move on down well good evening everyone thank you all for being here tonight tonight the Maricopa Unified School District is excited to honor Spotlight recipients across three categories community members musd employees and students before we begin I'd like to thank our sponsors at Freddy's Steak Burgers and Frozen custard Culver's Frozen Custard in ButterBurgers and auin circle for making tonight's special for our honores our first honores are community members whose time and support make a real difference for the students and families we serve congratulations community members as I call your name please come forward to receive your certificate and give a quick fist bump to governing board members and Dr Lan and then head to room 123 for a group photo Mr Harmon is standing by at the hallway to point you in the right direction give us a wave Mr Harmon congratulations to Linda Smith classroom volunteer at Butterfield Elementary [Applause] School priscella beny and Brandy homman Community Partners from Maricopa elementary [Applause] school Jenny Wood Community partner Pima beud Elementary [Applause] School and Christina dren parent supporter from Saddleback Elementary School Ross Beamish Community partner Santa Cruz Elementary School and Meredith McLean Anderson parent volunteer at Santa Rosa Elementary [Applause] School lordis Herrera volunteer Desert Wind Middle School lose Mercy a parent supporter from Maricopa Wells Middle [Applause] School and Brittney Cosgrove parent volunteer desert Sunrise High [Applause] School Stephanie Brooks business partner Maricopa high [Applause] school and finally Alex Baragon business partner from Maricopa Virtual [Applause] Academy congratulations again to these outstanding Community Spotlight members um next up we are proud to honor our Spotlight employees of the month dedicated staff who go above and beyond to meet the needs of our students and school communities congratulations Spotlight employees as I call your name please come forward to receive your certificate and give a quick fist bump to the members of the governing board and Dr Lan and then head to room 123 for a group photo congratulations to Aaron Wheeler Community preschool teacher Butterfield Elementary School [Applause] Karina Erikson intervention support paraprofessional Maricopa elementary [Applause] school Pamela De La Cruz ESS resource teacher PAB Elementary School and Tasha little developmental preschool par professional Saddleback Elementary School and Irma danne second grade teacher Santa Cruz Elementary School oh and Vanessa Salia kindergarten teacher Santa Rosa Elementary School Lester Lee III social studies teacher desert wend middle school Briana Ramirez custodian Maricopa Wells Middle [Applause] School and Jennifer Selena Career and Technical education teacher desert Sunrise High School Jessica Garcia band instructor Maricopa high [Applause] school and Maria Delgado math teacher Maricopa Virtual Academy [Applause] and Reginal cza science teacher Ram [Applause] Academy and finally Judy Valdez human resource specialist and benefits coordinator human resources congratulations again to these outstanding Spotlight employees and finally we are thrilled to honor our Spotlight students of the month School principls select these remarkable students based on their outstanding commitment to their education their school and their Community these students set the bar high and are recognized for their efforts in academic achievement demonstrating Great Character helping others and being great ambassadors for their schools congratulations Spotlight students as I call your name please come forward to receive your certificate and give a quick fist bump to members of the governing board and Dr lman and then head to room 123 for a group photo Mr Harmon is standing by the hallway and we'll point you in the right direction give us another wave Mr Harmon all right congrat congratulations to Robert Martin IV preschooler Butterfield Elementary School Eric Bryant third grade student Maricopa elementary [Applause] school Lily Malik preschooler from Pima Elementary School Avia Scott third grade student sleach Elementary [Applause] School and Sophia aled second grader Santa Cruz Elementary School and Asher foren cam first grader Santa Rosa Elementary [Applause] School Jaden hus sixth grader from Desert Wind middle [Applause] school and Eddie artist eighth grader Mar Copa Wells [Applause] School Logan Leon Guerrero senior desert Sunrise high [Applause] school and Max Folia senior from Maricopa High School [Applause] Melissa Serrano eighth grader from Maricopa Virtual Academy and Riley Parson senior from Ram [Applause] Academy congratulations again to these outstanding Spotlight students parents we have one more recognition before you meet your students in room 123 in partnership with the Maricopa Rotary Club we'd like to honor a deserving group of students rotary honors young people who are developing leadership skills and making a difference in their communities rotary students as I call your name please come forward and Mr Wells and Miss crae will present you with a special certificate and oh the gift card the gift card this is her first time giving the gift card a special thank you goes to John and Mary L Smith Education Foundation for their sponsorship and helping make tonight special for our honores congratulations to den abuat eighth grader Maricopa Wells Middle [Applause] School and Raven Curry sixth grader Desert Wind Middle [Applause] School Abigail Gil sophomore aopa High [Applause] School Joseph weedbrook senior desert Sunrise High [Applause] School Naomi Perez freshman Maricopa Virtual Academy and Riley Parson senior from Ram [Applause] Academy congratulations again rotary students parents you can meet your children in room 123 we are going to take a five minute break to allow everyone who was here for recognition to make their exit and then we'll begin the business portion of our meeting you are welcome to stay for the business portion of the meeting long e [Music] I we so excited [Music] next suggestion have to pass canop got d don't oh boil them for a little bit still been recorded you're you're recording watering chicken Dr First Flight destroy going to call in sick tomorrow I'm terribly sorry that's right it's not a big deal everybody just okay we will resume the meeting with item five specifically 5A classroom Spotlight mer coule Wells Middle School principal Miller good evening president Downey board members Dr lman appreciate the opportunity to be here to share some data on my favorite school America Wills middle school and my presentation tonight sorry other principles sorry and my presentation tonight is uh on the grammatic Focus for increased student outcomes okay my presentation falls under goal number one under the Strategic plan 100% of our students are at or above grade level and of course we always want to be producing gold standard signature programs also aligns on the port of the graduate with producing creative innovator and determined resilient Achievers okay the discussion points I have for my presentation today we're going to kind of have two different programs we're going to share and discuss first one we're going to talk about is our math and Ela Intervention Program within that program kind of supports the goal of schoolwide focus on targeted intervention and grade level standards within those grade level standards we want to make sure we're reaching proficiency that's our goal make sure we're reaching proficiency on those standards the second part of my program presentation tonight we're going to talk about our life skills self-contained program again they emphasize grade level standards we want to make sure we're all across the across the campus which this should be a given for for all campuses I think we're pretty standard across the district district adopted curriculum should be going in all classes um when we mention our schoolwide Target intervention and our life skills I like bringing up the point all means all we have 964 Kids In America well we should be including the goals for all kids and so that's I think that's important to mention our campus goal last two years we've had the same goal improve student achievement through engagement but this year we're kind of adding more little details to that through data analysis and Mastery of those standards okay the first program I want to share tonight is our math and Eli Intervention Program this uh program is organized and led by my academic coach Casey Burns she does a great job with us she's really good with data and it takes a lot of data analysis for this program so how this program begins I make sure it's it's clear here um we look at our math Ela State scores the ASA scores okay we'll be doing that in April when those scores come back end of the year beginning of Summer um Casey's first month of the school year next year is very busy because what she does is she targets those students according to their needs according to their state scores she makes schedules for these students to be in small group intervention classes they do two 20 minute sessions per week I think it's important to discuss that uh when you're pulling kids for intervention we want to make sure we are not pulling them from their core classes so we aren't going to pull a kid out of math to do math intervention we going to make sure they're in their math class and so we use we pull the kids out of our elective classes okay two 20-minute sessions a week small group instruction so we're talking three to five kids um Miss Burns organize this but she has two interventionists that work here with her so we have Miss Lawrence who does the ELA interventionist and we have Mr nanny who does a math interventionist so they have a room set aside once these uh schedules are set up and it's it's a busy time that first month of school because again secondary the kids have seven classes we got to make sure it works with our with our electives and so it's a busy time but once the program gets gets in order it runs and Casey does a good job of keeping it in order throughout the year so one of the thing we've been doing this last couple years and one thing we want to make sure we're stressing um just for example 23 24 we had about 140 students going through our Intervention Program had about 900 kids at Wells 900 920 case and I met and we're like we need to increase that number she so this year she really has so we had 220 kids going through our Intervention Program now we also focused on our sixth and seventh graders why are we doing this because we're thinking if we hit the sixth and seventh grades really hard it'll prepare them more for eth grade year so the data we show in a minute you'll see that that's why it's sixth and seventh grade so once these uh groups are are set up their schedules are set up the students go in they meet with their interventions they have their own room they have horseshoe tables in there where they can sit in the middle and we have the kids sit around them and literally I mean if you have three to five some days it's three that's almost one to one one when we're having these kids it's just a great program um the interventions are used in the district curriculum um to make sure the students are working towards those standards that are deficient on on the state test um so it's just I'm really excited you know a lot another thing I should mention is when we kids start the program we want to check their growth throughout the year which is what we'll show you Miss Burns has created a a diagnostic assessment through our school City and so she checks it every three weeks on the kids progression towards their growth and so that's the data we'll show here in a minute I also have to mention though that we started this program a few years ago because um Dr lman started our vision budget this is all funded through our vision budget so I got to make sure I appreciate and let Dr know this is where it all started so it really is appreciative of this because when you look at the numbers you'll see the progress it's making okay make sure there we go I skipped I didn't go that did I sorry okay here's our data for our Intervention Program so we have okay okay so our sixth and seventh grade we have our quarter 1 and quarter two for Math and quarter 1 quarter two for ELA remember quarter 1 that's eight weeks into the school year so that's that's eight weeks of intervention so you look at our sixth grade 46% we're showing growth towards proficiency and seventh grade 63% that's again that's eight weeks but if you look at quarter two or 16 weeks in the school year now those six graders up to 89% showing growth and 93% of those seven graders are showing growth that's huge numbers that's nine out of 10 kids are showing growth look at the ELA same thing quarter one again eight weeks in 59% of our sixth graders showing growth and 36% of our seventh graders but again the end of that first semester so we're talking 16 weeks in 96% growth on both those um that's just kind of a testament to the small group and the persistence um and I again I'm going to keep tting Miss burn she does a great job it's very strategic on her looking at the standards where they're low at what can we do to work on this so it's very strategic and data focused and it definitely pays off it's a great program and and you know that's one of our programs here at Wells that we started and we're going