If that's a four-year college, a two-year college, or if they decide to join the workforce, we'll use that for equipment, supplies, or something to support them in their journey. up to $4,000. If they do decide to go to a four-year college, it can be renewed each year for up to $4,000. That's a recent change that we made. Um, in addition to the oneonone mentoring, the scholarships, we also support the schools and whatever um you all need. So, we um continually talk to the school to know what is um coming down the pike that we can support and we'll get into what we've done this year. Um, currently Michael Celix's been sitting on our board and giving us updates on Academy of Danberry so we can support the caddies through our business connections. Sorry for the small print here. I know we have a mirror of packets.
So doing the structured student talk routines the other questioning techniques flipping the classroom lesson where the kids are in charge and we remove the numbers from the problem so they interact just with the context. These are the teacher moves and we've been able to turn these into artifacts. So Ian through being very open to this process has helped us bring these artifacts to the other fifth grade teachers in the district. So this is not just happening in one room. So he needs to take a a lot more credit for that because his energy and his positiveness has grown beyond the walls of Park Avenue School and it is obviously been the highlight of my year to work in this room in case you guys couldn't tell. Thank you. And Ian, we're glad you you got over being shy about walking into the room and I'm getting nervous.
And so I think that that's part of it too. Now that our teachers and like our older students are kind of getting more involved in that, I think it I hope it it will that our te our students now that like have the buy in and see the buy in. I'm hoping that they will take the first diagnostic more seriously and that our like as a staff we have the in our in our tool belts we have the conversations ready you know to really explain the importance because you try in the beginning but it really it comes to those relational skills and just talking to your kids and really like hey this is what this says is really wearing hat so I can talk. I was just going to say Leslie on the bus with your hands. So as a teacher that first time around diagnostic is kind of from my classroom or a practice for our kids and and it's kind of like okay you come back from summer and here we're going to take this this is I ready this is what it's about.
Again, almost every year, begging, pleading, and justifying why we deserve a decent raise to which we can support our families, stay in our homes, and take care of ourselves to where we are provided decent classroom working conditions. so our students can learn in an optimal environment. We families and our we have families and ourselves to take care of every single day. The district promotes self-wellness, yet we need to worry from year to year if a raise will match the constant increase in everyday living costs. We need to worry whether we'll have to work a second job during the summer or even during the year. We need to worry whether our medical coverage will increase. And in this case, last year, the Kaiser family plan increase wiped out my last raise to the very penny. Why is that okay? Does family not matter to you just to save a few thousand dollars?
This is my third year doing here. Um, I'm so grateful for these girls and a big shout out to our coach that have been so great and through all season she has been putting a lot of commitment like us and I'm so glad we're going first. [Applause] Hi, my name is Sophia Walker. This is my third year of doing cheer. Um, I'd just like to say that I'm really proud of all of us. We worked for those nine months. That's actually crazy. Like for the longest that we've been doing it the longest and we put all of our hard work into it and we won the three trophies. [Applause] Hello, I'm Lola Bower. I'm a senior here. So, it's my last year. Sad. I'm not sad. Actually, I'm happy to leave behind these girls. No, I meant like in a good way. I'm happy that you guys get to just have your moment.
So, I'd recommend approval as presented. Yes. Any questions on that one? Okay. I'll take a motion if there's no questions. I move to approve the IG with Panel County Educational Services Agency as presented. I second. All in favor? I I I motion carries 5 to zero. Okay. 8.2 discussion consideration of approval of the agreement with Panal County Elections Department. Yes. This is request from the elections department uh to utilize our facilities in the case of elections that would be applicable to us. Um at this point out here the only uh areas that we actually use for elections are this room right here at the district office. Uh then at the middle school and uh at Harmon. Uh we have there have been some concerns not only with this district but other districts about uh maybe some issues that occur relative to the last few elections uh especially uh the bigger elections presidential or ginatorial.
And um, again, we we are seeing people applying for positions here from the Mesa, the Chandlers, Higley, Queen Creek area. Good deal. Yes, Mr. It's nice to be at this place. I was in this position when that was not the case when we were struggling to keep people on a yearly basis and saw attrition rates in the 20s percent rate. So, this is very exciting for us. Big step forward. There's no other questions or discussion. So, again, congratulations on the retrition rate. Um, with that, is there a survey or anything that would give specific details on why we were able to retain so many um, educators and support staff this year? Well, as in terms of surveying, we are still working through our exit surveys. Maybe that's kind of the negative portion of why people are staying, but uh, at least we're getting an idea of um, the reasons why.
