So good evening everyone. Thank you very much. Tendra at this time uh the because it is a meeting uh Miss Baron the municipal clerk will take the roll call of the council and then Karen Brisbane the planning board secretary will take the roll call. After that we will recognize Mr. Jeffrey Serenian and Kendra Lily who will make the presentation of the plan member Gorm here. Council member Lawer here. Council member Shock here. Council member Velia here. Karen Karen Brisbane here. Kevin Callahan here. Amber Fernicola here. Jay Jones here. James Piolo here. Karen Trainer here. Dan Turk here. James Stenson here. I would also like to announce that our board attorney David Clark is present as well as Alan Hill Jr. our board engineer. And at this time we will recognize Mr. Jeffrey Serenian. I guess I should stand up so I can see everyone. My name is Jeff Serenan.
um through their curiosity, discipline, and commitment to excellence. And so we move on with the rest of our um report. So teamwork and strategy led Desert Sunrise High School to victory in the qualifying round for the 2025 Stanford University US National Math Tournament, earning them a place among the highest ranking 130 math teams nationwide. The Golden Hawks will represent Arizona at the final competition in April. These mathletes with their calculative prowess remind us that winning at math is just as thrilling as winning in athletics. Way to go, Golden Hawks. Nerwin Baliu, eighth grade ESS teacher at Desert Wind Middle School, was named the 2025 special educator special education educator of the year by the Save Our Schools Arizona network as part of their Champions of Public Education Awards. This statewide recognition celebrates his outstanding impact on students, families, and the school community. Earlier this month, Mr.
Q3 is also coming to an end on the 28th. Um, and some more exciting news, our robotics team has made it to worlds. We have multiple teams, but all the teams with seniors are going to Dallas, Texas to compete. We also have the 2025 SNAP race. Um, donations help lower cost of prom and just allow seniors to have more events at a smaller price. So donations are welcome and would be greatly appreciated. Our senior scholarships are also open and they're going to close in April, so students are ready to apply to many different scholarships. Our junior prom is going to be May 2nd and our senior prom is going to be May 23rd. So lots of students are very excited for those upcoming events. Thank you. board members have anything they would like to ask our students. I would say on behalf of the board, we appreciate you being here and speaking out and letting us know what's going on at your school.
I am the affordable housing attorney for Belle. Uh my firm is Serenan Edwards, Boozak, and Nolan just across the bridge. Uh we represent towns all over the state on affordable housing. Uh the purpose of tonight it's the culmination of the efforts to try to voluntarily come up with a plan to satisfy your obligation and Kendra Lily is our planner very well recognized uh an excellent planner that helped that's helping put the plan together uh there instead of having a hearing like many towns do and just adopting the plan. The idea was to come inform everyone what's taking shape. There will then be a plan that will be the subject of another hearing. Uh there there may al there's there will also likely be an agreement at some point with the Munford site and that too will be the subject of a public uh action before anything is signed.
Baloo also honor was also honored by KT and Valley Toyota dealers in the pay the pay tribute to a teacher contest where he received a 2500 award $2,500 award to use in his classroom. These are well-deserved honors and they reflect the heart and dedication he brings to his students every day. Congratulations, Mr. Baloo. Yay. Maricopa Elementary School recently welcomed Muriel Summers, the visionary educator behind the first Leaderinme Lighthouse School and a national voice for student leadership and school culture. Her visit served as both an affirmation and an inspiration celebrating Maricopa Elementary's progress and providing encouragement as the school prepares for lighthouse reertification next year. It's clear that the MEES community, scholars, staff, and families alike. It's is deeply committed to growing a culture of leadership and living out the seven habits every day. The Maricopa Wells Middle School cross country team wrapped up a strong season with a standout performance at the championship meet on March 6th.
Thank you. You too. Thank you. [Music] Okay. Thank you. Um, good evening. Um, just a short time ago, we had a presentation uh about our our budget and our ask and some of the drivers in there and we talked a lot about all the staffing that we'll be hiring um very shortly to ready ourselves to open the new satellite campus at DHS West. And so, um, you know, in addition to that staffing, uh, we have our normal, we've got openings that we're looking to fill with, uh, for par professionals and tutors. We're looking forward to opening that contract. We mentioned that in the budget, uh, meeting as well. That will help us with those recruiting efforts, um, quite quite a bit. Um, and in addition to that, um, our normal, uh, turnover that happens every spring, and that's just naturally happens. Um, in addition to filling uh we're looking forward to filling some persistent vacancies that we've had on the books.