to continue that program because it really does help so backing up a little bit 220 kids if we're looking just our sixth and seventh grade we have about 3 to 310 that varies so 110 6 1107 that's a third of our sixth graders be able to get through invention a third of our seventh graders that's huge it's really important for me okay so that's our Intervention Program Next program I want to share is we have five levels of skills classes America Wells these are self-contained classes all the teachers they align their instruction with grade level math and Ela standards they want to focus on Hands-On Project based activities and they want to emphasize real world application of skills you I mentioned before all means all our vision at America Wells is for our students to be prepared for the high school level and Beyond that's all 964 kids so we want to make sure they're prepared for After High School it's very important we're talking about all means all um so when we talk about this thing to add here is at the end of the year when we do our state scores students either take the aesa or there's an alternative test MC msaa it's an alternative test for some of our LIF schols kids so all these scores contribute to the growth of our school it's important to mention that's why grade level standards are vital for all levels again all means all um okay now with that I'd like to introduce one of my life skills teachers Miss madell who's been in the district for 10 years has taught the high school level and the Middle School level and she has a great uh program to share with you turn the time over to miss madell come on up Miss Mell all thank you Mr Miller and good evening to all of you so it is my pleasure to introduce to you what we've been using called the Charlie card it is a mo a portable compact mobile kitchen that can be used in classrooms or anywhere with limited space allowing people specifically our life skill students to learn how to prepare food in a simple and fun educational way this card comes with a variety of tools and equipment to make cooking easier and more fun and engaging so here's a short video applying real Hands-On experiences at Wells video please [Music] thank you with that presentation it shows that the Charlie cart can be a valuable tool as a culminating activity it ruce real life application of grade level standards for Life School students by integrating core academic standards across subjects in math our LIF skill students can practice measurements conversion of ratios while following recipes for English they can work on reading comprehension and following written instructions while also practicing vocabulary related to food and cooking in social studies we explore different cultures cultural traditions and the history of different Cuisines science Concepts like nutrition food safety and chemical reactions are also Hands-On learning opportunities it promotes a social skills through teamwork communication and responsibility and collaborating in meal preparation as a collective voice for all of the life skills teachers our goal is to integrate academic standards with functional skills creating real world experiences that build confidence and Independence this approach threatens students long-term goals and an assurance to our parents that their children are seen heard cared loved and equipped to face life's challenges thriving with the support that they need to succeed again thank you so much for the opportunity thank for all great job um got to add she's she's awesome what she does my last school teachers are great but I got to throw in I always share this my staff is awesome I love my staff so great they're great people they're great for kids okay our next steps as we finish up here we want to Def definitely continue our data driven program that that Intervention Program will continue with Wells it's making a big difference we're going to continue that um we also want to continue to focus on grade level standards in all classrooms again all means all all 964 kids should have the opportunity for grade level standards in a classroom we've started this this year I'm really excited about the the progress of this next year we're going to utilize CFA data more in our PLC meeting CFA is our common formative assessments just to make sure we get little background um we have those assessments at the end of the quarters the the grade levels and the contents used um through this year little project momentum and the stuff we've been working on really want to focus on cfas say our eth grade math will have a couple tests per month every couple weeks so they can bring that data to their PLC meetings and really analyze data more often and so staff's on board takes time to develop this they're on board and it's been exciting to see so that'll be a big uh step for next year as well we're going to expand our real world applications and self-contained programs we'll continue with that and of course we'll continue to increase stent engagement through differentiation through all again remember all means all thank you for your time have any questions or comments I do okay um first off very impressive um I love the data um big increase from quarter one Quarter Two so obviously it's working so this is the second year that you've been doing this small group instruction correct okay actually might be three mrr but we've only done last two or three years yes so what have you seen in the eighth graders because I know that you've been focusing on the sixth and seventh but now they're last year seventh graders are now in eighth grade so what have you seen so last year we had the 140 kids for 23 24 that included eighth graders as well they grew as well they did did but if you look at 140 kids over three grade levels we only we only be able to reach we only talking 35 kids per grade level this year focusing on just the two grade levels we're able to reach 110 at least that's a third of them and so we'll have more data at the end of this year and beginning next year to see the effect it had on our eighth graders okay so but when we did eighth graders last year they grew just as well okay I'm just curious of what the retention will be from the sixth and seventh grade then going into eighth grade to see if they retain that um because I think that's important to you I should do my presentation beginning of the year next year I'll share that that be that's good um and question the Charlie cart yes that is amazing it is awesome um and you have one we have one the district got you purchased that a couple years ago Miss madell has been using it she's awesome with this but the district actually purchased that for us there's one at the high school there's one at the high school and then one at Maricopa Wells Mr because I asked for it because I think it is very important transitioning them to more real life like situations because my kids in reality they cannot go to college though but an assurance for the parents that they know those daily life activities I think like it helps boost the parents that they don't have to worry because the like preparing like breakfast if they know that then I think that is really a big impact like for example I have a of of a parent when I when I send pictures because I always communicate with the parents because I think that is the most supporting the communicating with the parents she was so happy is because that's the first time that like you know her kid was able to cook like a pancake I know it's a pancake I know it's simple though but it's a big impact for us teachers because I know that sometimes our life still Skittles are left behind but then seeing those messages coming from the parents is also a big impact for us not just for us but for the entire like you know school and for our district that we are there to support them I I absolutely coign that that is wonderful I love the fact that we are setting them up for Success going going into the high school and and afterwards is one cart enough with your five life skill levels weely see right now I mean it takes some make sure that the teachers are all aware and how to make sure Mell is great at doing this but that's something we should consider if we can if we can have a space it's not just about cooking though but there are a lot of things that we can do with the kids not just about cooking like sewing like you know Pro like there's a lot of things but if we have just one room for the kiddos then we can make a difference though not just about cooking but we don't have enough space and Mr Miller knows about it space is one thing but we can we can look at the the fin the financial aspect could be helpful from the board as well so the challenges space that's what you're looking at the challenges space every room on our campus is using this and then one other question about So you you're pulling the kids small groups out of their elective classes um twice a week for 20 minutes so they're elective class are they missing the whole thing or do they so then they go back they go back okay so again that's important if I missing the whole elective class I mean I'm I think like a middle school kid it's not fair to take their fun class away right so it's actually important for them to do 20 minutes and it's working okay very impressive thank you so very much thank you I'd like to come cook with you yeah well I would love to come cook I didn't share with you so the food is is good and they share with the principal so it's awesome that's good yeah I'd love to do that welcome okay thank um we don't have any call to the public so I can skip item six and move to item seven consent agenda motion to approve is written second least we have a motion to Second shant rosch child hi Ben Owens hi Carol Lopez hi Patty coute hi Robert Downey I so moved we now move on to item it action item specifically it a discuss possible approve of the Personnel schedule Mr baget thank you president Downey members of the governing board and Dr lman this has been a labor of love for probably four months that we're looking at here tonight and so we're uh I'm here to answer questions I'd like to provide just a few highlights uh first you have our administrative renewals on the on the Personnel schedule itself and then the attachment that we have uh added to this document couple highlights first want to highlight our uh six new reading special that we're highlighting for our elementary schools next year we really are impressed about the impact that they're going to make on the lives of these kids and I think it's a it's a continue effort you know it's not only it's going to be impacting our elementary but as these kids develop their reading skills moving in the middle and the high school levels I think it's going to make a difference in their in their academic achievement at that well um additionally uh wellness program we're uh donating or we're delegating excuse me $200,000 to that program and giving it an opportunity for us to focus on giving our employees a better experience with Wellness uh with an app we're hoping to get some additional screenings also involved in this uh Mr Harmon's done a good job of finding the money for this we're thrilled about that and probably the the key element is a 5% pay raise for all of our employees once again Mr Harmon does his magic seems like every year and we're very very excited he and I have been doing Road shows for the last couple of days at our school sites it's exciting to be able to get to that point and see our staff excited about that 5% we're getting good responses back from there uh once again there there are a number of things on there but I I'll take any questions you have at this point okay Mr Becket I lied I do have a couple questions but they're not bad um so uh the attachments that were given to us on the new positions um and they do affect with the budget um and I know I asked this question um with Mr Harmon but I think it bears that I should ask this in public as well so we are going to add all of these positions which I think is great especially those reading Specialists I really um excited to have that and I know that we need to add some teachers um and some other positions were listed on here as well but the unknown of our budget the political environment we don't know if any monies might be re retracted from us we don't know um because everything is still up in the air um are we still able to move forward with this um if that should happen I'm gonna go ahead and let Mr Harmon speak to the remaining funds and also our contingency yeah all right um I think a lot of the unknowns are out of our control these positions are M positions not not Grant positions if those grants become either reduced or eliminated um we'd be in the same boat as every District in the country um and we would need to make a decision on those positions they're supplemental positions that the grants allow us to fund but many of them are critical positions so we need to evaluate those and and regroup and and see what we can fit into the contingencies that we've built in the contingency that we've set aside are really for unknown things that that is an unknown okay so we're well we're better positioned this year with this contingency set aside than we have been in the past and then my question to you Mr Becket is uh upon the approval of this when are we I mean I noticed that we had quite a few um new employees that will start in July which that's