So, let's allow you to participate." Um, so those are things we need to work through and how we do that logistically and how we formalize that. What's the right way to formalize that? Um you look at kids within these gifted testing and you might have a student that does not receive does receive is not the right word. They they on the test they they're not in the top 97 percentile in any of the three categories but maybe they're 90 plus across the board and then they have a comprehensive score as well which tells you their addition which is a really high bar and those kids are in the top 10% comprehensive. They're going to be really good students. So, the question we have to ask ourselves is, do we allow that lack of 197 to get in that student's way and wait till they get to junior high or high school to put them into honors programs or AP programs or do we allow them to have opportunities that we already have on our campuses?
Um, that's met in some areas by accelerating traditional pathways. Um, but we can expand that by looking at how we provide gifted services and the things that we do um to allow those students to achieve their potential and push them further. Can I just ask real quick? Yeah, that seems like an easy answer to me, right? Like the answer is like yes, you allow them to. Like I I guess why why is that complicated? If we can if we can set the percentage and we want to increase the total number of students, then why don't we just make the percentage at wherever it's going to be our goal? If our goal is 30% of people in these programs, then why don't we set the percentage at to where 30% are in those programs? What it really comes down to is logistics and how we have the capacity to meet the needs of all kids.
Because while we have more of those kids, we still have capacity issues at certain times. So no matter where you put the bar or the standard, you're always going to have questions of who can move above the standard. Um so when that question is asked and we look at an individual student, we absolutely say yes. That's the answer. Should this student participate? Do we have room? Do we have the ability? Yes. The bigger question is how do we formalize that in a way to where it's in a system and not in one individual making a decision. So that's the challenge is wherever you put that bar, there's always going to be kids that are just somewhere below it. And how do you make it appropriate? You can lower it from 97 to 95, but what about the 94s? So that's where the challenge is. And you don't want it to be dependent on individual decisions, but actually formalized systems and programs that we're capturing kids and making sure it's consistent no matter who's in my seat or a principal seat or a teacher seat.
Does that answer that question? Okay. So, I'm I'm glad you brought up capacity because that was where that was my next question was let's let's play a hypothetical where let's say next year we identify we use our own discretion state gifted designation whatever but we use our own discretion to identify and and we identify 60% of our elementary students as gifted whether it's gifted in one of those areas or it's all of them. Uh do we have do we currently strike that we're obviously we obviously have the capacity to handle the number of gifted students that we have right now, right? Do we have the capacity if next year we use our own metric for identifying gifted and now all of a sudden 60 or 70% of our kids of our elementary school kids all right we identify as gifted do we have the ability to give them gifted services I think it takes planning and really looking ahead how we do that I'll give you an example so with our accelerated model which is different but it's still accelerated learning right we have eight campuses that have accelerated.
In most cases, they have one classroom at each grade level that's accelerated. If you are on a campus where you have two third grade classrooms, it's increasingly challenging to have one be accelerated and one not accelerated because that balancing of students and class loads to make sure that the experience um is appropriate for both sets and both classes. Um, so any of these programs when you grow them, you always have to look at the capacity to be able to meet all students needs and be able still provide intervention, conventional settings, all of those things within that same setting. Um, so that our students are getting what they need. So whether you're talking gifted um accelerated or any of these programs, that's the bigger that's the big question is how do we structure those to be able to have appropriate space but not limiting opportunities for those that are outside of those accelerated or gifted settings.
Mr. Gardner, maybe and maybe to simplify it a little bit, do we have enough gifted endorsed teachers at the elementary to service a 60 or 70% load? Not currently. No, we currently have 64% a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We currently have 64 endorsed gifted endorsed teachers throughout our district. So, um that wouldn't be enough to really meet that if we had 60% of our population. The other thing I'd like to chime in on uh with elementary and gifted is historically our gifted program at the elementary level has been heavily focused really on acceleration, right? So fourth graders are receiving fifth grade math, fifth graders receiving sixth grade math. And we know that there's a whole area in gifted instruction that dives deeper and not just acceleration. So the other thing that Mr. Gardner and others are working on as well is making what is gifted instruction look like in Gilbert public schools, not simply accelerating students, which traditionally over the last 25 years has been the focus area of uh students that receive gifted instruction at the elementary level.