So, this is one step in a series of steps intended to culminate in the adoption of a plan by the deadline that we have to comply with, which is June 30th of this year. With that, I'll turn it over to Miss Ley.
The boys team earned a second place overall with six Panthers bringing home a total of 15 medals. Eighth grader Harper Moore led the charge, claiming the top spot for the boys, while eighth grader Misha Miesa Jude dashed to a second place finish for the girls. Congratulations, Panthers, on an incredible season. I agree. I agree. Since our last meeting, we've recognized two essential employee groups. Our child nutrition professionals during National Child Nutrition Month and our maintenance and grounds crews on National Maintenance and Grounds Appreciation Day, that which was March 7th. Both groups received MUSD tumblers and a small token of appreciation for the important work they do every day to make sure our district is a great place to work and learn. Over spring breakund is that a no that's an 801 dedicated teachers and administrators and I was one of them participated in gear training led by Dr.
Um, so we have we'll have quite an aggressive hiring uh spree, if you will, come spring. Probably one of the biggest urges that we've had. Uh, we're going to be bringing in a few u agency support to help with some of the the paperwork and the onboarding process to make sure that we're u moving things along in a timely way, but also to handle just the volume of onboarding that's going to need to to take place um come spring. So, um, as soon as we, um, you know, finalize allocations from the city, we'll have a clearer picture as to, um, where we can go with that. Um, but we're getting ourselves ready this spring. Um, probably, um, towards the mid April, end of April, you'll see a lot of advertisement, more so than than even that we have now. We're looking to do a hiring fair.
Good evening everyone. My name is Kendra Lely. I am from the firm of Kyle McManis. Um, I'm a professional planner that's licensed in the state of New Jersey. Uh I've been providing professional planning services to municipalities across New Jersey for over 30 years. Uh I would say in the last 10 years I have an expertise in affordable housing and have done many affordable housing plans uh for many municipalities. I've also been recognized uh by an as an expert uh as what's called as special adjudicator in several visages courts within the state of New Jersey. Um I came on board with Belle um about this time last year to help them put together start thinking about putting together an affordable housing plan. Um the purpose of this presentation as Jeff had indicated is not necessarily a public hearing that we there is no adoption no action occurring tonight.
Dan Mulligan. An opportunity made possible through the project momentum grant. This professional learning focused on strengthening instructional effectiveness by aligning learning intentions with clear success criteria, integrating purposeful routines, and making student progress more visible. The true impact of this work will be seen in classrooms where our educators continue to bring these strategies to life, keeping students engaged in meaningful and challenging learning. We're grateful for their for these for our teachers commitment and for the community support that ensures every student has access to highquality education. Students from both Desert Sunrise and Maricopa high schools earned top honors at this month's FCCLA State Leadership Conference. And you might be wondering, um FCCLA is the Family Career and Community Leaders of America. And it's a national organization that prepares students for careers in education, hospitality, human services, and other fields focused on family and community well-being. Desert Sunrise Desert Sunrise earned seven gold medals while Maricopa High School brought home three.
Um, probably we have a lot of positions to fill. Um, and we're very excited about that opportunity. um and also kind of getting the word out um around town um so that we can attract um some more staff for our great needs. So, we're looking forward to that. Um Kim could not be here tonight. Um so, but the ne the next time that um that she's here, we'll talk a little bit more directly about some specific efforts. Just along the lines of other staffing things that we're trying, we have um partnered with teacher residency programs in the state. We're exploring many of those to help with the teacher pipeline um issue. And so uh many districts have signed on to take on um residents that would work in the school district that would eventually become um certified teachers and work for us, particularly in shortage areas.
Um, I really want this to be an information um, provision of information to all of you generally about affordable housing in the state as well as it relates to the bureau. But I also want to have your feedback. I want to answer your questions and I and and truly would like feedback from all of you as it relates to affordable housing planning in in the bureau. Um, so I'm going to start the presentation. I I don't think it's going to take more than about 15 minutes. Um you kind of heard what the the the the next SE section would be would be questions and answers um from uh up up here on the deis and then also from all of you. Um and let's get started. Can you all see that? Okay, great. Um so the items that I'd like to cover tonight, uh this is kind of a quick outline or the goals of the presentation.