awesome and I'm happy to hear the outcome of the job fair again congratulations um but when will we start then recruiting for those yes tomorrow so again we're we're we're already planning in fact I think we have some positions already posted as pending board approval so we're we're actively pursuing uh these candidates at this point in time very excited about the opportunity here I think um we'll be issuing contracts on March 17th thank you each of them have uh some different certified staff classified staff and administrators have different timelines for turning those contracts in but I believe teachers will be the first week of April they du back to us and so at that point in time we'll have a a pretty good idea who's coming and who's not so the contracts are going to be issued during spring break they are and then they come back and then they'll have like a week or so that they will have to make their decision two weeks yes and that's not our decision that's state law that is correct and we're abiding by the the March 15th deadline or March 15 timeline that the legislature has put into effect again we want to make sure we get those contract as soon as possible again I I wish we would had the opportunity to have them here present whenever we issue those contracts but it is it is prudent on our part to get those out as soon as possible thank you for answering these questions I think it's important for the public to know um what we're doing um moving forward especially in the light of seeing many districts downsizing and closing schools that we are able to continue to grow and uh put more resources back into our classrooms so thank you I'm GNA go and put a shout out once again to Mr Hartman he does a terrific job we are fortunate to have somebody with his intellect and resources so I have um one question but I don't know if it's for you or for Dr Lan are these reading Specialists the Spalding Specialists so they're not specifically exclusive to Spalding they're reading Specialists with a special uh reading endorsement okay um they're certified teachers they're so um obviously we're looking at Spalding as our uh a core approach here so they'll have to be able to support that perfect thank you if there's no other questions more of a a statement so something I think it's important to call out what you mentioned the labor of love time conversations Road Show I think um having a conversation and reviewing the budgets and things week after week it's very impressive to see not only do you do the research um but also have conversations with those involved so again to um vice president cra's comment I think it is important for those here and those watching to understand the research that goes into that they're not just arbitrary numbers that are put together it is based on research and input from those teachers administrators staffs and so it is a collective effort so wanted to thank you for your time uh efforts and just again being so uh transparent in the process thank you much I think this is for um more for Mr Harmon Mr Harmon it's we always talk about the 5% increase and things like that but I think there's some stuff underneath the covers that it's worth mentioning and I'll pick on for example medical I hear that some districts are seeing cost increase of 15 to 25% for their medical next year medical and that's going to be a significant increase in premiums for the staff but we're not increasing medical cost premium at all is that correct uh so we are receiving a 14% % rate increase that is our cost we're not passing that off to our staff so we are covering that cost to make sure this 5% raise is a 5% raise that uh that increase is comparable to a 1% raise to staff so this way they they don't feel that impact and we were able to bear that in our budget projections for next year and again looking under the covers um typically premiums you pay a premium depending on the package the service you select and it's exactly the same whether you're earning $25 an hour or $100 an hour so actually by absorbing this there's actually more money going to the people on the lower end of the pay skills within our district um to to pick on um face president C's view of becoming a gold standard across the board not just for teachers we give a five we're giving the 5% we're giving extra money plus in that sense they're actually going to gain more from this not having an increase in their medical premiums yeah that that is a fair assessment all of our benefit packages from the superintendent all all the way to every one of our employees is the same package same cost so um it's a it's a greater proportion of their overall compensation at the lower levels Mr Becket it's the time of year where I have to ask is are you still are you sleeping at night I mean we we're getting to the point where we need to know that we're resourcing um for the next school Year how's your sleep pattern um I'm going to sleep a lot better tonight after this passes uh but very excited about what I'm hearing and seeing at this point in time we're just not seeing the the level of of resignations that we have seen in the past so cautiously optimistic um Mr Harmon I do have one more question um uh that was triggered by U Mr Downey's question about the benefits so that 14% increase we're covering that for the employee but is there a 14% increase in the packages that include spouse and family yeah a question sorry that's a great question and in all of our road shows we are bringing that topic up we cover the cost of benefits for our staff those that have dependent care they will experience those increases that's a huge hit okay all right if there's no other questions or comments I make a motion that we approve the HR schedule second Lisa we have a motion a second shant Rothchild hi Ben Owens hi Carn LZ hi Patty kraay I Robert Downey I so moved we now move thank you Mr be Mr Haron we now move on to item 8 B discussion possible approve of the 2025 2026 governing board meeting schedule Dr lopman president Downey and governing board members you have seen the attachment um we have considered all of our uh important engagements and um prioritize board meetings according to a typical rotation really nothing to report do have a motion a second all motion second Le have a motion to Second Shante rosch I Ben Owens hi Carn Lopez I Patty kraay I Robert Downey I so moved when I move on to item it C discussion possible approve of the sfd project 037 and Grant Mr Harmon thank you president Downey members of the board and Dr lman last board meeting I shared a information item about this resolution so you have a agenda item before you um to approve a resolution that we can submit to the school facilities oversight board to divide our 68 Grant into two portions I'll take any questions you may have so I wasn't able to join uh ask questions before the meeting just du my schedule um all this is is just saying that we've got 40 was it $42 million no the grant is about $33 million yep $33 million and we're electing to split that into two portions that is correct yeah the first portion 72,000 sare F feet and we will we'll still build uh a K8 that's 97,000 Square fet 72 of which will be from the grant the rest will be Bond funded in K5 space the the balance of that Grant about 24670 Square F feet will be set aside for a future project likely K8 number two to be packaged with that K5 Grant to build out the sister K8 of about 96 or 97,000 square feet is there an expiration date um on that can the legislature say h just kidding you don't actually get that or you know something we we talked a little bit about this the uh this division will will make the first portion approved the second portion will be contingent on growth so if our growth slows down then that will not be approved until we hit those triggers we don't need to build if we don't hit those triggers so it's not a it's not a real risk but it right now it's in our hands um but when we grow we'll get the those funds when we need them gotcha and we are still on track to grow at this at this current date um to to meet all those deadlines so we'll see what the next two years holds great thank you if there's no other questions I'll make a motion to approve second Lisa I have a motion to Second shant Rothchild hi Ben Owens hi carollyn Lopez hi Petty coute hi Robert Downey I so moved we now move on to item nine adjourn motion to adjourn second leis we have a motion to Second Shante roosild hi Ben Owens hi carollyn Lopez hi Patty crae hi hi Robert Downey I so move we are nowour thank you

[Music] a [Music] for [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] in [Music] a [Music] a [Music] a [Music] a [Music] a a [Music] a [Music] a [Music] pap [Music] e I [Music] a [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] f [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] a [Music] a [Music] a [Music] for [Music] a [Music] go fire sh [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] fight [Music] sh fire C wins [Music] [Applause] [Music] ready [Applause] 3 2 1 [Music] go kick [Music] kick kick k [Music] k [Music] [Applause] [Music] fing K it's fing k P check P Check [Music] [Applause] Yes FAL pun [Music] P kick P kick [Applause] kick Captain F wins [Music] [Applause] [Music] choose your [Music] [Applause] [Music] fighter ready [Music] [Applause] 3 2 one go [Music] cing kick ping [Music] kick kick talking CH talk CH talk CH [Music] yes [Music] yes fing kick [Applause] F and kick talk and [Applause] kick fing kick [Music] KCK C KCK C [Applause] kick C kick Cy [Music] kick yes fing kick [Music] [Applause] [Music] yes Cy check Cy check FAL Cy kick Cy KCK C KCK [Applause] c [Applause] k [Applause] yes falc wins [Music] [Applause] [Music] choose your fighter [Music] [Applause] Pon ready [Music] [Applause] 3 2 1 [Music] go go pyro get burn KCK prominent triple KCK prominent Tri [Applause] K C KCK sare prominent triple [Music] on edge yes again look on edge right help can't prominent [Music] [Applause] Tri pyro we did our best nice one Pyro [Music] [Applause] [Music] what [Music] [Applause] ready 3 2 1 go [Music] prominent go pyro burn e prominent [Music] tri's on edge [Music] got of punishment got [Music] Edge [Music] Edge got it [Music] ether whereare the end Pro e e [Music] this one [Music] [Applause] [Music] remarkable e [Music] e ether that's ether e [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] ether [Music] ether ether ether [Music] [Applause] e y i no sympathy from me [Music] [Applause] [Music] sh [Music] choose your fighter [Music] that's [Music] [Applause] ready 3 2 one go get higher get get [Music] get get high get [Applause] H get [Music] higher get P get P get p get get get [Applause] get get higher get [Music] [Applause] salute the sun higher [Applause] get higher geter [Music] geter Get High Get High Get get get higher get H get [Music] get get [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] and get get [Applause] this Exercise Works your core [Music] [Applause] [Music] muscle choose your fighter [Music] JV match currently in progress so tonight our club team sorry our club team is playing against Huntington North all right so we got Adriana AKA Galaxy cat uh Kaden AKA megaphone 671 Parker AKA Shakira Robbie AKA Robert Jurg 56 Scott AKA Electro 1 and Corbin AK Onyx Vib 28 okay so what you are seeing right now is our opponents jumping off the ledge so we are in the second round actually the JB team unfortunately lost lost the previous round so they counterpick the stage to town and city which is a pretty good stage in my opinion and it looks like we got Corbin F currently getting a Smackdown from we fit trainer but good thing about Corbin is he can bring the smackdown right back all right doing a forward throw send him off there not really punishing off of it yeah we fit trainer would much rather just stay back and charge up a sun yeah that's weird all right more grabs but not really punishing off of them much rather staying away him and spamming projectiles which is I guess a decent strategy all right Corbin doesn't really know how to approach this goes for the side B again and it's Max good job oh but he does get hit with the with the tcer ball might want to Shield that o and he might want to Shield that forward smash next time too we also got the we fit trainer um not really getting the deep breathing right so basically if he had succeeded in that it would have made his speed bigger and he would have healed a little more it also makes his special attacks a little bit better oh yeah oh wow dark fit's already up to 61 all he needs to do is take a stock off of this we fit trainer and and our opponents will need to send another player in so yeah Corbin seems to be using dark pit side B really well actually and side B is basically when you press the control stick to the side and press the B button side B it's pretty cool all right yeah so he's using that side B to reflect uh we fit trainer's neutral B so that's pretty cool all right got soccer ball just out of range o instead of punishing we fit trainer going for another grab and dash attack dang this we fit trainer doesn't really see seem to be modifying his play style that much neither does Corbin oh man he gets hit by another by another soccer ball oh boy and a back air sending sending Corbin off off the stage you know and when you get sent off the stage you lose a stock you lose all three stocks and it's game over okay send some