Can you go back to the Thank you. Uh can you go back to the slide that mentions the number of teachers that we would like to get? Let me look here. So, we want to endorse an additional 25 to our current 64. Okay. How long does it take to endorse a teacher? What is the the financial obligation to endorse one teacher? And once a teacher is endorsed, does that affect that teacher's compensation in any way? So the endorsement, there's two different levels of endorsement. Provisional endorsement requires 90 hours of um gifted education. Essentially, you can do it a couple of ways. You can go and get that at a college. So, you could go to go and get that through a college or university and get that 90 hour um endorsement for gifted. Um or we provide it within our district for our teachers. Um we're working on ways to really um to make that process um a little bit more palatable and and doable for our teachers while they're in the classroom.
um so that it's no co no no extra cost to them and doesn't require them to take a college course um but have the experience of actually hands-on working with gifted students and doing those things that count towards endorsement provisional endorsements 90 hours that last for three years you do have to do an additional 90 hours to be able to get the full endorsement that then is on your certification is the is the gifted designation for a teacher a state designation correct Can we just have our own? Can we just Can we just designate Can we have a program of our own to to certify or endorse? Yeah. So, a teacher can be I'm GPS endorsed and then maybe it it maybe that allows for more teachers to get this endorsement and also allows us to well anyway. Yeah, that's so it's it's yes and no.
So, yes, we can the state allows us as a district to um have a gifted endorsement course and we do have one. We're looking at expanding it and making some additional changes to allow for more teachers to work towards that endorsement um and encourage more teachers to do it. Um so we do the endorsement inhouse and then we submit uh the hours that were completed and what those teachers did to meet those hours to the state to get that certification. So it is a state endorsement that we manage. Um, so we submit the hours we do here to the state and it goes on their certification. Um, 90 hours for the provisional the last three years and then add additional 90 hours to get the full endorsement. We don't currently have a full endorsement course. What does that cost us? Personnel hours um having people in place just to create the course and manage it um and submit the hours.
So we can do it within our current structure and we are. It's just finding ways to do it a little bit more with an emphasis on it. So where did this where did this number of 25 come from and if it's something that that we help the teachers that we facilitate the teachers am I saying that right that we we are we are facilit we facilitate the teachers in getting that endorsement why why don't we Gilbert public schools make that number much higher and encourage teachers to get that endorsement. So the number 25 is based on we are we have specific teachers identified strategically in places where we need that endorsement. The limitation we'll always have is the capacity to make sure that that process has value and is really sticking to the state expectations for that endorsement. So even though we can do it in house, it still has to be managed by essentially a teacher that's overseeing the hours, working with those teachers and coaching and mentoring and doing those pieces.
So as we continue to endorse gift teachers and gifted um across our district, we'll expand our capacity and that number will actually grow exponentially because we have more endorsed teachers that we can incorporate in as mentors is our is our plan to do that. But we need to start with identifying appropriate teachers in the right places, working towards that endorsement. Um, really monitoring that process and making sure it continues to have value and isn't just checkbox on a paper, right? That we're doing the right things to get that endorsement to extend to the student experience. Um, and then once we have those 25 endorsed, then we can expand that and see look at ways we continue to grow the program. Um, we also want to really with all of the things that we do continuously evaluate and see what kind of impact it's having. Um, because if we find that we're we're we're using up hours and time and money to endorse teachers and we're not finding the impact, then we need to re-evaluate that.
So, we want to take the appropriate steps forward to grow uh and then evaluate from there and see how we can continue to grow if we're seeing the impact that we need to get. So this 25 isn't necessarily so this this number 25 is a is a function of how many teachers we have the capacity to help get that endorsement more or less capacity and we and it is possible um that we might endorse more than 25 this next school year but we have 25 identified currently. So if we had if we had if we sent out an email tomorrow and we said, "Hey, raise your hand if you want to get the the gifted endor or the to get this endorsement." We may have 500 teachers that that that raise their hand, but we only have the capacity to do 25 right now. But you're saying with each one that gets endorsed, we now have a greater capacity to endorse more and more.
And and the other piece of it, how correct? And and the other piece of it is what we've done in the past is teachers sign up for the course by choice. We want to be more intentional with it and identify people that are in the right spot and h are the right person to be able to work and endorse them so that we're moving in a more strategic and intentional way. Um rather than just hey if you want to get it come and get it and then where does that endorsement go? Is it the right fit, right placement? Um, so we want to make sure we're more intentional through our process as we move forward and grow it. So is is 20 So I know you kind of discussed this, but I just want to make sure I got it. Um, is 25 additional teachers the expected need with the increase in um enrollment in those programs?