These accomplishments reflect the skill, initiative, and hard work of our scholars and their teachers. Congratulations to all of our state winners and the be and best wishes to those advancing to the nationals. Right. There's almost too much going [Applause] on. And then finally, we are we have um a group of very talented athletes um some of whom are with us tonight. These superstars had incredible seasons with countless individual and team distinctions among them. These slides represent the most notable honors. Teams, if you made it out tonight, please stand when I call your sport. from Desert Sunrise High School. Girls wrestling, boys wrestling, girls basketball, boys basketball, and boys soccer. All right. Okay. From Maricopa High School, girls wrestling. Yay. I hope she was a wrestler. Boys wrestling. Okay. Girls basketball. Boys basketball. There we go. Girls soccer and boys soccer. All right. athletes, the these kids are busy in everything.
I think we have three special education teachers in the pipeline now. Um which which will prove to be promising. and we have some articulations happening now with Westcon and we're talking to Yukon for to recruit some of the the teachers in their program, the um soon-to-be teachers. So, we're building those relationship pipelines up um not just in preparation for opening the academy, but just in general to keep those those doors open so that we have a relationship with these universities um to so we get better flow through uh and we grab folks while they're in their their pre-teing stage um so that they want to come back and work for us. So, just a little update there on some of the some of the staffing. Um, the next item on the list is the updated 2526 school calendar, and I'll ask assistant superintendent Kelly Trus to talk a little bit about some of the tweaks that we made um to that school calendar year.
Um I'm going to try to pull this a little bit closer. Uh so the first is the affordable housing over overview. So I'm not going to get into a whole history. We could be here for days talking about affordable housing in the state of New Jersey. Um but I do want to talk through things that are important to understand as we as we talk about low and moderate income households in the in the state and what does that really mean. So we're going to talk about uh who qualifies for affordable housing. We're going to talk about the need in the state of New Jersey and then regionally and then down microscopically into the bureau. What is the need of affordable housing? How did this obligation come to be? Um then we're going to talk about the compliance plan. This is a proposed compliance plan. I've been working with uh several people within the municipality.
You know, coming to a board meeting on a Wednesday night just doesn't fit into their schedule. So, athletes, thank you for representing your high schools and our district so very well. Coaches, if thank you for your dedication and for making this a season to remember. For the athletes who are here tonight, we would love a picture with those who made it. Please make your way to the front of the room for a group photo with our governing board members. Right up here. Come on up. There we go. All right. One more. [Applause] And Miss Cutray, that concludes my report. Thank you, Dr. Lopeman. All right, we'll move on to governing board member reports. Member Rashild. Thank you, Vice Chair Coutree. Uh first of all, welcome and thank you for coming to tonight's uh governing board meeting. Um want to first give a shout out to uh Superintendent Lopeman for her nomination uh for superintendent of the year.
Thank you, Dr. Casemiro. Um, so just to bring your attention to, there was a few uh calculation errors on the previously approved calendar. Um, if you look at November, the original calendar had a day count or a total school day count of 16 days. It was actually 15, which adjusted or pushed out our end of school in June. So, we have uh went back through made the uh correction to the November school days. We were just counting an extra day. I think it was probably that day before Thanksgiving that we went back and forth on whether or not to have school or not that day. Um and we've added that to the end of the school year in June, which moved out the date from the um 17th through the 18th. Um we've also uh continued the 185day uh school calendar. Um so there's five embedded or built-in snow days.
Uh you all know that there are several what's known as builder's remedy suits. They're lawsuits. Uh and and they will be talked about generally tonight. Um, I will indicate that because we are in litigation, I can only talk about uh general information. I cannot talk about specifics because we are in the middle of negotiating at least uh one or two of those builder remedy sites. So, but we will talk about a general compliance plan enough meat there that you all can um it just it won't be uh you'll be able to to respond to it and ask some general questions. Um, but I will indicate that if it's too general of a question or too specific of a question, I I won't be able to answer it because of uh I'm not at liberty to say because of litigation. Um, finally, I'll talk about what the next steps are.
Uh you mentioned our other special education teacher, but you failed to mention your nomination. And so while you weren't selected, you were of course superintendent of the year uh for us. So thank you very much for that. and congratulations on that [Applause] nomination. And we are such a stellar um district. Um I had another opportunity on Saturday to attend the National Board Teacher Celebration uh along with many others to celebrate over 194 uh amazing educators who are either renewing their certification or receiving it for the first time. And so just wanted to congratulate those educators and our amazing district uh for their hard work and continued efforts. And that's it. Thank you. Member Owens. Um couple weeks ago, I think it was um being a parent get to go to a lot of stuff, you know, when when kids are involved, right? Uh so we were in Tucson um for a Winter Guard uh performance.