soccer balls over and a sun dang now dark pit actually has two different reflectors he has his side be which reflects at the end of the attack and his down be which is basically just a Shield that reflects everything I've gotten hit by that Shield way too many times it is not a pretty picture oh and we fit trainer doing that as well ding the percentages are really close oh and a side be setting him off good job Corbin just took off that stock oh what an amazing job he just did wow that is absolutely incredible you know it's games like these that really make me proud of the Esports team as a whole so good job to Corbin dang that we fit trainer was not taking it easy on him all righty there we freaking go so how about I explain the matches right now let how about I explain how the score works right up here you know you see the one and the one you know so each elimination is worth a point as you could tell we both have we both both teams have a point at the moment and we are racing to get four points in order to win the match now how do you cause an elimination you must Wonder an elimination is mainly caused when you take your opponent's through three stocks essentially eliminating them from the game there's four people on each eliminate all three stocks and then you go then you're good then you're good then you win then you win the championship and that red dot up there um near our opponent is uh basically saying how many games we have won all righty all righty okay so it looks like they are currently thinking a little bit oh and they're going to be need to be thinking quite a bit actually cuz banjo kazui has entered the chat it looks like it's PS two again which I'm pretty sure was originally the stage they counterpicked to but they kind of just vibed with the previous one all righty yeah so since uh since Corbin lost two stocks in the previous round he's going to need to uh he's going to need to jump off twice all right and now we're good taunting in the wrong direction but we don't really care all right a doing side bees yeah this banjo definitely had a lot of time to study Corbin's move set and he's using side BS of his own but the difference between that is the fact that banjo and kazui side B is limited but it's also insanely powerful so this B oh okay he does he can't use side B anymore until he loses his stock so yeah dang imagine if Corbin had that ability all right charging up for forward smash Corbin noticing it and getting out of the way not really punishing on it ooh the banjo punishing the down Smash in close range you don't want to do that all right and banjo wins this round so the JB team is going to send out another player in order to take him down I don't really know who they're going to choose actually we got quite a variety of players here and there's a lot that goes into consideration especially when thinking about who they're going to play and even more in consideration with how the player specifically plays the character cuz you can know all about the character you can know all about the character but if the player plays it differently then it just becomes a whole new game you know that banjo didn't really seem to fight with projectiles that much so they need to find a way to not keep it in close quarters I guess so to speak cuz in close quarters he can use that side be to his advantage and hit you for a lot of damage and there's not a lot of stuff that cancels out all right so they're debating quite a bit quite a bit oh Scott's got the controller oh and he's handing it off all right all right who are we going to choose who we going to choose let me see if I can see the name all right all righty oh he's playing playing Kirby okay quite a popular choice in this game actually quite a popular choice all right he must be really excited for it just look at that smile on his face all righty all right let's start the match so Corbin didn't take any stocks so we're going to start as soon as they say go No jumping off the edge this time okay all right talking about toun link for some reason down there I don't really know why they're doing that all right Kaden's going to need to figure out how to how to approach this character you know trying to keep it away he was given some advice to Scott earlier so so he's probably pretty good at this game oh forward smash oh boy got hit by the Ford Smash and the Ford special he's going to need to find a way to dodge that that's someone who doesn't play Kirby a lot I'm not really sure how how Kaden's going to handle this matchup so pretty intrigued to see how it's going to go yeah Kirby getting up close and personal with a for smash kick him in the face oh and another kick when when uh when good old banjo and Kazi let down their Shield that's a good thing oh and fell right into their trap you don't want to use a side attack when your opponent is below you ladies and gentlemen stuff like that it it doesn't work all right using a forward tilt send him send him off and a Dash attack from Kirby sending banjo kazui to the left they're pretty far away from each other but oh look at that Kaden wanted to close the distance on them all righty yeah just ducking and dodging around each other they're doing Dam damage to each other they're just not Landing really any kill moves you got to get them in a prime position in order to land their kill moves up special that's pretty good oh and instead of shielding he just takes it to the face oh well at least banjo's at a pretty high percent so it shouldn't be that hard to take away take away his uh take away his stock o and a Dash attack oh just not going to kill that's a shame and another Dash attack at ledge which is good cuz Kirby's uh Dash attack doesn't get off the stage and there we go Kirby managing to take a stock good job Kaden you really did it all right but banjo and Kirby both have two stocks remaining so there's still more fight to be had don't you dare click away there's more fight all right banjo charging up a for smash Kirby not buying it instead of punishing him for it he does he just stands there all right another attack and going for the down beam method again that's a very common practice it's very common practice for Kirby players and another down be and if it seems to be working I guess you don't stop you know what works works and another down Smash down special good job on punishing the forward smash all right he's trying to get back to ledge and uses a side special again that's very powerful and banjo only gets five of those like we've mentioned so he's got to be kind of strategic with it and another Dash attack from Kirby ooh and a down air and a up special to hit him punish that forward smash that's good I don't know why he keeps going for the forward smashes like Kirby in front of him all righty oh yeah there we go right out of range of the up Smash and doing a Down Beat oh look at him squishing down like a pancake and immediately uh banjo kazui wasting one of their side specials we hate to see it we hate to see it when specials like that are wasted and dash attack into a grab but banjo kazui wasn't there yet so quite a shame all right doing a down air and a side special none of which are hitting but he does hit it with the down special which is good but banjo also hits with a down air but it doesn't really have that good of killing power unless you're off stage o but a forward smash does especially on stage so Kirby and banjo are both down to their last stocks K's really going to have to bring this his aame in order to take this guy down oh an up special there you go all right a forward smash okay and an up air not really punishing of it he like hits an up air and then immediately goes back to down to the ground oh jump over the side special good job Kaden avoid that you don't want to die to that no no no he you don't want your character to die in general in this game that's why they're respecting each other's distance for the most part you know there we go don't know why banjo went for another Fort smash feel like he can punish it I feel like he sees that being punished you know is he going to go for another one no he isn't he's going to shield and go for a dash attack there we go and a forward tilt forward smash he being predictable but if it ain't broke don't fix it and Ford smash on ledge is a valid option especially if you want for me to recover high oh there we go a Ford smash wow good job Kaden oh my gosh congratulations side special Kirby cloned himself too dang I've never been so happy that I won a match that I cloned myself but maybe if I did I could take advantage of our sponsors for this episode so huge shout out to our local internet provider Adams Will's internet Telecom and TV they're directly responsible for our Esports players to be able to compete because of their incredibly fast and reliable fiber internet service if you are in the market for Internet TV or phone service check out adamswells.com that's adamswells.com yeah yeah they've been definitely helping us out a lot like we had a tournament here recently they freaking they freaking brought their aame there mhm all right and we also got this other one otherwise known as the Moose SL garage special thanks to the Moose as well check out the garage here in town on Main Street it's a cafe game room with music venue for the Youth Bluff in to hang out I've been there quite a few times with my friends and it is actually a really cool spot to hang out all right we'll get to our other sponsors after this match it looks like oh they sent out a a oh my gosh it's Captain fabulous they sent out Captain fabulous to take down Kirby all righty all righty and now it's PS2 again that's kind of funny it's kind of funny though the way that works they just don't care but hey keeps them on their toes all right and oh come on Kirby you lost two lives you don't no no squatting may have saved you sometimes but not this time all righty ta and we are good all right here we go okay so we saw this last match well you guys didn't see it but he is oh oh he almost uses down be off stage we do not want that oh boy all right a dash attack good job so Kirby it it's going to be hard for Kirby to approach this Captain Falcon especially since his side be does a lot of damage and covers a lot of distance his down be does the same as well but on the plus side both can be shielded and have lag so he can be punished for overusing them we're going to see if Kaden can punish it oh and he didn't that would be a perfect opportunity for a back here but that's okay and another down be wow jump back he's going to do a down be no an upy there we go all right there we go up special ooh but Captain Falcon countering with his own up special that's not good oh a down special from Captain Falcon into an up special if he does Miss with that up special it does put in his um it does put him in freef Fall which means he basically can't attack oh there we go he had the opportunity to take him down see after he hits the ground with that down be you can actually punish him but those hit boxes those hit boxes they last for quite a bit and also if you stay tuned we're going to be starting our Varsity match as well we're going to see some real pros at work um some more Pros actually cuz these guys look at them go they are professionals uh but our Varsity match is going to be starting at 5:00 p.m.

good evening everyone and welcome to Holliston Ashlin boys hockey on waca TV tonight we have the MIAA division 3 playoff matchup featuring the seventh seated Melrose RedHawks versus your 26 seed Holliston ashin Panther I'm George tuber bringing you tonight's action on the side here of the ice at K kasabuski arena in sagus Massachusetts listen considering hollon and Ashlin came together as a team right at the beginning of the Season I'm not sure anyone expected that this team would make into the playoffs this year but here we are the Panthers this year are seven wins 11 losses and two ties they ranked number 26 in the Mia division 3 power rankings and paon has not made the playoff since n oh so I'm sorry since 2020 Ashton's made the playoffs for the last several years and last year made it all the way to the Elite 8 where they lost to a strong win thri team Melrose 10 n and one this season they ranked number seven in the MIAA division 3 power ranking Melrose actually moved from division 2 to division 3 back in 2024 and they finished 30 last year so they've shown a huge Improvement coming into the 2025 season and they faced the some very tough D1 and D2 teams this year so it's going to be a very interesting game tonight um you know Panthers are coming off of a fantastic season um you know facing uh a top ring team they got nothing to lose and I and I think we're going to see an exciting game so tonight what to watch for um definitely a winnable game for the Panthers it's going to be very tough but it's definitely winnable this Panther team is continued to improve week to we week through the entire season they've shown flashes of Brilliance they they've played uh an unbelievable level in a lot of these games but to beat Melrose they're really going to have to bring their a game they're going to have to minimize the mistakes that have allowed the opponents to score and play at that high level they're capable of playing on on offense the P the Panthers will have to for check well uh they keep the pressure on um we're going to have to keep the puck moving in front of the goalie and take