So, our intention is to come in and not rock the boat. Um, we we are going to bring on board as many as we can to keep operations stable, to keep improvements happening within the schools and stay on top of things with Mr. Shepard and Mr. Martin. Thank you. Sure. Any other questions? No one else. All right. Thank you. It looks like you got off on that one. Um uh this would um we've already started with this or we're that's the next item is uh the next item is the emergency contract. Okay, perfect. Thank you for being out here to introduce yourself. It means a lot to put a face with the company. Um and hopefully this is a long, you know, a longterm relationship. So, thank you for being out here. We appreciate it. We appreciate the opportunity and you know this is a partnership.
Um and so that was put in there to ensure that and I mean there's uh if as you can see from here it was adopted in uh 2012 and it's never been reviewed. So whenever we have one that's district 26 specific, it never comes up on the general um review cycle. Press has every five years, every policy will be reviewed. So if it hadn't been in the five years, they do a 5-year cycle and everything else gets picked up then. But one like this, we would just have to make a special note if this is added back in because it won't ever come up with press because it's not in press. I'm just I I understand that as well, but I feel like it's just another level of transparency to have this outlined. And I I understand it's specific to the district, but I feel like it's a good index for the expectation of the district and our level of transparency.
You're always welcome to reach out to your schools as well if you have additional questions or need assistance with that. Um, so I get the opportunity of delving into our midyear and let me preface bi oi uh about a year and a half ago. Dr. uh I have to call you Dr. Brandon. Uh Dr. White Dr. White was in the middle of a very in-depth conversation where we were talking curriculum instruction data and he was going BOI MOI EO and I was like pump the brakes. I was like what what are all these acronyms? and he goes beginning of school year, middle of school year, end of school year. So I have therefore now adopted his BOI MOI. So let me preface and share what that meant because if you're like me, you would have been lost in the conversation. Um, so the data you're going to see right now is going to be a comparison of beginning of the school year to middle of the school year right now.
The maximum interest rate that would be established is 6%. The debt service tax rate this year is 36.22 22 cents. And again, the debt service fund levy for this year is $4,644,000, but we would not be anticipating an increase above the 2025 tax rate. The maximum annual payment, I also do want to point out, is $5,395,000. Here on this final slide, you will see the proposed repayment term of this bond. Again, this is a maximum amount not to exceed $28 million and a term not to exceed 20 years. So, the gray bars represent the outstanding bond payments that we've reviewed on slides two and three. The blue bars would represent the proposed repayment term of this project. Again, you can see that with the blue bars, they are decreasing uh from 2026 all the way through 2032. And again with that maximum repayment term of not to exceed 20 years.
A a a 6% increase without asking for that dreaded word, the override um is an amazing accomplishment within a community. And if you look 4.83, 6.08, 4.8, We are consistently in that four and up range. Well over it's closer to five every single year since I've been superintendent. Um Mike, can you let some of those people? Uh thanks. Uh so that that goes to show, you know, that relationship that I think the school committee's built with the finance committee, the select board, and Michael Herbert, the town manager, we've been able to fund many of our programs. Uh and I'm I'm very thankful for them. This number that you're seeing is a number that that through conversations with the select board and the finance committee and the school committee is a number that we came about on Saturday as the tri board as the three groups.
Um, but I'm very concerned with the the instability that's been caused and continues to be caused by the recent uncertainty around redistricting. Um, seems like we studied the plan, we agreed on the plan, we had another vote to affirm the agreement on the plan, and yet the plan still continues to be in flux. Um I'm really concerned that this is going to lead to more exodus uh by students, families, uh perhaps educators as well. Um I I understand the budget challenges, you know, at the state level, at the federal level, at the local level. I realize that they're there. We all understand that. We all realize there's a possibility that programs or positions will be cut. Um and that there's certainly a need for thoughtful planning and as the previous speaker said, thinking outside of the box. But I think it's imperative that this process includes super superintendent patent.