Yes. um for specific schools that we're looking at where we want to continue to have um so we're looking at areas where we can expand our gifted services. Um and so it's based on need but also um kind of the idea if you build it they will come. So the need but can we also open up more opportunities so where we can for example Highland Junior High we currently have four teachers in the gifted academy who are gifted endorsed. If we have additional endorsed teachers now, we can open up additional spots and more students can come into that program. As students come into the program, then we can look and see how much need is there out there because we know right now we're not capturing all of the students within our enrollment, right? There are some that are choosing other options. We don't want that.
We want to them to choose us. And so if we open up the spots um then we have more people coming to us because we're providing the services they're looking for. So need and um seeking where is that potential within our broader community to grow. Thank you. I just wanted to thank you again. Uh this presentation was great. So thank you to you. Thank you to the whole team who's done an amazing job. The teachers at the schools. I I've just been so impressed uh by everyone. And I mean, I I appreciate the thoughtfulness and being strategic and intentional, but I also just want to strongly encourage to be as aggressive as we can in implementing this. I think this is what we need. And I think there's so many students that will benefit from this that we're not reaching right now that I just want to give my full support and encouragement and just pushing ahead with this and and please let me know how I can help.
Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I do sincerely extend if you would like to talk further about this at any point and learn more. Uh I'd be happy to take time to discuss with any of you individually or however you'd like to do that. Any other questions? I want to see how long we can make Mr. Gardner stand up there at the podium and let him sit down one more time and then let's call him back up. I I think you've done a tremendous job. I'm very impressed with your uh answers and your knowledge of this of this program. So, thank you very much. Thank you. Uh, Mr. Thompson, it's 8:00, so I suggest we have a five minute recess before we go on to our consent agenda and our action items. That's fine with me. Do we need to have a vote for that or Nope.
Nope. We just have a fivem minute recess. Have a minute. I don't know. That's a little too broad. How long were you talking? All right, we're going to go ahead and reconvene. Uh, moving on to agenda item number seven, the consent agenda. Uh, approval of consent agenda items. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda items as outlined on tonight's agenda? I move to I move to pre to approve the consent ag the consent agenda items as outlined with the um there is a minor correction on the minutes and so just allowing that correction on the um minutes there's a a couple of uh the deductibles one there was a a typing error on one of the deductibles so we need to get that corrected Okay. Okay. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda items as outlined on tonight's agenda, including the corrections that uh were referenced by Miss Humphre say I.
I. I. Any opposed? And that passes. Thank you. Uh agenda item number eight, 8.01, 01 weapons detection systems request for proposal uh September 30th, 2025. I'm guessing that's what those numbers mean. Yes, sir. Okay. Um do you want to address the board about this or do we want to make a motion first? Why don't you make a motion and then when you get to the discussion part, I'll do a little presentation. Okay, perfect. Uh, is there a motion uh to approve the weapons detection systems request for proposal September 30th, 2025? So moved. Thank you, Miss Humphre. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Briner. Okay.
Uh, and let's uh is there any discussion about this agenda item? Let's go with the presentation first. Okay. Well, good evening again, everyone. Thank you. uh wanted to um make this an action item just so we could have any kind of discussion, answer any kind of questions related to this. I'll I'll kind of talk to you about a timeline. I also have Al Kaine if you want to come up to the microphone and Marcy Taylor. They've been involved in this process. And so, let me just kind of um lay it out for you and why we're here today and and uh why we're asking for this. Um last year, as well as the beginning of this year, uh at a couple different campuses, we had students bring guns to school. Um there was no, from our understanding, no intent for them to do anything with it.
Uh but any weapon on a campus is alarming, disturbing, and as a school district, um when we send notifications out, one of the first lines we always put out there is our our your student safety is our number one priority. And I think in Gilbert public schools over the last seven years, we have made that a priority. Um, we've added, um, doorbell systems. We've added secure entries at our, uh, high schools, uh, doorbell systems and secured entries at a couple of our elementary schools. We've added more security guards on our campuses, uh, secondary campuses. We've added, um, security guards that roam at our elementary schools. We've added camera systems at all of our schools and our complexes throughout districts. And um if you would have asked me five years ago, Shane, do you would you ever have weapons detectors on our campuses? I would have said no.