those opportunities to score these kids have some quick hands if they do that I think they can do well on defense they just can't let Melrose get behind them they got to keep the pressure going in a neutral zone uh be dominant in front of the net and just keep pressing uh what to watch for tonight keep your eye on Panther's junor oi Laro who had an amazing 20g goal six assist season this year leading the team at points with 26 points also a hot goalie is critical in the playoffs and the Panthers going Shane Mor arti help Ashley make it to the Elite 8 last year it's a lot of pressure tonight on Mor arti but this kid's proven that he's up for the task and I think he could have a great night so with that let's take a little pause and we'll be back to you uh right at face off [Music] World II tonight we all first division all6 [Music] on the action and now tonight [Music] forting never [Music] [Applause] free number six [Music] [Applause] wi number threeie H of Defense number nine Griffin andng [Music] Jack now we have [Applause] B that y a little more little better [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] all [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] right folks we're back here ready for the first C to start as your host the astion Panthers are facing the Melrose RedHawks quick shout out to the Panthers coaching staff Head Coach Co head coach coach Derek Bard and assistant coach is Chris Johnson Ryan bakas Jason Smith and Owen Harney what a great job to get this team this far this season pulling them all together and making the playoffs absolutely fantastic and here we go ladies and gentlemen the crowd is going nuts Liam F Simons on the face off for the [Music] Panthers Faceoff one by the Red Hawks back harch over to Kelly trying to get it up into the Red Hawk [Music] [Applause] Zone fimon able to keep it in the zone down in the corner for Simons comes out oh Puck out away and got sent down into the panther Zone Kelly behind the net Kelly getting everything set up and he comes out back flips it up looks like that's going to be icing so the face off here to the right of Shane morti back in the panther Zone looks like Luis campo's taking the face off for the Panthers Melrose wins shot from the blue line saved by Mori Ari oh nice hit there by Lis Campos knocks the puck loose but Panthers can't control and noose gets an offside brought that puck in just just before his uh teammate can get out of the zone so we have a face off right outside of the Panther's Zone campus again on the face off [Music] Brady maing comes out with the puck sends it down into the corner or it's picked up by Melrose good pressure by the Panthers danelis in there no sorry it wasn't Daniel it was coming forward app to send it back in behind the net Killian panger back there pressing no rose comes flying [Applause] out nice [Applause] hit Colin Ford gets it out pass up the kilan painter but a little bit too far ra RS right in behind him gets the puck behind the net circles around painter again pushing trying to knock that puck loose they flip it out Edan karaj has it and he shoots it on net the puck back in pain follows up now we have an icing on [Applause] noos well Panthers are bringing it they're putting the pressure on both sides this is exactly what we're looking to see meros is playing well too so this is really going to be a good game William from SIM was on the face off out front M robbit chasing it down all the row puts a nice hit on Robert's able to keep it in passes it over to Li for Simons gets knocked away oi the RO couple of good moves but he had two players on him and now the puck squeaks out but it's picked up by Fitz Simons knock back in behind the n good pressure here by the Panthers keeping the puck [Music] in they're all able to steal that puck getting it back and the Pucket knocked out the face off right outside the panther Zone Luis campus on the face off one by Melrose Rose sets up knocks it into the Panther's corner where it's chased down by Colin Ford cing Ford flips ahead to [Music] Campos Campos fires on net behind the net looking for the rebound Helen for able to keep that in punching it behind the net There Rose is able to knock it out and mor already covers just to play it [Music] safe Red Red Hawks are a quick team very fast through the Zone but Panthers have been great picking everything up so we have a face off to the left of Mor here in the panther Zone looks like Timmy Dwayne taking the face off and we have a whistle we'll set that up again Ashley Jr Timmy Dwayne the face off gets it back again in front of Mor arti moratti covers it up bouncing Puck great job by moratti and that save now we'll have a front line change here for the Panthers Liam fimon in for the face off Puck squeaks out of the Zone but uh wasn't called oh Puck sent forward but a little bit too far that's Kelly gets it rips a shot in but easily easy save there by Melrose goalie so we'll look at a face off here in the mro zone right to the right of the goalie back to Kelly Kelly stops IT flips it forward but oh simus is able to keep it in MA Roberts chasing it Down on the Corner gets away F Simons grabs it rabbit's again poking at it fimon able to keep it in now he's chasing it down but noose flips it back to behind the Panther's net Kelly tried to flip it out but it didn't get out karage fighting front another good save by Mor [Applause] arti now we get a couple of Full Line changes for a face off to the right side of Shane Mor arti with Campos taking the face off Panthers win Colin Ford has it behind the net campo's driving it out it gets knocked away now it's picked up by grd Lucas who's bringing into the Zone with Nick Connor next to him now that that's broken up they're able to keep it in now meos gets the puck out and they attack the Zone Puck around behind the net Lucas grabs it it's able to flip it around to the other side we're coling Ford picks it up tries to fire ahead to [Applause] Campos Mose flips it back into the panther Zone Mose has a good digging there by Nick Connor is able to get that puck away but then it's picked up by MOS again shot on that glove save Shane Mor already quick race shot e easy save for Mor Ari not an easy save for me but Shane morard has a 904 save percentage on the season playing at an exceptional level faceof one by Melrose quick shot of Mor arti pad save pucks bounc around in front of the net backhander didn't go anywhere blocked quick shot to the point blocked by a lot of people another flip in on morard and he covers it [Applause] up so one thing morard is exceptional at is covering that puck up not allowing rebounds uh keeping that puck in so the opponents not have a chance to get their stick on it scoring a rebound Simon in the face off dribbles out front but Danny Kelly picks it up passes up but it gets intercepted Melrose fires back into the Zone karich up trying to get the puck out but now fit Simons has it racing up ice and a dribbling shot and Mos go picks it up yeah Matt fuon in the goal there for Melrose it's a very big presence the RO fighting for a Melrose breaking up but a m hit and now they're trying to reset Kelly's going back to get the puck behind the net M roll fires with the point fired in way wide and then M Roberts is in the hunt it down Simons flips it out gets over to loo loo Racing for it not able to get to it fighting for the parket below them the RO gets his stick on it but couldn't get a shot off now the r is moving around flips it out front but it goes a little bit wide and gets over the blue line M Cullen Ford picks it up and sends it back to Nick Conners to get it back in the zone and now meos flips it out Ford over to Lucas Lucas going up fires it behind the net R Bailey firing it [Applause] around now merose dumps it in behind the net cullin Ford is chasing down Ty get up back there trying to get a stick on it puck gets out front Ford flips out but it gets knocked back into the zone now pass goes a little bit too far just gets by Campos and it's back in the zone again and Panthers will try to set up make something happen down in the Melrose end Campos flips it in Connor chasing it on behind the net now noose pass was missed and ends up with an icing so a face off down on the Melrose end to the right side of Matt fuon Timmy Dwayne on the face off one by Melrose MOS is chasing it down we got a one- on oh [Applause] score MOS with a breakaway score the puck just got by everybody the puck up behind the Panthers and one of the Mose players was able to break out with it and go one-on-one with Mor Ari and he the puck just right into the corner still plenty of time 69 left to go in the first period one [Music] [Applause] [Music] nothing parent this flip back in the zone morotti slows It Down Danny Kelly picks it up and flips it around Danny Kelly with it again coming around the ice he likes to bring the puck up very fast flips it forward but nobody there to pick it up now Kelly's on it again Kelly quickly hits it h kind of a weed shot in front of the net no rebound back in again oi loo on the puck oo has it tries to flip it up to karic but Simons gets it gets it back to Kelly Kelly flips It Forward way up in the air [Music] the row chasing after falls down gets up and now we got to no not quite a two-on-one breakway broken up there by Brady Lucas easily the puck gets uh by everybody and goes back for an icing so have a face off in the Panthers Zone 518 left to go in the first period right score one nothing is really nothing to be concerned with um I'm sure we'll have multiple goals on both sides this game so let's see the panther get one back here fck behind the net getting dug out Gallagher on that you know gets it over the Blue Line NEOS has to clear and they try to flip it back in but easily stopped by Ford in this could go for an icing we reset again here in the panther Zone to the right of Mor arti Anthony moschini will take the face off for the Panthers wins the face off quick hit behind a net cin Ford circles around and then Lucas picks it up sends it Forward pass up to Liam Gallagher Liam Gallagher brings it in behind a net fighting for K Elman back there Diggy behind a net noose picks it up though he's able to pass it Forward K able to get to it trying to knock it back in Mero sends it all the way down and both sides make some changes oh Lucas was trying to to catch them sleeping with Liam Gallagher waiting on the blue line but it went a little bit ahead of him now we have a two-on-one situation with an amazing save by Shane Mor Ari got around tried to backhand to lift it up and Shane just got the glove up there and caught it in midair still that one away that was a great save by Mardi face off to the right of Mor Ari Campos takes it noose gets it tries to shoot nothing happening now we have Nick Connor chasing it up chasing it into the [Music] corner noos tries to flip it up but Kelly's back there Kelly sends it over to kahar who tries to pass across the bailing but pass was a little bit off MOS able to get the puck out of the Zone but then stolen away by Campos and noose brings it in and Kelly just plays the body and just takes him off the puck good moves pass out front another great job by Danny Kelly getting that puck out of there now Brady meing flips it out and Par gets flipped across where norose picks it up and sends it back into the [Music] corner Kelly flips It Forward going for low who misses it now Liam F Simons takes it in shot on goal just wide Oly loo was there to pick it up up now muro's able to get it back in but now we get it out of the Zone L Ro P great pass over to M Roberts Roberts quickly flips it in but hits the Melrose player now Melrose racing up the ice quick shot Love Save By Mor Ari we'll have another face off to the right side of Mor arti 215 left to go here in the first period had no penalties on either side yet so a pretty clean game all right William F Simons in there Ashlin senior to take the face off back out to the Blue Line quick shot in very wide of the net meros tries to Center but too much traffic in front now Ma Roberts is taking it out with Oly Loro Theo tries to put a move on they can't get out of the Zone before Liam and Simons flips in behind the net cin forward across to Lucas Lucas a quick shot down the middle rebound but nobody [Applause] there nice race down there gry Lucas able to get the puck away and a nice hit nice hit by Lucas move the player off the puck painter now in the corner fighting for it noo skipping around chipped away there I think by number 14 Timmy Dwayne get the puck out of the zone and now we get an icing Melo tried to catch one of their players sneaking up on the blue line but pass was a little bit too tough and went by him and resulted in an icing so with 108 here we'll have a face off in the melro zone just to the left side of Matthew [Applause] Jon noose wins the face off fires it out and that's going to be an icing we'll do it all again that took 6 seconds now we have 102 left to go in the period Campos in there for the take for the face off to the left side of Fu Pucket behind the net noro's able to get the puck out Flip It [Music] Up Ashlin there ready to go well picked up by Brady m who loses an edge can't get the puck out and now here comes Danny Kelly racing up the side nice move somebody broke a stick on Melo side Hon's got a 5 on4 going here for a moment no's able to get the puck out now back up to Kelly who punches it back into the Corner 22 seconds