I know we talked about this today. I'm just throwing up for the board. I think we need to look at what we're doing, what we're spending our money on. If we're saying we're doing this stuff annually, there's no reason we should be having these failures in our system. That would happen. I think before we spend any more money in this thing, I think we need to look at hosting and I think we need to look at what we have for current equipment. And I'd love to know the ages on it to what we're doing, but I think before we spend any more money out of this budget and continue down a rabbit hole, I I think we need to look at what we're doing from an outside perspective because I I think Matt does a fabulous job, but we need someone with maybe cleaner eyes to take a look at what we're doing.
A reclass to cover art supplies for $3081. The uh transfer for the uh public address spell system upgrade at BCS that we approved last month. Um, the reclass to cover world language purchase of additional Spanish one textbooks for [Music] $1,480. A reclass to cover the cost of potatoes for the staff appreciation potato bar on 32525 for $4941. A reclass to cover world language shortfall for teacher discovery supplies of 97. and a reclass transfer from BHS to BCS to cover the balance for CME PD for a teacher of $1851. So, we have a motion to approve those March transfers. Well, a second. We get a second there. Only three firsts.
Um, I thought it'd be great to just share with you a bit about our process and really the ins and outs of the one-on-one school-based mentoring. Essentially, what we spend a lot of our time doing is working with the business community to really promote about our program and to find individuals that want to give back and spend just a little bit of time each week mentoring a student. So, most of our mentors come from the greater family business community. Um, but some are retirees. Um, some are affiliate businesses, some are not. So, I'll a little bit later about our recruitment. Um, but what's really interesting about our program is that our mentors to stay with their student until they graduate. So once a mentor starts with a student, if they start in second, third, fourth grade, they can end up being with their mentor for 8, 9, 10 years until they graduate.
Once I got up there, you guys are so friendly, all smiling. Want to bring up the Stadley group, uh, Mr. Sirlick and those who have assisted UT school. What we did this year, if you look at where it says strategic support on the right hand side, we know that if this is the audience and this group supports the entire district K12 that there are not enough of them to support the number of teachers to support the number of students. So we had to make you know some decisions around who best to support and we decided to go with four schools that we've been very strategic about. So Mr. Sir and friends, if you can please uh talk to us about the support you received and the the return on that investment. Sure.
second quarter, I took those reports and shared them with my kids and said, "Hey, this is what happened." And I had kids looking at them and saying, "It says I'm in kindergarten, Mrs. Peterson." I said, "Well, what do we want to do about that?" So, some of them, like Kathy said, said, "I want to redo it." Okay. Well, we got to redo it. So, we do it. Or some of them say, "I'm kind of stuck. Oh, I kind of lost my thought. Darn it. Long game." Okay. So then we set goals and see what we want to set. And this third quarter, I gave them the reports again. And the fact that they got to see the arrow go up for growth was like, wow. I'm so proud of the way I took that test. But that first time around, I don't know. I don't know how we can do that.
The fact is that we do care. We care every day. We care about our students, their families. We spend our own money year after year. We spend up to 20 hours extra every week, nights and weekends, grading, emailing, preparing lessons, school events, um, attending school events, adjunct duties, SST, IEPs, conferences, attending our own professional developments, reading the latest and best strategies, attending conferences that are no longer funded by the district. All on our own time. Why? Because we care without asking all of you for more. We accept our responsibilities and we follow through. So when is a district going to accept their responsibility to care of us? When the district doesn't care to ensure we teachers feel financially secure, where does that leave us? We wonder why we work extra hard to get so little in return. And yes, we do love our students, which in itself is priceless, but our students don't pay our bills.
Continue on her. Yeah, I'm so sorry. But yeah, I'm really happy. Sorry, I've been talking all day, so it's hard to find the words. I'm really happy about our trophies and I'm really happy that our coaches deal with us because although we like we win and stuff, we do give them a hard time. We have our opinions. We're all girls. We all think we're right. We all have our opinions and we're very vocal about them at practice. Very vocal. But luckily we have our captains, my fellow captains. We Hello. help. We hope to kind of keep it tame in there. And that's all I have to say. Thank you. Please do not call me back. Go tell the customs officers that you need an ambulance and have them call 911. and I recently became a captain this year. I just wanted to say that I am really grateful to be on this team and really lucky to have these coaches.