left to go mck Conor's in there trying to make something happen Puck kind of up front quick shot ah oh goal that looked like Olie L but I can't be [Applause] sure it is it's oi loo who would have thought oi loo the leading goal scorer out in front of the net gets a rebound hits it back into the net with 15 seconds remaining in the period score tied [Applause] 1-1 the Panthers crowd is going crazy all right 15 16 seconds left to go face off but Simon's tying it up here comes Melrose trying to get in for Simon's chasing after quick pass off FR what a save by Mor Ari lots of traffic out front that puck was blistered at morari morotti another glove save amazing we'll have a face off now to the right side of morar we have less than a second to go here in the period as soon as the puck drops we'll hear a whistle and there we go buzzer sounds all right folks your Panthers were able to tie it up here right at the end of the first period on an amazing goal by oi loo the Panthers leading goal scorer great job um we're going to go into intermission here we'll get back to you oh here I am I'm on camera camer we'll get back to you at the end of uh or at the beginning of the second period take a quick break hey everybody we're back here on waca TV for second period of action playoff game your ashin Panthers against the Melrose RedHawks great first period by the Panthers they were down one- nothing tied the game up at the very end playing with Incredible intensity uh playing very very well Melrose team is playing very well as well so we really have a great game here tonight all right Panthers send this down into the Melrose Zone and they're going to get called for an icing so the face off back in the Panthers Zone looks like to the right side of Shane Mor Ari Mor AR's had a number of fantastic saves tonight going to rely on him to keep that up as the night goes on just under away here in the second period put Simons on the face off out to the point quick shot on that blocked by a number of players and just gets right to the right of Mor arti Here Comes Loro firing the puck up gets banged around a little bit picks the stick up still down noros gets it back into the panther Zone behind the net Kelly sending it up and around I don't know if it's Simon's touch that or that's going to get called for an iceing [Applause] quick thing today tonight's game is sponsored by Town House pizza and rast beef as well as Marathon Deli both fantastic restaurants in the Ashlin area make sure you visit [Applause] them face off now to the right of Shane morti looks like Campos is going to be taking the face off Puck down Melrose wins quick shot on morti morari saves behind the net digging behind the net is fordo sends it across the Blue Line back across it just trickles out of the [Music] [Applause] Zone then Panthers couldn't get the puck on it now recovered by Melrose they're racing in but broken up well by the Panthers little quick shot in on Mor arti who was paying attention easy start off for him only like a minute and 15 seconds into the second period face off again by Campos to the right of Mor arti nuro's quick shot in at Mor arti with a screen and morard is able to stop it bailing sends it behind the net where Kelly's fighting for it got two Mose players down there fighting with Kelly and now Campos gets in takes one of the Melrose players down Puck is flick flicked ahead but too far for Nick Connors now back in the [Applause] zone tried to flip it up but looks like it got caught up in the netting so we'll go back for a face off in the panther zone right Panthers coming out with the intensity they had in the first period looks like they're they're they're playing their [Applause] game face off in front of the the Melrose fans who go nuts anytime anything happens a quick pass back to the blue line which wasn't handled the chillian painter chases after it merrow's able to get the puug up but Danny Kelly grabs it flips it over into the corner no [Music] [Applause] icing meros carries the puck up right through the neutral zone tries to take a shot but blocked by karich har now fighting behind in that Timmy Dwayne back there too Panther send the puck around the other way Timmy Dwayne picks it up tries to get out of the Zone gets hit nice pass ahead to Killian painter Killian painter oh almost gets through the legs of one of the Melrose players now Ford's controlling the puck flips it up to uh Braden rods who gets hit right away we'll have a quick line change for the Panthers and a couple of changes for noos as well Puck intercepted there by RAM for Simons Puck trickles back Cullen Ford he passes it forward Mac Robins just knocks it behind the net which tased down by Willam fit Simons Willam F Simons right in front of the net oh loo no oh we thought that was a goal loo with the quick hands the riffs were right there Panthers think it's a goal but the refs are saying no Panthers fans very upset literally sitting right around the melrose's goal everybody thought it went to the net but it didn't Puck almost trickles out but F Simons keeps it in chased down in the corner no rose is able to pass it Forward where it's intercepted by F Simons who gets it back to M Roberts who knocks it back into the Zone The Sim is chasing in the corner fighting for the puck gets up to the Blue Line it oh Colin Ford had to pull it [Music] out Ry Lao trying to skate just gets knocked down by one of the Melrose players who flips it back into the Zone behind the [Applause] net the RO gets knocked down and we got a [Applause] whistle and we have a penalty on Melrose tripping Rose number six Brendan Doyle gets called for tripping and now we'll have our first penalty of the game and your Panthers will be on a power play face off to the left side of Matt fuon with L Campos taking the face [Music] off oh quick shot on go fuch stays into the corner Melrose tries to clear y Kelly almost picked it up knocked it back in Kelly's being chased but Kelly's incredibly quick H Kelly has a shot that was deflected up out of the net so that'll be a face off to the right side of uh of the goalie a minute 44 left in the penalty 1038 left in the second period Camp's in for the face off again now the referees are going over to talk to the milrose coach about something a little bit of a delay here I don't know what the conversation's about looks like we're all set [Music] and there we go Melrose wins the face off and flicks the puck all the way down morotti comes out of net stop the puck Kelly's getting set up behind the net Kelly passes up to Campos Campos sends it across to Ry l l with a quick couple of moves but puck gets P picked off now we have a one-on-one two two on one broken up by Danny Kelly just right in the middle of that two-on one and just puts his stick out it takes the buck away now pass up to Campos over to Oi loo loo passes it up and dump the puck into the Zone Panthers try to do a quick change and that puck is just going to get fired out of the Zone again only 50 50 seconds left in this penalty looking for for Panthers to make something happen here loo taking the puck into the Zone L gets the puck into the corner behind the net looks like em gets boarded behind the net the rose able to get the puck up can he get it out yep gets it back up to tampos tampos a quick shot but it Ricochet is off of Melrose player now Kelly has to pick it up again and fire across to Campos Campos is going to fire up to loo loo is going to pass it across to Cullen Ford Ford has it now quick shot on net wide and the puck Ricochet is off the back wall and the trickles out of the Zone only 7 seconds left in the power play looks like this will be a scoreless power play although we have oi lose skating the puck in now Liam for Simon skating in sends it across picked up by painter and oh Panthers aren't able to keep it in the harage just got there a second too late and now the Panthers are on the attack p come out painter getting in front of them Miss pass Brady Lucas chases it down to the corner sends it around K har is able to pick it up trying to get this Puck out her flips it forward to Killian painter but intercepted and send back into the panther his [Applause] own Lucas behind the net looking for a lane passes it up to painter great pass painter knocks it in oh goalie comes out takes it loo able Nick Conor is able to send it back in now kahar able to get in front of it lcas protecting as we have a breakaway Puck sent across the crease good job by morard there quick flip forward to Nick Connor Nick Connor's able to flip it back in and chase after it but oh Killian pain was able to take it and then Timmy Dwayne comes in and keeps it in Timmy Dwayne turn the net oh the puck gets ricocheted up karic gets onto the puck as it comes out of the Zone sends it back in now Melrose trying to clip it forward a hit a player so they're not going to call for icing Kelly with the park flips it out of the [Music] Zone merose flips it back behind the net merose gets it out front some fighting going on behind the net Kelly comes away with it nice moves by Danny Kelly picking around getting the puck on the side tries to pass it up front picked up by kahar and throws it into the corner Corner meros gets it behind in that patching It Forward nice pass up by Melrose chased down by karic he's able to get that puck away make nothing happen and Panthers flip it out of the Zone Liam gallager got his stick on it able to get the puck out of there but we have a pen we have a a delayed penalty going on here Mel roses pulled their goalie as soon as uh Panthers recover they'll stop this and call the penalty look like we have a roughing penalty on kahar nothing that we saw there was nothing blatant that happened out there so now we have a two-minute penalty with 609 left in the second period face off to the right of Shane morti let's see how the Panthers do now on the penalty kill Melrose is able to win the face off melro sets up with the blue line quick pass over Aaron pass gets around Gets behind the net but recovered by Melrose Mose gets it up to the point passes to the side doing a good job controlling the puck and setting up since Melrose team is a very disciplined team back to the point back to to the side quick shot on net picked up by loo uh by Shane [Music] morti say 540 left to go in the second period of minute 32 on the penalty a a change here and the referee's not allowing the change Face Off to the left side of Mor arti on the road chasing the puck down skater went right into the ref knocked the ref down out to the Blue Line the quick shot of morti goes off one of the Panthers players doesn't make it to the net nice tip by Liam F Simons who got that puck out of there and chased it down and now Panthers able to recover call Forge slowing it down passing it up gets an iceing lamford Simons chasing it behind the net causing some problems here Liam for Simons gets a stick on it Liam for Simons put the puck in the corner gets it up oh just misses getting it out front but still fighting for it Timmy Dwayne now with the puck in the corner Timmy Dwayne Wheeling dealing fires it across the net but wide now the Puck's out of the Zone cullin Ford picks it up knocks over to Danny Kelly oh gets away from Danny Kelly and what a what a move by Shane morti but they got to keep going Puck behind the net Danny Kelly picks it up into the corner back behind the net 23 seconds left on the power [Music] play Melrose player mstick handled that puck was picked up by Timmy dway who just fired it back behind the net now we have 6 seconds left in the penalty Melrose getting chased into the corner Kelly behind in the corner that's it penalty's done and now we're back just about to full force puck gets knocked out of the Zone chased on by Timmy Dwayne Timmy Dwayne behind the net fighting for [Applause] it reant Simons fires it back picked up by Danny Kelly again Danny Kelly fires it ACR cross out of the Zone where Braden RS grabbs it and makes sure the Puck's out of there and it gets knocked behind the net Oh Aaron Puck out front that was lucky I don't know if the uh the net got dislodged but we have a whistle tremendous action here in this game in the third in the second period both teams playing with Incredible intensity 335 left in the second period face off to the right side of Mor arti one by Campos and karage takes it around behind her net passes forward to Brady maing with a number of Melrose players behind him trying to keep it in there four Melrose players over there in that corner who now sent it behind the net where it's picked up by Danny Kelly who skates around and now finds a lane can't get it out of the zone [Applause] Puck bouncing around and finally grabbed by Campos controlled it centered across to Kelly Kelly tried to flip it out of the Zone but stopped by [Music] Melrose Puck flipped up but Ste now Nick Conor's on it campo's back with it trying to set up trying to pack up to Nick coners but a little bit too high call for an iceo a lot of action here in the second period both teams are really fighting for this L back forth we have 2 minutes and 40 seconds left in the second period we'll have another face off to the right side of Shane Mori panles are going to have to play a little bit more in the Melrose Zone to make something happen here Melrose picks it up quick shot of Mor Ari goes High I think Mori may have blocked out high now noos dancing around behind the net Qui quick shut out front save by Mor Ari the pucks loose and knocked away come oh cup Puck got by we had a two-on-one play there AEL Rose goes in and has a quick score just a little laps there as uh the Panthers allowed the puck to get behind them and we had a two-on-one situation Melos went Far Side far far top shelf and got the score so now we have 2-1 Melrose with 217 left in the second period Liam F Simons in the face off picked up Liam F Simons gets it back in MA Roberts around the back Liam fimon still fighting for a M Robinson the corner OE the in there too melro is trying to flip the puck out gets knocked off of Panthers player M Roberts back in the corner fighting for it Liam F Simons tries to grab it does stops the clock fighting for it against the boards Now quickly picked up by oh quick shot there by Grady Lucas right on net easy save there for matth fion that'll lead to a face off to the right side of fuon with 141 left to go in the second period Melrose team is very precise very quick able to take advantage of of the stakes and they did quick shot by Danny Kelly um deflected out of play so we'll reset and have another face off 135 to go in the second period puckets back out but just gets away from Panthers nice W ni two-on-one situation there and um nicely broken up by the Panthers the har behind in that to fight for the puck Puck behind the net in the corner Kelly's on it with Timmy Dwayne poking around fighting for up behind the net one minute left to go in the period flips it up along the boards puck back out front quick shot on Mor arti nice pad save now behind the net Pucket sent up around the net picks it up sends it out quick shot there by Lis Campos just a little bit high now Killian painter passes it out to the harage but it just gets away from him and the puck goes out of play 23 seconds left to go here in the second period scored two to one melro up over with a face off just out of the out of the noo Zone Campos on the Face Off Face Off one by Melrose Mose passes it up along the boards throws it behind the Zone goes along the boards see 11 seconds to go pu bouncing around again and just Panthers just get out of the Zone Melrose fires it back in and that's going to be the end of the second [Applause] period right so f after two here we have your Panthers uh Down 2 to one but lot of lot of play ready to go Panthers are playing very intensely exactly the way we're looking from the play just we know one one little uh mistake and Melrose is able to take take advantage of it I think the Panthers are going to come out hot in the third period and we're going to continue to have a very exciting game here we'll be back with you at the beginning of the third period and welcome back folks to kasabuski arena in sagus where where Alan hollist and Ashlin Panthers are facing the Melrose Red Hawks beginning with the third period Panthers are down 2 to one third period underway and we're looking for the Panthers to come out very strong here very aggressive tie this game up and eventually Take the Lead that's my prediction let's hope I'm right all right Panthers send the puck deep into the mro Zone fighting for a behind the behind the net picked up by Melrose Melrose KN in front of the net that was a quick shot by Ma Roberts in front of the net but a great save by the by Melrose Puck picked up now by oi loo oo moving around skating takes a quick shot but that puck is deflected Danny Kelly's chasing it back down in the zone and he's coming in he's coming in fast trying to catch Melrose on the break scoots around behind the neck quick shot out front to Oi loo but puck gets deflected High that's what we're looking for here Kelly knocks it back in Moo's able to knock the puck out kahar back there with the puck flips it over wide to Kelly Kelly take and get up the ice flips it in on the net gets the puck back Nick Conor's back there fighting for it Nick in the corner fighting for the puck puck gets sent up in the air comes bouncing down gets knocked Away by Danny Kelly and then swatted Away by Shane morti Melrose Gets behind the net Brady Lucas is out front to get that puck away and looks like this is going to be an icing it's a little bit too much in that puck as the puck trickles all the way down into the Melo Zone 1326 to go we have a face off to the left side of Shane Mor Ari in the panther Zone Luis campo's in for the face off pucks dropped another quick shot Mor Ari Mor Ari covers and they'll reset and do that again Mor AR's quick Campos again in on the face off going up against Justin vona quick shot over quick shot and morotti slides across and blocks that Nick carner's able to flip the puck up but it gets away from everybody comes back and into the panther Zone ruca sends it around to Ford Ford able to get it up passing it up to Matt to Brady maing the puck trickles in and it's covered there by [Applause] fuon two minutes have gone by here in the third period we have a face off to the right side of fuon Timmy Dwayne in to take the face off for the pan puck gets knocked out front but recovered by Mose Mose flicks The Bouncing Puck up around Kelly gets a hold of it flips it up to Killian painter but there are three Melrose players Melrose now tries to flick the puck out gallager over there against the boards Puck get flipped across painter picks it up again painter great fake tries to get the puck out but can't get the puck around fighting for the puck against the boards now Kelly sends it across kahara just skates over it pain of the Blue Line quick shot easy glove save there by Matt fuon now of a faceof again in the mro zone to the right side of fioni lam fim in now this time for the take off for the face off Oly loo behind him and Ma Roberts out in front Park bouncing around behind inette fighting for it over in the corner can see who's fighting for it at this angle but the Puck's still back there diamonds comes over Lucas comes away with it Lucas sends it across to Ford Ford gets hit into the corner and the RO tries to flip the puck forward and Liam for Simons picks it up comes across the line in the middle quick shot on net oh covered covered by fuon and when Simons came in tried to get a stick on the puck as it was kind of bouncing around getting covered up but f he was able to cover it up now we'll have a complete line change on both sides we'll come back to a face off to the right side of fuon with Campos taking the face off for the [Applause] panths wins the face off quick shot by Nick Connors but gets deflected and goes wide MOS has behind the net flips up Kelly with a quick stick knocks it forward but it gets blocked by alos player and nowos is coming out with it kahar able to go over and get the puck away from everybody Mose gets it in the zone and Danny Kelly behind the net with the puck sends it around and the puck just trickles out over the blue line one of the Melrose players hits the puck out of play thr a face off just outside the Zone 1051 to go here in the third period Panthers are down 2 to one for Simons in for the face off noros wins the face off and they send the puck in deep to the Zone gets knocked on by har goes off one of the Melrose players all the way back into the Melrose end M Roberts chasing back into the corner fighting for the puck Mose digs it out over to Kelly Kelly across to kahar the with a quick shot in front tries to get a tip but doesn't get it and now Melrose passes forward Kelly picks it up sends it up to Roberts Roberts sends it across to Oi L Ro Theo skates it into the Zone skates it into the corner Skates on the front of the net a quick chip up but can't get the puck to anybody and now Kelly gets on the puck slaps it back in but Meo is able to quickly send it out and now loo loo on a pass and one of the Melrose players tried to collide with loo and I think he ended up getting himself knocked down Ro's now coming into the Zone pass across that was a misplayed now we got a three on three on [Applause] two Liam gallinger chasing the puck down comes across the front but couldn't get a stick on it now meros flips the puck up and out now Killian pain are in with it comes around to the corner dances around with the puck noro's trying to get the puck out a couple of checks back and forth into the into the boards melro is now skating the puck out now we got a two on one Puck goes wide I think it made a little bit of a kick by Shane Mor Ari Puck taken away by Liam Gallagher Liam Gallagher goes across but it's knocked Away by Melrose morard flips it around the boards up kind of stolen there by one of the Melrose players Jack feni who flips it [Applause] [Music] back quick shot on goal and another save by Shane morard kid is just fast 826 left here in the third period face off to the right side of Mor arti there's Campos on that quick shot to Mor arti right in the middle Mor covers it up will reset do that again puck gets back to the Blue Line quick wrist shot in on morard who again does not let the puck Ricochet off picks it up covers it up and go go from the face off to the right side so milrose player sitting right there in front of him waiting for that Ricochet which never happened and we have fit Simons in for the face off to the right side of Mor arti Simon wind sends it across M Roberts fighting for it in the corner along the back boards m Rose player tries to kick take quick shot but Simons knocks it up what a block by Ma Roberts just skated right in front of the puck not let not allowing that shot to happen howage back to Simons now with the puck Down on the Corner trying to make something happen knocks it forward to L loo chips it out of the Zone ma Robert sends it behind the behind the N of the Mero Zone and they get a change both sides change noro's able to get on the puck Quick Stop broken up by Danny Kelly Danny Kelly avoids a check Danny Kelly fighting for the puck not letting uh the norrose player do anything now the puck picked up behind the net by Melrose Melrose gets it up to the Blue Line quick shot on net got the puck loose up front knock back out there by Killian painter gets that puck out of his Zone we had a big crowd in front of Mor arti Danny Kelly now behind the net we got a call going on here think something happened away from uh I didn't see what happened but we Timmy Dwayne's down on the ground looks like he got hit in the mouth he's pulling his lip look like may have a high stick on him now that happened away from the action refs are talking with each other trying to figure out what happened Panthers are trying to plead their case to the refs we'll see what happens here looks like nothing's going to get called I think the refs missed what happened even though the panther players are trying to explain [Applause] so looks like we'll have a face off here uh Ashlin coach is talking to the ref as well definitely had a panther player hit in the mouth and none of the rough saw it so we're going to just continue play 650 left in the third period left in the game face off to the right of morotti Liam th Simons wins back around the net pu passed out of the Zone flipped over into the Zone quickly flipped out by Lucas now the Panthers attack quick shot there by Ma Roberts gets deflected up and Melrose gy fuon just Scoops out of the air looks like go face off now to the right side of Matt fion time was fighting for maros is able to get that puck out and now the MOs player racing up the ice MOS kids are extremely fast seem as a team to be smaller than the ashin team but they seem to be very very very quick Sims now flips the puck up and the puck ends up going out of play of a face off to the right side of Mor Ari Campos on the face off again quick shot shot gets out wide I don't know if that was blocked out to the Blue Line no rose flips the puck in flips it around the boards where Nick Connor has it Nick Conners passes up and across gets it over to Brady maing but a Ricochet is off him a quick shot on Mor Ari and mor Ari just covers again I don't know how many shots have been on Mor Ari this game but it seems like there's been quite a few certainly fire more than shots on Matthew fui Faceoff gets backed out to the Blue Line shot on morri arti met Rose player Charlie Hoskins tried to put a tip on it but missed and morard just picked it up and covered for Simons again on the face off to the left side of Mor arti puck drops in the corner Alli the out front Puck was bouncing out front one of the Mose Players missed on it Danny Kelly now racing up the ice racing around gets gets it to the side tries to get the puck out front puck in the corner can see Melrose comes away with it Melrose tries to flip forward stolen by oi Loro L just fires on N looking for a uh I think for a face off in the mow Zone that was an easy catch there for Matt fui now we have changes on both sides and we'll do a face off to the right side to the left side of fui with 515 left in the game Panthers down two to one looking for a quick score here Campos fights puck gets knocked out of the [Applause] Zone quick pass across but a lot of pressure there by Nick Connors didn't allow anything to happen and now noose has it again flips it up forward Ford fighting for it in the corner getting tied up a little bit Campos and trying to dig it out noose comes away with it passes up to the Blue Line we have a quick wrist shot goes go to the left of Mor arti Lucas comes away with it sends around to Nick Conners Nick Conners takes a [Applause] hit the puck gets put back into the panther Zone Lucas skates it out goes across the mid Conners looks like interference I don't know if that's going to get called Nick Conners is going to get the puck and one of the players he didn't have the puck one of the players came off and just checked him off of it looks like that's not going to get called so have a face off back in the panther Zone to the right side of Mor arti Liam for Simons on the face off quick flip behind the net no rose flips a back on the other side around the net for simus puts the hit on puck gets taken away gets flipped up forward oi loo chasing fighting for it in the corner with Willam F Simons loo comes away with it Clips it across but it gets intercepted and loo goes for the puck and puts a takes the legs out from one of the mro's players just takes him right down and then bashes into another player coming back muro's able to flick the puck forward karich fighting for it but it gets away from him and now fit Simons just overpowers a Melrose player quick shot behind the net out to the blue line noos passes him back into the corner quick shot around the back of the net Mose is able to get the puck out front and William for Simons just slaps the puck away no icing 257 left in the game here Puck behind a net broken up by Campos Campos keeps the puck in the zone Kelly trying to get a puck trying to get a stick on it couldn't puck gets knocked back in behind the Panthers and now cullin Ford is taking it [Applause] up lot more hitting going on here 225 left in the game and mose is able to chip the puck forward Danny Kelly picks it up looks for where to go with it sends it across to Ford Ford back to Danny Kelly Kelly tries to flip it up to Nick Connor as Nick Connor's chasing in merrow's able to get it [Applause] out Campos oh Kos gets in gets a quick shot on it but save save over there and then a couple of little pushing and shoving over there 157 left to go in this game Panthers are down two to one but they have a face off now in the melro zone right to the left side with fuon William fimon on the face off Puck trickles out behind oh what a shot by oie L Ro but a great save by fuon it's a quick backhand shot to the far side of the net and fuon was able to get get his glove over there to stop that so we'll reset again 149 left in the game face off again to the left of Fu Liam fit Simons on the face off Li for Simons the puckets St out front fighting for it oh Laro on the puck fighting forward but giant crowd out front and are able to stop it reset again another I don't know what the ref is calling for here no okay we're going to have another Face Off to the left side of the of the goalie with Liam fimon in again taking the face off 144 left in this game Pucket sent behind the net melo's trying to get it out and they are able to get it out now we have a two onone quick shot off the post oi L able to get a stick on it on the RO sends it up gets it over to Campos Campos racing up the ice sends it in deep behind the net and Liam F Simon's chasing in there trying to get a stop L the RO gets a stick on it fighting far puckers R up front a quick shot score go Panthers who was that they're stuck in the corner it was hly Loro again oi lose scores ties the game up with 1 minute 10 seconds left to go unbelievable the Hollis and Ashen crowd is going going nuts the Melrose crowd cannot believe what just happened game is tied 2 [Applause] to2 1 minute 10 seconds left to go and both sides were taking a little break here I don't know who called the timeout but both sides are discussing what to do here with the remaining time left in the game 1 minute 10 seconds left to go Panthers put the pressure on kept the puck in the zone kept swarming the net and oo eventually got a stick on it and scored his second goal of the game tying the game now two to2 1 minute 10 seconds left to go this is anybody's game folks this is what we came for what an exciting game [Applause] [Music] [Applause] as you'd expect Melrose has a very large crowd here we're very close to Mose so the crowd drowns out the uh the Hollis and ashon crowd a little bit but Austin hon has a great presence here but Simon's on the faceof gets knocked up loo has the puck loo get gets away from a little bit what a check by loo loo just takes a player out Puck behind the net now Panthers are pushing oh oh L almost gets to it Panthers able to keep it in the zone back in the corner puckets taken out quick shot by Kelly Kelly quick shot oh hits some of the Melrose players can't do anything with it Loro again on the puck kind of gets trip has a player run into him and now Liam fit Simons is on the player one player trying to escape past four Panthers it's not going to happen Panthers break it up send the back end of the melro zone 18 seconds left to go puck back in the melro zone melro trying to skate the puck out moves It Forward Liam no M Roberts knocks it back into the Zone Melrose fires the puck down it's going to get called for an icing and we'll have a face off back in the melro zone 6.4 seconds left to go we have an opportunity very unlikely but if the Panthers could win this face off get a quick shot on goal with a couple of seconds left if not we're going in overtime Campos in on the face off Melrose wins behind the net Melrose kind of tying it up and that's it that's the end of the third period period score tied 2 to2 unbelievable exciting game uh for for the Panthers Panthers able to tie it up and now we're getting ready to go into overtime situation folks both teams are going to reset figure out what they're going to need to do here and we'll we'll be back in a minute as we start uh overtime [Applause] right folks we're back we're in overtime here in the first play in the first round of playoffs where your Panthers are taking on the Melrose RedHawks looks like uh overtime is going to be four on four for eight minutes M Rose gets into the Zone Danny Kelly flies across takes the puck away Danny Kelly racing up the ice Danny Kelly gets a quick shot on net picked up no not picked up knocked away but we have a whistle I think the referee thought that the goalie picked the puck up but he didn't there still a loose Puck so we have a face off to the right the mat fuon Liam for Simons in with the take with the face off Puck punks around Gets behind the net Melrose controls gets away from Melrose but Melrose gets it back back again and Melrose is skating up Puck Around the Net melro skating around the back passing it up passing it back gets out of the Zone Slips Away Ary the rose trying to chase it down goalie goes to flip the puck out it hits the referee it gets knocked back into the zone for Simons gets it up front gets in oi the Roose shot wide L for Sims behind a net trying to knock it away puck gets out up the side loo loo steals loo going in but Melrose comes back and takes the puck away from behind him and Al Melrose is racing down the ice Danny Kelly's on the puck Danny Kelly skates on back Jukes ho the Melrose player passes it up misses Puck goes out of the Zone Melrose player again over skates and now meos brings it in trying to come in on Kelly Kelly gets a stick out I'm sorry that was Grady Lucas Lucas gets a stick in front of the player the puck gets knocked out of play Both Sides will change 633 left here in the overtime period referees are trying to they're missing a puck trying to get a puck finally able to open the door to the Penalty Box where they grab a couple of pucks have to borrow one of the players sticks to get in there all right now we're going to set up to the right side of Mor arti in the panther Zone we got Campos on the face off quick shot on goal right at morotti morot covers and doesn't let that puck get away let's reset and do it again again four on four here in overtime playoff game two to2 Ford able to get the puck behind the net puck gets flipped out and Melrose recovers it's all about possession here who's able to get hold of the puck L Campos came in knocked the puck away almost took control and now Melrose sends it around behind the net sends it around the boards a quick shot in C out in front a bunch of panthers players on the ground trying to cover the puck everybody's pushing each other around and I think we got an icing one of the Panthers was able to get a stick on the parck knock it away from the front of the gnet where all the Panthers players were on the ground trying to get around that puck morard is thanking his team for the assist there and it's a good thing the Panthers were able to get that puck out of the Zone but I think we have a penalty here we do we're going got a penalty called on Lewis Campos which is not a good situation now we're going to have a a four on no it's still going to stay four on four no it's going to be five on four now we're going to move to a five on four format because of the penalty and overtime now we got a timeout Melrose calls a timeout [Applause] six minutes left in overtime and this penalty uh is pretty much the worst thing that could have happened to the Panthers uh to get call for a penalty and now they're going to have to play short-handed five on four for two minutes see if they could uh duck this bullet [Music] we'll start with the face off right at uh just to the right of Shane Mor arti with William fit Simons in taking the face off it's going to be a very tense two minutes hopefully the Panthers can see their way through this face off gets won by Melrose Melrose a quick shot in probably the puts his body out in front gets in front of it Puck bouncing around and not able to clear MOS gets the puck back out on the blue line sends it across back and forth across the Blue Line quick shot on net we got a tip but the PO the puck goes high back out to the Blue Line 130 left to go in the penalty melo's moving the park around trying to make something happen here quick shot from the side over Mor AR's head that puck will go out of the zone now meos has to reset Danny Kelly on the puck Danny Kelly fires it out but misses Panthers able to get the puck out of the Zone Puck tied up down in the corner fighting for it Mose gets it across and they're able to enter the Zone Kelly in front quick shot on net another tip gets tipped wide of the net and into to the corner now the puck behind the net Melrose getting it back out to the Blue Line no Melrose behind the net skating around Melrose gets the puck out front Panthers able to get on it send it around the boards where it's picked up by Grady Lucas see if Lucas can clear against the boards for Simons in there as well Danny Kelly on the puck Danny Kelly sends it around hard but the puck stopped there on the blue line melo's able to cheap possession although Panthers are being pretty pesky quick shot of morri arti Mori saves the puck drops and the Melrose player tries to hit it but morar gets in front of it off to the side again quick wrist shot but that puck gets knocked out of play 9 seconds left to go in this penalty 408 left to go in overtime score still tied two to2 both sides change we going to have a face off to the left of Mor arti 9 seconds to go in this [Music] penalty Melrose wins quick shot gets blocked another quick shot Shane already covers now we have four seconds left in the penalty face off to the right the left side of morani quick shot on that score and that's it that's the game right off the face off Melrose was able to get their stick on the puck very quick shot to The Far Side just got by Mor arti and Melrose wins the game with four uh 401 left to go in overtime this this game could have gone either way that penalty uh just made it very very difficult for the Panthers but the Panthers held this Melrose team um you know played tooth and nail with them certainly as good a team as Panthers this game could have gone either way but just the one last shot Melrose got and uh we're able to get it by and that's that's the way the puck bounces so Melrose will move on and that'll be the end of the season for the Hollis and ashin Panthers H SL Panthers should be very proud of themselves the way they played tonight was unbelievable the season they had was incredible and they they really gave the Melrose team a run for their money th this game literally could have gone either way it was it's just that close and these teams are that close in Talent even though Melrose is ranked number seven and Holland is ranked number 26 so as the teams uh shake hands and the coaches shake hands will we'll sign off here from wacca TV as we end up our uh and end our Panthers hockey season and we'll see everybody uh in the spring

first word hopping Fred first word hopping is when you add your first addition of hops into the kettle as you're starting your sparge this is even long before the boil starts and um you might think that by adding your hops that early you're going to boil off all of the Aromas as we've said before however by using this technique the Aromas actually stay in the beer and you get a lot more Aroma and uh pop flavor by doing a first work way

we go from the real easy to uh the electric to the real uh Nitro fired rocket burner here that uh gets things cooking for you all right Dave so now we've heated the water next thing we have to do is our Mash in the we have a few samples of some Mash tons here for you

there we go this is for some serious mashing uh this is a reconditioned beer keg these are available through uh commercial vendors you can get them through your uh Brew shops as well and this has a pretty simple louder Fork on the inside